Estonian immigrants and Nazi collaborators (2)
P.A. Suurvõsa, in the Feb. 6th Estonian Life, suggests that Estonians in Canada aren’t refugees and that many came to Canada for fear of being branded as Nazi collaborators.
Estonians obviously were not using persecution in Western Europe as a basis for seeking entrance to North America. But the Estonians’ trek to the west started as refugees seeking safe haven. The life experience of escaping war-ravaged Estonia has been retained as a much more traumatic and vivid memory compared to leaving for Canada from German refugee camps, Sweden and elsewhere. It’s understandable why a self-image of refugee among the first generation of arrivals still survives.
It’s justified. All families who had fled Estonia had a close or distant relative, friend or acquaintance who had been shipped to a concentration camp or shot. Traveling to North America would put greater distance them and Soviet-occupied Estonia where people were imprisoned or killed.
The refugee label has certainly not hurt Estonians’ economic success. Stats Canada indicates that average income for people of Estonian extraction is in the highest brackets of personal incomes.
P.A. Suurvõsa also suggests that some chose to come North America to escape war crimes charges: “Some certainly might have been at risk of being tried for war crimes committed with the Nazis…” That fear did not exist among Estonians. Although 50,000 Estonians, most of whom were forcibly drafted, fought in German units, no battle front personnel were charged in western Europe for being in German uniform. In fact U.S. immigration authorities’ official position maintained that foreigners in front line German battalions were not involved in war crimes. No Estonian, as compared to other nationalities, has ever been indicted in Canada in spite of the fact that a special unit of the federal department of justice has been energetically seeking possible suspects.
Many veterans in Soviet occupied Estonia were brought to trial and sentenced by military tribunals to prison terms in concentration camps. Again, the vast majority were guilty not of war crimes, but of deserting the Red Army and/or fighting against the Soviets, with the Germans.
The KGB was mandated to discredit politically active veterans in the west. The most forceful condemnation of Estonian activists would have been to find evidence of a connection to possible war crimes. The number of Estonians in the west charged in absentia with war crimes by the Soviets was miniscule.
Coincidently P.A. Suurvõsa employs two of the most common designations for Estonians in the west that were used by the KGB disinformation specialists in their numerous publications distributed in the west. They insisted that Estonians were immigrants as opposed to refugees, because there was no necessity to flee a democratic proletarian paradise. They tried to dishonour all Estonian veterans as Nazi collaborators, because how could anyone other than a committed Nazi possibly oppose the liberating Red Army.
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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.
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.
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????
Arvamus
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