Operation Vesna
베스나 작전
The deportation of Forest Brothers, their families and helpers from Lithuania carried out by the Soviet Ministry of State Security (MGB) on 22–24 May 1948. With an official tally of 49,331 (other figures 39,766 and 47,534), it was the largest Soviet deportation from Lithuania.
In depth
“Vesna” is Russian for spring. Decree No. 417-160ss of the USSR Council of Ministers of 21 February 1948 targeted the “forest brothers”, their families and “various helpers of anti-Soviet partisans, including kulaks”. Poles and Belarusians were deported as well as Lithuanians. The deportees became special settlers, severely restricted in movement.
Most were sent to Krasnoyarsk Krai (23,467), Irkutsk Oblast (11,495) and the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR (4,038); about 25,000 worked in the forest industry and the rest in coal mines and kolkhozes. Some 11,000 children were deported with their parents. In Igarka 1,000–3,000 Lithuanians died in the first years, and most of the Lithuanians there returned between 1956 and 1961.