Holocaust Sites in Estonia to Receive Memorial Markers

By Samuel D. Gruber (ISJM)

(May 3, 2004) An initiative has begun to memorialize the sites of 22 concentration labor and camps established in Estonia by the Nazis between 1941 and 1944, and the mass graves of murdered Jews often found in or near these camps. The United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad is sponsoring the project in partnership with Jewish Community of Estonia. 

While some of the concentration camp sites have markers erected during the Soviet period, none accurately describe what happened there.  New markers, each about one and a half meters high, will serve as surrogate gravestones for the unknown dead at the site.  Inscriptions on each stone in several languages will describe in general terms the significance of the site.  The British organization, the Holocaust Education Trust, is also a sponsor of the work. 

The project has the support of the Estonian government which signed a cultural heritage agreement with the United States in January 2003. (for text see: http://www.heritageabroad.gov/agreements/doc/estonia.pdf)  Local and national government agencies will assist in the installation of the monuments, and will create a series of directional road signs to make them better known.  More detailed historical information is being collected as part of another project, also supported by the Commission.  This material will be available in print and on-line.

With the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the summer of 1940, all Jewish organizations and businesses were closed. In June 1941, several hundred Jews were deported. After the German occupation later that year, all of the remaining Jews who had failed to flee were murdered. The Nazis then transported tens of thousands of Jews from other European countries to camps in Estonia.  Most of these are in Ida-Virumaa County, in the far eastern part of Estonia, where the Nazi’s used slave labor to establish the oil-shale industry.

In addition to raising funds for the project, Commission members Gary Lavine (of Syracuse, NY) and Lee Seeman (of Great Neck, NY) are working closely with the leaders of the Jewish Community and Estonia to implement it. They are also seeking information from survivors and relatives of those who were murdered in order to ensure that the plaques accurately reflect the history of the Holocaust in Estonia. It is expected that all markers will be in place in time for the 60th anniversary of the mass executions that were carried out at the Lagedi and Klooga camps in September of 1944.

For more information about the project contact the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad at 888 17^th St., NW, suite 1160, Washington, D.C. 20006, or at uscommission@heritageabroad.gov