Yesterday, Stalin Era Deportee Vera Was in the Government’s Sight

On August 7, the Government decided to allocate over 2.4 million lei (€121,469)  to the local public administration authorities, for restoring the value of lost goods by paying compensation to persons who suffered from political repression. The Ministry of Finance will allocate the sum according to the 2019 state budget distribution. The decision is in agreement with article 12 of the Law on the rehabilitation of victims of political repression, in force since 1992.

According to the official data, out of the hundreds of thousands of deportees only about 7,000 might still be alive today. A small number compared with those scattered throughout Siberia or Kazakhstan, but big when it comes to the state’s capacity to take care of them humanely, given the hardships they endured.

Vera is one of these 7,000 survivors. She’s grey-haired, short and gentle. She returned from Siberia with such an open heart, offering comfort and consolation for anyone, young and old, those close to her or strangers. Vera is small but has a really big heart full of memories of her family’s deportation to Siberia and of the worries, the pain and the suffering of her loved ones. She has a kind word and a remedy for every pain, a cure for everyone. That’s what Siberia taught her. As a child, she loved the grass and the flowers there, rare in those frozen places. She especially liked the bark of the tree trunks from which, as she believed at the time, healing potions could be made.

Over the years, she has learned the miraculous power of nature. She is glad that Siberia has made her more resilient and determined to value life even more.

Although her feet hurt badly, Vera is present at all the meetings dedicated to deportees, because she respects the memory of those lost in the cold foreign lands. She’s among the ones who, from time to time, received several hundred lei, offered by governments that succeeded in power. She used to get the money in the summer, around July 6. On that day, the Memorial Day for the  victims of the Stalinist deportations, even those who do not care about the victims of Stalinist repression show some kind of false respect for them.

This year, however, Vera did not receive the 500 lei (€25.25) offered to the deportees. She does not know why she was excluded from the lists and she has no chances to find out the reasons why someone thought the state needs the 500 lei (€25.25) more than she does – being a deportee who for 70 years has been carrying in her soul, in her life and in her feelings all of Siberia.

On July 6, 2019, Maia Sandu told the deportees that she is aware that the aid received by the survivors is very small and that the law needs to be changed. She said the Government will initiate procedures in this regard.

Vera listened to these statements with great hope and wept. However, she decided not to ask the government representatives, present at the commemoration meeting, where her 500 lei (€25.25) have been lost. “I thought that this money will make me neither richer nor poorer. But, you know, I am troubled by the feeling of injustice. I want to get the money and then give it to someone else, but be sure that I was not wronged,” Vera says timidly and with shame. 

On August 7, the Government decided to allocate 2.4 million lei (€121,469) to compensate victims of political repression. Vera is one of the victims. And, knowing her case, I think of how important it is for this money to reach honest hands, so that no victim of Stalin’s Siberia is marginalized.

Instead of Post Scriptum: if any Government representative knows where the 500 lei (€25.25) destined for deportee Vera went astray in 2019, they can request the woman’s contact information from ZdG newsroom. Phone 022 23 44 34 or 022 23 26 33.

Aneta Grosu, [email protected]