By late January 1942, virtually all of the 950 to 1,000Estonian Jews unable to escape Estonia beforeits occupation byNazi Germany (25% of the total prewar Jewish population) were killed inthe Holocaust by German units such asEinsatzgruppe A and/or local collaborators. TheRomani people in Estonia were also killed or enslaved by Nazi occupiers and their collaborators.[1]
The occupation authorities also killed around 6,000 ethnic Estonians and 1,000 ethnic Russians in Estonia, often claiming that they were Communists or Communist sympathizers, a categorization that also included relatives of alleged Communists. In addition around 15,000Soviet prisoners-of-war and Jews from other parts of Europe were killed in Estonia during the German occupation.[2]
Prior to World War II, Jewish life flourished in Estonia with significant autonomy, allowing the local Jewish population to have full self-determination of education and other aspects of cultural life.[3] In 1936, the British-based Jewish newspaperThe Jewish Chronicle reported that"Estonia is the only country in Eastern Europe where ... Jews are left in peace and are allowed to lead a free and unmolested life and fashion it in accord with their national and cultural principles."[4]
Round-ups and killings of the remaining Jews began immediately; the first stage ofGeneralplan Ost required the "removal" of 50% of Estonians.[5]: 54 The killings were undertaken by the extermination squadEinsatzkommando 1A (Sonderkommando) underMartin Sandberger, part ofEinsatzgruppe A led byWalter Stahlecker, following the arrival of the first German troops on July 7, 1941. Arrests and executions continued as the Germans, with the assistance of local collaborators, advanced through Estonia, which became part of theReichskommissariat Ostland. TheSicherheitspolizei (Security Police) was established for internal security underAin-Ervin Mere in 1942. Estonia was declaredJudenfrei quite early by the German occupation regime, at theWannsee Conference.[6] The Jews who remained in Estonia (929 according to the most recent calculation[7][unreliable source?]) were murdered.[8] Fewer than a dozen Estonian Jews are known to have survived the war in Estonia.[7]
TheEstonian state archives containdeath certificates and lists of Jews executed dated July, August, and early September 1941. For example, the official death certificate ofRubin Teitelbaum, born inTapa on January 17, 1907, states laconically in a form with item 7 already printed with only the date left blank: "7. By a decision of theSicherheitspolizei on September 4, 1941, condemned to death, with the decision being carried out the same day inTallinn." Teitelbaum's crime was "being a Jew" and thus constituting a "threat to the public order".
On September 11, 1941 an article entitled "Juuditäht seljal" – "AJewish Star on the Back" appeared in the Estonian mass-circulation newspaperPostimees. It stated thatOtto-Heinrich Drechsler, the High Commissioner ofOstland, had issued ordinances requiring all Jewish residents of Ostland from that day on to wear a visible yellow six-pointedStar of David at least 10 cm (4 in). in diameter on the left side of their chest and back.
On the same day regulations[9] issued by the Sicherheitspolizei were delivered to all local police departments proclaiming that theNuremberg Laws were in force in Ostland, defining who is a Jew, and what Jews could and could not do. Jews were prohibited from changing their place of residence, walking on the sidewalk, using any means of transportation, going to theatres, museums, cinema, or school. Theprofessions of lawyer, physician,notary, banker, or real estate agent were declared closed to Jews, as was the occupation ofstreet hawker. The regulations also declared that theproperty and homes of Jewish residents would beconfiscated. The regulations emphasized that work to this end was to begin as soon as possible, and that police were to compile lists of Jews, their addresses, and their property by September 20, 1941.
The regulations also provided for the establishment of aconcentration camp near the south-eastern Estonian city ofTartu. A later decision provided for the construction of a Jewish ghetto near the town ofHarku, but this was never built. A small concentration camp was built there instead. The national archives contain material pertinent to the cases of about 450 Estonian Jews. They were typically arrested at home or in the street, taken to the localpolice station, and charged with the 'crime' of being Jews. They were either shot outright or sent to concentration camps and shot later. An Estonian woman, described the arrest of her Jewish husband:[10]
... There were two men in our apartment from theSelbstschutz who said they were taking my husband to the police station. I ran after them and went to the chief officer and asked for permission to see my husband....On September 15 I went to the GermanSicherheitspolizei onTõnismägi in an attempt to get information about my husband. I was told he had been shot. I asked why, since he had not been a Communist but a businessman, The answer was:Aber er war doch ein Jude. ["But he was a Jew."].
The Nazis intended mass genocide after the German invasion of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Jews from countries outside the Baltics were deported there to be killed.[11] An estimated 10,000 Jews were killed in Estonia after having been deported to camps there from elsewhere in eastern Europe.[citation needed] The Nazi regime established 22 Naziconcentration camps in occupied Estonian territory for foreign Jews, where they were slave labor. The largest,Vaivara concentration camp, served as a transit camp and processed 20,000 Jews from Latvia and the Lithuanian ghettos.[citation needed] Usually able-bodied men were selected to work in theoil shale mines in northeastern Estonia. Women, children, and old people were killed on arrival.
At least two trainloads of Central European Jews were deported to Estonia and were killed on arrival at theKalevi-Liiva site nearJägala concentration camp.[6]
According to testimony of the survivors, at least two transports with about 2,100–2,150 Central European Jews,[12] arrived at the railway station atRaasiku, one fromTheresienstadt (Terezín) withCzechoslovak Jews and one from Berlin withGerman citizens. Around 1,700–1,750 people were immediately taken to an execution site at theKalevi-Liiva sand dunes and shot.[12] About 450 people were selected for work at theJägala concentration camp.[12][13]
TransportBe 1.9.1942 from Theresienstadt arrived at the Raasiku station on September 5, 1942, after a five-day trip.[14][15] According to testimony given to Soviet authorities by Ralf Gerrets, one of the accused at the1961 war crimes trials in USSR, eight busloads of Estonianauxiliary police had arrived fromTallinn.[15] Theselection process was supervised byAin-Ervin Mere, chief ofSecurity Police in Estonia; those transportees not selected for slave labor were sent by bus to a killing site near the camp. Later the police,[15] in teams of 6 to 8 men,[12] killed the Jews by machine gun fire. During later investigations, however, some guards of camp denied the participation of police and said that executions were done by camp personnel.[12] On the first day, a total of 900 people were murdered in this way.[12][15] Gerrets testifies that he had fired a pistol at a victim who was still making noises in the pile of bodies.[15][16] The whole operation was directed bySS commandersHeinrich Bergmann and Julius Geese.[12][15] Few witnesses pointed out Heinrich Bergmann as the key figure behind the extermination of Estonian gypsies. In the case ofBe 1.9.1942, the only ones chosen for labor and to survive the war were a small group of young women who were taken through a series of concentration camps in Estonia, Poland and Germany toBergen-Belsen, where they were liberated.[17] Camp commandant Laak used the women as sex slaves, killing many after they had outlived their usefulness.[13][18]
A number of foreign witnesses were heard at the post-war trials in Soviet-occupied Estonia, including five women who had been transported onBe 1.9.1942 from Theresienstadt.[15]
According to witness testimony, the accused Mere, Gerrets and Viik actively participated in mass killings and other crimes that were perpetrated by the Nazi invaders in Estonia. In accordance with the Naziracial theory, theSicherheitspolizei andSicherheitsdienst were instructed to exterminate the Jews and Gypsies. To that end, during August and September of 1941, Mere and his collaborators set up a death camp at Jägala, 30 km (19 mi) from Tallinn. Mere put Aleksander Laak in charge of the camp; Ralf Gerrets was appointed his deputy. On 5 September 1942, a train with approximately 1,500 Czechoslovak citizens arrived at theRaasiku railway station. Mere, Laak and Gerrets personally selected who of them should be executed and who should be moved to the Jägala death camp. More than 1,000 people, mostly children, the old, and the infirm, were transported to a wasteland at Kalevi-Liiva, where they were executed in a special pit. In mid-September, the second troop train with 1,500 prisoners arrived at the railway station from Germany. Mere, Laak, and Gerrets selected another thousand victims, who were then condemned by them to extermination. This group of prisoners, which included nursing women and their newborn babies, were transported to Kalevi-Liiva where they were killed.
In March 1943, the personnel of the Kalevi-Liiva camp executed about fifty Romani people, half of whom were under 5 years of age. Also were executed 60 Roma children of school age...[19]
Estimates of EstonianRoma victims vary around 1000, although some estimate the number as being over 2000. A number of adolescent Roma boys were also kept in a special facility for young criminals inLaitse, together with young people of other nationalities. Some of them were among the people who were compensated for their sufferings by theEVZ.[20] A few witnesses pointed out Heinrich Bergmann as the key figure behind the extermination of Estonian Roma people.[17]
Units of theEesti Omakaitse (EstonianHome Guard; approximately 1000 to 1200 men) were directly involved in criminal acts, taking part in the round-up of 200 Roma people and 950 Jews.[2]
The final acts of liquidating the camps, such asKlooga, which involved the mass-shooting of roughly 2,000 prisoners, was facilitated by members of the287th Police Battalion.[2] Survivors report that, during these last days before liberation, when Jewish slave labourers were visible, the Estonian population in part attempted to help the Jews by providing food and other types of assistance.[2][21]
Four Estonians deemed most responsible for the murders at Kalevi-Liiva were accused at thewar crimes trials in 1961. Two were later executed, while the Soviet occupation authorities were unable to press charges against the other two due to the fact that they lived in exile.[22] There have been 7 knownethnic Estonians (Ralf Gerrets,Ain-Ervin Mere,Jaan Viik,Juhan Jüriste,Karl Linnas,Aleksander Laak andErvin Viks) who have faced trials for crimes against humanity committed during the Nazi occupation in Estonia. The accused were charged with murdering up to 5,000German andCzechoslovak Jews andRomani people near theKalevi-Liiva concentration camp in 1942–1943.Ain-Ervin Mere, commander of the Estonian Security Police (Group B of theSicherheitspolizei) under theEstonian Self-Administration, wastriedin absentia. Before the trial, Mere had been an active member of the Estonian community in England, contributing to Estonian-language publications.[23] At the time of the trial, however, he was being held in custody in England, having been accused of murder. He was never deported[24] and died a free man in England in 1969.Ralf Gerrets, the deputy commandant at theJägala camp.Jaan Viik,(Jan Wijk, Ian Viik), a guard at the Jägala labor camp, out of the hundreds of Estonian camp guards and police, was singled out for prosecution due to his particular brutality.[19] Witnesses testified that he would throw small children into the air and shoot them. He did not deny the charge.[16] A fourth accused, camp commandantAleksander Laak (Alexander Laak), was discovered living in Canada, but committed suicide before he could be brought to trial.
In January 1962, another trial was held inTartu.Juhan Jüriste,Karl Linnas andErvin Viks were accused of murdering 12,000 civilians in theTartu concentration camp.
Soviet-Estonian era sources estimate the total number of Soviet citizens and foreigners to be murdered in Nazi-occupiedEstonian Soviet Socialist Republic to be 125,000.[25][26][27][28][29] The bulk of this number consists of Jews from Central and Western Europe and Soviet prisoners-of-war killed or starved to death inprisoner-of-war camps on Estonian territory.[28][29]The Estonian History Commission estimates the total number of victims to be roughly 35,000, consisting of the following groups:[2]
The number of Estonian Jews killed is less than 1,000; the GermanHolocaust perpetratorsMartin Sandberger andWalter Stahlecker cite the numbers 921 and 963 respectively. In 1994 Evgenia Goorin-Loov calculated the exact number to be 929.[7]
Since the reestablishment of the Estonian independence, markers were put in place for the 60th anniversary of the mass executions that were carried out at the Lagedi, Vaivara and Klooga (Kalevi-Liiva) camps in September 1944.[30] On February 5, 1945 in Berlin, Ain Mere founded theEesti Vabadusliit together with SS-ObersturmbannführerHarald Riipalu.[31] He was sentenced to the capital punishment during theHolocaust trials in Soviet Estonia but was not extradited by Great Britain and died there in peace. In 2002 theGovernment of the Republic of Estonia decided to officially commemorate theHolocaust. In the same year, theSimon Wiesenthal Center had provided the Estonian government with information on alleged Estonian war criminals, all former members of the36th Estonian Police Battalion.In August 2018 it was reported that the memorial atKalevi-Liiva was defaced.[32]
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