Right on! Taitsa oige! I am getting really fed up with hearing/reading about our parents leaving Estonia for any other reason than to escape the invading Soviet army! Why would anyone leave their home, with everything in it, and take their chances in any small sailing vessel....there was still a war! there were planes overhead, ships alongside, and submarines underneath....not to mention the storms at sea unless they had to do it, to escape????

The whole premise for P.A. Suurvõsa's subsequent arguments seems to be confused. He or she begins the article by stating: "It is difficult to see how for example, people leaving Sweden to come to Canada could be considered to be political refugees." I would be very suprised if Canada accepted Estonians from countries such as Sweden by labeling them as refugees from Sweden. I'm sure Sweden would have protested, if that had been the case. If Canada did lable Estonians as such, then that would have been the fault of Canada's immigration policies at the time. I see nothing wrong for an Estonian, who was a refugee to Sweden and then moved to Canada, to call themselves a political refugee, because that is what they were to begin with, regardless of how many countries they have lived in since fleeing from invading forces entering Estonia. I have never heard an Estonian say that "I'm a refugee from Sweden".

P.A. Suurvõsa just doesn't get it -- Estonians fleeing Estonian would most likely still be living in a prosperous Estonia, if it weren't for German and Russian persecution. If the Germans had taken control of Estonia in the place of the Russians, they would have most likely done the same. The plan always is to crush and destroy any opposition, the more that die, the better for them. I guess Suurvõsa hasn't heard of thousands and thousands of Estonians being hearded like cattle into boxcars and sent to labour camps in freezing Siberia with practically nothing, or does he or she think that these Russian style 'resorts' were overrated? Shame on you, Suurvõsa.