The Soviet deportations from Bessarabia were part of Joseph Stalin's policy of political repression. The deported were typically moved to so-called 'special settlements' (спецпоселения).  Read more..

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Soviet_deportations_from_Bessarabia_and_Northern_Bukovina", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Only one year after the annexation of Bessarabia (a region that included the current Republic of Moldova) and northern Bukovina by the Soviets, to the detriment of Romania, a first wave of mass deportation of Romanian and Moldovan began in the night of June 12 to 13, 1941. This annexation was the result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in 1939 between Hitler's Germany and the USSR which then divided Europe into "spheres of influence". The Post of Moldova had already issued a stamp in 2011 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of this first wave of deportations (30,000 people). A second wave of mass deportation took place on 5 and 6 July 1949, what this new stamp issued on July 5, 2014 on the occasion of this sad 65th anniversary, is reminding us. Read more..