As the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
had occupied
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
in 1940 and retaken it from
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
again in 1944, tens of thousands of Estonia's citizens underwent
deportationDeportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The expulsion of natives is also called banishment, exile, or penal transportation. Deportation is an ancient practice: Khosrau I, Sassanid King of Persia, deported 292,000 citizens, slaves, and conquered people...
in the 1940s. Deportations were predominantly to
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
and
KazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country situated in Eurasia that is ranked as the ninth largest country in the world. It is also the world's largest landlocked country. Its territory of 2,727,300 km² is greater than Western Europe...
by means of railroad cattle cars, without prior announcement, while deported were given few night hours at best to pack their belongings and separated from their families, usually also sent to the east. The procedure was established by the Serov Instructions. Estonians residing in
Leningrad OblastLeningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It was established on August 1, 1927, although it was not until 1946 that the oblast's borders had been mostly settled in their present position. The oblast was named after the city of Leningrad. The first governor of Leningrad Oblast was Vadim...
had already been subjected to deportation since 1935. The first repressions in Estonia affected Estonia's national elite. On July 17 1940, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces
Johan LaidonerJohan Laidoner was born in Viiratsi Parish, Viljandi County, Estonia on February 12, 1884 and died in the Vladimir Prison Camp, Russia on March 13, 1953. He was one of the seminal figures of Estonian history between the World Wars...
(died in 1953 in
Vladimir prisonThe Vladimir Prison, colloquially known as "Vladimirsky Central" , is a prison for dangerous criminals in Vladimir, Russia. It was established in the end of the 18th century...
) and his family, and on July 30, 1940,
PresidentThe President of the Republic is the head of state of the Republic of Estonia.Estonia is a parliamentary democracy, therefore President is mainly a symbolic figure and holds no executive power. The President has to suspend his membership in any political party for his term in office...
Konstantin PätsKonstantin Päts VR I/1 and III/1 was a politician and the first President of Estonia.Päts surname, which means a loaf of bread in Estonian, came from an ancestor who was a miller by profession...
(died in 1956 in a
psikhushkaIn the Soviet Union, psychiatry was used for punitive purposes. Psychiatric hospitals were often used by the authorities as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally; as such they were considered a form of...
in Kalinin Oblast) and his family were deported to
PenzaPenza is a city in Russia, the administrative center of Penza Oblast in the Volga Federal District. It stands on the Sura River, 625 km south-east of Moscow. The city is served by Penza Airport. Population: 518,025 .-History:...
and
UfaUfa is the capital of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia Ufa is the one of the largest cities of Russia, administrative, political, economic, scientific and cultural center of the republic. Population: 1,021,500 ; 1,042,437...
, respectively. In 1941 they were arrested. The country political and military leadership was deported almost entirely, including 10 of 11 ministers and 68 of 120 members of
parliamentThe Riigikogu is the parliament of Estonia. All important state-related questions pass through the Riigikogu...
.
June deportation of 1941
In Estonia, as well as in other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–1940, the first large-scale deportation of ordinary citizens was carried out by the local operational headquarters of the NKGB of the
Estonian SSRThe Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , often abbreviated as Estonian SSR or ESSR, was a republic of the Soviet Union, administered by and subordinated to the Government of the Soviet Union...
under Boris Kumm (chairman), Andres Murro, Aleksei Shkurin, Veniamin Gulst and Rudolf James according to the
top secretClassified information is sensitive information to which access is restricted by law or regulation to particular classes of persons. A formal security clearance is required to handle classified documents or access classified data. The clearance process requires a satisfactory background investigation...
joint decree No 1299-526ss "
Directive on the Deportation of the Socially Alien Element from the Baltic Republics, Western UkraineWestern Ukraine may refer to:* Generally, the territories in the West of Ukraine* West Ukrainian National Republic...
, Western Belorussia and MoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
" by the
Central CommitteeThe Central Committee, abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", was the highest body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . Its full name was Центральный комитет Коммунистической партии Советского Союза = ЦК КПСС; Tsentralnyy Komitet Kommunistitcheskoy Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza = TsK KPSS, or...
of the
All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks)All-Union Communist Party , abbreviated ВКП) is a political party operating in the former Soviet Union. ВКП was formed in 1995, following a split from the All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviks . The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the party is Alexander Lapin.The central publication of...
and the Council of People's Commissars of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
of May 14, 1941. On June 14, 1941, and the following two days, 9,254–10,861 people, mostly urban residents, of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16, 439 Jews (more than 10% of the
Estonian Jewish populationHistory of the Jews in Estonia starts with individual reports of Jews in what is now Estonia from as early as the 14th century. However, the process of permanent Jewish settlement in Estonia began in the 19th century, especially after they were granted the official right to enter the region by a...
) were deported, mostly to
Kirov OblastKirov Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Kirov.-Time zone:Kirov Oblast is located in the Moscow Time Zone . UTC offset is +0300 /+0400 ....
,
Novosibirsk OblastNovosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Novosibirsk.-Overview:...
or prisons. Three hundred were shot. Only 4,331 persons have ever returned to Estonia. 11,102 people were to be deported from Estonia according to the order of June 13, but some managed to escape. Identical deportations were carried out in
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , and to the southeast by Belarus . Across the Baltic Sea to the west lies Sweden...
and
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of...
at the same time. Few weeks later, approximately 1,000 people were arrested on
SaaremaaSaaremaa is the largest island belonging to Estonia, measuring 2,673 km². The main island of Saare County, it is located in the Baltic Sea, south of Hiiumaa island, and belongs to the West Estonian Archipelago...
for deportation, but the Great Patriotic War started for the Soviet Union and a considerable part of the prisoners were freed by the advancing German forces.
During the first year of Soviet rule nearly 54,000 Estonian citizens were executed, deported or mobilized into the
Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
. Following the German attack against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, in early July, 33,000 Estonian men were conscripted into the Soviet Army. On July 10, 1941, the conscripts from the annexed territories were declared not reliable and sent to
labor campsThe Gulag or GULAG was the government agency that administered the penal labor camps of the Soviet Union. The term is infamous for its association with remote places where prisoners were kept and sometimes disappeared...
, where many died. 5,600 more were drafted, but defected soon. In July 1941 Estonia was conquered by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
, who were forced out by advancing Soviet troops in 1944. Immediately prior to the Soviet government regaining control, about 70,000 persons fled abroad for
GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
and
SwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe...
. As soon as the Soviets had returned the deportations resumed. The first wave of deportation has always been well documented, as many witnesses were subsequently able to flee abroad during the Second World War. Deportations after 1944 were, however, much harder to document. 18 families (51 persons) were transferred to
Tyumen OblastTyumen Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Tyumen. It has administrative jurisdiction over two autonomous okrugs, Khantia-Mansia and Yamalia. Tyumen is the largest city, with over half a million inhabitants...
in October (51 persons), 37 families (87 persons) in November and other 37 families (91 persons) in December as "Traitor of Motherland family members". Also in 1944 at least 30,000 were mobilized for labour service in other parts of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
. In August 1945, 407 persons, most of them of German descent, were transferred from Estonia to
Perm OblastUntil December 1, 2005, Perm Oblast was a federal subject of Russia in Privolzhsky Federal District. According to the results of the referendum held in October 2004, Perm Oblast was merged with Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug to form Perm Krai.The oblast was named after its administrative center,...
.
March deportation in 1949
During the collectivization period in the Baltic republics, on January 29 1949, the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union issued
top secretTop Secret generally refers to the highest acknowledged level of classified information.Top Secret or Top Secret! may also refer to:*Top Secret , codename for an experimental multiplayer online game collaboration...
decree No. 390–138ss, which obligated the
Ministry for State SecurityThe Ministry of State Security was the name of a Soviet secret police agency from 1946 to 1953...
(MGB) to exile the kulaks and the people's enemies from the three Baltic Republics forever. In the early morning of March 25 1949, the second major wave of deportation from the Baltic Republics,
operation "Priboy"Operation "Priboi" or March deportation was the code name for the Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on March 25–28, 1949. Some 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as enemies of the people, were deported to inhospitable areas of the Soviet Union...
(
Breakers), carried out by
MGBThe Ministry of State Security was the name of a Soviet secret police agency from 1946 to 1953...
began, which was planned to affect 30,000 in Estonia, including peasants. Lieutenant General Pyotr Burmak, commander of the MGB
Internal TroopsInternal Troops, full name Internal Troops of the Ministry for Internal Affairs is a paramilitary national guard-like force in the now-defunct Soviet Union and its successor countries, particularly, in Russia and Ukraine...
, was in generally charge for the operation. In Estonia the deportations were coordinated by Boris Kumm, Minister of Security of
Estonian SSRThe Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , often abbreviated as Estonian SSR or ESSR, was a republic of the Soviet Union, administered by and subordinated to the Government of the Soviet Union...
, and Major General Ivan Yermolin, MGB representative to Estonia. Over 8,000 managed to escape, but 20,722 (7,500 families, over 2.5 percent of the Estonian population, half of them women, over 6,000 children under the age of 16, and 4,300 men) were sent to
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
during three days. A little over 10 percent of them were men of working age. The deported included disabled people, pregnant women, newborns and children separated from their parents. The youngest deportee was 1-day-old Virve Eliste from Hiiumaa island, who died a year later in Siberia; the oldest was 95-year-old Maria Raagel. Nine trains of people were directed to
Novosibirsk OblastNovosibirsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Novosibirsk.-Overview:...
, six to
Krasnoyarsk KraiKrasnoyarsk Krai is a federal subject of Russia . It is the second largest federal subject after the Sakha Republic, occupying an area of , which is 13% of the country's total territory...
, two to
Omsk OblastOmsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in southwestern Siberia. It has an area of 139,700 km² and a population of with 1.1 million living in Omsk, the administrative center.-Geography:...
, two to
Irkutsk OblastIrkutsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , located in south-eastern Siberia in the basins of Angara River, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers...
. Many of them perished, most have never returned home. This second wave of the large-scale deportations was aimed to facilitate collectivization, which was implemented with great difficulties in the Baltic republics. As a result, by the end of April 1949, half of the remaining individual farmers in Estonia had joined
kolkhozA kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
es.
During 1948–1950, a number of
Ingrian FinnsThe Ingrian Finns are the Finnish population of Ingria descending from Lutheran Finnish immigrants introduced to the area in the 17th century, when Finland and Ingria were both part of the Swedish Empire...
were also deported from Estonian SSR. The last large-scale campaign of deportations from Estonia took place in 1951, when members of prohibited religious groups from the Baltic countries,
MoldaviaMoldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
,
Western UkraineWestern Ukraine may refer to:* Generally, the territories in the West of Ukraine* West Ukrainian National Republic...
and Belorussia were subject to forced resettlement.
Continuous deportation
Outside the main waves, individuals and families were continually deported on smaller scale from the start of the first occupation in 1940 up to the
Khrushchev ThawThe Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinisation and...
of 1956 when destalinisation led
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
to switch its tactic of terror from mass repressions to individual repressions. The Soviet deportations only stopped for three years in 1941–1944 when Estonia was occupied by
Nazi GermanyNazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany between 1933 and 1945, while it was led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Worker's Party . The name Third Reich refers to the state as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages and the German...
(see
Occupation of Estonia by Nazi GermanyAfter Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Army Group North reached Estonia in July 1941.Although initially the Germans were perceived by most Estonians as liberators from the USSR and its repressions, and hopes were raised for the restoration of the country's independence, it...
).
Estonians' experience with the first year of Soviet occupation, which included the
June deportationJune deportation was the first mass Soviet deportation of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet elements" was approved by Ivan Serov in the so-called Serov Instructions...
, led to two significant developments:
- It motivated a major wave of refugee
Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality,...
s leaving Estonia, mostly by shipA ship is a large vessel that floats on water. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and passenger capacity. Ships may be found on lakes, seas, and rivers and they allow for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing, entertainment, public...
s over the Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the...
in late 1944, after the news about Nazi Germany's withdrawal became public. About 70,000 people are known to have arrived in their destination; an unknown number perished due to the autumn storms and naval warfare.
- It incentivised many Estonians, who had previously been rather sceptical about joining German army (between January 1943 and February 1944, about 4000 people, mostly male, over half of them below 24 years old, i.e. draftable, had fled to Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
) to join the recently created foreign legions of Waffen-SSThe Waffen-SS was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it...
, to still try to keep Red ArmyThe Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...
off Estonian soil and thus, avoid a new Soviet occupation. The attempt failed. For an example of such an ethnic foreign legion, see 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian)20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS was established on May 25. 1944 in German occupied Estonia during WW II. Formed in Spring 1944 after the general conscription-mobilization was announced in Estonia on 31 January 1944 by the German occupying authorities, the cadre of the 3 Estonian SS...
.
Only in 1956, during
Khrushchev ThawThe Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinisation and...
, were some survived deportees allowed to return to Estonia.
Soviet acknowledgment of Stalin's deportations
Stalin's deportation of peoples was criticized in closed section of Nikita Khruschev's 1956 Report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as "monstrous acts" and "rude violations of the basic Leninist principles of the nationality policy of the Soviet state."
On November 14, 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR accepted declaration "On the Recognition as Unlawful and Criminal The Repressive Acts Against Peoples Who Were Subjected to Forced Resettlement, and On Guaranteeing Their Rights", in which it condemned Stalin's deportation of peoples as the terrific felony, guaranteed that such violations of human rights won't be repeated and promised to restore the rights of repressed Soviet peoples.
Estonian trials and convictions
In 1995, after the re-establishment of Estonian independence,
RiigikoguThe Riigikogu is the parliament of Estonia. All important state-related questions pass through the Riigikogu...
, the parliament of independent Estonia, declared the deportations officially a
crime against humanityCrimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
, and a few perpetrators of the 1949 deportations, former officers of MGB, stood trial and have been convicted under Article 61-1 § 1 of the Criminal Code since then. The
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
noted in April 2009 that Estonia's claims of
genocideGenocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, a legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of...
are not widely accepted.
Johannes Klaassepp (born 1921),
Vladimir Loginov (born 1924) and
Vasily Beskov (born 1918) were sentenced to eight years' probation in 1999.
On July 30, 1999,
Mikhail Neverovsky (born 1920) was sentenced to four years in prison.
On October 10, 2003,
August Kolk (born 1924) and
Pyotr Kisly (born 1921) were sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation. The case was taken to the
European Court of Human RightsThe European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is an international judicial body established under the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 to monitor respect of human rights by states...
, the defendants alleging the sentence was contrary to the prohibition of retroactive application of criminal laws, but on January 17 2006 the application was declared
obviously baseless.
On October 30 2002,
Yury Karpov got an eight-year suspended sentence.
On November 7 2006,
Vladimir Kask was also sentenced to eight years in prison with three years of probation.
Arnold MeriArnold Meri was an Estonian Red Army veteran of World War II and Hero of the Soviet Union who was charged with genocide for his role in the deportation of women and children to Siberia. He was the cousin of former President of Estonia, Lennart Meri...
was on trial for his part in the deportations. He died in April 2009, before the end of the trial.
Russia's view
The Russian Federation, the only legal successor state to the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, has never recognized the deportations as a crime and has not paid any compensation. Moscow has criticized the Baltic prosecutions, calling them revenge, not justice, and complained about the criminals' age. In March 2009,
Memorial"Memorial" is an international historical and civil rights society that operates in a number of post-Soviet states. It focuses on recording and publicising the Soviet Union's totalitarian past, but also monitors human rights in post-Soviet states at the present time, for example in...
concluded that the deportations were a crime against humanity, but stopped short of declaring them genocide or war crimes. In the opinion of Memorial, interpretation of events in 1949 as genocide is not based upon international law and is unfounded.
Investigative committee
The
Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against HumanityThe Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity is the commission established by President of Estonia Lennart Meri in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against its citizens during the Soviet and German occupation, such as...
was established by President
Lennart MeriLennart Georg Meri was a writer, film director and statesman who served as President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001. Meri was a leader of the Estonian independence movement.-Early life:...
, who himself was a survivor of the
1941 deportationJune deportation was the first mass Soviet deportation of tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova starting June 14, 1941. The procedure for deporting the "anti-Soviet elements" was approved by Ivan Serov in the so-called Serov Instructions...
, in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against Estonian citizens during the Soviet and Nazi occupation. The commission held its first session in Tallinn in January 1999. Renowned Finnish diplomat
Max JakobsonMax Jakobson is a retired Finnish diplomat and journalist.Jakobson began his career as journalist. He worked at the BBC. From 1953 to 1974 he was employed by the Finnish foreign ministry, eventually acting as Finland's ambassador to the United Nations and Sweden...
was appointed to chair the commission. For neutrality purposes, there are no Estonian citizens among its members.
Europarliament
The European Parliament has issued a resolution condemning crimes against humanity committed by all all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes on April 2 2009. This includes the Soviet deportations from Estonia, which the
European Court of Human RightsThe European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is an international judicial body established under the European Convention on Human Rights of 1950 to monitor respect of human rights by states...
has
held to constitute crimes against humanityEuropean Court of Human Rights cases on Occupation of Baltic States are landmark rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, which concern activities of the USSR including military and security services in the occupied Baltic states between 1940 and 1991....
. Also, Parliament calls for the proclamation of August 23 as Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
Further reading
- Anepajo, Terje. Reception of the Topic of Repressions in the Estonian Society
- Conclusions of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity.
- Estonia’s Occupations Revisited: Accounts of an Era. Compiled by Heiki Ahonen. Tallinn: Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation, 2004. ISBN 9949108217.
- Kareda, Endel (1949). Estonia in the Soviet Grip: Life and Conditions under Soviet Occupation 1947–1949. London: Boreas.
- Kirss, Tiina (2005). Survivorship and the Eastern exile: Estonian women's life narratives of the 1941 and 1949 Siberian deportations. Journal of Baltic Studies
The Journal of Baltic Studies, the official journal of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies , is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary academic journal founded in 1970 and published quarterly by Routledge, dedicated to the political, social, economic, and cultural life of the Baltic...
36.1, 13–38.
- Kuusk, Pearu. March Events of 1949 in Deporters' Reports by the Example of Tartu.
- Laar, Mart (2006). Deportation from Estonia in 1941 and 1949. Estonia Today. Fact Sheet of the Press and Information Department, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. June 2006.
- Mälksoo, Lauri (2001). Soviet Genocide? Communist Mass Deportations in the Baltic States and International Law. Leiden Journal of International Law 14, 757–787.
- Parming, Tõnu (1972). Population changes in Estonia, 1935–1970. Population Studies 26.1, 53–78.
- Taagepera, Rein (1980). Soviet Collectivization of Estonian Agriculture: The Deportation Phase. Soviet Studies 32.3, 379–397.
- Uustalu, Evald (1952). The History of Estonian People. London: Boreas.
- Õispuu, Leo (2001). Repressed Persons Records (RPR). Book 6. Deportation from Estonia to Russia. Deportation in June 1941 & deportation in 1940–1953. Tallinn: Estonian Repressed Persons Records Bureau. ISBN 9985909658.
- Estonia Today. Fact Sheet, March 2005, Press and Information Department, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
- Deportation. Tartu City Museum.