Order № 001223
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Order № 001223, "On the Procedure for carrying out the Deportation of Anti-Soviet Elements from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia", signed January 21, 1941,[1] contained detailed instructions for procedures and protocols to observe in the deportation of Baltic nationals. The order formed the basis for the execution of the mass deportations of June 13 and June 14, 1941 throughout the Baltics during the first Soviet occupation of 1940–1941.
General Ivan Serov, Deputy People's Commissar of State Security of the Soviet Union, issued and signed the Order.
Under threat of invasion, the Baltic States, independent prior to World War II, had signed pacts of "mutual assistance" with the Soviet Union: Estonia signed their pact with the Soviet Union on September 28, 1939; Latvia following on October 5, 1939; and Lithuania shortly thereafter, on October 10, 1939. The Baltics were subsequently invaded in June 1940 under Soviet charges alleging they had violated the terms of the pacts.
[edit] Inconsistencies in historical representations of the date of issue
A date of October 11, 1939 has been widely alleged to be the date the order was issued.[2] That date does not appear to be correct. Serov, when being head of NKVD of the Ukrainian SSR, is known to have prepared instructions on deportations from the annexed regions of western Ukraine in autumn 1939.[1] Documents allegedly pre-dating the signing of Order № 001223 reference it,[3] so it may have existed in some form prior. The official date of issuance, regardless, is January 21, 1941.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Source: Museum of the Occupation of Latvia
- ^ This date is mentioned, e.g., in the text of the book These Names Accuse, first published in 1951 (and in some other texts that refer to this book). However the translation of the document given in the appendix has no date.
- ^ From These Names Accuse, an order represented as having been signed November 28, 1940 at Kaunas by Lithuanian NKVD commissar A. Guzevicius, found in the summer of 1941 among the documents left by the NKVD (cf. K. Pelekis, Genocide, p. 265-267, published by Venta, Germany 1949), contains the passage: "Executing the Order of the People's Commissar of NKVD of USSR No. 001223 referring to a report on the anti-Soviet element, and the demand to be most careful in the exact execution of that task,..."
