Terror, deceit, disinformation: three words that marked the fate of thousands of people who suffered and died only because they wished to remain who they were – Romanians in their homeland, good, honest, and God-fearing farmers. The memory of those years has remained alive. What was not written or not allowed to be written by the newspapers in those years of horror, what was not kept in the archives destroyed by the Soviets, has been retained in the memory of those who suffered and that of their descendants. Emotional and cognitive memory have remained an invaluable resource of knowledge. There is a common trove of memory, a state of mind that could not be controlled and destroyed, since these thoughts have been preserved through silence and, years later, have become undeniable documents, sources of historical knowledge. They have become the information encapsulated in the three words – terror, deceit, disinformation – which materialized in massacres, deportations, and famine.

The volume The Drama of the Romanians in the Chernivtsi Region: Massacres, Deportations, Famine in 1940–1941, 1944–1947 is the second in the collection “Bukovinan Destiny” and presents further information about the events that took place during the first years of Soviet occupation, 1940–1941, then 1945–1947, helping us understand the processes that unfolded and their consequences in terms of demography, ethnolinguistics, as well as on the psychological and moral state of the population.