A `cold-blooded idea' from the past

Re: 40,000 deported by force, says Mariupol mayor, April 19

Russia sending Ukrainians to “filtration camps” is yet another cold-blooded idea lifted from the mouldy pages of a 1940s' Soviet handbook.

In the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) a similar state-organized Communist genocide was conducted in March 1949. Priboi in Russian, Krasta Banga in Latvian, the operation was code-named Coastal Storm and was authorized on Feb. 28, 1949.

As detailed in the book Unpunished Crimes, Latvia Under Three Occupations, all the soldiers and officials involved in operation were notified only six to 10 hours before it was to start, the morning of March 25, 1949. Those people targeted for deportation to the gulags in Siberia were delivered to “special settler” collection points. These “special settlers” were brought to one of 118 train stations and loaded onto modified boxcars. A total of 4,037 boxcars stood waiting for their cargo.

In three days, the Russians arrested and shipped to the camps 94,779 people, mainly farmers (the numbers do not include those arrested and shot). Women and children made up 72.9 per cent of those “class enemies.” Military awards and medals were handed out to hundreds of participants in the operation.

My mother escaped from the invading Russians and fled to Germany during the war. She worked in a café and served both American and German soldiers. Her luck was to become a DP (displaced person) and she eventually moved to Canada. She called Canada the greatest country.

Erv Dreimanis, Burlington, Ont.

We keep hearing of the Russians taking trainloads of Ukrainians, mostly women and “orphans,” which in many cases the Russian onslaught created, east to Russia. This includes “humanitarian corridors” that transfer Ukrainian civilians to Russia, essentially turning them into prisoners of war. Exactly where they are or under what conditions they are living, we don't know.

Canada should lead a campaign (including at the United Nations) to demand that Russia account for every one of those people. Our government should work to mobilize pressure to allow the International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, or some other internationally recognized, neutral, non-governmental group to be able to access these people, and examine them for physical and emotional injuries.

Their findings should be made public, without political interference, and the Russian government must commit to the return of these people to their homes and families.

These people are not the cause of the war and should not suffer as a result. If we abandon our fellow human beings there, we should not expect better for ourselves.

Allan S. Cooper, Toronto

ALEXANDER ERMOCHENKO / REUTERS FILES A service member of pro-Russian troops stands guard in the southern port of Mariupol recently as evacuees wait before boarding a bus to leave the city during Ukraine-Russia conflict.