Press release, 14 June 2016
Photo of the Office of the Seimas (author Olga Posaškova)
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Apart from happy and solemn occasions, the history of our nation and our state also includes some very sad ones. Today we are commemorating two of them, the Soviet occupation and annexation of Lithuania that started on 15 June 1940 and the beginning of mass deportation of our fellow-nationals to northern territories of Russia on 14 June 1941.
The invaders embarked on the genocide of the Lithuanian nation by targeting the best-educated and best-performing professionals. It is no coincidence that teachers, physicians, priests, civil servants and well-off farmers were the first to be deported. The invaders hoped that, bereft of its intellectuals, the nation would be easier to subjugate.
Five decades of the Soviet occupation would have turned out far worse, should we not have had a hope. The hope to survive and come back to their homeland sustained the deportees in exile; the hope that the Soviet empire would come to ruin sometime in the future sustained us all.
Today, being an independent state for the third consecutive decade, we also cherish a hope. We hope that neither occupation of our country nor genocide of our nation will ever be repeated. The fulfilment of this hope depends, to a large extent, on ourselves and our daily endeavours.
May we be supported in these endeavours by the memory of our fellow-nationals who perished as a result of the Soviet occupation and genocide.
