June 9

Today is Michael J. Fox's birthday. I remember that because when he became famous, I read it somewhere and said to myself, "That was Hanno's due date!" My first child was not born June 9th, but June 14th, five days after the predicted day. I always liked June 14th, a nice even number. He was born at 9:58, which has a triple meaning for me, too. So, all in all, it was a good day.

It was maybe 20 years later that I learned that June 14th was one of the most terrible days in the history of Estonia. It was on June 14th, 1941 that the largest mass deportation of Estonians to Siberia occurred.

Deportations were carried out by stuffing citizens into railroad cattle cars, without any advance warning or prior announcement. Estonians were predominantly sent to Siberia and Kazakhstan. People to be deported were given only a few hours in the night - at best - to pack up their belongings. They were separated from their families who were usually also sent to the east.

On June 14, 1941 and the following two days, 9,254 – 10,861 people, mostly urban residents - of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16 - were deported, primarily to Kirov Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast or prisons. Three hundred were shot. Only 4,331 persons have ever returned to Estonia. 11,102 people were to be deported from Estonia according to the order of June 13, but some managed to escape. Identical deportations were carried out in Latvia and Lithuania at the same time.

(The above information is from Wikipedia, reworded in part by me)

I am writing about this now, because I don't want to burden myself with the need to write about this horrible event on my son's birthday.