As Brutus says to Coriolanus in Shakespeare’s play with the latter’s name — “Enough with the over-measure.” This famous quotation came to mind as Holocaust issues popped up yet again in Estonia. Are Estonians truly in denial? Or is the rest of the world privy to facts concerning the Holocaust that have not been made available to Estonians? Something is awfully wrong when bogus interviews with Wiesenthal are treated as truth. Now, in what is hardly a surprising development, Estonia is being warned to come to terms with her “Holocaust history”, or risk losing the support of the USA in the campaign for full NATO membership.

U.S. Ambassador to Estonia Joseph De Thomas seems, by all media accounts a friendly, likeable, intelligent career diplomat. As is well known, career diplomats are often chosen with less care than Inner Circle, Cabinet members, Supreme Court Justices; often a diplomatic posting is the result of connections rather than ability. Places like Estonia or Slovenia for that matter are stepping-stones on the path to realizing higher ambitions, an ambassadorship to a country that is a real “player” on the world stage.

This is certainly not to suggest that the man from Maine, Ambassador De Thomas belongs to the category of eager careerist. However, there was something strikingly pre-planned, fabricated if you will, about his comment that appeared in Estonia’s “Päevaleht” last Tuesday, May 28th. Mr. De Thomas chose to have his opinion known on the widely read Comment pages, asccesible on the Internet as well. Was it a coincidence that on the same day Russia and NATO signed an agreement that gave Russia, essentially, a foot in the door of the European defensiver alliance, codified observer status, if you will? This on the tail of the much publicized love-in of Presidents Bush and Putin a few days earlier. It is obvious that Russia matter to the States, even if anti-semitic incidents there are on the rise. That, however, is the topic of another opinion piece.

Ambassador De Thomas claimed that Estonia needs to come to terms with her Holocaust history. In point form, the honourable diplomat’s suggestions for Estonia’s government and her people, couched in the aforementioned terminology — do this, you will be grilled by the U.S. Senate, you risk losing acceptance to membership in NATO if you answers do not satistfy us.

• Although Estonia suffered greatly under both Soviet and German occupations, the argument that the Soviet one was worse is not an excuse to avoid dealing with the legacy of Estonia’s involvement in the Holocaust.

• Since regaining independence no Estonian has been taken to task or court for involvement in war crimes committed during the German occupation. Estonia should investigate those criminals with the same fervour and alacrity that it is directing towards Soviet war criminals.

•The Holocaust took place in Estonia as well. However, the official day remembering the events, Yom Hashoah, is not marked or observed in Estonia. Many places involved with the Holocaust are not even marked with memorial plaques.

• Teach your children history. De Thomas notes that according to his info, the Holocaust is given only one and a half pages in Estonian history texts. The Ambassador suggests translating some of the available materials (from the Wiesenthal Centre?) into Estonian.

• The future of Estonia is bright, thanks to her industrious populace. Yet a secure future can only be gained if the country deals with all aspects of her history with common sense, rationally, honestly and fairly.

It is this last point that is inflammatory, a veiled threat perhaps, a velvet covered chain-mail glove. Unfortunately, many in the West have no real idea of what took place on Estonian soil during the two occupations. It is a historical fact that by the German occupatrion there were very few Jews left in Estonia. The infamous Klooga concentration camp housed Jews brought there from other countries. The Soviets themselves liquidated, during their second and final occupation, those people that MIGHT have been guilty of war crimes commiteed under German occupation. In other words, many of Mr. De Thomas’ points have little validity.

Let me take the opportunity to include an excerpt from dr. Tönu Parming’s Holocaust series that appeared in “Meie Elu” in 1998. One hopes that this series some day gets published and distributed to politicians and diplomats world wide, to clear the air, and remove false accusations, such as the ones found in Allan King’s ‘mockumentary’ — “The Dragon’s Egg”, dealing with Klooga: a skewed, selectively edited attempt at casting Estonians into poor light, suggesting that not only are they anti semitic, but hate Russians as well.

This excerpt appeared in the introduction to the series, February 4th 1998:

“Daniel Goldhagen, a Harvard professor, argues in his book Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, that the Holocaust resulted from deeply embeded anti-semitism among ordinary people. The book is now at the vortex of academic polemics, but the applicability of its central thesis to Estonia may be rejected outright. Before the war, a zionist organization in Palestine presented Estonia a special award for its benevolent treatment of Jews. Also, with a Professorship in Jewish studies, the University of Tartu was unique in the Europe of the 1930s. And it is well known that during the postwar Soviet period the Estonian SSR was a favorite destination for Jews because it was the friendliest place to be in the USSR. The Jewish Cultural Union founded in 1988 in the Estonian SSR was reportedly the first such civic organization in the Soviet Union.

In summary, if rabid anti-semitism, overt or covert, have not been detected before or after the war, on what basis could one advance the pertinence of Goldhagen’s thesis in Estonia except by accepting unsubstantiated dclaratory statements as proof.

The destruction of Estonia’s prewar small Jewish community — 4,434 people in 1934 — began actually during Soviet rule, when about one- eighth of it was lost through execution or deportation. It is more or less agreed by researchers that of those Jews who were alive in Estonia in mid-1941, about one-half fled to the Soviet Union. Their fate there is unknown, and it has little to do with the Holocaust per se.

The further destruction of Estonia’s Jewry did not begin until the German occupation was established, and a structure for systematic killing had been put in place. There is general agreement among specialists that the Jews who remained in German-occupied Estonia were soon killed. However, the Sichherheitsdienst (SD) and the mobile killing unit Einsatzgruppe A were neither Estonian inventions nor Estonian-controlled institutions. To the contrary, they were brought to Estonia from Germany by Germans as part of the German occupation.” (Dr. Tönu Parming)

The USA is the world’s greatest power, NATO’s most powerful member. One hopes indeed, that what amounts to diplomatic blackmail will not take place. I encourage Estonia to listen to De Thomas’ views; I also encourage the honourable Ambassador to bone up on his history before commenting on something that he clearly knows too little about.

The Holocaust, unlike Soviet atrocity is an issue that will never disappear, it seems. Unfortunately the Holocaust is imbued with so much emotional baggage, and guilt trips by — including the US(!) — by those that ignored events when they were happening, that denying anything that has to do with Hitler’s sick plan is pooh-poohed. Here I would like to trot out an old asaying — a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind, and won’t change the subject. A great deal of fanaticism is involved with hunting Nazis, seeing boogaboos behind every corner.

A balanced approach, rather than the J’accuse practiced by many, is the answer. The truth, rather than fiction, needs to come to the fore.

Märkmed: