Every year, during the anniversary of the first mass deportation carried out the Soviets in 1940, in the evening, the flames of white and red candles light up in front of the Sybir Memorial Museum. The representatives of the authorities, Sybiraks and their and the citizens of the city of Białystok put them on the tracks coming out of the museum in order to cherish the memory of the victims of soviet repressions.

— We are in a special place neighbouring the former branch line of the Poleski Railway Station. That was a place where the drama of thousands of people, locked up with strength in carriages that later on went to the West — said in his speech Professor Wojciech Śleszyński, Director of the Sybir Memorial Museum.

— Our presence is very important during such celebrations, so that we have the Light of Remembrance always in ourselves — stressed Przemysław Tuchliński, the Deputy Mayor of the city of Białystok.

— Only a few managed to return and we remember about them as well as about all the victims of that terror — added Jacek Brzozowski, the Voivode of Podlasie.

The celebrations on February 10 remind us of the deportation action that took place on the night of February 9-10, 1940. The Soviets deported over 140,000 citizens of the Polish lands occupied on September 17, 1939, deep into the Soviet Union. Entire families were deported, surprised in the middle of the night, unprepared for the difficult winter journey and life in distant Siberia.