Estonia and Beyond: Dark Soviet record of WWII

UPI commentary by Tunne Kelam:


In the first five years after its "liberation," Soviet-occupied Estonia, with a population of 1 million, saw the arrests of 65,000 people on political grounds. Of those, many thousands were killed outright or died in concentration camps. In just one month, March 1949, 22,000 persons were deported from their homes to Siberia while about 10,331 who were also on the lists, managed to hide themselves, but lost all their property. Most remained outlawed for years.

The real experience of May 9 for those of us living in Soviet-"liberated" Eastern Europe was deprivation of all civic freedoms and of any right to a democratic and independent state. Estonia was subjected intensive Sovietization and Russification, which brought the Estonian people to the brink of becoming a minority in our own country. May 9 meant a "poisoned peace," as Gregor Dallas titled his recent book. This poisoned peace was rooted in the criminal alliance signed between two tyrants - Stalin and Hitler -- on Aug. 23, 1939.


We woke up with a hell of a lot of fleas after WWII.