Tag #116700 - Interview #99625 (Dora Feiman)

14thJune 1941 was a terrible day in the history of Estonia. On this day, Soviet authorities deported Estonian residents [see Soviet Deportation of Estonian Civilians] [16]. Our family avoided this horror. We weren’t wealthy and had no property or business of our own. However, we knew many people who were forced to leave their homes. An NKVD [17] truck arrived at their homes; they were given little time to pack their belongings and were taken to the railway station where trains were waiting to take them away. This action was well-organized. Many families were deported from Tartu. There were Jewish and Estonian deportees. It wasn’t their nationality that mattered, but their state of wealth and political views. This was a scary situation. I remember going to work one morning, when I heard that a few employees of the factory had been sent to exile. Everything was done in secret to prevent people from hiding away.