In March 1953, the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium passed a Decree "On Amnesty"" whereby the persons sentenced for political reasons to up to five years of imprisonment were released before the sen tence had been served. However, the Decree was not applicable to the inhabitants of Latvia repressed on 14 June 1941. In the summer and autumn of 1953, an extensive release of the settled persons from the special settlement, their regular registration and adminis trative supervision had been planned. For that reason, in the spring of 1953, the USSR Ministry of Interior carried out relevant preparations. Also the draft Decree of the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium and the draft decision of the USSR Council of Ministers on the release of such specially settled persons were prepared. Still, in 1953, the release did not take place.
In the mid-50's, the Special Meeting of the USSR Min istry of Interior was liquidated, as well as several di rective decisions issued by the repressive authorities on arrests and deportation were cancelled. In 1954, commissions for a repeated review of the cases of the persons who had been sentenced for "counter-revolu tionary crimes" and were serving their sentence in prisons were established. In Latvia such a commission started its work on 14 June 1954, and by 10 April 1955 it had reviewed 5816 cases of 11,189 persons. The results of the commission's work were minor: it stopped 27 cases on 31 persons; IS cases on 48 persons were re-qualified according to a different Clause; for 3378 persons in 1909 cases the punishment was reduced; for 7224 persons of 3574 cases the previous punishment remained. The commission also stated that during the investigation process of many cases the "socialist legality" had been violated. For instance, in February 1941, the Baltic Special Military Dis trict Court Martial sentenced Leonīds Avguļēvičs, born in 1921, according to Part 1 (espionage) of Clause 58 of the RSFSR Criminal Code to 15 years of hard labour on the basis that he had been an agent of the Latvian secret service. When reviewing the files of the case due to the claim submitted by L. Avguļēvičs who had already served his sentence, the commission stated that he had been sentenced wrongly, since the investigator Zaplotin, who had performed the investi gation, had deliberately hidden from the court those documents which had testified that L. Avguļēvičs was innocent. As a result, L. Avguļēvičs had been impris oned without grounds for 14 years and 6 months.
At that time the USSR officials did not speak about the illegality of the deportation and other repressions in a wider sense. Sometimes only separate facts of "violation of legality" were mentioned; the mass extermination of people still was not condemned; like before, it was deemed to have been an important and necessary political measure with only some mistakes. For saying that deportation of a nation or part of it, arrests and extermination of innocent persons was the crime of the soviet regime, one could be accused for the so-called anti-soviet propaganda.
Nevertheless, beginning with the "thaw" of Nikita Khrushchev's time, the repressed persons were gradually released. Following the USSR Council of Minis ters Decision of 5 July 1954, children up to 16 years of age were deleted from the registers of the specially settled persons. The persons deported before the war were entitled to move within the borders of a certain area or region freely; they had to register once a year." Also the decree on the deportation "forever" issued by the USSR Supreme Soviet on 26 November 1948, as well as the severe punishment for escaping from the places of special settlement were cancelled.
In 1954 the Councils of Ministers in the soviet republics where from the deportation had been ex ecuted, were given the right to review the cases of separate specially settled persons and to make deci sions on the release of the persons or their retention in the settlement. A decision on the release could be made only in such a case if there was evidence that during the time of deportation instructions on deportation had not been complied with and therefore various "mis takes" and "breaches" had arisen.
Pursuant to Decision No. 449-272-s of the USSR Council of Ministers issued on 10 March 1955, the specially settled persons who lived in towns, regional centres, towns-villages, as well as places where the permanent residents had to have passports, were issued passports. The above decision also stipulated that from then on the USSR Ministry of Interior had the right to "release from registration and adminis trative supervision" the persons to whom the decision was applicable. Decision No. 1963-1052-s "On Release from Registration of Some Categories of the Specially Settled Persons" issued by the USSR Council of Ministers on 24 November 1955 already stipu lated several categories of such deported persons: women who had married local residents at their places of deportation; handicapped persons living alone; persons having incurable diseases, etc. Item 2 of the above decision stipulated that the persons re leased from registration and administrative supervi sion were allowed to live in any place except the one they had been deported from. It was also stipulated that the residential houses and other buildings owned by the persons released from the special settlement prior to their deportation were not to be returned back to them.
Unlike the cases where the whole nations were deported (Chechens, Ingushs, Kalmikhs, the Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, etc.), there was no special decision on the release of the deported Latvian inhab itants from the special settlement. Still , even at that time some such decisions were made which did not relieve the fate of the arrested and deported persons, but made it even more dismal and hopeless. For instance, the LSSR Supreme Soviet Presidium issued a secret decree "On the Ban of Returning to the LSSR for the Former Heads of Governments of the Bourgeois Latvia, Leaders of Bourgeois Political Parties and Anti-Soviet Organisations, Active Participants of the Latvian Nationalistic Underground who Were Sentenced and Have Served Their Sentence." The de cree stipulated that "in the event of unauthorized return to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic the above persons, subject to a court decision, shall be deported for a time period up to five years".
Nevertheless, the release of the repressed persons continued. Pursuant to a decision of the LSSR Supreme Soviet Presidium of 24 September 1957, a commission of the LSSR Supreme Soviet Presidium was established to review cases of the persons who were in the special settlement on the basis of decisions of the Special Meeting, as well as some direc tives of the USSR PCI and PCSS. Materials for the above commission were prepared by the LSSR KGB. Another commission was established under the supervision of the LSSR Council of Ministers to review applications and complaints of the persons who had been deported from Latvia in compliance with an administrative procedure. Materials for the above commission were prepared by the LSSR Min istry of Interior.
Pursuant to the USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium Decision of 12 March 1962, the LSSR KGB trans ferred the review of applications of all category citi zens to the LSSR Ministry of Public Order Protection. Decisions on the release of the deported persons were later approved by the LSSR Supreme So viet Presidium.
By 29 December 1962, the commission of the Su preme Soviet Presidium had reviewed 345 applica tions (including also those submitted by the persons repressed in the post-war years), of them 143 applica tions regarding 331 persons were satisfied; but 202 applications regarding 537 persons were rejected. The commission of the Council of Ministers had received 79 applications and satisfied 52 applications regard ing 103 persons, but 27 applications on 40 persons were rejected. By 1 December 1962, a total of 13,443 families or 31,596 persons (those deported in 1941, as well as in later years) were released from the special settlement with the right to live in Latvia.
Also at that time there were strong objections to wards the release of the Latvian citizens repressed by the soviet authorities from camps and special settle ment places. For instance, at the closed general meeting of the LCP CC on 7-8 July 1959, J. Vēvers, Chair man of the LSSR KGB said:
"Remnants of capitalism, and those of nationa lism in particular, are still quite strong in this repub lic. The leftovers of the former privileged classes still to a certain extent influence the labile members of the society. The latter, having been influenced by the former, sometimes become active defenders of nationalism. Given the above, a decision was made to ban the former heads of governments of the bourgeois Latvia, leaders of bourgeois political parties and anti-soviet organisations, active participants of the Latvian nationalistic underground and armed gangs, and active participants of punitive units, sabo teurs and terrorists to return to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. Also their family members may not return to Latvia. Pursuant to another decision, the former kulaks, bourgeois representatives, Ger man collaborators and supporters of the gangs were released from the special settlement, but without the right to return to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic.
So much about the decisions. But what have we actually achieved? How does this issue look like in this republic? The situation seems quite unattractive.
Already in 1955-1957,c[omrade] [Juris] Sproģis, Deputy Prosecutor of the republic and the Latvian SSR Supreme Court showed unnecessary activity and haste regarding the issue of the return of the families of the sentenced kulaks, bandits and anti-soviet nationalistic underground participants to the republic. Many facts can be mentioned with respect to the above."
But Alberts Pāže, Deputy Head of the LCP CC Department of Administrative and Trade-Finance In stitutions, in his report to the LCP CC Presidium indi cated the following:
"In August 1961, LCP CC reviewed the report On the Situation in the Republic and made a decision to send it to the CPSU CC.
To increase the fight against anti-soviet activities, the LCP CC deemed it necessary to deport the most active nationalists and other hostile elements as confirmed enemies of the soviet people from the Latvian SSR, and now they have returned from their imprisonment.
After the above LCP CC decision, the commis sions of the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet Presidium and the Council of Ministers considerably reduced the number of permits issued to release persons from the special settlement. (..) At the same time it should be noted that an undesirably large amount of persons - nationalists and other hostile elements are still re turning back to the republic. Moreover, part of them return with the permits of the above commissions, but others - without any permits at all, making use of the negligence of militia and Security Committee bodies. (..) It should be noted that the number of persons authorised by the commissions to return is known, while the number of those who have returned without authorisation is not known, and nobody in the republic is looking for those persons."
Pursuant to the Latvian SSR Council of Ministers Decision No. 331 of 23 June 1965, a special commis sion was established, chaired by the First Deputy Chairman of the Latvian SSR Council of Ministers. To ac knowledge the deportation as unjustified, the task of the commission was to review the applications of those persons who had been deported from Latvia according to the administrative procedure (except for the persons deported pursuant to decisions of the Special Meeting). The decisions of the commission were approved by the LSSR Council of Ministers. The commission worked until 1974 when it was dissolved, and the cases of the above persons were transferred for assessment to a commission which reviewed issues on citizens' arrival in Latvia (this commission was dissolved in 1985).
Still on 1 January 1989 there were more than 31,000 archive criminal cases of more than 46,000 persons stored un-reviewed in the archives of the LSSR KGB and Ministry of Interior; more than 19,000 un- reviewed archive registration files of more than 60,000 persons were stored in the Ministry of Interior archives.
In the Soviet Union, exposure, condemnation and acknowledgement of Stalinist deportations and other crimes as outright illegal, as well as a complete rehabilitation of the victims began during the Michael Gorbachev's "perestroika". In Latvia the process was facilitated by the Awakening, which started in late 80's.
The Decree "On Rehabilitation of the Citizens Deported from the Latvian SSR territory in the 40's and 50's passed by the LSSR Supreme Soviet Presi dium on 8 June 1989 stipulated the following:
"In order to liquidate the consequences resulting from the unjustified administrative deportation of citi zens from the territory of the Latvian SSR, as well as to ensure the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens, the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet Presidium decides:
1. To acknowledge the administrative deportation of citizens from the territory of the Latvian SSR implemented in the 40ies and 50ies without any decisions of any court authorities illegal and unjustified, and the deported citizens rehabilitated.
2. To deem invalid Clause 3 of the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet Presidium Decree "On Establishing a Commission to Review Cases of the Persons who Are in the Special Settlement on the Basis of Decisions of the USSR People's Commissariat of Interior - Peo ple's Commissariat of State Security Former Special Meeting (..) and Particular Directives of the Above Authorities" of 5 October 1957 and the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet Presidium Decree "On the Ban of Re turning to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic for the Former Heads of Governments of the Bourgeois Latvia, Leaders of Bourgeois Political Parties and Anti-Soviet Organisations and Active Participants of the Latvian Nationalistic Underground who Were Sentenced and Have Served Their Sentence " of 5 October 1957. "
On 3 August 1990, the Republic of Latvia Su preme Soviet passed a law On Rehabilitation of the Illegally Repressed Persons . The law declared all persons rehabilitated who, on the basis of the RSFSR Criminal Code, had been repressed without any deci sions of the court, had been sentenced, or against whom criminal proceedings had been terminated on the basis of non-rehabilitating facts, including for activities in the territory of Latvia carried out before the RSFSR Criminal Code was introduced on 26 November 1940 and, according to the Republic of Latvia legislation, were not deemed crimes. Decisions on the return of the illegally seized property or compen sation of its value to the repressed persons were passed as well.
When restoring the historical justice, the contri bution of the staff of the Ministry of the Interior, the Prosecutor's Office and the Supreme Court should be par ticularly emphasized. The above persons did their best for the Latvian citizens repressed in 1941 and other years of the communist occupation regime to be rehabilitated and to receive the due compensa tion.
In August 1988, the Rehabilitation Department of the Ministry of the Interior commenced its work. Eduards Lošaks, its first head, wrote about that complex, but beneficial period of work, to the authors of the book Aizvestie ( The Deported ).
"In late 80's in Latvia the public persistently demanded more and more: to make publicly known the facts of the mass repressions of the 40's and 50's and the specific persons responsible for them, to condemn the repressions and rehabilitate the innocent victims, compensating them for their losses incurred. The Awakening movement rising in the public and the initiative of the Latvian People's Front were the driving forces uniting people and constantly giving new impulses.
As a result of the people's movement, both the USSR central, as well as the local Communist Party and state security authorities had to give in, although initially quite reluctantly, and to a certain extent start the condemnation of the Stalinist repressions of the 40ies-50ies and the rehabilitation process of the innocent victims.
For the above purpose special structural units were established at the LSSR Ministry of Interior and the LSSR Prosecutor's Office of that time for the review of the rehabilitation applications. Already in May 1985, the Rehabilitation Department was established at the Ministry of the Interior, which reviewed materials related to the rehabilitation applications of the administratively deported persons. At the Prosecutor's Office of Latvia, a rehabilitation working group was established which examined the cases of those persons punished in compliance with the court and out- of-court procedures, who had been charged with fabricated offences pursuant to the clauses of the RSFSR Criminal Code of the year 1926. Initially, the final decisions on the punished persons were made by the Su preme Court, but on the administratively deported per sons - the Council of Ministers, later a special Commission for Reviewing Applications on Unjustified Administrative Deportation from Latvia, established by the Council of Ministers on 16 April 1988.
When starting work with the rehabilitation appli cations of the persons repressed in 1941, at first infor mation was sought at the Information Centre of the Ministry of the Interior. There files contained information about persons on whom criminal cases had been started since the day of occupation in 1940. The term "criminal proceedings had been initiated" has been deliberately avoided here, since in some of them the decisions of the operative staff on the initiation of a criminal case have still remained unapproved, and the arrests have been carried out without sanction. Hence, according to the criminal cases, on the basis of the decisions of the operative staff, the persons had been arrested, administratively deported and quite often even lost their lives without initiated criminal proceedings and sanctioned arrest - either died due to inhuman conditions, or were shot. In the course of rehabilitation the criminal cases were requested from the LSSR KGB.
It was necessary to request the personal files of the deported persons as well. Since in 1941 people were deported from Latvia to the Krasnoyarsk area and the Novosibirsk region, the personal files of the deported persons had to be obtained also from the area and regional authorities of the Ministry of the Interior. Sometimes, following the path of grief and suffering of the deported persons, the personal files had to be requested from the archives of the Ministry of the Interior of the Komi Autonomous Republic and archives of other territorial institutions of the RSFSR Ministry of the Interior.
We encountered also some difficulties during our work. By year 1990, on the basis of our requests, we received personal files from the archives of the Tomsk region established in 1944 and the Krasnoyarsk area, as well as other area and regional institutions of the Min istry of the Interior. However, since early 1990, the personal files of the deported persons no longer were sent to us from the institutions of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation. Therefore, a special questionnaire had to be prepared, and we requested the respective Ministry of the Interior institutions at least to reply to the questions in the forms of the questionnaire. The work was delayed, quite often because of additional misunderstanding, and we had to send a repeated request for the relevant information.
At first we had to wait until the Prosecutor's Office examined the criminal case on the person which had resulted in administrative deportation of all his/ her family members. If the criminal case file contained a court sentence or a decision made by the Special Meeting of the People's Commissariat of the Interior on applicable criminal punishment, the Prosecutor's Of fice directed the criminal case to the Supreme Court in order to make a decision on the revocation of the sentence or the Special Meeting's decision, and termination of the criminal case on the basis of rehabilitating facts. In the event the criminal case contained only a decision of an investigator or operative employee on the termination of the criminal case due to the person's death, the LSSR Prosecutor's Office decided the issue on rehabilitation by cancelling the existing decision in the case and terminating the criminal case on the basis of rehabilitating facts. Only after the receipt of such decisions, the Rehabilitation Department of the Ministry of the Interior prepared conclusions on rehabilitation which at that time were approved by Dr. iur. Zenons Indrikovs, Deputy Minister of the Interior, now Rector of the Police Academy of Latvia. The criminal case files, the personal files of the deported persons together with the examination materials and the prepared conclusion were sent to the special commission established by the Council of Ministers which made the final decision that the administrative deportation had been unjustified and the deported persons were deemed rehabilitated. After that, the materials were transferred to the Ministry of Finance for preparing documents for the due compensation issue. The procedure of the rehabilitation was very slow. (..)
In order to document the deportation process and the illegalities that had happened during it, a special registration card form was prepared by the Rehabili tation Department under the guidance of Zenons Indrikovs, Deputy Minister of the Interior, where data on the deported persons, facts about deportation and places of settlement, as well as on the persons re sponsible for the mass repressions (indicating the job titles, rank grades and family names of the persons who made the decision on deportation, approved it and implemented it) had to be included.
By 1 June 1991, the Rehabilitation Department of Ministry of the Interior had managed to review 14,020 cases on the deportations and to prepare the materials necessary for rehabilitation of more than 46,000 people, including 2460 cases on more than 7150 persons who had been illegally deported in June 1941.
At that time, Zigmunds Spāde, senior expert at the Council of Ministers, Maigonis Skulte, Deputy Minis ter of Finances and Vizmands Eberliņš, Head of the Legal Department of the Ministry of Finance also made a considerable contribution to the process of rehabili tation by preparing draft regulations and directing them through the Government; thereby solving the practi cal issues related to the compensations.
After E. Lošaks left this job, management of the Rehabilitation Department was entrusted to his deputy Benedikts Spridzāns. Work on rehabilitation contin ued, and by 1994 all administratively repressed Latvian citizens were rehabilitated, and an electronic database of them was also developed.
At the Supreme Court of Latvia, the Rehabilitation Department was established in autumn 1990. Pursuant to the law "On the Rehabilitation of the Illegally Re pressed Persons" passed on 3 August 1990, it was within the competence of the Supreme Court to decide on issues on the rehabilitation of those persons who had been repressed during the years of soviet occupation by executing the sentences of the court martial and the court. To decide on the rehabilitation issue, materials of criminal cases in the archives on each repressed person were examined and conclusions were prepa red, and subsequently approved by the Vice Chairman of the Supreme Court.
During the first years after the law on rehabilita tion was passed, numerous applications from the repressed persons and their relatives were received. For this reason conclusions were prepared on the persons mentioned in the applications only. When the number of applications decreased, the Rehabilitation Department managed by Biruta Puķe began to review all criminal cases and decide on the persons' rehabilitation issues irrespective of whether an application on the particular person had or had not been submitted. Certifications from the materials of the archive criminal cases were also issued to the repressed persons and their relatives. The certifications helped to solve the is sues related to the issue of compensations for the con fiscated property, recalculation of pensions,and the status of the national resistance movement participant.
In memory of the Latvian people who had suffered the unjustified mass deportations and other Stalinist repressions, the Latvian SSR Supreme Soviet Pre sidium Decree of 8 June 1989 stipulated that June 14 be the Remembrance Day of the Stalinist repression victims. Now this day is called the Remembrance Day of the Victims of the Communist Terror.
The deportation of 14 June 1941 is to be considered genocide against the Latvian people.
Article 2 of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 De cember 1948 stipulates a range of genocide features.
"This Convention defines genocide as any of the acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, ct national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in cluding by:
a) killing its members;
b) causing them serious bodily or mental harm;
c) deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group:
e) and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
It should be reminded that already in late 30ies such genocide was directed against those Latvians who lived in various USSR regions at that time. According to rather incomplete information, at that time more than 70,000 Latvians were repressed; all Latvian colonies and communities, as well as publishing houses, educational and cultural establishments, organisations and societies were liquidated. Genocide against the Latvian nation continued also after World War II; it reached a particularly wide scale in 1949 when in one day - 25 March - more than 42,000 Latvian inhabitants were deported to Siberia "to lifetime settlement.
The tragedy and fate of the persons deported on 14 June 1941, as well as the victims of other Stalinist repressions have always attracted the attention of Latvian historians, writers, public and political fig ures. Already during World War II, Latvian public figures started to identify the number of Latvian in habitants driven away to Siberia and their road of tor ture. In later years, in order to document accurately those tragic days for the Latvian people, the Latvians living abroad contributed a great deal. Ādolfs Šilde, a famous Latvian public figure, was particularly active. In 1956 he published a book, Pa deporteto pēdām ( Follow ing the Steps of the Deported ), as well as other significant works on this subject. In the post war period, the most noteworthy contribution of the re searchers of Stalinist deportations were the lists of the deported persons on l4 June 1941 These Names Ac cuse , published in Sweden in 1982, where more comprehensive data about the victims of the cri minal deportation action was presented for the first time.
Since the late 80's, Latvian historians have also pub lished many significant testimonies about the deporta tion of 14 June 1941 and the destinies of the victims both in history journals and document collections and various press publications. Part of the documents were published in the collection "Okupācijas varu politika Latvijā. 1939-1991" ("Policy of Occupation Powers in Latvia. 1939-1991"). Valuable information about Latvian citizens arrested in 1940-1941 can be found in the book prepared by the Latvian History Institute No NKVD līdz KGB . Politiskās prāvas Latvijā ( From NKVD to KGB. Political Cases in Latvia). Also the analytical article "Latvijas Statis tikas pārvaldes materiāli par Baigo gadu Hūvera insti tūta arhivā" ("Latvian Statistical Administration Ma terials about the Terrible Year in the Archives of the Hoover Institute")" by Kārlis Kangeris, researcher of the Baltic Research Centre of the Stockholm University should be singled out. The contribution of historians has been supplemented by memoirs and monographs of the victims of 14 June 1941 deporta tion, for instance, Via Dolorosa, Ar asarām tas nav pierādāms (One Cannot Prove it with Tears), Es sapni par Dzimteni pagalvī likšu (I Will Place my Dream of Homeland under my Pillow) and Atmiņas un vēsture (Memories and History).
In the past years, Viktor Zemskov, a Russian histo rian, has done much in the studies of the Stalinist deportations. On the basis of formerly secret archive documents (for a long time unavailable for re searchers), he prepared and published several compre hensive research papers on the special settlement and the specially settled persons, labour camps, as well as other issues related to repressions and deportations. His findings help to better understand also the suffering and fate of the deported inhabitants of Latvia. Aleksandr Guryanov, who has studied the Stalinist deportations in West Ukraine, West Belorussia and Moldavia for a long time, has published very impor tant data about the 14 June 1941 deportation in Latvia. A valuable assistance for those who study repressions and deportations is the reference collection " System of Labour Camps in the USSR. 1923-1960", prepared by the society Memorial and the State Archives of the Russian Federation and published in Moscow in 1998.
On the basis of the latest studies of archive documents, in 1995 and 1996 the State Archives of Latvia together with the Republic of Latvia Ministry of Inte rior Rehabilitation Department of the Unjustifiably Re pressed Citizens prepared and published "Represeto saraksts" ("List of the Repressed Persons"), a supplement of the journal Latvijas Arhīvi ( Archives of Latvia ), which provided short information on all Latvian inhabitants who were victims of deportations within the time period from 1941 to 1953. The list of the repressed persons was drawn up, using the electronic database prepared by the staff of the above de partment. The introductory materials of the "List of the Repressed Persons", written by B. Spridzāns, Head of the Rehabilitation Department of the Unjustifi ably Repressed Citizens, provides data about the number of the deported persons, their professions, labour camps, places of settlement, as well as other issues related to deportation. After the "List of the Repressed Persons" was published, the Publishing Department of the State Archives of Latvia, as well as the Republic of Latvia Ministry of Interior Rehabilitation Department of the Unjustifiably Repressed Citizens received a great deal of additional and more exact information. In the course of time, several issues of the "List of the Repressed Persons" have become a bibliographic rarity, and there is still a great interest in obtaining it. Both due to the above reason and to provide as accurate information as possible about all victims of the 14 June 1941 deportation, the book Aizvestie (The Deported) was prepared.
The book is based on the "List of the Repressed Persons" published in 1995-1996, with more accu rate and supplemented data. It was a result of, studying all files of the administratively deported persons on 14 June 1941, as well as criminal case files, found in the holdings of the State Archives of Latvia. Documents of the USSR repressive and other institutions were also published in the book, giving an insight into the preparation and implementation of the genocide crime, as well as the further fate of the deported persons at the labour camps and places of settlement. Also photo documents and maps supplement the book.
The commemorative book, Aizvestie (The Deported) was prepared by the staff of the State Archives of Latvia: Aija Kalnciema, Inese Lase, Iveta Sķiņķe (project manager), Līga Vītola, Ainārs Bambals, Zigmunds Kārkliņš, Elmārs Pelkaus, and Jānis Riekstiņš.
The Historian Commission has supported the preparation of the book.
Acknowledgements for considerable support extend to the staff of the archives by Pēteris Dzalbe, Chief Prosecutor of the Republic of Latvia Prosecutor's Office for Rehabilitation and Special Service Cases, Benedikts Spridzāns, the former Head of the Rehabilitation Department of the Unjustifiably Repressed Citizens of the Republic of Latvia Ministry of Interior, as well as Dr. iur. Zenons Indrikovs in iden tifying and obtaining more accurate information about the destinies of the victims of 14 June 1941 deportation.
Jānis Riekstiņš
Senior Expert of the State Archives of Latvia
