15.sējums - Valsts prezidenta kanceleja

44 Padomju okupācija 1940–1941
Kseniya Petrochenko
Problems of Separated Families and Their Adaptation
to the New Situation
My report is devoted to my grandmother Vera Bumbēra-Shumskaya,
her husband Pēteris Bumbērs,
and their son Jānis Bumbērs who died in Siberia.
Memory is the evidence of love,
reviving those who are gone.
Memory is a pledge of immortality.
The first stage of the Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940–1941) is sometimes called
“The Horrible Year.” During this year repressions began directed against the political
and public figures of the Republic of Latvia. In November 1940, the laws of the RSFSR
came into force in the territory of Latvia, among them the Criminal Code including
the famous Article 58 of death penalty for high treason, Criminal Procedure Code,
the Labour Code and others. On the grounds of the Criminal Code the repressive
organisations could sentence the citizens of Latvia according to the laws of the RSFSR
including their activities before the Soviet occupation because the Law was retroactive.
The plan of deportation had been worked out before Latvia was incorporated into
the USSR. Already on 11 October 1939, People’s Commissariat of the Interior (NKVD)
made up an instruction about the procedure of deportation of anti-Soviet elements of
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. After the occupation of these Baltic States, the search
of the so-called people’s enemies was begun in 1940.
In April 1941, the mass collection of “compromising information” about the citizens
of Latvia “alien to the Soviet system,” including the private owners, representatives
of creative intelligentsia, officials, and public figures, became an obstacle for them
to receive special or higher education.
In the mid-1950s, after Stalin’s death and the beginning of the process of rehabilitation,
the deported persons began to search their relatives with whom they
were separated on 14 June 1941. They were in endless correspondence with the
state security authorities.