Riigikogu Chairman Jüri Ratas said at the March deportation commemoration ceremony that keeping the memories of the deportation victims and passing them on to future generations is our moral duty.
According to Ratas, on today’s 74th anniversary of the March deportation, one of the darkest periods in Estonian history is remembered, which still causes anguish and pain in the soul. “In the early morning of March 25, the Soviet repressive bodies started an operation that meant the beginning of a painful and long journey for thousands of Estonian families, when more than 20,000 innocent people were taken from their homes in Estonia to the cold country by force,” he said at the ceremony held at the Maarjamäe Memorial for the Victims of Communism.
According to Ratas, on today’s Memorial Day, we pay tribute to all those who have been touched by the terror of the Soviet occupation. “We remember the children who were separated from their parents, and we remember the parents who were separated from their children. We remember those who collapsed to death due to inhuman conditions and were buried in the foreign soil of Siberia, as well as those who were lucky enough to return. It is our moral duty to preserve the memories of the victims of deportation and pass them on to future generations,” he affirmed.
At the same time, he noted that the fight for freedom and justice has never truly ended and, like Estonia, several other nations have felt the brutality of occupation terror. “It is especially painful to think that such terrible events will take place in the 21st century, when, in the light of the war in Ukraine, we are witnessing how the aggressor country forcibly takes peaceful Ukrainian residents, among whom there are once again many innocent children, to Russian territory,” said Ratas.
At the ceremony, the chairman of the Riigikogu placed a joint wreath from the Estonian people on the Maarjamäe memorial.
Speech of the Chairman of the Riigikogu
