In 1949, on 30 March at 10:08, an additional 33rd echelon was dispatched from Rēzekne station during the March deportation operation “Priboi” (“Coastal Surf”). It was the last deportation train from Latvia in this action: in total, from 25 to 30 March, more than 42,000 people were deported from Latvia to lifelong settlement in Siberia. This precisely recorded departure time shows how coldly administrative one of the gravest tragedies of Latvia’s occupation era was carried out.

Operation “Priboi” was an instrument of Stalinist Sovietization intended to break the peasantry, accelerate collectivization, and suppress national resistance in the Baltic states. In Latvia’s culture of remembrance, the March 1949 deportation has become one of the central symbols of Soviet occupation crimes.