 According to her son, she took part in a meeting where the fate of the monument was discussed, at which her opinion, as reported by her son, was that the monument was of very high artistic value and that its demolition might hurt the most sacred feelings of the Latvian people.The Freedom Monument remained, but its symbolism was reinterpreted.The three stars were said to stand for the newly created Baltic Soviet Republics – Estonian SSR, Latvian SSR, and Lithuanian SSR – held aloft by Mother Russia, and the monument was said to have been erected after World War II as a sign of popular gratitude toward the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for the liberation of the Baltic States.