The June Deportations

In 1939 the Soviet Union entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. In addition to the agreement to not attack each over the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact included the Secret Protocol. In this protocol Germany and the Soviet Union effectively divided up Europe among themselves, deciding which countries they would allow the other to invade.

Soon after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact both Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland and the Soviet Union annexed Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and parts of Romania. A year after the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states the Soviet Union began deporting on mass people deemed 'anti-Soviet' from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, occupied Poland and Moldavia. The 'June Deportation' saw tens of thousands of citizens arrested and deported from the Baltic States to the Gulag or to other inhospitable Soviet regions. 

 

The interactive map Deportēto karte shows the home addresses of the thousands of Latvians deported by the Soviet Union on 14 June 1941 and in March 1949. Zooming in on a city, such as the capital Riga, on the map reveals the horrendous scale of the Soviet deportations, with hardly a street or neighborhood block unaffected by the deportations.

If you live in Latvia you can see which of the homes in your street had people forcibly removed and deported. You can even click on the individual map markers to reveal the names and ages of the people deported in your street. In total around 60,000 inhabitants of Latvia were deported by the Soviet Union.