In June 1941, the first massive arrest and deportation of the Lithuanian population was perpetrated. A cargo of 17.500 people were crammed into cattle cars. Moscow’s instruction often required separation of men from their families: some 4.000 men were separated and transported to concentration camps in the Krasnoyarsk territory while 13.500 women, children and elderly people were transported mostly to Kazakhstan, the Altai Mountains territory, Russia’s republic of Komi, the Tomsk region, and the Arctic zone.

As far back as in the first days of the Soviet occupation the searches for "people's enemies" commenced: only in July 12-16, 1940 more than 500 people were arrested - most of them were public men and politicians, army officers, office employees of the independent Lithuania. In the short run, among the dangerous enemies of the Soviet system were reckoned ordinary members of legal parties, organizations that existed in independent Lithuania, police officers, teachers and even Esperantists and philatelists. The repressive departments established pursuing the example of the Soviet Union took into their disposition Lithuanian archives and looked for the "anti-Soviet elements".

At the beginning of the Soviet period, Lithuanian people most of all suffered from deportations - forced mass removal from the domicile to the remote regions of the Soviet Union. The first mass deportation began on June 14, 1941, at night. People realizing nothing were woken up, sat into lorries and conveyed to the nearest railroad station. Thousands of people woken up from sleep (women, children and old people) were told to leave their homes in a hurry. Frightened, not realizing where and why they were taken, most of them failed to take with them even that formally permitted standard of 100 kg of necessities of life. Crammed into the goods wagons, choking from stuffiness without water and hot meal people were kept for several days in obscurity. Only completely formed trains moved to the East - women, old people and children were sent to deportation, the heads of the families - to prisons and camps. Over few days of June, more than 18 thousand people were taken out from Lithuania. This number would have been even larger but the war between Germany and the USSR started on June 22

People deported in 1941 experienced especially difficult fate. Though the war suspended the further deportation, the conditions of the deported became even harder. Upon arrival at the country impoverished by the nationalization and collectivization, allotting the last stock to the front, the deported interested Soviet authorities only as the charge free labour force. Most of the deported were accommodated in joint barracks and dug-outs. People got ill from the epidemics caused by the starvation and anti-sanitary conditions, many of them died, children first of all. In June, 1942, as soon as they began to accustom to their fate, almost half of Lithuanians were taken from Altai territory for real perish to the north of Yakut.
There Lithuanians were distributed to the isle of Tit Ari (at the mouth of the river Lena), Bykov peninsula (at the Laptev Sea), mouth of the river Jana, other places. Debarked from the barges and left in severe polar conditions without lodging, food, warm clothes they died from starvation and diseases. Less than a half of people deported in 1941 returned to Lithuania after 15 or more years. The condition of prisoners and men separated from their families was even more difficult. When the war ended, many of the camps were liquidated, and the prisoners were for hundreds of kilometers driven on foot to other camps. Hundreds of prisoners died on the way and did not reach new places of imprisonment. NKVD camps were enormous cemeteries, in which almost 8 thousand Lithuanians were buried during 1941-1944.
When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania for the second time in the autumn of 1944, the number of people reckoned among the "anti-Soviet elements" even increased. Not only members of resistance, but also members of their families, partisans' supporters, etc. were reckoned among them. Arrests and deportations of Lithuanian people were renewed.

People were taken to deportation by goods (cattle) wagons with as many people and things stuffed as it were possible. There were no even most necessary sanitary and hygiene conditions in the wagons, while the journey took several weeks or even a month. Sometimes people did not receive food for several days. Babies and elderly people died failing to undergo long and hard journey via the wide expanses of the USSR.

The local authorities were notified about the prospect deportation only on the eve.
The greatest deportations were masked by very innocent, poetic names - codes used in the correspondence of Soviet departments, radio and telephone conversations. For example, the deportation of May 1948 was named "Vesna" ("Spring"), March 1949 - "Priboj" ("Surf"), October 1951 - "Osen" ("Autumn"). By the amount of the deported people the largest were deportations of May 1948, March, 1949 and October 1951. All of them were fulfilled following the resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR detailed by the puppet Council of Ministers of LSSR and the local MGB.

On May 22-27, 1948 more than 40 thousand people were deported from Lithuania (11 thousand children were among them). On March 25-28, 1949, almost 30 thousand people with more than 8 thousand children among them were deported. During the operation, third by the number of deported people, on October 2-3, 1951, almost 17 thousand people and more than 5 thousand children among them were taken away from Lithuania.

People were deported for various periods of time: for 20 years (in June 1941), for 10 years (1947 - April 1948), for unlimited period of time (in 1949 - 1953). Large penalties menaced for escaping from deportation.
The total number of Lithuanian people deported in 1940-1941, 1945-1952 exceeded 132 thousand. The major part of them was brought to Krasnoyarsk territory, Irkutsk and Tomsk regions 

28 thousand from 132 thousand deported people perished from starvation, diseases and unbearable work. About 50 thousand of them could not return to Lithuania for a long time. The last Lithuanians were released from deportation only upon announcement of the order of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the USSR, dated January 7, 1960.
 

Lithuanian deportees and prisoners were made a cheap labour force deprived of all rights. People deported to Tomsk region or those who were in Tomsk's camps stung by gnats and blood sucking flies, in winter walking through the deepest snowdrifts, worked in taiga, prepared and floated rafts, gathered resin. In 1942, people deported to the frosty Frigid Zone fished and the rest of them left in the first place of deportation worked in sovkhozs of Altai territory. People exhausted by heat and thirst built roads in Kazakhstan deserts, worked at the cotton plantations of Tajikistan. Many Lithuanian deportees and prisoners worked in Ural Bauxite mines, Kuzbas and Vorkuta coal pits, Bodaib gold mines (Irkutsk region), gigantic sawmills of Igarka. The deportees were paid a little for their work, meanwhile the prisoners worked just for daily food ration which was cut for those who did not succeed to fulfill their quotas.

Source: http://www.travel-lithuania.com