Recent issues of the English language pages of Eesti Elu have dealt with numbers, namely, the decline in Estonia’s population as a result of the numerous tragedies visited upon our unfortunate fatherland.
One article suggests that during the Second World War Estonia’s population decreased by about 100,000 of which 70,000 managed to escape to the West. At the beginning of the war Estonia had a population of about a million people. Another suggests that the number lost at sea trying to flee was itself perhaps as high as 30,000 people. That article further stated that the options in 1944 were bleak, namely whether to risk facing death and or slave labour or fleeing West in flimsy overcrowded sailboats.
Excluding losses by those in actual combat, the figure of 30,000 deaths seems more or less correct if one includes the second, post-war deported people that paved the way to collectivization of agriculture. Most (more than half) deportees eventually returned to Estonia.
Nevertheless, the loss of more than 10% of the population, mostly from the upper strata of the country must have been devastating. The experience of leaving everything behind to face an uncertain future in a strange country where you didn’t understand the language must have been mind numbing. The crime of being suddenly placed in a crowded cattle car and deprived of everything except what you could carry, and which would be later taken away, merely because you were of a social class considered dangerous, is not one that the Estonian people will soon forget. Neither should we here.
Nevertheless, some North American second and third generation readers or those of non-Estonian background may get the impression that almost everyone was deported to the Gulag to perish there of exposure or hunger. This was in fact the case with many other nations such as Chechnya. The entire population was deported wholesale and only half returned. At one time the whole of Crimea was empty of people. The crimes of the Soviets under Stalin were truly horrible, but Estonia got off fairly lightly. This is not to trivialize what happened nor should it be forgotten, merely to put it into objective perspective as to how evil the Soviet empire really was.
Not everyone fled to Sweden in a flimsy sailboat across a storm swept Baltic Sea. Most people escaped to Germany either as part of the Nazi German armed forces, particularly those who fought with the 20th SS Division or on large German ships. Even these were not safe as several were sunk by Soviet submarines or bombed by aircraft. The ship known as “Moero” took many Estonians down with it. As a matter of fact, the worst tragedy ever at sea took place in the Baltic in January 1945, when a German ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff with over 10,000 people was sunk by a submarine. At the time this was not publicized in the West because Nazi Germany after all was the enemy and nobody much felt sorry for these people who were either wounded enemy soldiers or considered to Nazi functionaries, collaborators and their families. With the passage of time more objective analysis and commentary has become possible by Western media and someday perhaps someone will produce a film which eclipses “Titanic”.
I suppose many of us of the second and third generation view things differently never having experienced what our parents and grandparents went through. My family was fortunate in that of several dozen members only two lost their lives and nobody was deported or otherwise repressed, but then again they were humble non-political people. My parents left for the simple reason that father didn’t want to get conscripted into fighting for an obvious hopeless cause and also nobody wanted to be in a place where the front line of a vicious war was coming very close. I suspect they were not alone in this regard.
One senses though that there may be some residual feelings of guilt for abandoning the fatherland at its time of need by many of those of the first generation still with us. With the further passage of time this too will pass and it will remove one seeming irritant that has helped cause the “us” and “them’ outlook that seems to exist between us and our relatives in the fatherland.
Of numbers (3)
Archived Articles | 13 Aug 2004 | Peeter BushEWR
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Nice to see you back, Peter!
Good article. My mom actually made it to Sweden in a small fishing boat (small, as in with oars, and it was fitted with a motor for the risky trip). It was lined with people all along the sides. She remembered seeing a ship in the distance, burning in the water. The small boat, in which my mother made it, was passed over by an enemy plane -- the crew probably didn't want to waste their ammunition on such a tiny boat.
Peeter's done his homework...no doubt about that! But I think that our nation's situation today is not as bleak as what could reasonably be projected from the statistics of this article. If we were only to hope that our own Estonian offspring uphold our cherished ancestry, things would be pretty hopeless. But all around me, everyday in Tallinn, I run into people who are obviously not of Estonian background, but have brought into our common cultural pool.....and that is cause both for relief and joy. All these old arguments about who left and why, and were they justified, carry no significance in the flux of today's outwardly looking Estonia. At the same time, it doesn't pay to forget our past. Thanks Peeter....
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