In the first year of Soviet occupation, the inhabitants of Bessarabia and northern Bucovina suffered greatly from the repressions of the Soviet authorities. Many Romanians from Bucovina in the Cernăuţi region clandestinely took refuge in Romania. Only from the villages of Herța county, 3,218 people crossed the border into Romania, of which, after the end of the war, 1,254 did not return to their homeland. At the border with Romania, there were also two attempts to cross the border en masse. On the night of 6 to 7 February 1941, approx. 400 people from Mahala and other villages tried to cross the border near the village of Lunca, in the county of Herța, but most were shot near the Prut River. Only 57 participants in that march managed to save themselves and reach Romania. On April 1, 1941, a column of approx. 2,000 Romanians from the villages in the Siret valley tried to cross the border near Fântâna Albă. In the Varnița glade, the column was met with machine gun fire, about 200 people were shot, many were injured or arrested and repressed in the following days. 22 men were sentenced to 10 or 8 years of forced labor, in 1961 only 3 returned to their homeland. On June 13, 1941, 2,279 families with a total of 7,720 people were deported from the Cernăuţi region. According to other more complete information, 22,147 people of different ethnicities were deported from the Cernăuţi region, of which 6,036 (27.2%) were Romanian.