Memorial Day for the Victims of Communist Terror in Latvia Date in the current year: March 25, 2024

The deportation of the Latvians was carefully planned and approved in Moscow on January 29, 1949. The implementation of this plan was carried out on March 25 and lasted till March 28. 42,133 rural residents and Latvian patriots were forcibly deported to a place of “special settlements”. These settlements were located mainly in the areas of Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Tomsk, Amur, Novosibirsk. About 73% of deported Latvian citizens were women and children under age of 16. Moreover, between 136,000 and 190,000 Latvians were imprisoned and deported to the Soviet concentration camps (the Gulag).

Occupation and annexation of Latvia began in 1939, when the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed non-aggression pact, better known as Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The “spheres of influence” of the USSR and Germany were divided between the territories of Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland. According to the pact, Latvia was under the influence of the USSR..

The Soviet troops entered the territory of Latvia in June 1940, it officially became a part of the Soviet Union in August of the same year. Latvia gained its independence only about half a century later.