Soviet deportations from Estonia

Exhibition of vehicles similar to these that were used for deporting people to Siberia in 1941.

In Estonia, as well as in other territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939–40, the first large-scale deportation of ordinary citizens was carried out by the local operational headquarters of the NKGB of the Estonian SSR under Boris Kumm (chairman), Andres Murro, Aleksei Shkurin, Veniamin Gulst, and Rudolf James, according to the top secret joint decree No 1299-526ss Directive on the Deportation of the Socially Alien Element from the Baltic Republics, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and Moldavia[10] by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union of 14 May 1941.[11] The deportation procedure was established by the Serov Instructions.

The first repressions in Estonia affected Estonia's national elite. On 17 July 1940, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces Johan Laidoner (died 1953, Vladimir prison) and his family, and on 30 July 1940, President Konstantin Päts (died 1956, Kalinin Oblast) and his family were deported to Penza and Ufa, respectively. In 1941 they were arrested. The country's political and military leadership was deported almost entirely, including 10 of 11 ministers and 68 of 120 members of parliament.

On 14 June 1941, and the following two days, 9,254 to 10,861 people, mostly urban residents, of them over 5,000 women and over 2,500 children under 16,[11][12][13][14][15][16] 439 Jews (more than 10% of the Estonian Jewish population)[17] were deported, mostly to Kirov Oblast, Novosibirsk Oblast or prisons. Three hundred were shot.

Only 4,331 persons returned to Estonia. 11,102 people were to be deported from Estonia according to the order of 13 June but some managed to escape.[14] Identical deportations were carried out in Latvia and Lithuania at the same time. A few weeks later, approximately 1,000 people were arrested on Saaremaa for deportation, but this was interrupted as Nazi Germany launched a large-scale invasion of the Soviet Union and a considerable part of the prisoners were freed by the advancing German forces.

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]

In July 1941 Estonia was conquered by Nazi Germany, who were forced out by advancing Soviet troops in 1944. As soon as the Soviets had returned the deportations resumed. In August 1945, 407 persons, most of them of German descent, were transferred from Estonia to Perm Oblast. 18 families (51 persons) were transferred to Tyumen Oblast in October (51 persons), 37 families (87 persons) in November and other 37 families (91 persons) in December 1945 as "Traitors".[19]

During the collectivization period in the Baltic republics, on 29 January 1949, the Council of Ministers issued top secret decree No. 390–138ss,[20] which obligated the Ministry for State Security (MGB) to exile the kulaks and the people's enemies from the three Baltic Republics forever.

In the early morning of 25 March 1949, the second major wave of deportation from the Baltic Republics, operation "Priboi", carried out by MGB began, which was planned to affect 30,000 in Estonia, including peasants.[21] Lieutenant General Pyotr Burmak, commander of the MGB Internal Troops, was in generally charge for the operation. In Estonia the deportations were coordinated by Boris Kumm, Minister of Security of the Estonian SSR, 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 Siberia during three days. Slightly more than 10 percent were men of working age. The deported included disabled people, pregnant women, newborns and children separated from their parents. The youngest deportee was one-day-old Virve Eliste from Hiiumaa island, who died a year later in Siberia; the oldest was 95-year-old Maria Raagel.[22] Nine trainloads of people were directed to Novosibirsk Oblast, six to Krasnoyarsk Krai, two to Omsk Oblast, and two to Irkutsk Oblast.[19]

Many 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 kolkhozes.[18][23][24]

From 1948–50, a number of Ingrian Finns 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, Moldavia, Western Ukraine and Belarus were subject to forced resettlement.[19]

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 Thaw of 1956 when de-Stalinisation led Soviet Union 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 Germany (see Occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany).

Estonians' experience with the first year of Soviet occupation, which included the June deportation, led to two significant developments:

• It motivated a major wave of refugees leaving Estonia, mostly by ships over the Baltic Sea in late 1944, after the news about Nazi Germany's withdrawal became public. Some 70,000 people are known to have arrived in their destination; an unknown number perished due to the autumn storms and naval warfare.[25]
• It incentivised many Estonians, who had previously been rather skeptical 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[26]) to join the recently created foreign legions of Waffen-SS, to still try to keep Red Army 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). Only in 1956, during Khrushchev Thaw, were some survived deportees allowed to return to Estonia.

Memorial for the victims of deportations of 1941 and 1949 in Paldiski

Plaque on Stenbock House, the building of Government of Estonia, Toompea, commemorating government members killed by communist terror

On 27 July 1950, diplomats-in-exile of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania appealed to the United States to support a United Nations investigation of "genocidal mass deportations" they said were being carried out in their countries by the Soviet Union.[27]

The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity[41] was established by President Lennart Meri, who himself was a survivor of the 1941 deportation, 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. Finnish diplomat Max Jakobson was appointed to chair the commission. For neutrality purposes, there are no Estonian citizens among its members.[42]

The European Parliament issued a resolution condemning crimes against humanity committed by all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes on 2 April 2009. This includes the Soviet deportations from Estonia, which the European Court of Human Rights has held to constitute crimes against humanity. The Parliament called for the proclamation of 23 August as Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.[43]

• Population transfer in the Soviet Union

• 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 9949-10-821-7.
• 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. 36 (1): 13–38. doi:10.1080/01629770400000221. S2CID 143947336.
• 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 (4): 757–87. doi:10.1017/S0922156501000371.
• Parming, Tõnu (1972). "Population changes in Estonia, 1935–1970". Population Studies. 26 (1): 53–78. doi:10.2307/2172800. JSTOR 2172800. PMID 11630555.
• Taagepera, Rein (1980). "Soviet Collectivization of Estonian Agriculture: The Deportation Phase". Soviet Studies. 32 (3): 379–97. doi:10.1080/09668138008411308. JSTOR 151169.
• 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 9985-9096-5-8.
• Estonia Today. Fact Sheet, March 2005, Press and Information Department, Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Tartu City Museum, linnamuuseum.tartu.ee; accessed 13 December 2016.