Deportations were among the cruelest and most widely used forms of political repression in the Soviet Union and its occupied territories. Since the 1920s, millions of people were sent to the remote regions of Siberian taiga, the Far East, the Arctic, and the steppes of Central Asia. Mass deportations affected not only the populations of the Baltic states and Ukraine but also many nations living deep within the Soviet Empire: Ingrian Finns, Volga Germans, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, Koreans, Iranians, Chechens, Ingush, Kalmyks, and others.
Deportations of Lithuanian residents began in June 1941 and continued until 1953. During these mass deportations, approximately 131,600 people were forcibly removed from Lithuania, and 28,000 died in exile or during transportation. From Molėtai areas 1,406 people were deported (1,180 Lithuanians, 105 Jews, 97 Poles, 12 Russians, and others), including 503 children and adolescents. All of them were stripped of their personal documents, and their property was confiscated, except for what was permitted to take into exile. On June 14–19, 1941, deported families were allowed to take only 100 kg of belongings and food; in the postwar years, up to 1,000 kg was permitted. Most deportees were exiled for an unspecified period or permanently.
On March 25–28, 1949, during Operation Priboy (“Tidal Wave”), 300 residents of Molėtai region were deported, mostly to the Alarsky District in southern Irkutsk Oblast. These deportees were subjected to the draconian 1948 decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, according to which anyone who fled from exile was to be punished with 20 years of imprisonment in a labor camp. At the end of September 1951 and on October 2–3, during Operation Osen (“Autumn”), 440 Molėtai residents were deported to the taiga and marshlands of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Irkutsk, and Tomsk Oblasts. Postwar deportations became a tool of repression against the partisan resistance and an instrument for enforcing forced collectivization.
A total of 109 residents of Molėtai region attempted to escape the unbearable conditions of exile and return to Lithuania. Most of them were captured, imprisoned in labor camps, and sent back into exile. In the places of exile, 130 residents of Molėtai region died. The return of survivors to Lithuania was difficult. Mass reviews of deportee cases began only in the summer of 1954. Before that, only isolated individuals, amnested former Polish citizens, and orphans rescued during expeditions to Siberia in 1946–1948 were able to return legally. At the end of 1960, approximately 1,070 deportees from Molėtai region returned to Lithuania. Most of them returned without the right to live in their previous homes and without the possibility of reclaiming confiscated property.
