Either the American visas came too late or the Päts family remained under house arrest, but on 30 July 1940, together with his son Viktor and Viktor's wife Helgi-Alice and sons Matti and Henn, Konstantin Päts was deported to Ufa, Bashkir ASSR, where they arrived on 9 August. There they lived under surveillance in a large apartment for a year. In Ufa, Päts wrote his memoirs of his time in office and pleaded that his grandsons, their mother, and nanny would be sent to either Switzerland or Italy, since his grandson Henn was already in a bad health. After receiving no answer, he pleaded for them to be sent back to Estonia. In his naivety, he pleaded to be exchanged with Ernst Thälmann, former leader of the Communist Party of Germany, who was imprisoned in Germany. After that, Päts remained quiet, while his son Viktor was certain that Nazi Germany would invade the Soviet Union and that he would soon be living abroad.