1949 metų tremtis Valgamiečių šeimoje
On 25 March 1949, the second major wave of deportation from the Baltic Republics took place. In Estonia almost 21 000 people (7,500 families) were sent to Siberia. The story is about the family in Valga county.
During the deportations of March 25-28, 1949, the Soviet authorities deported nearly 21,000 people from Estonia.
On March 25, 1949, all 5 boys of this family were at their home farm in Kuigatsi - including those who went to school in the city, because it was school holidays. Tiit was the youngest - 5 years old, Endel was already 15.
From the farm on the top of the hill, you could see the deportees coming with their sledges. My mother and older brother were working in the fields and ran into the forest.
4 boys stayed home. The soldiers reportedly said they had to wait - the "wolf mother" would come for the children soon. However, the deportee leader decided to show mercy to the family this time.
The farm and all the assets of the "enemies of the people" were written off and went to the state. The family was never allowed to return to the farm and lived with relatives.
A few months later, the mother of the family was in Valga and a raid was carried out in the city. The mother was arrested because she did not have a passport (the passport was left in the farm and nothing was allowed to be taken from there). The mother was sent to a prison in the Urals, where she managed to return to Estonia after 2 years. At that time, the sons had been placed in orphanages scattered around Estonia, some with relatives, the older son already at work and living in a dormitory.
Their father, a former village headman, had been deported to Magadan at the end of 1944, to forced labor in a gold mine, where he died in 1948.
The childhood of the boys in this family was filled with tragedy.
