ORAL HISTORY: MIGRATION AND LOCAL IDENTITIES - Academia

Migration and Totalitarian RegimeMemories of the forced migration are still alive in the messagesexpressed by life stories, as is also the case in this study. Both the owners’families were deported. The House became the “lost, ideal past”,the lost property. The memories of one present owner of the House:The apartment of the Krūze family became absolutely empty in 1941. Thewhole family was taken away. I heard strange noises from the upper floorthat night. I stayed with my granny after my mummy and daddy was takenaway. (NOH)The whole Krūze family experienced forced migration, or deportation,from their home and country. The father was killed by theoccupying power during the first days of occupation. The mother wasseparated from the children and died after two years in exile in Siberia.Three children stayed together and returned to Latvia in 1945,but they were not allowed to live in their House. In 1949 they weredeported again; the daughter of the family was deported together withher two month old child.The subject of deportation—either their own or their relatives’experience—also appears in the stories told by other House dwellers.The separation of families and the forcible displacement from thehome and the native country to an alien, very poor place is not onlya painful trauma, but it is also a process with further consequences:the destruction of families; the inability to further a family’s financial,cultural, and social resources; and the risk of loss of social memory.At the same time, the Soviet occupying power began an activeprocess of immigration, namely, the relocation of Soviet citizens toLatvia. Radical changes in the composition of the House’s dwellerssubsequently occurred.The influx of people from other areas of the former Soviet Unionstarted as early as 1940. A large inflow began in mid-1941, after thefirst mass deportation of Balts and ethnic minorities residing in theBaltic States. The percentage of ethnic Russians and Russian-speakersin Latvia increased significantly, mostly as a result of industrializationafter the Second World War,The peak of the influx occurred in the post-war years. Between1945 and 1959 about 400.000 ethnic Russians and 100.000 people of226