Lietuvos gyventojai lageriuose ir tremtyje

LTŠis mokslininkų tyrimais paremtas, plačiajai visuomenei skiriamas leidinys - tai pasakojimas apie Lietuvos žmones, masinių sovietinių represijų metais (1940-1941; 1944-1953) prievarta išvežtus iš Tėvynės. Iš atskirų gyvenimo aprašymų, nuotraukų, laiškų ir atsiminimų fragmentų dėliojamas tėvynainių trėmimo, kovos dėl išgyvenimo, tautiškumo išsaugojimo, gyvenimo tarp vilties ir nevilties paveikslas. Viliamės, kad publikuojama medžiaga vieniems atskleis naujų faktų ar detalių, kitus paskatins atsiversti pirminius šaltinius (atsiminimus, dokumentų rinkinius), tyrinėtojų darbus, pastūmės giliau apmąstyti ankstesnių kartų patirtis ar pasidomėti nežinomais šeimos istorijos puslapiais. [...] Leidinio medžiaga padalinta į dvi knygas. Pirmoji apima 1940-1941 metus - pirmąjį sovietinės okupacijos laikotarpį. Joje pateikiamos iki 1941 m. birželio areštuotų, į lagerius išgabentų nepriklausomos Lietuvos politikos ir valstybės veikėjų, tarnautojų, ūkininkų, kariškių - įvairių socialinių sluoksnių ir tautybių žmonių, taip pat per masinį 1941 m. trėmimą iš Lietuvos į lagerius ir vadinamąsias specialiąsias gyvenvietes išvežtų šeimų ir pavienių asmenų fotografijos, biogramos, laiškai ir dokumentinė medžiaga. Antroji knyga skirta masinėms 1944-1953 m. sovietų valdžios represijoms. Medžiaga dėstoma laikantis chronologijos - pagal tremties ir suėmimų datas, o išvežtų per tą pačią trėmimo akciją - pagal tremties vietas. Atskiruose jos skyriuose sudėti kasdienio sunkaus darbo miško kirtavietėse, medžio apdirbimo įmonėse, fermose, kolūkių laukuose, statybose ir šachtose, kitose valdžios paskirtose darbovietėse vaizdai, patyrusių šią dalią atsiminimai ir komentarai, kasdienį tremtinių gyvenimą, jų pastangas išmokslinti vaikus, išsaugoti tautinę tapatybę, išlaikyti tėvų įdiegtą tikėjimą atspindinti vaizdinė ir tekstinė medžiaga. [...]. [Iš Įvado]Reikšminiai žodžiai: 20 amžius; Tremtis; Tremtiniai; Okupacija; The Lithuanian XX c. history; Exile; Expatriates; Occupation; Rusija (Russia).

ENOn 15 June 1940, the Soviet Union occupied and subsequently annexed Lithuania. The registration of potential opponents of the Soviet power and preparation for mass repressions led by Moscow's emissaries in Lithuania started almost from the very first days of the occupation. Civil servants, members of all banned parties and organisations, officers, policemen, employees of courts and public prosecutor's offices, teachers, farmers and businessmen -everyone who was attributed to the category of "socially dangerous"according to the Soviet instructions was put on the list of "dangerous" persons. Mass arrests started in the first half of July, in preparation for the election to the so-called People's Seimas on July 14, and continued all year round. Before the outbreak of the war between the USSR and Germany, 6.6 thousand residents of Lithuania of various nationalities were arrested. The majority of them, circa 3.5 thousand persons, were taken to gulag prisons and forced labour camps in April - June 1941; some of them escaped or were freed by the participants of the June uprising, and others were killed in Lithuania (Rainiai, Pravieniškės) or outside its borders (in Cherven, at the Bihosava railway station and other locations). From the autumn of 1940, as soon as Lithuania was annexed to the USSR, top-secret preparations for the mass deportation of the country's residents to remote locations of the Soviet Union started. During the deportation operation on 14-19 June 1941, circa 18 thousand people were taken to the designated railway stations and crammed into freight trains. Some of them, husbands torn away from their families, officers arrested in summer camps - almost four thousand people - were taken to prisons and labour camps in the Soviet Union, and others, among them more than a half of women and children, were deported to the so-called special NKVD-supervised settlements in Altay Krai, Komi, Novosibirsk Oblast and Krasnoya.After a long and excruciating journey that undermined human dignity, the deportees disembarked and had to wait for several days (often in open air) until their supervisors assigned them to work in various industrial and construction organisations, kolkhozes and Soviet farms. Having reached remote locations by barges, trucks, ox or horse drawn carriages and often by foot, the deportees had to settle in abandoned camp barracks, temporary tents and windswept slums. A year later, in June 1942, almost half of the deportees in Altai Krai (almost 3,000 people, mostly women with young children and disabled men) were transferred to the north of Yakutia -the islands of the Lena River Delta and the settlements by the Laptev Sea and Yana River. People left behind a polar circle were practically unable to find any suitable housing. Abandoned in extremely harsh conditions, they died of hunger, cold and diseases. Only less than half of the 1941 deportees returned to Lithuania after fifteen or more years in exile. Some names, methods of repression and fates remain unknown. The majority of people deported to labour camps on 14-18 June 1941 were taken to the camps in Krasnoyarsk Krai (33.5%) - 435 members of the military were settled in the Norillag, and 1,990 men separated from their families were taken to the Reshioty labour camp. Besides, around 2,000 people were sent to forced labour camps in Molotov (Perm) Oblast, Vorkuta etc. All men taken to labour camps had been deported without any court verdicts, on the basis of decisions signed by NKVD operatives. It was not until 1941-1942 that the related cases were opened and formal accusations against the deportees were brought. People were charged with crimes indicated in Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (i.e. "betrayal of homeland,""struggle against the revolutionary movement,""participation in counter-revolutionary activities" etc.).The USSR NKVD Special Council (the majority), military tribunals, labour camp courts or other courts sentenced the deportees to five to twenty-five years of imprisonment or death. During the first years of occupation, around 30,000 people became victims of the Soviet terror. Out of this number, 21,000 were deported from Lithuania (almost 13,000 were exiled and over 7,000 were imprisoned in Gulag prisons and camps). [From the publication]