In 1949, on 28 March at 23:06, echelon No. 97340 was dispatched from Jelgava — the last train of the main phase of the March 1949 deportation from Latvia. The first echelon had left Riga on 25 March at 15:47; by the Jelgava train, many families had already been forced into wagons for the journey to Siberia. Yet the hunt for people continued — on 30 March an additional train was sent from Rēzekne, so the deportees were taken away in 33 echelons altogether.

Operation “Priboi” on 25–30 March 1949 affected Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia and was one of the largest postwar deportations in the USSR. In Latvia it served the Soviet regime’s aims — to break rural society, accelerate collectivization, and weaken armed national resistance.