MAY 31, 2017

TORONTO - The Estonian Central Council, The Latvian National Federation and Lithuanian-Canadian Community are hosting a mass candle lighting ceremony at Nathan Phillips Square at Toronto City Hall on June 13, 2017 at 8pm to commemorate the June 1941 Baltic Deportations and the victims of Soviet Terror.

Members of the Baltic communities in Canada are invited to come and light one of 1500 candles in commemoration of the tens of thousands of victims of Soviet repression in the Baltic States. Clergy and youth from each community will memorialize those who were deported by Soviet authorities. Community choirs will give short performances.

After illegally annexing the Baltic States in 1940, Soviet authorities unleashed a wave of terror on the civilian populations aimed at repressing and Sovietizing them. On the night of June 13-14 Soviet terror battalions and secret police swept through cities and villages, detaining entire families and transporting them to train stations across the region, where they were placed in cattle cars and sent to distant Gulag slave labour camps - including women and children. Mortality rates among the deportees exceeded 60%.

“We cannot allow this tragic history to be forgotten,” said Estonian Central Council President, Marcus Kolga, “most Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians living in Canada today, are here because they fled Soviet terror after Stalin started the Second World War with Hitler.”

“Lighting candles at Toronto City Hall, in memory of the victims, sends a powerful message and is a wonderful way for all of our communities to remember the hundreds of thousands of victims of Soviet terror,” said Estonian Central Council Vice President, Laas Leivat.

In 1944, The Soviet Union re-occupied the Baltic States and continued their policy of terror and repression until 1991. Kremlin authorities continue to deny the occupation of the Baltic States and the terror carried out by authorities in Moscow.

The candle lighting event is being organized by the Baltic Federation of Canada and its current President, Andris Kesteris (LNAK).

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