March 25, 2014 marks 65 years from the day when over 20 000 people – nearly 3 percent of the 1945 Estonian population – were seized by soviet authorities in a few days and dispatched to remote areas of Siberia.

In the summer of 1940 the Soviet Union occupied Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as a result of the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between Nazi Ger-many and the Soviet Union on 23 August 1939. In the aftermath of World War II, Estonia lost approximately 17.5% of its population.

The Soviet occupation brought about an event that until then had only been read about in history books and which became the most horrible memory of the past centuries — mass deportations, which affected people of all nationalities living in Estonia.

The two deportations that affected Estonia the most deeply, on 14 June 1941 and 25 March 1949, are observed as days of mourning.

The largest of these deportations took place on 25 March 1949 when more than 20 000 people, mostly women and children, were deported from Estonia.

Read a overview about mass deportations from Estonia to Siberia from a link below:
http://estonia.eu/about-estonia/history/soviet-deportations-from-estonia-in-1940s.html