The Serov Instructions featured instructions on a mass deportation by the Soviet Union of tens of thousands of people from the territories occupied in what year?
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Serov Instructions The so-called Serov Instructions (full title: "On the Procedure for Carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia") was an undated top secret document, signed by General Ivan Serov, Deputy People's Commissar for State Security of the Soviet Union (NKGB). The instructions detailed procedures on how to carry out the mass deportations to Siberia of June 13–14, 1941 throughout the Baltic States during the first Soviet occupation of 1940–1941.
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June deportation The June deportation (Estonian: "Juuniküüditamine" , Latvian: "Jūnija deportācijas" , Lithuanian: "Birželio trėmimai" ) was a mass deportation by the Soviet Union of tens of thousands of people from the territories occupied in 1940–1941: Baltic states, occupied Poland (mostly present-day western Belarus and western Ukraine), and Moldavia.
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The Great Terror The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties is a book by British historian Robert Conquest, published in 1968. It gave rise to an alternate title of the period in Soviet history known as the Great Purge. Conquest's title was also an evocative allusion to the period that was called the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution (French: "la Terreur", and, from June to July 1794, "la Grande Terreur", the Great Terror).
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Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian-born Soviet revolutionary and political leader. Governing the Soviet Union as its dictator from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Stalin helped to formalise these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies became known as Stalinism.
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Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic The Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (Russian: Дагестанская АССР , "Dagestanskaya ASSR"; Avar: Дагъистаналъул АССР ; Kumyk: Дагъыстан АССР ; Lezgian: Дагъустандин АССР ; Lak: Дагъусттаннал АССР ; 1921–1991) was an autonomous Soviet socialist republic (ASSR) in the Russian SFSR of the former Soviet Union. This "Land of Mountains" was known also for having a "mountain of peoples," with more than thirty ethnic groups indigenous to the territory. Although as part of its strategy to promote local languages and to discourage pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic movements a half-dozen of these ethnicities were provided with schooling in their native language at some point in Soviet history, Russian language became the most widespread second language and gradually the lingua franca, especially in urban areas.
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Łachwa Ghetto Łachwa (or Lakhva) Ghetto was a World War II ghetto created by Nazi Germany on 1 April 1942 in the town of Łachwa in occupied eastern Poland (now Lakhva, Belarus), with the aim of persecution, terror and exploitation of the local Jews. The ghetto existed only until September 1942. It was the location of one of the first, and possibly "the" first, Jewish ghetto uprising following the Nazi–Soviet Invasion of Poland.
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Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by the Soviet Union to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union during World War II. German civilians in Eastern Europe were deported to the USSR after World War II as forced laborers. Ethnic Germans living in the USSR were deported during World War II and conscripted for forced labor. German prisoners of war were also used as a source of forced labor during and after the war by the Soviet Union and the Western Allies.
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Transnistria Governorate The Transnistria Governorate (Romanian: Guvernământul Transnistriei ) was a Romanian-administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944. Limited in the west by the Dniester river (separating it from Bessarabia), in the east by the Southern Bug river (separating it from the German Reichskommissariat Ukraine), and in the south by the Black Sea, it comprised the present-day region of Transnistria (which compared to the World War II whole is only a small strip along the bank of the Dniester) and territories further east (modern Odessa Oblast eastward of the Dniester and southern Vinnytsia Oblast), including the Black Sea port of Odessa, which became the administrative capital of Transnistria during World War II.
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The Holocaust in Ukraine The Holocaust in Ukraine took place during the occupation of Ukraine by Nazi Germany. Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 3,000,000 Ukrainian and other non-Jewish victims were killed as part of Nazi extermination policies, along with approximately 1,600,000 Jews. An additional 3,000,000 inhabitants of Ukraine died as soldiers of the Soviet army or indirectly as a consequence of World War II.
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2006 deportation of Georgians from Russia The 2006 deportation of Georgians from Russia refers to the deaths, unlawful arrests, expulsions and overall mistreatment of several thousand ethnic Georgians by the Russian government during the 2006 Georgian–Russian espionage controversy. The official Russian position was that Georgians in question violated the Russian immigration law and that their expulsion and treatment in custody was just standard law enforcement. The Georgian government countered that Russia's concerted actions against ethnic Georgians, including properly documented individuals, was an act of political retribution for the arrest of Russian spies and was tantamount to "mild form of ethnic cleansing". Georgian claims were supported by the Human Rights Watch, which documented "the Russian government's arbitrary and illegal detention and expulsion of Georgians, including many who legally lived and worked in Russia..." Georgia subsequently sued the Russian Government in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
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NKVD prisoner massacres The NKVD prisoner massacres were a series of mass executions carried out by the Soviet NKVD secret police during World War II against political prisoners across Eastern Europe, primarily Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and other parts of the Soviet Union from which the Red Army was retreating following the Nazi German attack on the Soviet positions in occupied Poland, known as Operation Barbarossa.
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Greek Operation of the NKVD The Greek Operation (Russian: Греческая Операция , translit. Grecheskaya Operatsiya; Ukrainian: Грецька операція ) was an organised mass persecution of the 450,000 Greeks of the Soviet Union that was ordered by Joseph Stalin. Greeks often use the term "pogrom" (πογκρόμ) for this persecution, though this term usually refers to mob violence rather than persecution by police acting under direct orders, as this one was. It began on December 15, 1937 and marked the beginning of the repressions against Greeks went on for 13 years.
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Soviet Border Troops Soviet Border Troops, (Russian: Пограничные войска СССР, "Pogranichnyye Voiska SSSR" ) were the militarized border guard of the Soviet Union, subordinated to its subsequently reorganized state security agency: first to "Cheka"/OGPU, then to NKVD/MGB and, finally, to KGB. Accordingly, they were known as NKVD Border Troops and KGB Border Troops (with Russian abbreviations - "НКВД СССР"/- "КГБ СССР" added on the end of official names). Unlike border guards of many other countries, Soviet Border Troops also included the maritime border guarding units (i.e., a coast guard).
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The Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks), living in "Generalbezirk Litauen" of Reichskommissariat Ostland within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 208,000-210,000 Jews, an estimated 190,000–195,000 were murdered before the end of World War II (wider estimates are sometimes published), most between June and December 1941. More than 95% of Lithuania's Jewish population was massacred over the three-year German occupation — a more complete destruction than befell any other country affected by the Holocaust. Historians attribute this to the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries, though the reasons for this collaboration are still debated. The Holocaust resulted in the largest-ever loss of life in so short a period of time in the history of Lithuania.
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MVD special camp MVD Special camps of the Gulag (Russian: Особые лагеря МВД, особлаги , "osobye lagerya", osoblags) was a system of labor camps established addressing the February 21, 1948 decree 416—159сс of the USSR Council of Ministers by the February 28 decree 00219 of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs exclusively for a "special contingent" of political prisoners, convicted according to the more severe sub-articles of Article 58: treason, espionage, terrorism, etc., for various real political opponents, such as Trotskyites, "nationalists", white émigré, as well as for fabricated ones.
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Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1944) The Soviet Union occupied most of the territory of the Baltic states in its 1944 Baltic Offensive during World War II. The Red Army regained control over the three Baltic capitals and encircled retreating Wehrmacht and Latvian forces in the Courland Pocket where they held out until the final German surrender at the end of the war. The German forces were deported and the leaders of Latvian collaborating forces were executed as traitors . After the war, the Soviet Union reestablished control over the Baltic territories in line with its forcible annexations as communist republics in 1940.
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Šiauliai Ghetto The Šiauliai or Shavli Ghetto was a Jewish ghetto established in July 1941 by Nazi Germany in the city of Šiauliai (Yiddish: שאַװל‎ , "Shavl") in Nazi-occupied Lithuania during the Holocaust. The ghetto comprised two areas – one in the Kaukazas suburb and one on Trakai Street. Both were liquidated by July 1944, and their inhabitants were killed or transferred to Nazi concentration camps. In 1939, one quarter of the population of Šiauliai was Jewish, about 8,000 persons. By the end of World War II, only about 500 Jews of the city had survived.
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Częstochowa Ghetto The Częstochowa Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of local Jews in the city of Częstochowa during the German occupation of Poland. The approximate number of people confined to the ghetto was around 40,000 at the beginning and in late 1942 at its peak – right before mass deportations – 48,000. Most ghetto inmates were delivered by the Holocaust trains to their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp. In June 1943, the remaining ghetto inhabitants launched the Częstochowa Ghetto uprising, which was extinguished by the "SS" after a few days of fighting.
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Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland were established during World War II in hundreds of locations across occupied Poland. Most Jewish ghettos had been created by Nazi Germany between October 1939 and July 1942 in order to confine and segregate Poland's Jewish population of about 3.5 million for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation. In smaller towns, ghettos often served as staging points for Jewish slave-labor and mass deportation actions, while in the urban centers they resembled walled-off prison-islands described by some historians as little more than instruments of "slow, passive murder," with dead bodies littering the streets.
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Soviet invasion of Manchuria The Soviet invasion of Manchuria, also known as the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation ("Манчжурская стратегическая наступательная операция" , lit. "Manchzhurskaya Strategicheskaya Nastupatelnaya Operaciya") or simply the Manchurian Operation ("Маньчжурская операция"), began on 9 August 1945 with the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. It was the last campaign of the Second World War, and the largest of the 1945 Soviet–Japanese War which resumed hostilities between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Empire of Japan after almost six years of peace. Soviet gains on the continent were Manchukuo, Mengjiang (Inner Mongolia) and northern Korea. The Soviet entry into the war and the defeat of the Kwantung Army was a significant factor in the Japanese government's decision to surrender unconditionally, as it made apparent the Soviet Union would no longer be willing to act as a third party in negotiating an end to hostilities on conditional terms.
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Operation Priboi Operation Priboi ("Coastal Surf") was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on 25–28 March 1949. The action is also known as the March deportation by Baltic historians. More than 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as enemies of the people, were deported to forced settlements in inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union. Over 70% of the deportees were women, and children under the age of 16.
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Soviet occupation of the Baltic states (1940) The Soviet occupation of the Baltic states covers the period from the Soviet–Baltic mutual assistance pacts in 1939, to their invasion and annexation in 1940, to the mass deportations of 1941.