Estonia commemorates the Soviet forced expulsions.

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A Haunting Memories: The 1941 Soviet Deportations from Estonia 🇪🇪

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A chilling reality from the depths of history unfolds—on June 14, 1941, the Soviet Union brutally deported over 10,000 innocent souls from Estonia, mostly women, children, and the elderly, leaving a lasting scar that continues to echo. This somber event is now observed as a day of mourning.

In the scorching summer of 1940, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, due to the infamous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany on August 23, 1939. The Second World War decimated Estonia, causing it to lose about 17.5% of its population.

The Soviet yolk brought a specter long confined to the pages of history books: mass deportations, causing anguish for those of all backgrounds living in Estonia. The 1941 and 1949 deportations, most notably, are remembered at the heartbreaking anniversaries.

### Precursors to the Deportations of the 1940s

On August 23, 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany forged the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, dividing vast portions of Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. On September 1, 1939, Germany declared war on Poland, paving the way for the Second World War.

The Soviet Union, as per the pact's terms, engaged in its part by invading Poland from the east and gathering troops along the borders of the Baltic states and Finland. Although Estonia proclaimed its neutrality at the start of World War II, on September 28, 1939, the Soviet Union forced Estonia to sign a so-called mutual military assistance treaty, establishing Soviet military bases within Estonia’s borders.

Similar treaties were crammed down upon Estonia’s southern neighbors, Latvia, and Lithuania. The gravity of the Soviet Union's threat was evident when Finland refused to sign such a treaty, prompting the USSR to initiate the Winter War against Finland. The international community reacted by expelling the USSR from the League of Nations, but to no effect on the USSR's aggressive policy.

The Soviet Union seized and annexed Estonia, among other territories, in the summer of 1940, thanks to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As the rest of the world grappled with the devastating events in France, the USSR seized the moment to infiltrate and dominate the Baltic states.

In response to the Soviet Union's harmful meddling, Estonia held rigged parliamentary elections, which weren't recognized by democratic nations. As a result, the Soviet regime unleashed terror, targeting Estonia's ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Russians, as well as its cultural, economic, political, and military elite.

During the war, Nazi Germany invaded parts of the Soviet Union and occupied Estonia from July 1941 to September 1944, only to be followed by the Soviet Union re-establishing its oppressive grip on Estonia.

### Preparations for Repressions

Even before the occupation of Estonia, the Soviet Union had already begun preparations to inflict terror upon Estonia's civilians. Like elsewhere, the ultimate goal of communist terror was to suppress any potential resistance swiftly and fill the population with fear to prevent general resistance movements from forming.

In Estonia, the planned eliminate of prominent and active people, along with the exile of large groups, was intended to obliterate Estonian society and economy. The lists of people to be repressed were drawn up in advance. Soviet security archives reveal that as early as the 1930s, the Soviet security agencies had collected data on individuals earmarked for repression.

As dictated by guidelines issued in 1941, the following people in the annexed territories, as well as their family members, were to face repression: all government members, senior state officials and judges, senior military officials, former politicians, members of voluntary national defense organizations, members of student organizations, former anti-Soviet fighters, Russian emigrants, security police representatives, police officers, representatives of foreign corporations, entrepreneurs, bankers, religious leaders, and members of the Red Cross.

Approximately 23% of the population fell under these categories. In reality, the number of those actually subjected to repression was much higher, as many who weren't on the lists also fell victim to score-settling.

The Soviet security agencies began their repressive activities in Estonia even before its formal annexation by the Soviet Union during the occupation. In June 1940, people were arrested on political charges, and arrests only escalated from there on.

On July 17, 1940, the last commander-in-chief of the Estonian Defense Forces, Johan Laidoner, and his wife were exiled to Penza. On July 30, 1940, the President of the Republic of Estonia, Konstantin Paets, and his family were exiled to Ufa. Both General Johan Laidoner and President Konstantin Paets succumbed to their captors in Soviet custody.

### The Beginning of Mass Deportations

Concrete plans for the mass deportations were established at the latest in 1940, as part of the overall violence directed against the territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939-1940. Ukrainian, Belarusian, and other territories were the initial victims of deportations.

The first written evidence of the exile of Estonians to Siberia can be found in the documents of Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's commissar responsible for implementing the destruction of Estonia's independence during the summer of 1940. Describing a meeting of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in the autumn of 1940, Moscow's representative, Vladimir Bochkaryov, demanded the expulsion of the "anti-Soviet element" from the borders of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Detailed arrangements for the deportations began in the winter of 1940-1941. On May 14, 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union issued a top-secret directive, "Directive on the Deportation of the Socially Alien Element from the Baltic Republics, Western Ukraine, Western Belorussia, and Moldavia."

### June 14, 1941: First Waves of Deportation

Deportation operations commenced on the night of June 13 and early morning of June 14, preying upon families that had spent the night blissfully unaware of the horrors to come. Awake at dawn, families were subjected to banging on their doors to read a decree declaring them under arrest or slated for deportation without any legal process or tribunal verdict. All possessions were confiscated without question. Families were given only one hour to gather their belongings.

By the early hours of the morning, the first trucks arrived at the train stations. A total of 490 wagons had been reserved for this purpose. The search for those to be arrested or deported continued until the morning of June 16. Soviet enforcers displayed unparalleled brutality, even toward pregnant women and elderly people in poor health.

According to an order issued from Moscow on June 13, over 10,000 people were deported from Estonia between June 14 and 17, 1941. Over 7,000 women, children, and elderly people were among those forcibly relocated. The scale of the deportation is indicated by the fact that over 25% of all those deported in June 1941 were minors (under 16 years old).

The deportations also profoundly affected Estonia's Jewish population, with over 400 Estonian Jews, roughly 10% of Estonia's Jewish population, being among those deported.

As the first trains carrying deportees arrived at their destinations, plans for another wave of deportations were already underway by the Soviet authorities in Estonia. However, the rampant advance of the German forces prevented this from happening. Due to the rapid advance of the front, a second deportation was only carried out on the island of Saaremaa.

At the end of 1941, investigative commissions began operating in Soviet prison camps, conducting on-site interrogations and issuing verdicts that resulted in hundreds of prisoners being executed. By the spring of 1942, out of the more than 3,000 men sent to the camps, only a few hundred remained alive.

The fate of the women and children sent to remote regions of the Kirov and Novosibirsk oblasts was equally dire. Many perished due to cold, hunger, and arduous labor. In total, 4,331 people, or less than half of those deported in 1941, ever returned home. During the course of the June 1941 deportation, approximately 95,000 people from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Bessarabia (Moldavia) were deported to Russia in a single week.

### Witnessing the Harsh Fate of the Deportees

Numerous memoirs and documents attest to the gut-wrenching fate of the deportees, including the diary kept by 10-year-old Rein Vare between 1941 and 1944. The diary describes the deportation to Siberia and his daily experiences.

With adult gravity, Rein Vare adorned his diary with grave markers to commemorate his fallen playmates. A substantial portion of the diary revolves around his beloved father, Rein Vare, the schoolmaster of Sausti village in northern Estonia, who had already succumbed to starvation in Isaroskino prison camp. Yet his father lived on in spirit through his diary.

A more positive turning point for the family came in 1946, when Rein and his sister were permitted to return to their relatives in Estonia. Their mother's longing for her children was so overwhelming that she lost all sense of reality. Desperate to be reunited with her children, she fled Siberia only to be captured and sentenced to an additional three years in a labor camp in Leningrad.

In 1951, the young Rein Vare, a graduate of Estonian schools, was arrested again. He spent a few months in the Patarei prison in Tallinn before being sent back to Siberia. This final blow broke him. Although the Vare family was finally allowed to return to Estonia at the end of 1958, the harsh experience left an indelible mark on them. Rein Vare, embittered by the world, passed away in Viljandi in the Orwellian year of 1984. His rodent-eaten diary was later discovered and published. This eyewitness account, resonating with Anne Frank's diary, survived to tell the tale.

In 1944, the Red Army once more seized Estonia. Soviet occupation forces continued their repression against the local population. The second massive deportation occurred a few years later, on March 25, 1949, when approximately 20,000 people—nearly 3% of the Estonian population in 1945—were arrested in a matter of days and sent to Siberia.

Read also: *Pictures: Deported Estonians in Siberia.

Photos courtesy of the Estonian National Museum, the Museum of Occupations, and Wikimedia Commons.*

On June 14, 1941, the Stalin-led Soviet government ordered the deportation of over 10,000 Estonians, including a significant number of women, children, and elderly, leading to a lasting scar in Estonian history.
The Soviet government's decision to deport Estonians was planned years in advance as part of a broader strategy to suppress any resistance and obliterate the Estonian society and economy.
The Soviet directive on the deportation of the socially alien element from the Baltic Republics and other territories was issued in May 1941 by the Soviet government.
Families were given merely one hour to gather their belongings before being deported, with only 490 wagons reserved for this purpose.
Markers and grave markers became symbols of remembrance for the Estonian families who lost their loved ones during the mass deportations, serving as poignant reminders of the lost lives and the haunting memories of those days.
The Estonian government continues to commemorate June 14 as a day of mourning, recognizing the somber events that took place and paying tribute to the lives lost during the Soviet occupation.
As a result of the mass deportations, thousands of Estonians perished due to cold, hunger, and arduous labor, with less than half of them ever returning home.
Rein Vare, a 10-year-old boy, wrote a diary that vividly described his experiences during the deportation to Siberia and its aftermath, providing a poignant and personal account of the horrors of the Soviet deportations.
The Soviet government's use of mass deportations as a tool for suppression, terror, and population control was a constant feature during their long occupation of Estonia, serving as a stark reminder of the difficult chapter in Estonian history and the enduring fight for independence and sovereignty.