estonian police units in belorus & klooga

russian archive NKVD docs:

est police bats
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AavFzhBfZaLYZGMyNnQ3NW1fNDB2bjk4NnhkNQ&hl=en

DOCUMENT 1

Transcript of interrogation of Juhanes-Oswald Rahumeel, member of

Omakaitse who participated in extermination of Jews in Belarus and

repression against civilian population and prisoners of war in Estonia

July 27, 1948 Kuresaare City

I, senior inspector of the Saaremaa UO MGB of the USSR- Lieutenant, Junior Grade

[...], interrogated as a witness.

RAHUMEEL Juhanes-Oswald Juhanovich, B 1916, in the Kärla volost, of the

Saaremaa uyezd ESSR, Estonian, citizen of the USSR, non-party member, education

of 6 classes, engaged in agriculture.

Lives in the farm Ratra in the Iempa village, volost Kärla, uyezd Saaremaa.

Witness RAHUMEEL Witness is warned about the responsibility in accordance with

the 95th item of UK RSFSR [criminal code]

(Signature)

Translator Lieutenant Junior Grade [...] is warned about the responsibility in

accordance with the 95th item of UK RSFSR [criminal code]

(Signature)

Question: Where were you living and what were you doing during the Soviet

period in ESSR, i.e. in 1940-1941?

Answer: During the Soviet period in the ESSR, i.e. in 1940-1941, I was living

in the Saaremaa Uyezd of Kärla Volost of the ESSR, at my parents’ hamlet where I

was farming.

Question: Were you conscripted into the Soviet Army in 1941?

Answer: Yes, I was mobilized to the Soviet Army in 1941 and was appointed

to one of the coastguard units in Saaremaa where I served up to October 5, 1941, that

is, up to the end of military operations on the Saaremaa Island. After that, I came

back home to the Kärla Volost.

Question: Have you been in German captivity?

Answer: No, I haven’t been in captivity.

Question: Was the Kärla Volost occupied by the Germans when you came

back home from the Soviet Army?

Answer: Yes, volost Kärla, i.e. the area where I had been living, was occupied

by the Germans.

7

Question: Were you a member of an organization named “Omakaitse”?

Answer: I had entered the organization “Omakaitse” at my own free will in the

middle of October 1941 and had been a member up to February 1942, i.e. before my

entry into the 36th police battalion. When I was a member of the Omakaitse, I was

given a Russian rifle and 30 live cartridges. Moreover, I received a salary of 60-70

DM.

Question: Tell me about your practical activities as a member of the

Omakaitse.

Answer: Once, as a member of the Omakaitse I took part in the raid on

Alexander INGALT who had been the chairman of the uyezd board in Saaremaa. But

we didn’t succeed in this raid. Moreover, I was guarding a detention facility that was

situated by the Omakaitse staff. Arrested Soviet citizens were held there. I was also

guarding Soviet prisoners of war, which were concentrated in the main house in the

Kärla Volost, besides, I was guarding an aerodrome.

Question: When did you join the 36th police battalion?

Answer: I joined the 36th police battalion voluntarily at the beginning of

February 1942. The 2nd company of the second battalion was forming in Kuresaare,

and it consisted of volunteers and members of the Omakaitse organization.

In April 1942, our company headed for Haapsalu where the 1st company that

was organized on the Hiiumaa Island arrived as well. We spent about 10 days in

Haapsalu, whereupon the 1st and the 2nd companies were sent to Tartu where the 3rd

company was forming. In Tartu we went through a military course.

Question: Where and when did the 36th battalion, including you, depart?

Answer: On the 3rd and 4th of August 1942, the whole 36th battalion including

me were loaded on a train that was sent to Belarus. On the Novoelnya station we

were detrained. We were to march to Novogrudok, where we got stationed in the

quarters.

Question: What was the 36th police battalion busy with, while situated in

Novogrudok?

Answer: The main object of our 36th battalion was arresting Soviet citizens,

mostly Jews, and afterwards convoying them to execution. Our soldiers and officers

also took part in executions of Soviet citizens which took place at the Novogrudok

region.

Question: What was your own role in the extermination of Soviet citizens?

Answer: Our 36th police battalion carried out exterminations mostly in 3

places, namely the Novogrudok region, the Novoelnya station, and near the Dyatlovo

Village, which is about 20-30 kilometers away from Novogrudok. My personal role

was that I once convoyed Soviet citizens – Jews to execution. These Jews were held

in a separate camp in Dyatlovo.

8

Question: Tell me in detail, how was the execution carried out in the Dyatlovo

village?

Answer: Approximately on the 10 of August 1942, our company (the 2nd

company) including me, except the 3rd platoon, was loaded onto trucks and we were

taken to the Dyatlovo Village, which is 20-30 kilometers away from Novogrudok,

where a Jewish camp was situated. When we arrived at this camp, we encircled it.

Afterwards, we drew the Jews out their houses. All in all, about 1, 000-1, 500 Jews

were gathered there. Later on, after we had drawn the Jews out their homes on one

square, we ordered them to lie down on their stomachs, not letting them to get up.

Around them were guards from our company, including myself. In the morning

trucks and a mobile gas chamber pulled up to the Jewish camp.

When the vehicles arrived, all of us soldiers started driving these Jews together,

I personally put Jews into the mobile gas chamber, and also into a vehicle. Then we

took them to the place of execution. This place was located a few hundred meters

away form the Dyatlovo Village.

I want to adjust statements which I had given earlier, that is: I didn’t participate

in convoying to the place of execution in the Dyatlovo Village; I took part in the

operation held in Novogrudok, which took place some days after the extermination of

Jews in the Dyatlovo Village.

The extermination of Jews in Novogrudok was held the same way it was in the

Dyatlovo Village. After we had encircled the Jewish camp, the Jews were gathered

together on one square, where they lied down on their stomachs. Soon after we

encircled that Jewish camp, some trucks and a mobile gas chamber arrived. The

soldiers of our battalion, including myself, were putting Jews into vehicles and into

the mobile gas chamber. I was riding in one of these vehicles convoying 20-30 Jews

to an execution. All in all, about 1, 000 Jews were executed.

Question: You have testified before that the 3rd platoon of the 2nd company did

not take part in the executions of Jews in the Dyatlovo Village. Where was the 3rd

platoon at that time?

Answer: The 3rd platoon of the 2nd company carried out executions of Jews in

the Novoelnya station region.

Question: The investigation is informed that you took part in beating and

executions of Jews in Novogrudok.

Answer: As I’ve already pointed out, I didn’t directly participate in the

execution, I only took part in convoying Jews to the execution, and I was also putting

them into the mobile gas chamber and other automobiles that transported Jews to the

place of execution.

Question: For how long did you stay in the Novogrudok region?

Answer: In the Novogrudok region we stayed for about one month, afterwards,

our unit was sent to Donbass.

9

Question: What were you personally doing in Donbass?

Answer: In Donbass I was the swabber of our company, other soldiers were

guarding a Soviet prisoners of war camp, convoying them to work and guarding them

during their work.

Question: Did you take part in battles against the Soviet Army?

Answer: In autumn 1942, the 36th police battalion was maneuvered to the

Stalingrad front where I took part in battles against the Soviet Army, on the 12th of

December I got wounded.

Question: Do you possess any awards from the German command?

Answer: For participation in the Stalingrad battles and for the shown courage I

was awarded by the German command an Iron Cross of the 2nd class.

Interrogation was conducted by Senior Inspector

of the Saaremaa UO MGB ESSR […]

Central Archive of the FSB of Russia. Fund 100. List 11. File 4. Pages 238-240.

Original. Typescript.

10

DOCUMENT 2

Transcript of interrogation of Rudolf Mjaeorga who participated in

atrocities in Belarus as member of the 36th Estonian Police Battalion

15th of July 1948, Kuresaare City

I, Senior Investigator of the Saaremaa UO MGB SSSR - Lieutenant Junior Grade

[…] interrogated as a witness…

Question: Tell me in brief your biography.

Answer: I was born on the 2nd of October 1924 in the Carida Village, Kärla

Volost, Saaremaa Uyezd, where my parents held a farm. When I was three, my father

died, and I stayed with my mother and brother in the Jurna hamlet, Kärla Volost. In

1933 I entered Paadla elementary school, there in 1938 I finished 4 grades, and

afterwards I continued working on my farm. In autumn 1939, I started working in the

construction of a base in Karujärva, there I worked until February 1940, then I came

back to my farm, where I lived and worked until February 1942.

Question: Continue your testimony.

Answer: In February 1942, I voluntarily entered the 36th Police Battalion,

where I was appointed to the 2nd company. I didn’t have a military rank. The

foregoing company was formed on the Saaremaa Island. On the 11th of February

1942, we were entrained, and went off to Tartu. In Tartu we were given the kits. At

the same time, we were trained a little and were also to stand sentinel. We were

located in barracks on the Tildy Street. After spending a month in Tartu, our 2nd

company left for Pskov where we were trained and stood a sentinel.

Question: What did the 36th Battalion, including you, do in Tartu?

Answer: Mostly during our stay in Tartu, we were guarding Soviet prisoners

of war, and convoying them to and from work.

Question: Where was the 36th Battalion sent to from Tartu?

Answer: In august 1942, the 36th Battalion was entrained in Tartu and sent to

Belarus where we were detrained in Novogrudok. In the Novogrudok region we spent

about a month; our main aim was executing Jews who lived in Novogrudok and in

villages nearby.

Question: Did you personally take part in the executions of Jews?

Answer: Yes, the soldiers and officers of the 36th Police Battalion, including

me, took part in execution of Jews.

11

Question: Tell me in detail, how the executions of Jews took place.

Answer: Before the execution, soldiers of the 36th Police Battalion, including

myself, had arrested a group of Jews. Some of them had been put into vehicles, others

had been sent afoot out of town, where the arrested dug out large pits – ditches that

were about 30-60 meters lengthwise, 1.5 meters in depth and about 2.5 meters wide.

After the ditches were ready, we shot the Jews that were digging them. I personally

shot 10 Jews. Afterwards, other Jews, in groups of 20-30 people, were brought to

these ditches; among them were women and children.

Question: Did you personally take part in arresting Jews and convoying them

to execution?

Answer: Yes, I personally took part in arresting Jews and convoying them to

execution. It’s hard for me to tell how many of them I convoyed to execution, for I do

not remember.

Question: How long did these executions last, and how many people were

shot?

Answer: The executions lasted for a couple of weeks; on the whole more then

a thousand Jews were shot there.

The report of interrogation is made from my words correctly,

and I have personally read it through.

(Signature)

The interrogation was conducted by Senior Investigator of the Saaremaa UO MGB ESSR –

Lieutenant Junior Grade [..]

Public Prosecutor of the Saaremaa Uyezd, Junior Counselor of Justice participated in the

interrogation [..]

Central Archive of the FSB of Russia. Fund 100. List 11. File 4. Pages 236-237.

Original. Typescript.

12

DOCUMENT 3

Transcript of interrogation of Everhard Michelson who participated in

punitive actions of the 36-th Estonian Police Battalion in Belarus

August 14, 1948

I, Senior Chief Officer of the Criminal Investigation department of the Saaremaa UO

MGB Estonian SSR, Lieutenant Senior Grade [...], interrogated as an accused

MICKELSON Everhard Mihkelevich, B 1923, in the Saaremaa Uyezd, Valjala

Volost, Vereku Village, Estonian, citizen of the USSR, non-party member, education

of 6 classes, a peasant.

Is warned about the responsibility for giving false testimonies in accordance with the

95th article of UK [criminal code] of RSFSR.

(Signature)

Question: Tell your biography.

Answer: I was born in Saaremaa in 1923; my father was a peasant of average

means. There I finished a six-class elementary school. After leaving school, I began

working for peasants as a farm laborer up to the establishment of the Soviet regime in

Estonia. During 1940-1941, I worked on the construction of a military base in the

uyezd of Saaremaa, Valjala Volost. From the moment of occupation by the Germans

and up to 1942, I worked on road construction works.

In the beginning of 1942, I have absolutely voluntarily entered the 36th Punitive

Police Battalion of the German Army. Up to 1945, I was in the service in the German

Army.

Question: Were you a member of the Omakaitse?

Answer: No I was not a member of the Omakaitse.

Question: Tell, under which circumstances you have entered the 36th Punitive

Battalion of the German Army?

Answer: As I’ve already said, in the beginning of 1942, I absolutely voluntary

entered the 36th Punitive Police Battalion which began to form in Saaremaa. After I

had been enlisted, I absolutely voluntarily entered the 36th Punitive Police Battalion

of the German Army, in Kuresaare. There I spent 3-4 days; the German command

directed us in the amount of 150-200 people to the city of Haapsalu. Having arrived

at Haapsalu, we didn’t do anything there for 2 weeks. Then all of us including me,

were directed to Tartu.

Question: Was the battalion replenished In Haapsalu?

13

Answer: During the 2 weeks while we were in Haapsalu, our battalion was

replenished, but I do not know how many people were added.

Question: How much time did you spend in Tartu, and what did you do there?

Answer: In Tartu we spent about 4.5 months, where all of us, participants of

36th Police Battalion, completed a course of military training. There we also received

military regimentals and arms.

Question: Where did you leave Tartu?

Answer: The 36-th Punitive Police Battalion left Tartu for Belarus, the

Novogrudok region.

Question: When did it happen?

Answer: It was in the beginning of August, 1942.

Question: What did you do in the Novogrudok region?

Answer: In the Novogrudok region in a place named Dyatlovo participants of

the 36th Punitive Police Battalion, including me, were guarding the Jewish population

in a square.

Question: For what purpose was the Jewish population driven by you to a

square in a place named Dyatlovo?

Answer: When the 36th Punitive Police Battalion, including me, drove the

Jewish population to a square, I personally did not know, for what purpose it was

done, but when the population had been driven, then the command of 36th Punitive

Police Battalion asked whether anyone of us wished to take part in the execution of

the Jewish population.

Question: Did you personally take part in execution of the Jewish population?

Answer: I did not personally participate in execution of the Jewish population,

but as I said, I personally drove Jewish population to a square in a place named

Dyatlovo, guarding them until the execution.

Question: How much time did you spend in the Novogrudok region, and how

many Soviet citizens were executed there?

Answer: The 36th Punitive Police Battalion, including me, spent about 3 weeks

in the Novogrudok region and left it in the end of August, 1943. During this time,

over 1, 500 Jews were executed in Dyatlovo.

How many more were executed in other places in Novogrudok, I do not know.

Question: Tell me whether you participated in battles against the Soviet

Army?

Answer: I personally participated in battles against the Red Army in the end

1942 near Stalingrad and in the autumn of 1943 near Nevel.

Question: Do you posses any awards from the German Command?

14

Answer: For the service in the German Army and for participation in battles

against the Soviet Army I was awarded a badge of excellence, and I received the

second badge from the German Command for the wounds that I received near

Stalingrad and Nevel.

Question: Whom do you know from the participants of the 36th Punitive Police

Battalion who took part in annihilation of the Jewish population in the Novogrudok

Region?

Answer: From participants of 36th Punitive Police Battalion I know the

following persons:

1. KAZEMAA Heino, approximately 30 years old, the inhabitant of the Mustjala

Volost or Kihelkonn, I am not precisely sure. Together with me he drove the

Jewish population to a square in a place named Dyatlovo. After the Soviet

citizens were executed, there were talks among the soldier of the 2nd company

of the 1st platoon about KAZEMAA taking personal participation in the

execution of the Jewish population.

2. KOJT Mart, approximately 23-24 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala

Volost. Together with me he drove the Jewish population to a square in a place

named Dyatlovo. Later he participated in fights under Stalingrad and Nevel.

3. LEPPICK Verner, about 26-27 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala Volost.

After the war, he lived on the continent, some say that he got arrested.

4. OTS Elmar, 25-26 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala Volost, he was killed

in a battle near Nevel or Narva.

5. LEMBER Ferdinand, 25 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala Volost, he got

killed under Nevel.

6. VIILSAAR Edward, 30 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala Volost, he got

killed under Nevel or Narva.

7. RAAT Herman, 30 years old, the inhabitant of the Valjala Volost, nothing is

known about his activities in the 36th Battalion, he was last seen in spring 1948

in a horse-rent office in the Valjala Volost.

8. IMEVER Juhannes (inexact), 40 years old, the inhabitant of the Pihtla Volost,

the commander of a platoon, can’t tell where he is nowadays, I have last seen

him near Stalingrad.

9. MJAGI Tjarny, 40 years old, the inhabitant of the Tjahtla Volost (it is inexact),

the battalions medical assistant, his practical activities are not known to me.

10. KIHELPUU Leo, 25-26 years old, the inhabitant of the Pihtla Volost, a

hospital attendant, his activities are not known to me.

15

11. PIHEL Albert, 24-25 years old, the inhabitant of Saaremaa. Works as a driver

at a motor depot of Kuressaare, he was a messenger of the company in the

battalion. His activities are not known to me.

12. VESSIK Orest, 30 years old, the inhabitant of Karima Volost (inexact), his

activities as a participant of 36th Battalion are not known to me.

Question: List the people who served in the 36th Battalion in one squad with

you?

Answer: The following people served together with me in the same squad:

1. MARTIN (don’t know his name), about 40 years old, inhabitant of Saaremaa,

Mustjala or Kihelkonn volosts, the squad leader of the 1st platoon of the 2nd

company. Together with me he drove the Jewish population to a square in a

place named Dyatlovo; I don’t know where he is nowadays.

2. LIBUS Andres, 24-25 years old, inhabitant of Sirve, a private soldier, together

with me drove the Jewish population for the execution in a place named

Dyatlovo, participated in battles near Stalingrad.

3. LIHMUS Charles, 25 years old, the inhabitant of Saaremaa, Karemaas Volost

(inexact), together with me he drove the Jewish population for the execution in

a place named Dyatlovo, participated in battles near Stalingrad.

4. ALBO August, 24-25 years old, inhabitant of Kihelkonn (inexact), a private

soldier, together with me he drove the Jewish population for the execution in a

place named Dyatlovo, also participated in battles near Stalingrad.

Question: What else can you add to the point?

Answer: I have nothing more to add to the interrogation.

The protocol was written down from my words correctly, and

was read to me in Estonian

(Signature)

The interrogation was conducted by Chief Commissioner of the Saaremaa UO MGB ESSR

Senior Lieutenant [..]

Central Archive of the FSB of Russia. Fund 100. List 11. File 4. Pages 241-244.

Original. Typescript.

16

DOCUMENT 4

Transcript of interrogation of Alexander Kuuzika who participated in

punitive operations of the 40th Estonian Police Battalion in Pskov,

Leningrad, and Kalinin Regions and other regions of Russia

January 5, 1949

I, commander of the 3rd squad of the 4th department of MGB ESSR, Lieutenant

Colonel [...], have interrogated as a witness Kuuzika Alexander Eduardovich, born

in 1920 , in the Volhovschina district, Pskov Region, lives in the Rosslin Village in

Ruguldi Volost, Pauli Ljaanemaaskov's farm of the ESSR Uyezd, Estonian, citizen of

the USSR, a non-party mber, 6 classes of education, passport #575592, issued by the

Läänemaa UO Ministry of Internal Affairs of the ESSR, a peasant, from a family of a

poor peasant.

Was warned about the responsibility for giving false testimonies in accordance with

the 95th article of UK [criminal code] of the RSFSR.

(Signature)

Question: In what language do you wish to testify?

Answer: I perfectly know Russian, therefore I shall testify in Russian.

Question: Where did you live and what were you engaged in during the

German occupation?

Answer: Till April, 1942, I lived in the territory occupied by the Germans in

Gdov in the Pskov Region at a saw-mill, at blacksmith's work. On the 4/1/1942, I left

Gdov for Tartu (Estonia) where I voluntarily joined the 40th Police Battalion, which

was forming in Tartu in May, 1942. Being in the 40th Police Battalion I left for Pskov

where I was settled in the Irkutsk barracks. Temporarily our 40th Police Battalion

went to the occupied Soviet territories of Kalinin and Pskov areas to fight against the

Soviet partisans. First, I served in the 2nd company where the commander was Chief

Lieutenant LINSI, and in the beginning of 1944, I was transferred to the 3rd company

of the same 40th Police Battalion where the commander was chief-lieutenant Nikolay

RJATSEP, Estonian by nationality, native of Mustavee.

Question: Where are at present the officers that you mentioned, Chief

Lieutenant LINSI and Nikolay RJATSEP?

17

Answer: Chief Lieutenant LINSI, the commander of the 2nd company of the

40th Police Battalion, Charles LINSI (name is inexact), native of the Tartumaa Uyezd

(Estonia). According to his colleague MARDISON Oscar, he is in Germany in the

English zone of occupation. Where he is at present, I do not know. Concerning chieflieutenant

Nikolay RJATSEP I know that at present h,e lives in the Tartumaa Uyezd

in the Torma Volost in the manor of his wife, and is engaged in agriculture.

Question: What do you know about the previous activities of Chief Lieutenant

LINSI?

Answer: LINSI by the name Charles (it is inexact) held a post of the

commander of the 40th Police Battalion. I have entered this battalion in April, 1942.

As LINSI himself told us, he had served in the Estonian bourgeois army as an officer.

From 1940 to 1941, he served in the Soviet Army and in the first days of war

between Germany and the USSR, voluntarily came over to the German side, then

entered a gang “The Forest Brothers” on the territory of the Estonian SSR. There he

participated in detention and liquidation of certain groups of fighters of the Soviet

Army that lagged behind their units during the withdrawal from the territory of

Estonia. Then the German Command offered him a post of the Commander of the

40th Police Battalion. As he himself expressed, during his stay in “The Forest

Brothers” gang they did not take the soldiers of the Soviet Army in captivity, but shot

them on the spot. In 1942, 1943 and 1944, being in the 2nd company where the

commander was Chief Lieutenant LINSI, he with the company in the territory of

Leningrad, Pskov, Kalinin, and Kaluga regions participated in fights against the

Soviet partisans and parachuters, took an especially active part in the liquidation of

partisan groups in the area of the Island, the Opochki, Novorzhev and Kuderere

Village. For active participation in fights with partisans and destruction of Soviet

villages he was rewarded with the Iron Cross. According to the former machine

gunner of the 2nd company of the 40th police battalion [...], which at present lives in

Tartumaa Uyezd in the Rodka Volost, together with Chief Lieutenant LINSI he was

at war up to the last cartridge, and he was in Soviet captivity in Germany. LINSI

supposedly stayed in the English zone of occupation, and he, Oscar [...], remained in

the POW camp, where he was contained for one and a half year and was then

released.

Question: For how long do you know Oscar MARDISON?

Answer: I have known Oscar MADISON since April, 1942, from the moment

of my service in the 40th Police Battalion. He voluntarily joined the police battalion,

as well as I did. We served together with him in one company, he was in the 1st

platoon, and I was in the 2nd platoon, therefore the following information about him is

known to me:

Oscar MARDISON as a machine gunner took part in all punitive expeditions

headed by the company commander Chief Lieutenant LINSI. I know that Oscar

MARDISON personally shot detained Soviet citizens. In January, 1944 a man caught

in the woods was delivered to the Seredka Village of the Pskov region. I do not know

18

the last name of the man, but he was suspected of having a connection with the Soviet

partisans. After Chief Lieutenant LINSI had talked with the arrested person, an order

to shoot him was given, and 200 m away from the Seredka Village Oscar

MARDISON shot the condemned from a machine gun. I personally saw it. The

following persons were present at the moment of execution: Charles OSKA, privates

Rudolf KAASK and Albert KORT. In January, 1944, Oscar MARDISON and Albert

KORT caught a Soviet pilot, don’t know his last name, which lowered on a parachute

from a plane and when that pilot started leaving the area after landing, machine

gunner Oscar MARDISON fired a burst at him, killing him to death.

I saw it personally, and many soldiers went there to look at the killed Soviet

pilot. The pilot had documents and a photograph; they were handed over to the

commander of the second company Chief Lieutenant LINSI. Besides, I personally

saw a revolver near the body, which was taken by Sergeant Major Charles OSKA.

This very day, before the formation of the company, Oscar MARDISON was thanked

officially. I also remember as private Albert KORT who was present at the capture of

the Soviet pilot, was also officially thanked. The commander of the company Chief

Lieutenant LINSI thanked them officially. In the end of December, 1943 in the

Novorzhev area of the Kalinin Region under the direction of Sergeant Major Charles

OSKA, a strike on the staff of the Soviet partisan group was accomplished by a group

from the 2nd company of the 40th police battalion. Machine gunner Oscar

MARDISON, privates Albert KORT, Rudolf KAASK, Nikolay SHELT, Alfred

SOU, and his brother Leonard SOU were there, I do not remember any other last

names.

The staff was in the Gorushko Village, one man and one woman were detained,

7, 000 Soviet rubles and different papers of the partisan staff were taken away. The

arrested man was inquired about the password of the partisan group, but he has

categorically declared: “You’d better kill me, but I won’t give you the password”. He

was there and then shot from a revolver by a German officer. The woman was

tortured and beaten, she was demanded to give out the password. But she didn’t tell it

either. The machine gunner Oscar MARDISON struck the woman with the butt of a

machine gun and declared: “If you will not speak, I shall shoot you down at once

from a machine gun”. After not getting any confession, this woman was handed over

to the German officer who took her to some room. And Sergeant Major Charles

OSKA received a new task - to go on a round-up to another place, and his entire

group including machine gunner MARDISON left. I saw all of this personally, as I

was in the group of Sergeant Major Charles OSKA. Later on, after we spent roundups,

we found out that the partisan woman was also shot, but I did not see who

exactly shot her. In the spring of 1943, in Kudevere area of the Belokalujskij Region

mass round-ups on the Soviet partisans were made, all of the suspected Soviet

inhabitants were detained, and villages were burnt.

I personally saw how machine gunner Oscar MARDISON shot tracer bullets

on a village, the name I do not remember. As a result of this shooting the village was

set on fire and completely burned down. Over 250 partisans and civilians were killed

19

when Oscar MARDISON and some other soldiers were shooting. Oscar MARDISON

told me personally as to a colleague that he went through junior officers' [training] at

the SS school, after graduating which he received the rank of a Corporal. Right now,

his documents are issued in such a way that it would be hard to find him by his last

name.

Question: What do you know about the activity of the commander of the 3rd

company of the 40th Police Battalion Chief Lieutenant Nikolay RJATSEP?

Answer: Nikolay RJATSEP, the native of Mustveja (Estonia), I know him by

joint service in the 40th police battalion since May, 1942, I saw him for the first time

in Pskov in the Irkutsk barracks where the 2nd and the 3rd companies of the 40th police

battalion stayed. Nikolay RJATSEP at that time had a rank of Chief Lieutenant and

held a post of the Commander of the 3rd company. He treated his subordinates

brutally, for the slightest infringements put them in to a punishment cell. During the

Estonian bourgeois time, he served in the army as an officer. With the establishment

of the Soviet authority in 1940, he continued serving in the Soviet Army. In 1941,

during the first days of war, came over to the Germans' side. The following is known

about his practical activities.

In February, 1944, I was transferred from the 2nd company to the 3rd company

in submission of Chief Lieutenant Nikolay RJATSEP. Being in the 3rd company, I

was directed to the Seredkinsky area of the Pskov Region for fighting against the

Soviet partisans as the partisan movement amplified at that time, and began to stop

regularly railway traffic between Pskov and Gdov, undermining railway bridges. The

staff of the 3rd company was placed at a railway station, approximately in 3 km from

the Seredki Village. The commander of the company RJATSEP found out that there

was a large partisan group in the Seredkinskiy area, which was dangerous for

Germans. He sent a letter through the chairwoman of the staff of the 3rd company, a

Russian, to the commander of the partisan group asking him to send his

representatives for negotiations about halting acts of sabotage on the railway. I do not

know what else was promised, but the chairwoman came back from the commander

of the partisan group and informed Chief Lieutenant Nikolay RJATSEP that

representatives would arrive for negotiations. In February, 1944, I do not remember

at what day exactly, two representatives of their partisan group, as we later found out,

the commander himself – Senior Lieutenant, I don’t know his last name, and his chief

of staff, I don’t know his last name either, came to the commander of the 3rd company

Nikolay RJATSEP. They were met by Chief Lieutenant Nikolay RJATSEP, Corporal

LEHESOU that served in the staff of the 3rd company, and an orderly in the rank of

Corporal, his last name I do not know. While the representatives of the partisan group

passed on to the cabinet, the latter was outside the premise, and was instructed to

shoot these members of the partisan group if they try to leave after the negotiations.

But it happened so that Chief Lieutenant RJATSEP personally shot the commander

of the partisan group - the Senior Lieutenant and then the chief of staff of the partisan

group, Lieutenant, in the cabinet from his revolver, and the charwoman, a Russian,

who tried to run out from the building, but she was shot outside by the orderly, his

20

last name I do not remember, which was specially placed there as a sentinel. The

corpses of three people were thrown out into a cellar of a railway building, and the

next day we, the soldiers, went there to look at them. I personally saw the three killed

persons. Some days later, in the "Eesti-Sana", a newspaper that was published in the

Estonian language, detailed information was given under what circumstances the

leaders of the Soviet partisans were caught and killed by Chief Lieutenant RJATSEP,

the commander of the company. For this murder RJATSEP was awarded with an Iron

Cross by the German Command. At that time, he was praised as [...] for the feat

against the Soviet partisans. Soon after that case, the Soviet military units began to

approach, and our 3rd company was withdrawn from the Seredkinskiy area closer to

Pskov, to about 30 km away from it. Our 3rd company was given premises of an

orthodox [church] where the entire staff was placed. Inside all icons and utensils were

broken; some of it was thrown out. In the end of February, 1944, 3 people, one man

and two women, were brought to the church by the detachment of our company,

suspected that they looked out for positions of military units, i.e. our 3rd company.

Chief Lieutenant RJATSEP started asking them, what were they doing near the

church where the German unit was situated. The arrested said that their potatoes were

buried in the stacks on the field, for them to eat. Chief Lieutenant RJATSEP didn’t

believe in their statements, shouted at them, threatened with execution, but they told

the same. As a result, Chief Lieutenant RJATSEP gave an order to soldiers: to

allocate the three from the location of the company away into the woods and shoot

them. But at the same moment, he exclaimed with a rage: “I will shoot them myself”.

The arrested people, a man and two women were then taken out from the premise,

and RJATSEP came right after them; as a result, all the three were killed in the

woods, near the church. Two soldiers escorted them to the place of execution; one’s

last name was SIBUL, the others' I do not remember. Chief Lieutenant Nikolay

RJATSEP was at the place of execution. I did not see who exactly shot them, as I

remained at the company in the church. I also saw corpses that were left unburied.

Soon our company receded to Pskov, there we received an order to depart to the

Simerpadu borough of the Virumaa Uyezd of the Estonian SSR. Then I was again

transferred to the 2nd company of the 40th Police Battalion where at that time the

commander was Chief Lieutenant KAVASK.

Question: What do you know about the relatives of RJATSEP?

Answer: I know that Nikolay RJATSEP in 1941 lived with his wife who had

connections with “The Forest Brothers” gang and was caught and killed in the

beginning of the war in 1941 by Soviet destroyers. Now Chief Lieutenant Nikolay

RJATSEP is married to a peasant woman who has her own manor in the Nyaago

Village of the Tartumaa Uyezd in the Torma Volost.

Question: What else can you add?

Answer: I can add that the soldier of the 3rd company of the 40th Police

Regiment SIBUL, his name and patronymic I do not know, born in 1930, from the

Valgamaa Uyezd of the ESSR, but where he is now, I do not know.

21

My evidence was written down correctly in the transcript and read to me, for what I undersign.

(Signature)

The interrogation was conducted by the Chief of 3rd Branch of the 4th Department MGB ESSR

Lieutenant Colonel [..]

Central archive of FSB of Russia. Fund 100. List 11. File 4. Pages 245-252.

Original. Typewriting.

22

DOCUMENT 5

Transcript of interrogation of a legionary of the 20th Estonian Waffen SS

division Vjaino Vizu who participated in the war crimes of the fascist

organization Omakaitse, of the 33rd and the 287th Police Battalions

May 22, 1950

Translation from Estonian

I, Senior Authorized Operative of the 3rd Squad of the 4th Department of MGB of

ESSR, Lieutenant […], interrogated witness: VIZU Vjaino, son of Natali, B 1911,

native of Umgiviza Village of Vilo Volost of the Pechersky Uyezd, Estonian, citizen of

USSR, non-party member, 6 classes of education, lives in Tartu, 1-3 Tjahtvere Street,

works as a transport worker at a farm produce office of the Tartu center, from a

family of poor peasants.

Witness is warned about the responsibility for false swearing and for refusal of

giving evidence in accordance with the Article 95 of the RSFSR UK [criminal code].

Question: In what language do you wish to testify?

Answer: I wish to testify in the native Estonian Language, as I do not know the

Russian Language.

Translator Lieutenant [...] is warned about the responsibility for correct

translation in accordance with Article 95 of the RSFSR UK [criminal code].

Question: Where did you live and what did you do before the beginning of the

Great Patriotic War of 1941?

Answer: Before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War between Germany

and USSR in 1941, I lived in Tartu at 1-3 Tähtvere Street and worked as a worker at

the Tartu state sawmill. After the war started in 1941, I worked as a loader in the

Tartu harbor, as the sawmill had been closed.

Question: Under what circumstances did you begin to live on the occupied by

the Germans territory of Estonia in 1941, whereas [men of] your year of birth had

been mobilized to the Soviet Army?

Answer: I know that some people that I had been working with received the

call-up papers for service in the Soviet Army, but I didn’t receive one, and, thus, not

wishing to be evacuated from the territory of Estonia, I remained living in the

territory that was temporarily occupied by the Germans.

23

Question: Where did you live and what did you do during the German

occupation of Estonia?

Answer: In September, 1941, I voluntary entered the military fascist

organization Omakaitse in Tartu which at that time was headed by the former officer

of border guard of the Estonian bourgeois period Captain Ludwig SAAR. After I had

[started] service in Omakaitse, I was enlisted into a platoon that was commanded by a

former employee of border guard of Estonian bourgeois army Sergeant Major Jan

SOOVJALI, and the commander of the squad was former border guard Corporal

Rihard JARVEMJAE.

Question: Tell me in detail about your practical activities during service in the

military fascist organization Omakaitse?

Answer: Being in service in Omakaitse, I carried out the armed patrol service

of military objects, and in particular of the Tartu River Bridge (from attacks and

arsons); I was armed with a rifle. I also protected warehouses with the foodstuff that

were in the Njatuze exhibition square where I also had a rifle, and warehouses with

hay, I also protected warehouses with the hay, which were situated in the Raadi

farmstead. Besides, I personally secured the camp on the Njatuze Square, where the

Soviet citizens that had been arrested by Germans were contained. I stood at the

camp’s main gate. During the guarding of the camp, there were cases when newly

arrested persons were brought to the camp which I would let through the gate.

Besides, my duties included the [controlling] all people who wished to pass through

the gate, since only members of the organization Omakaitse and security were

allowed to pass through the gate. Only political prisoners - Soviet citizens - were held

in the camp, and later, Soviet military men who were taken prisoners were contained

in separate barracks. Most of the prisoners of this camp were shot by the Germans on

the “Yalaka” line. Prisoners were taken to the place of executions by trucks, usually

at night. The executions were made by special team of the Omakaitse members, made

of staff of the platoon, which was commanded be Jan SOUVYALI. I cannot say who

particularly went to shoot, as I did not see.

Question: Name all members of the Omakaitse organization that you know

and their practical activities.

Answer: The Omakaitse organization was headed by Ludwig SAAR in the

autumn of 1941, and his wife SAAR Hilda (the name is inexact) worked in the

Omakaitse staff [doing] clerical work. When I entered the organization Omakaitse in

autumn 1941, SAAR already served in Omakaitse in the post of the company

commander of the Tartu Omakaitse which was completely supervised by the Tartu’s

Omakaitse apparatus in autumn, 1941. Under the personal direction of SAAR, in

1941, we performed mass arrests. Later on, we would shoot Soviet citizens which

under his instructions were detained in the camp of prisoners on the Njatuze Square,

and then we shot them at the “Yalaka” line. The staff of the Omakaitse company

which was headed by Ludwig SAAR, was located in Tartu on the Njatuze Square (an

exhibition square), in a separate small building. The concentration camp, where

24

political prisoners were contained was situated in the same place in other barracks.

The protection of the concentration camp was Captain SAAR’s responsibility.

Approximately in November, 1941 SAAR was appointed the post of the Commander

of the 2nd company of the 33rd Police Battalion, the company headed by him was to

protect the concentration camp and other important facilities on the territory of Tartu.

In the spring 1942, the 33rd police battalion in its full complement directed to the

Leningrad front to the Peterhof-Strelnya area. For an unknown reason, Captain

SAAR remained in Tartu, and Chief Lieutenant Agu LANNOO was appointed the

company commander instead of him. Having remained in Tartu, SAAR, as I know,

raised other police battalions. In spring, 1943, being in the 33rd battalion, I was

directed to the 287th police battalion in the Kiviõli settlement on protection of mines

of the slate industry; there in summer, 1943, captain SAAR arrived [to take the] the

post of the Company Commander. In April, 1944, I was transferred from the 287th

Police Battalion to the 37th battalion.

Rihard JARVEMJAE, at that time approximately 30 years old, Estonian,

inhabitant of Tartu, during the bourgeois government in Estonia served in border

guard. Since the first days of the organization Omakaitse in Tartu, served as a squad

leader. As a squad leader, he allocated the Omakaitse members of his squad to posts

of guarding the concentration camp in Njatuze and on other important military

objects of Tartu. Besides, JARVEMJAE went on all kinds of works in the

complement of an operative group with political prisoners, and especially on farm

jobs in some farm stead in the Tartu Uyezd. The last time I saw JARVEMJAE was in

summer, 1944 in the Neihammer training camp (Germany). At that time, he served in

a post of a Sergeant Major of a platoon of the battalion where captain Agu LANNOO

was the head, I do not recall the number of the battalion. In March, 1945, being at the

front under Hirschberg, I met my colleagues who told me that corporal JARVEMJAE

together with Agu LANNOO intended to run in to the allies’ zone – to Brits or

Americans, but I personally did not meet them and where they are now, I do not

know.

His signs: average height, a thin constitution, blond, a thin face. In 1941,

JARVEMJAE was married.

Question: When and under what circumstances did you enter the 33rd Police

Battalion and what specific duty did you carry out?

Answer: In November - December, 1941, I do not remember the exact time, I

voluntarily entered the 33rd Police Battalion which was formed in Tartu, the

commander of 33rd Police Battalion was major KUUZE, I received an appointment to

the 2nd company where the company commander was captain Ludwig SAAR, to the

2nd platoon where the commander was lieutenant Oswald MICK, and the Sergeant

Major of the platoon was Peter PRISKE. The squad commander was Junior Corporal

NIMMIK.

25

During my service in the police battalion, [I] received military training and was

on guard of German military objects, in particular, railway, road and river bridges,

near a post office, a bank, and other objects.

In spring, 1942, being in the 2nd company of the 33rd police battalion, I was

directed to the front near Leningrad where I carried out the defense in the Peterhof-

Strelnya area, at that time the commander of the company was major KOURT, as

Ludwig SAAR remained in Tartu. Approximately in December, 1942, our battalion

which was in a skirmish on the front line near Leningrad with the advanced outposts

of the Soviet units, was removed from the front line and directed to Tartu where it

was disbanded. The staff was passed on to other newly organized battalions. I was

directed to the 287th Police Battalion, in the complement of the company I left for

Kiviõli to the protection of the slate industry. First our company commander was

Senior Lieutenant UZE, and then captain Ludwig SAAR. At this time, Soviet

prisoners of war went to work from the camp to the Kiviõli centre and I convoyed

them to work, and also guarded them during work. Up to April, 1944, I was in

Kiviõli. Approximately in June, 1944, 15 people, including me, were directed to the

37th Police Battalion. Being in the 3rd company of the 37th Police Battalion I was

directed to the Virts-Järv (lake) area front, where I participated in fights with units of

the Soviet Army on the Kmangi River. In autumn 1944 the line of defense was

broken through by units of the Soviet Army, then our 37th Police Battalion has

receded to the Viljandi area, and then to Latvia. In Riga’s seaport we were shipped on

to German military transport and were sent to Danzig where we were directed to one

manor approximately 25 km away from Danzig. After that I was appointed to the 20th

Estonian SS division and was directed to a military training camp “Neihammer”

(Germany). After a fortnight stay in the “Neihammer” camp, I was directed to Italy in

the complement of the 1st company, where I went through military training and

security-patrol service on roads. In April, 1945, receiving the instruction to get back

in to my division, I left Italy and was directed to the 20th Estonian SS division which

at this time was at the front near Hirschberg (Silesia) where I stayed till the moment

of German capitulation.

Being at the front near Hirschberg, after capitulation of Germany I have been

captivated by the Soviet Army.

Question: Name colleagues that are known to you from the 33rd, 287th and 37th

police battalions, reflecting their specific activity.

Answer: From among colleagues of the 33rd, 287th and 37th police battalions

the following are known to me:

1. LANNU Agu, approximately 43-45 years, during German occupation lived in

Tartu, Estonian.

26

Signs: below average height, a dense constitution, brown hair, an oval face,

talked very quickly and stammered a little.

I’ve known Agu LANNU since November, 1941, from the joint service in the

33rd Police Battalion where he served from the first days of formation of the battalion

on the post of the 1st company Commander, in the rank of Captain. Till spring, 1942

the entire 33rd Police Battalion was engaged in security service in Tartu and after that

was with its full complement directed to a front near Leningrad where he carried out

the defense in the Peterhof-Strelnya area. Also Agu LANNU at that time took part

and supervised a company in fights against units of the Soviet Army on the front line

near Leningrad. In November-December, 1942, the 33rd Police Battalion, including

LANNU with his company, was removed from the frontline and directed to Tartu.

After that, I was enlisted in to the complement of the 287th Police Battalion. I have

been directed to Kiviõli, and LANNU with his company remained in Tartu. What he

was engaged in from that moment on, I do not know; the last time I saw Agu

LANNU was in the “Neihammer” mi itary-training camp (Germany) in summer,

1944.

I wish to include a clause. That was not the last time I saw LANNU, the last

time I saw him was after my arrival to the complement of the 20th Estonian SS

division in the end of April, 1945 on front near Hirschberg where LANNU already

held the post of the commander of the 20th battalion of the Estonian SS division.

There I also saw Major RABENE. My colleagues told me that corporal Agu LANNU

together with chief officer JARVEMJAE intended to flee to the allies’ zone – to the

British or Americans; I don’t know whether the attempt was successful or not.

LANNU suggested that the members of the battalion flee as well. I haven’t seen

LANNU ever since. I don’t know where he is now.

2. Alexander KANKAR, his age at that time was 30 years, lived in Tartu.

Signs: tall, of thin constitution, blond, an oval face, I do not know any special

signs.

I know KANKAR from the joint service in the 33-rd Police Battalion since

November, 1941. He held the post of the 3rd Platoon Commander in a rank of

Lieutenant; Agu LANNU was his company commander. KANKAR participated in all

activities of the 33rd police battalion, and was also in charge of a platoon, i.e. secured

German military objects, participated in fights against the Soviet Army near

Leningrad in spring, 1942 and in 1945 was at the front near Hirschberg (Silesia).

Don’t know where he is now.

3. NIGOL Charles, at that time 30-35 years old, earlier lived in Tartu, Estonian.

27

Signs: short, normal constitution, brown hair, an oval face. Served in the 33rd

police battalion as the commander of the 1st platoon where the company commander

was Agu LANNU. He took part in all activities of the 33rd police battalion, and was

also in charge of a platoon during the security service of military objects, participated

and was the head of a platoon in fights against units of the Soviet Army near

Leningrad in the Peterhof-Strelnya area. Can’t exactly say whether he was or not at

the front near Hirschberg (Silesia) in March-April, 1945; I do not know where he

lives now. During service he was in the rank of Lieutenant.

4. Oswald MICK was approximately 30 years, earlier lived in Tartu, Estonian.

Signs: a small man with normal constitution, a brown-haired person, an oblong

face.

Served in the 33rd Police Battalion from the beginning of its formation, in the

complement of the 1st company, the commander of which was Agu LANNU, on the

post of the commander of the 2nd platoon. Had a rank of Lieutenant. Supervised a

platoon during security service of military objects in Tartu. In spring 1942,

participated and was head of a platoon in fights against units of the Soviet Army near

Leningrad. In spring, 1945 participated at the front near Hirschberg (Silesia) where

he was till the moment of the German capitulation. Where MICK is right now, I do

not know.

I don’t remember anyone else.

Transcript of interrogation was written down correctly and

read to me in my native Estonian Language.

(Signature)

The interrogation was conducted by officer of the Criminal Investigation

Department of 3rd Branch of the 4th Department of MGB ESSR

Lieutenant [..]

The interrogation was translated by Officer of the Criminal Investigation of Tartu OMGB

Lieutenant [...]

Central archive of FSB of Russia. Fund 100. List 11. File 4. Pages 245-252.

Original. Typewriting.

28

klooga, local wachmann's & german masters

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AavFzhBfZaLYZGMyNnQ3NW1fNDFnN3F3ajRjMg&hl=en

DOCUMENT 6

Report of survey of the Klooga concentration camp held by the Office of

Public Prosecutor of the Estonian SSR

September 29, 1944

Public Prosecutor of the Investigatory Department of the Office of Public

Prosecutor ESSR 2nd class attorney EGI, at the presence of the Public Prosecutor of

the Office of Public Prosecutor ESSR VASILIEV and witnesses TIRUSK and

RAUS, held a survey of the Klooga concentration camp in the Harju Uyezd in the

Kejla Volost.

The Klooga [concentration] camp is located to the south of the railway Tallinn

- Paldiski, its area is fenced by barbed wire of 2.4 m. in height. Barracks where the

prisoners lived are situated in the camp area, and also a number of workshops and a

sawmill (see Appendix. The Map of the Camp).

A two-storey stone building is situated at the front entrance on the right side,

also fenced by a barbed wire fence, with an area in front of the house of about 1, 279

square meters.

Both the ground and the top floor are cluttered by 2-storey plank beds, closely

put in 9 lines with three narrow aisles. In total, there are 180 2-storey plank beds for

360 people on the ground floor.

Corpses of men and women randomly lay in front of the door in the premises

of the ground floor of the building, and also in the first and second aisles between

plank beds. The bodies in the aisles lay with their faces down in two-three rows

lengthwise the aisle, one on another, like a tile roof; heads of the top corpses lay on

the middle of the body that is bellow, with their legs towards the doors.

There are 79 corpses in total, with their outer clothing on. Prison clothes are on

corpses of three men and one woman. On clothes of six corpses, numbers are sewn on

the left side of the chest. The corpses have bullet wounds in the nape; all bodies are in

the stage of decomposition with a strong putrid smell.

There are clothes and bedding everywhere scattered in disorder.

200 meters away from the camp, to the north from the railway, near a ditch,

there is a burned down building with a stone base and two pipes remaining. At a

corner of the base on a stone the date of 7/21/1944 is engraved. The base is 45

centimeters high. On the site of fire, in ashes, there are plenty of burnt skulls,

vertebras, and other bones and remains of corpses. Most of the corpses were

completely burned down that is why it is not obviously possible to define the exact

amount of corpses. Only 133 of the burnt corpses, which are 13-15% of the total, can

be possibly recognized. On the southern side of the house, outside of the base, two

29

female corpses lay. The burnt head of one corpse and burnt feet of the other are

directed towards the base.

At the east side, 15 meters away from the burnt-down building, among ridges

of cabbage, lies a corpse of a man with a bullet wound in his nape.

On the same side, 30 meters away from the burnt-down house, lies a corpse

with scorched clothes and strong burns on his hips and on the bottom part of his

stomach. The corpse has an entrance bullet wound on the right side of his back and an

exit wound on the right side of the chest. On the western side, 5 meters away from the

burnt-down building, lies a corpse of a man with two bullet wounds on the left side of

the chest.

Between the burnt-down building and the camp, in a ditch, at the distance of

one meter from the road, from the left side, lies a corpse of a man with many bullet

wounds on the right hand, on his neck and back.

700 meters to the north from the camp, on a glade that is 27 meters away from

the wood road there are four fires situated 4 meters away from each other; one of

them was only prepared, the other three were already burnt down. The area of the

fires is 6 x 6.5 meters. The fires consist of 6 logs put on the ground with a number of

poles with 75 cm pine and fir-tree logs on it. In the middle of the fire four poles are

hammered by a quadrangle at the distance of 0,5 m from each other. Thin logs are

rarely fixed on a pole, which, most likely, should represent a pipe. On the three

burned down fires corners remained at the western side. On the bottom layer of

firewood lie corpses with burnt-down bottom parts of the body. Corpses lay with

their faces downwards, some of them with overhanging hands. Two corpses are with

their faces closed by hands, the palms densely pressed to the face and eyes closed by

the fingers. By the remaining parts of the corpses it can be said that there were 17

corpses put on the fire in one row, and there were 5 such rows, heads of corpses of

the second and the following rows lie on the feet of the previous row. A layer of

firewood is placed on the first layer of corpses and the second layer of corpses lies on

it. On the second and on the fourth fire two layers of corpses are visible, and on the

third fire - three layers. The middle and eastern parts of the fires have completely

burnt down. On the remaining parts of the fires, it is possible to make out 254 burnt

corpses that is 20-25% of the overall number of corpses that were laid on the fires.

At the northern and the northeastern side at the distance from 5 up to 200 m, 18

corpses of men with bullet wounds in the area of the nape, back and legs lie on the

glade.

On the southwestern side of the glade, 15 m away from the first fire, plenty of

outer clothing and kettles lie. Near the clothes, at the edge of the forest, there is an

empty iron barrel with a smell of oil.

Public Prosecutor of Investigatory Department EGI,Public Prosecutor VASILIEV

Witnesses: TIRUSK and RAUS

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Pages 12-13.

Original. Typescript.

30

DOCUMENT 7

Report on seizure of a card index in the office of the Klooga

concentration camp containing statistical data about 2,330 prisoners

October 5th, 1944

Public Prosecutor of the Investigation Department of the ESSR Office of

Public Prosecutor, 2nd class attorney EGI has presented the following report:

In the office of the Klooga concentration camp, a found and withdrawn card

file was examined, based on which a list of prisoners of the camp was made, attached

to the report.

Based on the card index examination, it was revealed that there were overall 2,

330 prisoners in the Klooga [concentration] camp, from them 1, 136 men and 1, 194

women, of whom 1, 564 men are from Vilno [Vilnius], 691 men - from Kovno

[Kaunas]; and 175 men - from other cities and areas of Lithuania.

The age of prisoners is marked as follows:

Born 1874 1 Born 1896 18 Born 1914 105

Born 1875 1 Born 1897 23 Born 1915 67

Born 1876 1 Born 1898 46 Born 1916 50

Born 1882 2 Born 1899 36 Born 1917 49

Born 1883 3 Born 1900 70 Born 1918 44

Born 1884 3 Born 1902 46 Born 1919 41

Born 1885 4 Born 1903 86 Born 1920 98

Born 1886 4 Born 1904 68 Born 1921 65

Born 1887 2 Born 1905 74 Born 1922 21

Born 1888 4 Born 1906 72 Born 1923 74

Born 1889 7 Born 1907 110 Born 1924 71

Born 1890 7 Born 1908 67 Born 1925 87

Born 1891 1 Born 1909 50 Born 1926 77

Born 1892 7 Born 1910 58 Born 1910 98

Born 1893 10 Born 1911 53 Born 1928 91

Born 1894 16 Born 1912 48 Born 1929 66

Born 1895 17 Born 1913 61 Born 1930 23

Born 1931 4

31

Professional occupation of prisoners is marked as follows:

Working 441 Nurses 37 Masons 12

Tailors 97 Miller 1 Butchers 10

Seamstresses 651 Hatter 1 Agriculturists 2

Joiners 147 Hospital attendant 1 Saddler 1

Weavers 263 Doctors 21 Chemists 2

Glaziers 39 Druggists 11 Druggists 2

Laundresses 25 Serving 23 Shoemakers 46

Barbers 39 Dentists 12 House painters 31

Dealers 31 Gardeners 5 Electricians 51

Glovers 36 Farmers 6 Metal workers 116

Builders 33 Watch-makers 6 Tinmen 13

Cookers 22 Chimney sweepers 5 Smiths 8

Bakers 9 Photographers 2 Potters 32

Mechanics 15 Steam locomotive

driver

1 Engineers 9

Bookkeepers 6 Bookbinders 8 Without occupation 1

Based on which the present report is made.

Public Prosecutor of the Investigatory Department of the Office of Public Prosecutor of the ESSR

2nd class attorney

EGI

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Pages 95.

Original. Typescript.

32

DOCUMENT 8

Report about atrocities of Nazis and their Estonian accomplices against

prisoners of the Klooga concentration camp

September 29, 1944

We, the undersigned, attest hereby that after the liberation of the Harjumaa

Uyezd (Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic) by the Red Army, near the Klooga

railway station that is 38 km to the west of Tallinn, we found a concentration camp

organized by fascist invaders and transformed by them in to a death camp.

By [our] personal survey of the camp and its vicinities, by evidence of the

survived prisoners of the camp and stories of local residents we determined the

following:

The concentration camp in Klooga was organized in September, 1943, as a

camp for Jews who had been taken out by Germans from the Lithuanian Soviet

Republic. The camp in Klooga was included into the system of concentration camps

which Germans arranged in Estonia, which was managed from Vaivara (Virumaa

Uyezd).

Prisoners of the Klooga Camp were exposed to an unbearable routine,

irrespective of sex and age. Each prisoner was given a number which was sewed in

two places on his clothes: for prevention of flights, women had their hair shaved off,

and men had a strip shaved going from the forehead to the nape. Prisoners, including

children (lately there were 84 children in the camp), worked over 12 hours per day,

performing heavy labor, for example, railway works, etc.

During the year, the prisoners starved. The official daily nutrition rate

consisted of 330 grams of bread, 25 grams of inedible margarine, a plate of prison

soup (water and 40 grams of groats), a mug of coffee. However, even this ration was

not completely maintained, and was partially given to the housekeeping staff of the

camp. Owing to such nutrition and monstrous conditions of life in barracks, illnesses

with a great mortality percentage raged throughout the camp.

The administration of the camp consisted of members of the SS. Works of the

prisoners were carried out on demands under the auspices of representatives of the

so-called organization "Tod”. Members of the SS and representatives of the “Tod”

that created the unbearable conditions for the prisoners in the camp, carried out a

routine of the unbridled arbitrariness, terror, and mockeries. Every day, public

flogging of prisoners took place in the camp on a bench specially equipped for it.

Depending on the "fault," the following punishments were determined: confinement

without food for 2 days, attachment to a column (in the frost, for 2-3 hours), flogging

33

- 25, 50 or 75 strokes, whereas the prisoner being punished was supposed to count the

amount of strokes aloud. They were beaten by a special scourge with a steel core.

Besides the "legal" punishments, members of the SS and representatives of the “Tod”

carried out systematical beating. Prisoners were beaten on various occasions: for

unfriendliness, for revealing a second shirt or a piece of bread.

The mockeries were carried out not only by the SS security guards, but also by

the administration of the camp, by authorities of the concentration camp system of

Estonia, and representatives of “Tod”. The commandant of management of

concentration camps of Estonia Hauptsturmführer BRENNEIZEN would personally

beat the captured when he came from Vaivara to Klooga. Before him, his predecessor

Hauptsturmführer AUMAYOR, organizer of concentration camps in Estonia, would

do the same. German doctors participated in beating of the prisoners:

Hauptsturmführer BOTMAN, who had arrived to Klooga from Vaivara, personally

beat two prisoner doctors: doctor ZILKINDSON – “for unfriendliness” and doctor

HEZOV for his having a piece of bread. The same German doctor would regularly

poison the diseased, injecting them with poison (Evipan, injected under the skin in

high dozes). Hospital attendant of the camp Untersturmführer GENT has slashed 23

aged prisoners to death with an ax. Chiefs of the Klooga Camp (till August, 1944 -

Obersturmführer BOK, then Obersturmbannführer VERLE) were known as the most

malicious executioners who personally beat prisoners on the bench and scoffed them

at searches and checks. Representatives of the organization “Tod” did not lag behind

in the atrocities from their SS colleagues, also beating, torturing, and killing

prisoners. One of the leaders of the organization “Tod” in Estonia Baurat BEIN

would beat the confined with an iron rod. Haupttruppführer set dogs on them.

Haupttruppführer PSCHESSUNG "specialized" in beating women by a lash. “Tod”

members were also engaged in beating of prisoners - Haupttruppführer Ganz

KEPPEL and Obertruppführer DUJARDIN. Executioners and sadists – members of

the SS and “Tod” were promoted for their villainies, receiving higher ranks and

awards. For example, the SS soldier SCHWARZE, manager of labor works in the

management of concentration camps across Estonia, quickly elevated - from

Unterscharführer up to Obersturmbannführer - after he slaughtered a teenager, and

the “Tod” member DUJARDIN- from private to Haupttruppführer.

Regularly destroying prisoners in the camp by tortures and executions, the

camp officials also killed many representatives of the Soviet intelligentsia: doctors,

musicians, writers, and lawyers. The following perished in the Klooga Camp :

director of the Philharmonic society in Vilno [Vilnius] conductor Woolf

DURMASHKIN; director of technical school in Vilno, engineer SCHWEIBER;

historian, author of numerous academic works Herman KRUCK; poet Lejb

ROZENTAL; director and writer BOSTOMSKI; director of the tubercular hospital in

Vilnius Vladimir POCHTER; outstanding doctors ZALKINDSON, POMERANZ,

POMM, HOHEM; and many others.

After the Red Army liberated some areas of the Estonian SSR, the management

of concentration camps ran from Vaivara to Saku, and then in August, 1944, moved

34

to Klooga where Russian prisoners of war, abducted residents of the Leningrad area,

Pskov, Orel, and other cities, and also political prisoners - Estonians, who were

earlier contained in the Tallinn prison, were pulled together, being prepared for their

mass execution. Having a presentiment of inevitability of their rout in the Baltic and

aspiring to cover up traces of their villainies, the Nazi Germans committed a

monstrous crime in Klooga on September 19.

On the 19th of September at 8 am, closed cargo motor vehicles arrived to the

camp from Tallinn. They brought: 800 Russian POW’s, 700 Estonians - political

prisoners, 74 Jews from the Lagedi Camp where Germans just did not have time to

destroy them, (there, receding in haste, Germans shot 440 people). At the same time,

a vehicle with the SD team – Gestapo members – arrived. At once, Oberscharführer

SCHWARZE had started preparing for carnage which was done in the following

way.

Prisoners were separated into groups in front of the barracks. One group of the

300 people received a task to prepare firewood. The prisoners were announced that

they were going to be evacuated to Germany. However, all of them, seeing

strengthened police guarding around them, realized the criminal plan of the Germans.

At 14.30, the Germans began the annihilation of prisoners. Most of them were

brought out on to a glade behind the camp. Here the prisoners were forced to make

four big fires from the firewood that was prepared in advance. The Germans ordered

[prisoners] to lie down closely on the first row of logs in rows. Then prisoners were

shot from submachine guns. Then on the first row of corpses the prisoners who

expected their turn, put a new row of logs and on hilarities command the laid down

prisoners were shot by SS and Gestapo soldiers. When three firewood fires of 8-10

rows of the corpses were ready, the Germans poured their gasoline specially brought

here (14 barrels) and lit it. Fires were burning for two and a half days. The base of the

fourth fire prepared by the Germans remained untouched as they had no time; it

forced the Germans to finish executing the remained prisoners in barracks. The larger

group (about 800 people) was destroyed by the Germans in an empty house - a

barrack that consisted of 8 rooms. The guards brought prisoners there one by one and

in dark rooms (as the shutters were closed) closely stacked the people on the floor,

killing them by shots in the nape. After that the Germans opened the windows,

poured gasoline over the corpses and lit the house.

From this house, prisoners Abram VAINIK and Gena OKENICKAYA escaped

through a window; they pretended dead and then ran.

After finishing with two groups, Germans began to shoot the last set of

prisoners. With submachine guns in their hands, they ran into a barrack where were

Russians and Estonians brought by the Germans, among whom were women with

babies. Having turned the prisoners' backs upon them, Germans shot them in turn in

the nape.

Everyone who tried to escape from the carnage were shot by the Germans, and

only 84 people managed to save themselves, hiding under plank beds and in attics.

35

On the scene of the crime, accomplished by fascists, we found:

• Remnants of three big fires with remains of scorched corpses;

• Ashes of a burnt-down house - a barrack with 8 rooms with a heap of

burnt bones and corpses;

• A barrack filled up with corpses of the shot prisoners, which the

Germans had no time to burn;

• A great number of corpses laid in the territory of the camp and near the

place of the massacre (many corpses have traces of scorches, significative of the

Germans' burning people alive).

During one day, on September 19, 1944, in the Klooga Camp, by estimates of

the escaped prisoners and local residents, 3, 000 people were destroyed, including:

• 800 Russian prisoners of war and abducted Soviet citizens;

• 700 Estonian political prisoners;

• 1500 Jewish prisoners of the concentration camp.

In the area of the Klooga railway station the second camp is located in which

the Germans contained 6, 000 people. Abducted Soviet citizens who were also

intended to be executed and which survived owing to the prompt approach of the Red

Army.

Organizers and executors of the monstrous villainy accomplished by the

Germans on 9/19/1944, and also central for the crimes regularly committed in the

Klooga Camp, are:

Hauptsturmführer AUMAIOR, Hauptsturmführer BRENNEIZEN,

Hauptsturmführer BOTMAN, Hauptsturmführer KREBSBH, Oberscharführer

SHCWARZE, Oberscharführer HELVIT, Oberscharführer BOK, Oberscharführer

VERLE, Oberscharführer GENT, Baurat WEIN, Haupttruppführer SCHTAHE,

Haupttruppführer Hans KEPPEL, Haupttruppführer PSCHESUNG, Obertruppführer

DUJARDIN, Matron Inga WEIZMAN.

Representatives of the Red Army: Lieutenant Colonel P. IVANOV, Major A.DIMSCHIZ,

Captain O. PYARN, Senior Lieutenant A. FETISOV

Citizens of the Estonian SSR: Railwayman Y. HIEPU, Peasant M. JEGE, E. KUNGER

Witnesses, former prisoners of the camp:

Former prisoner # 225, lawyer L. OLEYSKI

Former prisoner # 818, bookkeeper N. ANOLIK

Former prisoner #2, engineer [...]

Former prisoners #0566, nurse G. OLKENITSKAYA

Former prisoner # 0556, dressmaker L. DERCHIN

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Pages 3-11.

Copy. Typescript.

36

DOCUMENT 9

Concluding remarks of Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Estonian SSR

on materials of investigation of mass executions of prisoners and

destruction of their bodies in Klooga concentration camp (Harjumaa

Uyezd)

October 12, 944, Tallinn

Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Estonian SSR, State Counselor of Justice of

the 3rd class UDRAS, having examined materials of investigation performed by the

State Commission of the Estonian SSR for the Ascertainment and Investigation of

Atrocities of Fascist Aggressors on Temporarily Occupied Territories of the Estonian

SSR of mass executions of prisoners and burning their bodies in the Klooga

concentration camp in the Keila Volost, Harjumaa Uyezd,

FOUND:

After temporary occupation by fascist armies of the Estonian SSR's territory,

the fascist occupational authorities covered the territory of Estonia with a dense

system of concentration camps where they held dissident and politically stigmatized

civilians.

According to the monthly report of the head physician of the camps'

Obersturmführer SS fon BODMAN, if on October 1, 1943, there were 10 camps, then

on February 1, 1944, their number was already extended to over 20. All of these

camps were intended for civilians. These camps did not include those for POWs.

With the increasing number of camps, the numbers of political prisoners also

steeply increased. So, for example, according to the same reports of the head

physician of camps BODMAN, quantitative growth of prisoners in some camps is

characterized by the following table:

Number of prisoners Camp

name

On 10/25/1943 On 11/25/1943 On 11/20/1944 On 6/26/1944

1 Ereda 245 630 1600 -

2 Kiviõli 448 698 1300 -

3 Vaivara 907 1237 1292 -

4 Klooga 1453 1853 1842 2122

37

Considering that the Soviet Estonia is the smallest republic among other

brotherly Baltic Soviet republics by territory and population (11 uyezds), it is evident

that the fascist invaders actually transformed Estonia into a sheer concentration camp

(2 camps in every uyezd on average) where tens of thousands of innocent Soviet

people were contained.

I. THE KLOOGA CAMP

44 km to the south of Tallinn, on a way to the Paldiski Seaport, in the Keila

Volot, Harjumaa Uyezd, near the railway station, a country settlement called Klooga-

Aedlin (“Klooga-The Garden City”) is located. Before the fascist occupation,

Klooga-Aedlin was the favorite country vacation place for the inhabitants of Tallinn.

In September, 1943, the German invaders organized a concentration labor camp of

the so-called “Tod” organization in Klooga. The Germans cut down a beautiful and

picturesque pine forest around the camp, and the camp itself was enclosed with

barbed wire and sentinel towers. Patrolling of the camp was carried out by police

units. In front of the camp entrances boards were hung out with precautionary

inscriptions that approaching trespassers would be shot without warning. The same

rule concerned prisoners inside the camp.

On June 26, 1944, the Klooga Camp contained 2, 330 arrested civilians.

Among the arrested there were people of different nationalities: Jews, Poles,

Lithuanians, Estonians, Russians, etc. On the age structure of the prisoners: there

were 13-year-old boys and girls and 70-year-old men. Among 2, 330 prisoners,

professionals of 47 vocations were represented; for example: 33 doctors, 9 engineers,

2 agriculturists, 15 mechanics, 6 bookkeepers, 37 medical sisters, 11 druggists, 39

hairdressers, 25 laundresses, 147 joiners, 3 weavers, 651 sewer, 441 worker, and

many other trades.

However, the Germans used the prisoners not by their profession, but only on

heavy physical work: on forest exploitation, stone quarries, concrete works, loading

heavy cargoes, and construction of camp buildings.

German military men: supervisors, schahtmeisters and troopführers from the

organization “Tod,” supervised the work of the prisoners. The officials wore military

uniform with special distinctive insignia on shoulder straps and in buttonholes and

red bandages on a sleeve with a swastika sign on white background. All of these

officials differed in [...] especially rough and cruel. They used unlimited authority in

treating prisoners, subjecting them to regular beating by fists, legs, clubs, and other

objects.

Prisoners in the camp were brought to a position of slaves deprived of civil

rights; their human dignity was continuously humiliated in every possible way. Every

prisoner was given a number (on the left side of the chest and on the right side above

the knee). They weren’t named by their last name - only by the numbers that

everyone was given.

38

Punishments by the whip, made of bull vein with a steel wire in it, were

officially legalized in the camp. Prisoners had to make a special bench for the

punishments. An upright prisoner was attached with belts to the legs of this bench,

then he laid down on the stomach on the bench, clasping his hands. Hands were also

tied under the bench. One “Tod” member sat down on the neck of the prisoner, and

the second one carried out the execution. During the floggings, a prisoner was forced

to loudly count up impacts.

Witness RATNER, engineer, testified:

“A system of various punishments was employed in the camp – prisoners were

deprived of food for 2 days, punished from 25 up to 75 impacts by a scourge which

was an extended sinew with a steel wire in the middle, some were also shot. Shot for

leaving the camp. Punished for the slightest pretext: whether you worked badly,

whether you sat down to have a rest during work, and even if you took off the cap too

late before the chief of the camp. The cap was to be removed on a certain distance. I

was personally punished by 25 impacts by a scourge, supposedly for collecting

people for work too late. The clerk of the camp SHWARZE gave me an order to

gather 40 people. I gathered the people, but it seemed to him that I was tardy. He

punched me two times in the face, beating out my tooth. Besides, the next day, I was

punished with 25 strokes. There was a special bench for floggings in the camp. A

person stood at the end of the bench, his legs attached with belts to the legs of this

bench, and then he laid down on the stomach on the bench, clasping his hands, which

were then tied up as well. One German sat down on the head, and the other would

beat the prisoner, who was to count the impacts. They would beat with a whip until

blood would appear. After floggings, the prisoner was to go to work. During the

punishment, the punished prisoner was demanded to shout out loud. If he didn’t, he

would be beaten until he cried. Arbitrariness reigned in the camp. We were beaten for

the slightest occasion and without any occasions at all. For example, Truppführer

SCHTEINBERGER who was supervising the work beat us not only with hands, but

also with a stick or any iron piece. He would beat so hard that some [prisoners] had

their ribs broken had to be placed in the hospital. Haupttruppführer Kurt SCHTAHE

set dogs on us”.

Witness DUSHANSKY testified:

“Schahtmeister LAUB from the organization “Tod” beat people with a club for

no reason at all. In winter, 1944, LAUB broke prisoner PAVLOVICHE’s arm for no

reason at all.”

Though the working day in the camp was formally limited by 12 hours, from 5

am till 6 pm, it actually lasted much longer and reached 16-18 hours a day. The

prisoners were given excessive loads of work, impracticable in a 12-hour working

day.

39

Witness TRINAPOLSKI, a student-physician, testified:

“On September 23, 1943, the Germans compulsorily brought me to Estonia and

put me in the Klooga Camp. Here I worked on a bog. The work was heavy. I wasn’t

able to finish the job in the fixed 12 hours, so I was forced to stay and work up to 10-

11 pm”.

The nutrition in the camp was extremely bad. The daily norm of food consisted

of 350 grams of bread which the prisoners generally did not completely receive, 25

grams of spoiled margarine, 1 liter of erzats-coffee and 1 liter of soup with some

grains floating in it. From such nutrition prisoners got exhausted and swelled up.

Prisoners lived extremely densely and in unsanitary conditions.

As a result of the intolerable conditions of life in the camp, a great number of

prisoners were constantly sick, and there was a high death rate that reached up to

10% a month, by official German data. This is not denied by the Germans

themselves. The head physician of the concentration camp BODMAN in his report of

March 25, 1944, which was addressed to the Central administrative board of camps,

wrote that “the prisoners’ state of health is bad. The number of dead is big. This

circumstance is caused by physical injuries and unsatisfactory hygienic conditions”.

In particular camps disease and death rate of prisoners in the end of 1943 and

beginning of 1944 can be characterized by the following table (on reports of head

physician BODMAN):

December Camp name

Total number of prisoners Patients Died

1 Narva 1290 921 125

2 Ereda 752 484 11

3 Soski 448 673 23

4 Gungerburg 261 345 33

January Camp name

Total number of prisoners Patients Died

1 Narva Camp is liquidated

2 Ereda 2050 1600 109

3 Soski Camp is liquidated

4 Gungerburg Camp is liquidated

40

February Camp name

Total number of prisoners Patients Died

1 Narva Camp is liquidated

2 Ereda 2552 1907 161

3 Soski Camp is liquidated

4 Gungerburg Camp is liquidated

The given numbers taken from German reports certainly do not give a full

picture of life in the camps. Firstly, these figures are underestimated, and secondly,

they do not reveal the reasons that generated such a high disease and death rate. The

investigation determined that the camp hospital did not admit patients with a

temperature below 40 degrees Celsius. The number of patients in hospital could not

exceed 8 people. When a new patient was received, patient that was over the rate was

killed by an injection of Evipan.

Child-bearing was strictly forbidden in the camp. In case a child was born, he

would be killed by the German hospital attendant Unterscharführer BAR either by

suffocation, or by burning alive in a boiler room fire-chamber.

Regarding this, witness TRINAPOLSKI testified:

“There was this one time when one woman gave birth to a child in the camp.

The chief of camp informed the Commandant's office about it, and the child was

killed”.

Witness RATNER testified:

“In February, 1944, two children were born in the camp. Both of them have

been thrown alive into the boiler room fire-chamber and burnt. I personally witnessed

the fact of burning of children. In May, 1944 a third child was born in camp. He was

at once strangled by Unterscharführer BAR”.

II. MASS EXECUTIONS AND BURNING OF PRISONERS ON FIRES

As a result of prompt approach of the Red Army, the Germans, receding,

hastily liquidated concentration camps in the territory left by them by transferring

part of prisoners to other camps, and shooting and burning the majority of the

prisoners . In the end of August, as the front line approached towards the capital of

the Soviet Estonia Tallinn, all camps were liquidated, except for the Klooga Camp

41

where all administration of concentration camps in Estonia gathered, including chief

Hauptsturmführer BRENNEIZEN.

In the middle of September, the Germans, preparing for the liquidation of the

last camp in Klooga and wishing to conceal from prisoners preparation of their mass

execution, spread a provocative rumor among prisoners that they are to be evacuated

to Germany.

On September 19, 1944, at 5 am, all prisoners of the camp, as usual, were lined

up on the camp ground platform for a roll call.

The chief of camp Untersturmführer VERLE accompanied by the clerk of

camp Untersturmführer SCHWARZE, chief of office Hauptsturmführer DALMAN,

Oberscharführer FRUVERDA, and Unterscharführer GENTA attended the roll call.

After the roll call, VERLE officially announced to the prisoners that everyone

should be ready for evacuation to Germany. Two hours later, SCHWARZE and

DALMAN selected 301 prisoners that were physically stronger and healthier, under a

pretext of organizing spadework for evacuation.

These 301 prisoners were actually used for carrying firewood from the camp to

a glade that was 1 km to the north of the camp, for setting a fire for burning prisoners.

700 Estonians arrested for evasion from mobilization to the German Army, were

provided to help the prisoners.

Some of the prisoners carried firewood. And others built fires under the

guarding of a convoy. Fires were constructed in the following way. Some logs were

placed on the ground, as a foundation. Poles were put on these logs on which a layer

of 75 centimeter-long logs of firewood was put. In the middle of the fire, four poles

were hammered by a quadrangle, half-meter away from each other, to which rods

were hammered, forming something of a pipe. In such a way, four 6 by 6,5 meter

fires were constructed in a line, 4 meters away from each other.

When the fires were ready, the Germans began mass execution of prisoners.

First of all, carriers of firewood and builders of fires were shot. The execution

happened like this. The Germans from the SD team forced the prisoners with the use

of weapons to lie down on the prepared ground with their faces down and in such

position shot them with machine guns and pistols in the nape. People lay down in

rows, covering the whole platform. When the platform was filled with shot prisoners,

logs were put on them, creating the second platform on which other people were put

alive one by one and shot in the same way. After the execution of the prisoners who

built the fires, new groups of 30-50 prisoners were brought from the camp, which

were also laid in 3-4 rows on the fires and shot. First men, and then women were

shot. All of the patients that were in the camps hospital were also shot on these fires,

including the medical staff from among prisoners. From the constructed four fires,

three were used. The platform of the fourth fire wasn’t used because of the rapid

approach of the Soviet Army.

42

At the same time as prisoners were executed on fires, other prisoners were

killed inside an uncompleted wooden building, which was 8 by 18 meters, standing

200 m away from the camp. Groups of 30-50 people were brought up to the building.

The prisoners were to lie with their faces down, to prevent their escape. From there

the Germans would take prisoners inside the house, one by one, where they were shot

in the nape.

After the execution had been finished, at about 10-11 pm, oil was poured on

the corpses at the fires and inside the building and lit up.

At the time when the fires and the building with the shot prisoners were already

burning, a group of about 73 prisoners had been delivered from the Tallinn prison -

Estonians and Russians whom Germans shot in the ground floor of the camp’s

dormitory. 6 prisoners from the Klooga Camp who tried to escape were also shot. In

that way, 79 prisoners were shot in the dormitory, including a three-month-old baby,

with his young mother.

Besides, 18 prisoners were shot during their attempt to escape from the fires.

Their corpses were found at the distance from 5 to 200 meters from the fires.

The testimony determined that not all of the prisoners were killed at the

executions. Many of them were only wounded, and as it was determined by the

medical survey of the corpses on fires, some were burnt alive.

Witness YALAS who lives near the camp in the Kraavi hamlet, testified:

“Late at night, a flame rose from the wood, and then I saw, how the barrack

was lit. When the fires were burning, I heard people screaming and moaning”.

Witness TRILLO who also lives near the camp, testified:

“At about 10 pm, a flame rose from the wood, and in half an hour, the barrack

was burning. Armed people were walking around the barrack, and they were

shooting. I could hear people screaming from inside the barrack.”

Witness SINAPFLU, one of the camp guards, showed:

“Soon there was something like an explosion. We left our barrack and saw that

the barrack from where the shots were heard was on fire. After that, I returned into

the casern. After a while, the other guards and I left the barrack. The barrack was half

burnt down, and shouts and groans of people which abated and amplified were heard

from there».

The medico-legal board of 3 doctors that examined the places of executions

and the remains of the corpses, came to the following conclusion:

43

“Summarizing the data of the survey, the medical commission finds that in the

named camp mass executions were mainly carried out by shots from fire-arms in the

heads of victims. By the positions of corpses written down in the act and by other

attributes the executions were accomplished by shots from close distance in the nape

of the dead, which was in the reclining position.

At the external examination and the post-mortem examination of separate

corpses it was determined that two of them died of a shock in the building of the

camp. Two corpses were found that didn’t have any gunshot wounds, they were

probably burned alive. The medical commission managed to mark out 491 remains of

corpses: 153 were men, 31 were women, and 1 was a body of a baby-girl.

The medical commission cannot determine the precise number of the executed

because of the full combustion of the corpses. Considering that corpses remained

only at the edges of the fires and only at one end of the burnt-down barrack, and

considering the given research, it is necessary to consider that the number of the

destroyed people reaches up to 1, 800-2, 000”.

Thus, by materials of the medico-legal examination of the remained corpses,

by the careful survey of places where the execution took place, all in all in the Klooga

Camp on September 19, 1944, about 2, 000 prisoners from the civilian population

were executed.

III. PERPETRATORS OF THE CRIME

Materials of the preliminary investigation determined that the following

military men of the fascist army were organizers and direct executors of the mass

execution and burning of Soviet civilians, including babies, women and old men, in

the Klooga Concentration Camp on September 19, 1944:

1. Chief of the central administrative board of camps in Estonia Hauptsturmführer

BRENNEISEN.

2. Head physician of concentration camps in Estonia Obersturmführer fon

BODMAN.

3. Chief of the Klooga Camp Unterscharführer VERLE.

4. Clerk of the Klooga Camp Unterscharführer SCHWARZE.

5. Chief of office of the Klooga Camp Gauptscharführer Max DALMAN.

6. Chief of the medical unit of the Klooga Camp Unterscharführer GENT.

7. Manager of the household of the Klooga Camp Oberscharführer GELBICK.

8. Oberscharführer FRUIVIRT.

44

Except the names listed above, 50 SD soldiers directly participated in

convoying, guarding, and execution of 50 people, their last names are not determined

by the investigation.

Based on the above-stated, finding the investigation consummated.

DECIDED THAT:

The present evidence is presented to the State Commission for investigation of

villainies of fascist aggressors in the territory of the Estonian SSR - on disposal.

(Signature)

Signed: Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Estonian SSR, State

Counselor of Justice of 3rd class UDRAS

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Pages 189-200.

Original. Typescript.

45

DOCUMENT 10

Transcript of interrogation of Estonian policeman August Sinapulu who

participated in the guarding of Klooga concentration camp and abuse of

prisoners

September - October, 1944

SINAPULU August Fricevich, B 1898, native of Tallinn, from a family of workers, a

house painter, lives in Tallinn, Ile st. 37, apt.12, was in the service in the 287th

Reserve Police Infantry Battalion as a private policeman.

Working as a watchman in the Tallinn port, I got enlisted in to the Omakaitse

organization and continued my security service at the port.

Later on, our organization Omakaitse had a number of reorganization, and in

August [...] the 287th Reserve Police Infantry Battalion was created from it and

concentrated in [...]. I have started the service as a private policeman in the 2nd

company of this battalion.

[...] Our 2nd company was directed from Rakvere to the Klooga concentration camp

for guarding prisoners [...].

Our company [...] had personnel of 110 people; the commander of the company was

lieutenant ENTRICKSON.

In the Klooga camp, our company had one primary goal - not to allow any Jews to

leave the camp without permission or to have dialogs with the people living outside

the camp, and also the control over the people from other places coming to camp to

work.

Question: How many Jews were there in the Klooga camp?

Answer: I don’t know the exact number of Jews in the Klooga camp, but I

believe there were about 2, 000 men, women, and children.

Question: To whom did your company submit to and who gave you the

instructions on the order of the organization of sentry and creating regulations for

Jews confined in the camp?

Answer: All directions and instructions on the order of protection and

regulations of the confined Jews proceeded from one German who held the post of

Lagerführer, his last name I do not know. He gave orders to Lieutenant

ENTRICKSON, to the commander of our company who was obliged to carry them

out. Besides the Lagerführer, there were only 5 or 6 Germans of whom one was

assistant Lagerführer, and others were supervisors of works.

Lagerführer gave strict orders to shoot every Jew who would attempt to run

from the camp.

46

Question: Were there cases and attempts by the Jews to leave the camp, and

did the policemen from your company use weapons in such cases?

Answer: I personally know one case when one Jew left the camp without

permission. When he was coming back, policeman TRANSILOV, who stood on a

post, shot him. The Jew was killed. I don’t know any precise details of this incident.

Question: Tell me the circumstances of mass execution of Jews in the Klooga

camp that happened on September 19, 1944

Answer: The mass execution of Jews in the Klooga camp on September 19,

1944 really did take place. On this execution I can inform the following:

On September 18, 1944, after Jews returned back into their barracks after they

had finished their work, our company commander Lieutenant ENTRICKSON

announced us that tomorrow, on September 19, all the Jews from the Klooga camp

will be evacuated to Germany by a steamship from Paldiski.

Jews will be sent to Danzig [Gdansk] to the place of their new work.

Lieutenant ENTRICKSON also announced that our company will be escorting the

Jews, and he ordered to be ready for departure. We were to escort Jews to Danzig.

Question: Did you warn the Jews about the forthcoming evacuation to

Germany to a place of new work and a new concentration camp?

Answer: I don’t know anything about this, but a rumor was spread among the

Jews that they will soon be moved to Germany. Sometimes Jews asked us, whether

they will be escorted by our company or whether the Germans will arrive.

From this I concluded that they are preparing to move from the Klooga camp,

but they weren’t told about this officially.

Question: What happened next on September, 18 and 19?

Answer: On September 18, in the evening we prepared to leave the camp to

convoy the Jews, and in the morning on September 19, the punitive chief of our

company – Sergeant Major PELAYAS ordered not to take out all Jews to work. This

order was accomplished.

Jews left the 2-storey building where they lived in to a court yard and we didn’t

let them outside the camp. Guarding of this building was strengthened, and all the

policemen of our company free from duty were attached to the wire fencing that

surrounded the house of Jews.

At around 10 am, German policemen in groups of 5-8 started to arrive to the

territory of the camp, all of them carrying machine-guns. All in all, about 30-35

Germans came on foot from the Klooga station.

All Germans together with the Lagerführer aimed to the Jews behind the fence,

taking out 200 men from there, and together with them went to the place where the

firewood was gathered. All of these people have loaded some logs of firewood on

47

themselves and with this cargo returned back, passing our fence and were directed

towards the railway.

Along the way one Jew tried to run, but he was killed from a machine gun by

the Germans.

After this, another group of 200 men was brought out from the fenced area.

Both groups went several times behind the line of the railway carrying firewood from

the camp.

We, policemen, at this time continued to safeguard the fence with other Jews

behind it – some men, women, and children.

In 2-3 hours, the carrying of firewood was finished, and none of the two groups

returned back. Soon we heard shooting from the direction of the place to where the

Jews carried firewood. It became clear to me that an execution is carried out right

now behind the railway. Panic and crying arose among the Jews in camp.

Shooting proceeded for 20-30 minutes and then stopped. Some minutes later,

Germans returned and began to take out other prisoners in groups of 20-30 people to

the railway line. After each group was taken out, shooting from behind the railway

was heard. The executions proceeded till the evening of September 19.

As it was already dark [...] drunken Germans began to shoot the last prisoners

in the court yard and inside the building where the Jews lived.

Before the evening when only a few Jews remained in the camp, the company

commander Lieutenant ENTRICKSON recalled the guards from the fence guarding

and sent us to have a rest. The Germans continued to perform the criminal work and

left the camp at night. Lagerführer and other Germans that had lived in the Klooga

camp earlier left together with them.

Question: What did your company do after the Germans left the camp the next

day?

Answer: In the morning September 20, Lieutenant ENTRICKSON waked our

company up and ordered to follow to Paldiski for boarding onto a steamship

following to Germany. Somehow it became known that there was no steamship in

Paldiski, so the Lieutenant ordered us to follow to Pärnu on foot. And further this

decision was changed, and we were to proceed by train to Tallinn, where we would

get onto another train going to Pärnu. We arrived in Tallinn this very same day.

I got down from the train and went home; here I remained after the arrival of

the Red Army.

Question: Who of the policemen of your company has still remained in

Tallinn?

Answer: I know that the following policemen are in Tallinn, I personally saw

them on the Tallinn streets:

TIIDU, he lives on street Viruganav,1.

48

TAMM. I don’t know his address, but I saw him 2-3 days ago in town.

KUTSAR. I don’t know where he lives, either.

In our company there were some other policeman that had lived in Tallinn

before, but I don’t know their addresses and last names.

Question: Specify all of your company command, their residence and where

they are at present.

Answer: The commander of the company is Lieutenant ENTRICKSON who

comes from Pärnu.

Sergeant Major of the company PELAYAS - comes from the Petseri [Pechora]

region.

Sergeant Major AUZENBERG - up to the service, lived somewhere in the

Tallinn region.

I do not know their exact addresses and residences. Also, I do not know where

they live or are at present.

The report of interrogation is made from my words and is read out to me

and translated into the Estonian Language.

(A.Sinipalu)

The interrogation was conducted by Major AVIK

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Pages 91-

94. Certified copy. Typescript.

49

DOCUMENT 11

Transcript of interrogation of witness Nejsaha Ruvanovich, prisoner of

Klooga Concentration Camp

October 8, 1944

Public Prosecutor of the Investigation Department VASILIEV interrogated

RUVANOVICH Nejsah Veniaminovich, B 1929, native of Vilnius, prisoner of the

Klooga Camp, a seven-class education in elementary school of Vilnius, from

workers, no previous convictions, non-party member, lives in Tallinn, Tommujsa St.,

13, apt. 7.

Witness is warned about the responsibility in accordance with Article 95 of UK

[criminal code].

I arrived in the Klooga camp from Vilnius on September 29th, 1943. In 1941,

my father was taken away to Panari [Lithuania] and there, to my mind, was shot. My

mother and sister were taken out from Vilnius the same day with me, but to some

other place. First I had quite an easy work in the camp, but then when the chief of

camp BOK arrived, I was put for excessive labor. The work was very heavy; engineer

KIWIMJAGI beat me for I could not carry out the norms. He beat me with his hands,

with a club, on the shoulders and every place possible. I was also beaten by chiefs

from OT [“Tod”], I don’t remember their last names, I only remember GEZELS.

When I arrived at the camp, SINAPULU was already one of the guards. We called

him “Kurat” as he used this word all the time. SINAPULU was a very foul person; he

was beating us, prisoners. There were cases when prisoners asked SINAPULU for

permission to go to the village for products, sometimes he permitted, but when the

prisoner brought food to the camp, SINAPULU would take it away, beat him with a

ramrod and later sell the food to other prisoner from whom they were also taken

away.

In this year’s winter, I brought bread and potatoes from the village by

SINAPULU’s permission. SINAPULU took away one and a half loafs of bread,

leaving me only a bit and potatoes that were spoiled, and beat my back with a

ramrod. SINAPULU sold the bread to another prisoner whose last name I do not

remember. In the camp prisoners went to the dump to gather up scraps, and when

SINAPULU saw this he would keep them off beating the prisoners with a rifle and a

ramrod. I saw how SINAPULU beat GALDBERG, and he would also beat children. I

don’t remember last names of those who were beaten by SINAPULU.

There is nothing more to add.

50

Transcript of interrogation was written down correctly and read out to me correctly:

(Signature)

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17a. Page 80.

Certified copy. Typescript.

51

DOCUMENT 12

Transcript of interrogation of Estonian policeman August SINIPALU

who participated in abuse of prisoners at Klooga Concentration Camp

October 3, 1944

Public Prosecutor for Militia Surveillance VASILIEV, ESSR, interrogated the

undersigned witness who, being warned about the responsibility in accordance with

Article 95 of the UK [criminal code] explained:

SINIPALU August Frizevich, born in 1898 in Tallinn, a house painter, with

three grades of education in Tallinn elementary school, from [family of] workers, no

previous convictions, a non-party member. Member of the organization Omakaitse,

lived in Tallinn, Ile Street, 37, apt. 12, is in prison #1. Police security guard of the

287th Police Battalion.

I worked in the Tallinn harbor as a watchman. I continued working there after

the German occupation of Tallinn. In 1942 in the early spring, I entered the

organization Omakaitse and continued working as a watchman in the harbor. In

August, 1943, the 287th police sentry battalion, which stood in Rakvere, was created.

I served as a private policeman in this battalion in the 3rd company. In August, 1944

the 3rd company where I served, was transferred from Rakvere to Klooga for carrying

guard duty. We watched over the Jewish prisoners. The company consisted of

Estonians, there were 110 people in it, the company commander was Lieutenant

ENDRICKSON. The battalion commander was major KROOT. Our duty was to

watch for the prisoners not to leave the camp limits and not to communicate with

anybody. One week we stood at the gate of the camp on post, and the other week we

accompanied the prisoners to works if they worked outside the camp, for example,

chopping firewood. We also protected the camp in every direction. I do not know

anything about the schedule or about the routine of work in the camp, as we didn’t

keep sentry inside the camp. There were about 2, 000 prisoners in the camp. Then

there were less, as recently, in the summer, I don’t remember precisely the time, a

part of Jews have been taken away somewhere. All orders on camp protection were

given by Lagerführer to Lieutenant ENDRICKSON who passed orders to us.

ENDRICKSON ordered us to shoot at each prisoner who will leave work without

permission. We were to shoot without any warning. Once there was such a case. One

prisoner worked in the wood and left without permission, and when he was getting

back to his group he was shot by security guard Ermolaj TRANSILOV.

There were cases when I beat the confined with a ramrod. I beat them when

they went to the village to get some food. I took away their food, as this was the order

of Lagerführer. In the camp, there was a dump near the officer's casino, and I beat

52

prisoners if they went to the dump to search for food during work. I saw how other

guards beat the prisoners with their hands or with a ramrod; others were even crueler

than me. I saw also how the Germans beat the prisoners; they beat them with fists,

legs and clubs.

The Germans beat the prisoners on any occasion.

On September 18 of this year, Lieutenant ENDRICKSON told us in the

evening that on September 19 of this year, that is, the next day, the prisoners will be

evacuated to Germany and we shall accompany them. He ordered us to be ready for

departure.

On September 19 of this year in the morning, our company with all its

personnel went out to guard the camp. Everyone from the camp gathered in the

square with knapsacks, bread, and kettles. The prisoners stood, until the chief of

camp with other Germans came, there were about 7 of them, I do not know their last

names. I stood a post at the gate of this square.

For about two hours, the Germans conferred with each other on the apartment

of the Lagerführer which was located near my post. Then one German selected about

300 prisoners and led them to the Klooga station. These prisoners were surrounded

by German SD soldiers with machine guns. I saw how these people carried firewood

to the forest near the lake. When the 300 prisoners walked through the gate, one of

them started running, but a German shot him.

Firewood was carried for about 3 hours, after the people weren’t seen. Some

time later, machine gun bursts were heard from the forest, and later revolver shots

were heard which proceeded till late evening. After the shootings, the Germans began

coming back to camp from the forest, taking prisoners in groups of 20-30 people and

leading them back into the forest. When some groups were taken out, then five other

guards and I were withdrawn from posts and ordered to go to a guard house. We

didn’t go to the guard house, we went to the railway station to see what was

happening in the woods. From the place where I stood, the unfinished barrack was

well seen. I saw how Germans brought groups of 30-35 prisoners in and these groups

disappeared behind the corner of the house. I could not see the entrance of the house

as it was from the side of the forest.

Revolver shots were heard from the barrack. I personally saw how the

Germans led 3-4 groups, and then I went to supper while the others remained

looking.

After supper, I went to look to the railway again and asked the same security

guards, whether they led the women already.

I was answered that they didn’t bring them yet. Then I went home. Soon

something of an explosion sounded, we went to see what happened, and found out

that the barrack from which the shots had been heard was on fire. Then I went back

home again. After a while, security guard KERE came into our room, and told us to

go outside to hear the Jews screaming. So we left the house. The barrack was half

53

burned down, and shouts and groans of people were heard from over there. We could

hear them from 500 m away from the burnt house. We heard: “Ah, ah”. I heard

shouts for during half an hour, which either abated or amplified. When I went back

home in half an hour, shouts were still heard.

In the morning on September 20 of this year, Lieutenant ENDRICKSON

ordered us to collect things as we were going to Germany. There weren’t any

Germans left in the camp.

Having gathered, we went to the Klooga station and from there went to Keila.

From Keila we went to Järve that is near Tallinn. From Järve I went home to Tallinn.

I was arrested on September 29 of this year. There is nothing more to add. Transcript

of interrogation was written down correctly and read to me in my native Estonian

Language.

I can add that when I saw prisoners carrying firewood it became clear to me

that the Germans will shoot the prisoners as Germans always burn corpses.

Public Prosecutor for Militia Surveillance VASILIEV

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17à. Pages. 9-10.

Certified copy. Typescript.

54

DOCUMENT 13

Report of witness Liiza Berchin, prisoner at Klooga Concentration Camp

September 30, 1944

BERCHIN Liiza Solomonovna, B 1909, native of Vilno, a schoolgirl of an elementary

school in Vilno, graduated from high school in Vilno, worked as a dressmaker in the

camp, non-party member, lives in a borough near the Klooga Camp.

Question: When and under what circumstances did you get into the Klooga

Camp?

Answer: We arrived to the Klooga Camp in September, 1943, from Vilno. We

were in a ghetto before, organized by the fascist armies after a month of their

occupation of Vilno.

Question: Tell me how your evacuation from Vilno to the Klooga borough

happened.

Answer: Approximately in August, 1943, the first set of Jews, about 2, 000

people, were sent from the ghetto to Estonia. From the letters of our evacuated

relatives we found out that they were first contained in camps of Vaivara near Narva.

In the first days of September, 1943, Estonians who were guarding a train sent to

Estonia arrived to Vilno. To Estonia we were sent by railway, and in the train there

were at least 2, 000 people evacuated from the ghetto. In Estonia we were sent to

Camp Vaivara, there was a distribution point for the allocation of the evacuated.

About half of the evacuated people were sent to a camp in Narva, and the rest of us,

who remained in the train, were brought to the Klooga Camp. The train left Vilno on

September 3, and arrived at Klooga on September 8, 1943. The Klooga Camp was

our continuous residence until Germans left Estonia.

Question: What did you do while in the Klooga Camp?

Answer: In the Klooga Camp I was engaged only in repairing and sewing

clothes and linen for prisoners, I wasn’t sent to other works.

Question: Tell me about the schedule and about the routine of work in the

Klooga Camp.

Answer: The routine in the camp was terrible. For the slightest offense people

were beaten to death. Only two months ago, chief of camp Oberscharführer BOK

beat 5-6 teenage boys so that their faces were just a bloody mess and they had to

spend a long time in the ambulance station before they recovered, and all of this

happened only because they wanted to cook some potatoes in the camp.

55

As for me, I had to work a lot because I was the only dressmaker in the camp.

Though the official working day was 11 hours a day, everyone in the camp had to

work longer. Because BOK frightened and threatened me often that if I shall not cope

with my work, he will give me 25 srokes by a club or will send me to such works

where I would only be able to work for 1-2 days. I worked as much as I physically

could and coped with the work. On the average, I worked 13-14 hours per day.

Usually the day began at 6 o'clock in the morning and up to 10 o'clock in the evening.

I had no days off. We also ate very poorly. We were given 330 grams of bread per

day; we also received 2 liters of watery soup, 25 grams of some fats, erzats-coffee,

and that was the limit of our ration.

Question: Whom do you remember of the heads of camps?

Answer: I remember Oberscharführer SCHWARZE, under his guidance the

card index of all prisoners in camps of Estonia was conducted and the destiny of this

or that prisoner depended on him. SCHWARZE, German by nationality, has a family,

a wife and a child in Germany. About 180 cm high, a brunette, has black eyes, a

swarthy complexion, a rather short nose, but with a small hump, a terrible sadist. He

would beat women with his foot, and only in the stomach. About 30-35 years old. He

didn’t live here, he first lived in camp Vaivara, later in Saku. SCHWARZE came to

see us quite rarely – about 3-4 times during the whole period.

All of us were afraid of his arrival, for it was always connected with some great

events and changes in life and [its] structure of the prisoners in the camp. By the sort

of his work, we concluded that he distributed and supervised work in all camps in

Estonia.

I also remember the German Gestapo member Obersturmführer

BRENNAIZEN, he held a post of the chief of camps of Estonia. I also remember the

head physician of all camps of Estonia doctor BODMEN, famous for special cruelty

and brutality of his treatment of prisoners. He beat the prisoners who didn’t take off

their clothes in time, as he wished during check ups, or those who didn’t stand up

when he came inside the room with the patients.

Question: Which Estonians from the administration do you know?

Answer: I don’t know any Estonians in the administrative structure.

Question: Tell me how you managed to avoid that sad fate of the majority of

prisoners in the Klooga Camp.

Answer: Approximately 6 weeks ago, 400 Jews were sent from our camp

together with other 2, 000 Jews by a steamship through the Tallinn port to Danzig.

From the Estonian security guards of our camp that delivered the 2, 400 evacuated

Estonians, we found out that all of them safely arrived at Danzig. In the morning on

September 19, as always, at 5 o'clock in the morning we gathered up in the square of

our camp. We were informed that today everyone will be sent by a steamship and

from there we leave to Germany for work. That’s why none of the prisoners will

leave the camp area for work. We were informed personally by Oberscharführer

56

SCHWARZE and he also told us that he would personally go together with the rest of

the camp.

Then SCHWARZE began to check the men that were standing in columns and

chose the strongest and the healthiest of them, precisely 305 men (I found it out from

a Jew, a worker of the office of camp NIZERMANE who was killed together with

other prisoners), and he also said that they will go to finish work in camps which they

supposedly hadn’t finished yesterday (But SCHWARZE lied, for he knew that these

people didn’t do any work the day before). Then this column of 305 men was

directed to the depth of the camp accompanied by approximately 10 armed Estonians.

We have all been amazed and concerned by the new and unknown orders and actions

of Germans. All of the 305 men were ordered to sit down, crossing their legs under

themselves and they were to sit in such position for about an hour of time. From the

prisoners that ran to Russian camps I’ve heard (their names I do not know, but I can

establish subsequently) that on the way to the place of work they were two times (the

column of 305 people) ordered to sit in the same way, walk a little and then sit in this

way again, near the house where the prisoners were burnt together with the house, did

this procedure one last time, and then they went to work.

Question: Tell me, what did the people who remained in the square do?

Answer: The people who remained were ordered to wait for departure. In the

beginning, most of the people behaved calmly, though some people were concerned

that breakfast hasn’t been given out to any of the prisoners, the cooking in the camp

was stopped and the personnel from the prisoners also stood in columns and awaited

departure.

The remained saw that the first column that left at seven o'clock in the morning

was still carrying firewood at 10 o'clock in the morning. We also began to worry

because despite of the lunch time (12-13 hours), we didn’t receive any food this day,

and were held without dinner and breakfast. At approximately 2 pm, very strong

dense shooting from automatic weapons was heard from the depth of the camp, then

single shots were heard. All this shooting proceeded for nearly half an hour, and then

it calmed down. Then we saw how from the place of punishment a motorcycle

arrived, bottles of mineral water were loaded there, and it left again. At about 3.30

pm after dinner 6 prisoners were taken out from the remained columns and sent

together with a cart to a warehouse for fuel. Having loaded gasoline on the cart, the

prisoners returned to the column of the expecting prisoners, and the gasoline was

carried away by an unknown Estonian dressed in civil clothes in the direction from

where shots had been heard. After the prisoners that brought the gasoline came back,

it became clear to everyone that death expected them.

Question: Tell me how you managed to rescue yourself from death and what

attempt did you make to saving yourself?

Answer: After six pm, I suggested my friend Matly GENZEN to hide in the

block where I worked before (it is the house where 70-80 people were killed and

where they still lie in the premises). Imperceptibly we walked upstairs onto an attic

57

and hid there. I got onto a heap of window frames and sat between frames of broken

glass, my friend hid not far from me. After us, about 40 people came and hid there in

the attic.

Question: How many people were there in the square when you got onto the

attic?

Answer: In my opinion, there were no less than 700 people.

Question: When were the people shot in that block where you were hiding?

Answer: In my opinion, the execution of people in the block began not earlier

than at 9 o'clock in the evening.

Question: Tell me in detail what you managed to see and hear about what

happened below the block where you were hidden on the attic.

Answer: On the attic we heard how a German Blockführer called the prisoners

up one by one into a premise of the block, sometimes saying: “Come in, come in,

don’t be afraid, you are a man after all”. Shots from the block weren’t heard very

loud, and it surprised us in the beginning, and only then we realized that he called

people in the block where they were killed.

Question: How long were you hiding on the attic?

Answer: We were hiding for 5 days on the attic.

Question: Why didn’t you leave the attic earlier and stayed there for 5 days?

Answer: Some of the men went to look at the situation and general conditions

in the camp during the night. They determined that the Germans left the Klooga

Camp, but the camp was still guarded by Estonians, armed and carrying uniforms.

We were afraid that they would grasp and shoot us. On the fifth day, the Estonians

left the protection of the camp and went away. Only then we found out from a

Russian living in the camp next to us that Germans were driven away from Estonia

and that the Red Army successfully wages the war and about the liberation of our

country from Germans.

Question: What can you add to your report?

Answer: I am still in such condition that I can’t tell everything completely and

precisely.

Interrogated and wrote the report in Russian: Lieutenant of State Security GAUS

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17à.

Pages. 56-57 overleaf. Copy. Typescript.

58

DOCUMENT 14

Transcript of interrogation of witness Ljubov Shapiro (Klooga

Concentration Camp)

September 30, 1944

Public Prosecutor of the Investigation Department of the Office of the Public

Prosecutor of the Estonian SSR EGI

I am a resident of the Scaldiville borough of the Tavrogskay Oblast of

Lithuania. When the Germans occupied our town in 1941, they immediately gathered

all of us Jews and placed us into camps, surrounded by barbed wire. Many times I

escaped from the camps, but I was later arrested [again], and later in October, all of

us prisoners were sent into the Estonian Republic where we were placed in the socalled

Klooga Camp which was surrounded by barbed wire, with guards around it.

Living in the camp, we worked since morning till late evening on saw mills, and

some worked in other unit, as there were many in the territory of the Klooga camp.

The guards of the Klooga camp were Estonians, and the managerial people were

Germans. Work was laborious, the treatment was very rough, we were beaten at

every step for any petty offenses, we were fed very badly, we were given out 360

grams of bread a day, and some watery soup, and that was all. The camp routine was

very strict, for the slightest insubordination prisoners were beaten to within an inch of

their lives and even shot.

On September 19, 1944, in the morning, as usual, Germans came inside our

barrack and ordered all the men to gather up and go to the square, where they were

made to sit down on the ground. Then they were taken in small groups to the forest.

After a while, we heard shots from the area near the forest, then the Germans came

again and under a strengthened convoy, took groups of 30-40 Jews into the forest.

Then we began to suspect that Germans are shooting all of the prisoners, so I decided

to hide. I cut floor boards with a prepared saw in a corner of the barrack and thought

to dig out a tunnel. But the floor appeared to be cemented. Then my comrade Flavius

DONDES and a boy named Benjamin, I don’t know his last name, got into this

aperture, they hid between the cemented floor and the board top of the floor, and I

laid down on the aperture and covered myself with a blanket, and others were hiding

in other corners and under planks of beds, and when it got dark at about 8-9 pm, the

Germans entered the barrack, lit up a lamp and began to shoot successively all of

those who remained. This lasted for a long time, until everyone was shot, in their

opinion, and owing to the darkness, the Germans, apparently, did not notice me, and

we have remained alive. And at night, I don’t remember the exact time, I heard that

the shooting was finished. I took off my boots and in socks got on the attic of the

59

barrack where I saw many other hidden prisoners, all in all there were about 60 of us

on the attic. Thus we stayed on the attic till morning and a couple of days more, until

we were certain that all of the Germans left to Tallinn and that the Russian armies are

near.

Question: Tell me, who took part in the execution of the citizens contained in

the Klooga camp?

Answer: As I have noticed, the German SHCWARZ and a number of others,

whose last names and names I don’t know, were shooting the prisoners of the Klooga

camp.

Question: Tell me, do you know who participated in the execution from the

Estonians?

Answer: I can’t answer this question, for I do not know.

Question: How many Jews, in your opinion, were shot by the Germans on

September 19, 1944?

Answer: In my opinion, the Germans shot nearly 1, 500-1, 700 Jews that were

contained in the Klooga camp, as there were about 2, 000-2, 200 people all in all,

from which the majority were Jews.

I cannot add anything else to this case. All is written down correctly and read out to me.

(SHAPIRO Ljubov)

Public Prosecutor of the Investigation Department of the Office of the Public Prosecutor of

the Estonian SSR, attorney of the 2nd class EGI

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17à. Pages. 50-

50 overleaf. A copy. Typescript.

60

DOCUMENT 15

Transcript of interrogation of prisoner of Klooga Concentration Camp

Mendel Balberinski

September 29, 1944

Witness is warned about the responsibility for false swearing and for refusal of

giving evidence in accordance with Article 95 of the UK [criminal code] of RSFSR.

I worked till July 2, 1941 as a manager in a drugstore in Vilnius. After the city

was occupied by the Germans, I, together with the other Jews, received the order to

abandon our places. 4 days were given for this purpose. After I gave up the drugstore

I didn’t work anywhere till September, 1941. Then I began working as a simple

worker. On September, 6, 1941, the German authorities published an order for all the

Jews to lodge in separate apartments without the right to leave and settle in other

apartments of the city. Thus, two ghettos were formed in Vilnius. In October, 1941,

they started to liquidate the first ghetto, the one were I was at, i.e. Jews from there

were taken out the city and shot. I managed to escape from the first ghetto to the

second one by paying to one German, thus I have remained alive. In the second

ghetto I worked in a medical institution where I worked more or less calmly till

August, 1943, when the Germans began to liquidate the second ghetto. This time,

Jews weren’t executed, they were taken away to work to Estonia. I was taken away to

Estonia on September 24, 1943. On our way to the station in Vilno, I was separated

from my family. My mother, wife, and daughter were taken away separately, and my

son and I were taken away separately as well. Where they’ve taken away my mother,

wife, and daughter and where they are now, I do not know.

We arrived at Klooga in Estonia on September 29, 1943. There were 750 men

in our group. Before, in Klooga, there were 50 men and 600 women who arrived here

on September 8, 1943. After us another group of 500 women from Kaunas arrived

here. After the arrival, we began making wire entanglements for the camp. When the

wire protection of the camp was ready, we were assigned to building barracks.

Wooden barracks were made for workshops and for habitation of the Germans. We

lived in stone houses. A German named CAROL, I don’t remember his last name,

supervised the work in the construction of the barracks. He treated us awfully; he beat

us up to blood for any slightest thing that he didn’t like. Whether he wasn’t

understood in the right way, or someone didn’t work they way he would like. During

the beating, he abused us and called us traitors. We worked from 6 o'clock in the

morning up to 5 o'clock in the evening with a lunch break from 12 o'clock till 13

o'clock. We were fed very nastily. We were given about 350 grams of bread a day, 25

61

grams of margarine and during lunchtime, one liter of soup which consisted of one

liter of water with 20-40 grams of groats. Except this, we were given 25 grams of

sugar a week. From such dining I swelled, began being sick, but the hospital would

accept only if the prisoner had a fever of 40 degrees Celsius. There was this one when

I was sent to work when I had a temperature of 39.6. We were building wooden

barracks till May, 1944, then we passed on to manufacturing the so-called diving

alarm mines to which Germans attached great importance. This work was very heavy.

The German SCHTEINBERGER from the “Tod” organization supervised this work.

SCHTEINBERGER can’t be called a man, he was truly an animal, he continuously

beat us not only with his hands and sticks, but also using iron. From beating,

exhaustion, and famine, dozens of prisoners died in the camp. This is how we worked

till 13 o'clock on August 22 of this year, when 500 of us, 250 men and 250 women,

weren’t admitted to work, and we were carried in motor vehicles to Lagedi where we

worked in construction of bunkers and entrenchments. In Lagedi, we worked till 18

o'clock on September, 18 of this year. Then we were told that we will be carried to

Germany and we really were taken in motor vehicles but where exactly - I do not

know. I have left with the last group that consisted of 34 men. On our way, we

overtook a motor vehicle with 40 women in it. Both of our cars arrived in Tallinn,

where - I do not know, as it was already dark and late at night. At the place where we

arrived, we heard as someone told our convoy that it was already late and that they

had already finished everything. Then we were taken to some prison where we stayed

for the night. In the early morning on September 19, when it was still dark, we were

loaded onto motor vehicles. Where we went - we did not know. At 9 am, we arrived

to Klooga. We weren’t let in the camp for one and a half hours. Then, at last, we were

let in and were attached to the groups of workers which stood in the area of the

female block. There we were told that everyone would be taken away for work to

Germany. By the time we approached the group of prisoners that stood in the square,

the strongest and healthiest men were chosen for work. 301 men were selected. These

men were led aside the railway station, and we saw how they carried firewood into

the forest. At 12 o'clock in the afternoon, we were fed with a very good soup, and we

heard, as the chief of camp VERLE told the cooks to leave a dinner for 300 men,

which were at work. The Germans forced the people who were in the square to sit

down. So we sat waiting for the people at work, until two o'clock in the afternoon.

Soon after two o'clock in the afternoon we heard frequent shooting from machine

guns, which lasted for a minute. After that, single shots were heard. We understood

that these 300 men, which carried firewood, were shot.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon, Germans demanded 6 healthy people

who were led for some work. Everyone thought that these people were also led to

execution, but we were mistaken. They soon returned and told us that they have

loaded two barrels of gasoline on a motor vehicle and this gasoline was taken to the

forest, from where shots were heard.

At about five o'clock in the afternoon, groups of 50-100 people were sent to the

forest. Soon after these groups left to the forest, frequent shooting from machine guns

62

with the subsequent single shots were heard. The German who made these

executions, was SCHWARZE, I don’t know his name and his rank. Between the

withdrawals, SCHWARZE selected a group of 42 people, which were to leave with

him. These people were the housekeeping staff in the camp, such as: hairdressers,

tailors, shoemakers, etc. These 42 people stood as a separate group while the other

men and women were taken to the forest. After the last people were taken to the

forest, a motor vehicle arrived at a barrack, which took away patients and all of the

serving medical staff from the hospital and took them away into the forest. After the

last people were taken away, SCHWARZE shouted and asked the guards where the

other men were. I understood that part of the people ran away, so I grasped my son by

the hand and ran on to the second floor of the female block where we hid in a niche

of an empty room. Except for the shots, human shouts were heard from the forest.

Being on the second floor, I often looked out the window and at 8 o'clock in the

evening, I saw fires in the forest. Then it became clear that Germans shot all the

people who were in the square. There was a total of nearly 1, 500 people, about 750

men, and about 750 women, and also about 60 children.

On the next day, I have found out that the Germans escaped, and these 42

people who should have left together with them were shot on the ground floor of the

female block. After the Germans left, we hid for 5 days as we were afraid of the

Estonian patrols. Except me there were about 80 people on the attic of the female

block.

I’ve never seen or known SCHWARZE, who supervised the execution, before.

Nobody escaped from the forest where people were shot and burned. As we later

found out, from the square where we all gathered, people were taken to execution

into the forest and into a wooden barrack which the Germans burned with shot

prisoners inside.

There were about 2, 100 Jews in the Klooga camp. Besides, there were a

couple of dozens of Estonian prisoners here before our arrival - criminals who also

supervised us, being prisoners. In the winter of this year, people evacuated from the

Leningrad region, from Finland, and also POWs of the Red Army were brought to the

Klooga camp.

Prisoners in the camp were workers. People from the “Tod” organization

supervised their work. These people were the following: during the first four months

of our stay - Officer Kurt SCHTAHE who always walked with a whip and a dog

which he set on people. SCHTAHE was the general supervisor of [prisoners'] work.

He was a very cruel man. He beat us, and mainly set his dog on us who knocked the

worker down on the ground, tore clothes on him, and then grasped his throat. After

the victim was half dead, SCHTAHE withdrew the dog. Except SCHTAHE there

were other administrators of separate sites of the camp work. The work in barracks

construction was supervised by Carol DUJARDIN from Ahen. SCHTEINBERGER

supervised the work on manufacturing alarm mines. I do not know other work

supervisors. Chiefs of the camp were Germans from the Gestapo. The last chief of the

63

camp was VERLE whom I know a little, as I was in the camp Lagedi at this time.

Before VERLE, BOK was the chief, I do not remember last names of chiefs of the

camps before BOK. The chief of the camp had two assistants, from Gestapo as well.

BOK terrorized all of the prisoners, increased the amount of corporal punishments,

and also introduced personal searches and searches of prisoners' belongings. During a

personal search, all of a prisoner's personal things were taken away, leaving only

those that were on the prisoner.

When on September 29, 1943, we arrived to Klooga, we were ordered to give

up all personal things, jewelry, and money. One of ours, NOSOV, did not give up

some stamps and for this he was shot on the spot. We were forbidden to leave the

limits of the camp. Although there were people who left camp in search of food,

many were shot for this.

As I have later found out, about 400 of the people who were with me at work in

Lagedi, were shot in Tallinn. 73 people and I survived only because we arrived late in

Tallinn when the executions were finished, and the Germans because of their

accuracy did not accept us after the term of execution.

In Lagedi two prisoners were shot: IOFFE, 26 years old, and FINKELSHTEIN,

about 60 years old, for wishing to take potatoes from the field. An Estonian shot

them.

There is nothing more to add.

The report is read out and written down from my words correctly.

(Mendel BALBERINSKI)

Public Prosecutor: (VASILIEV)

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17à.

Pages. 45-46 overleaf. A copy. Typescript.

64

DOCUMENT 16

Reference for the Case of Investigation of Atrocities Committed by the

Nazi Germans in the Territory of the VIRUMAA Uyezd of the Estonian

SSR

October 8, 1944, Rakvere City

Virumaa Uyezd Commission for investigation of atrocities of fascist aggressors

established the following as of October 8, 1944:

During the German occupation, there were the following concentration camps

and places of detention in the territory of the Virumaa Uyezd, in which Soviet

citizens and Red Army POWs were contained:

1. Camp Kuremäe. The number of prisoners in this camp has not been

established.

2. Camps Vivikonna and Auvere, located in the territory of the Auvere Volost.

The number of prisoners contained in these camps has not been established.

3. Camp in Jihvi. About 150-200 Red Army POWs were contained in this camp.

4. Camp Kohtla-Järve. 4, 000 prisoners were contained in this camp, mainly Red

Army POWs. In the same Kohtla-Järve, there was also another camp for

civilian prisoners. Among the prisoners in the camp, there were citizens

abducted from oblasts of the USSR and some persons from Yugoslavia,

Denmark, and Poland. There were 7, 000-8, 000 people in the camp.

5. Camp Kukruse in the territory of the Kohtla Volost. 1, 000 Red Army POWs

were contained in the camp.

6. Camp Perm on the territory of the Kohtla Volost, where 500 Red Army POWs

were contained.

7. Camp Goldfielde located in the territory of the “Kohtla” slate distillery. Up to

1, 000 abducted citizens and Red Army POWs were contained in the camp.

8. Camp Erede-Aeuidus in the territory of the Kohtla Volost. Lately 2, 000

civilians were contained in the territory of the camp, among them there were

also people abducted from Poland and Lithuanian SSR.

9. Camp Kiviõli. The whole camp consists of 5 separate camps located in the

territory of the slate distillery in Kiviõli. Local civilians, Red Army POWs, and

the population of the Jewish nationality were contained in this camp; the

general number of prisoners here reached up to 8, 000 people.

65

10. Camp Sonda located in the Sonda borough. The camp contained up to 800

civilians.

11. Camp Aseri located in a cognominal settlement on the seacoast. Up to 1, 500

civilians were contained in the camp, mainly Jewish people.

12. Camp Kunda located near the Kunda village. In the camp 150-200 Red Army

POWs were contained.

It is established that there was an unbearable routine in all of the listed camps.

People were beaten to within an inch of their lives, scoffed, at and shot for no reason

at all. Prisoners were used on construction, highway and railway repairing, forest

exploitation, bog drainage, in mines and slate distilleries located in the Kohtla and

Kiviõli areas.

Prisoners were held half-dressed; they were forced to walk in tatters and

without any footwear. The food was disgusting, 200 grams of bread and some skilly

were given each prisoner daily. The prisoners were physically exhausted. All of the

camps had a high death rate because of famine, beating, and general inhuman

treatment.

Chiefs and commandants of camps were Germans; guarding of camps was

carried out by Germans from the SS units and Estonian battalions.

By October 8, 1944, the Commission established that mass destruction and

executions of citizens and POWs took place in concentration camps Ereda and

Kiviõli.

ESTABLISHED:

1.

By survey of camp Ereda it is established that the camp contained people

mainly of the Jewish nationality, men, women, and children. In August, 1944, the

command and guards of the camp started mass destruction of the people confined in

this camp.

By the survey of the uyezd and by interrogation of people from the local

population it is established that the mass destruction and executions happened in the

following way: the confined were taken from barracks in groups of 10-15 people, and

some were also brought on motor vehicles from other places and escorted to the place

of execution located 50-100 meters away from the camp in bushes. People were

undressed, forced to stand on logs thrown over dug holes, and then shot from rifles

and machine guns. When the holes were filled with corpses, that were then poured

with a combustible liquid and lit up. Later these holes were covered up with earth.

Two of such holes were revealed in the area of the camp.

In the same area three fireplaces of significant sizes were found. Among the

ashes there are traces of burnt human bones.

66

It is not possible to establish the amount of the massacred people, although it is

clear from the testimonies that mass executions and destruction of bodies here

proceeded within three days.

By scattered personal things and clothes of prisoners it is established that men,

women, and children were shot here.

2.

By survey of the camps located in Kiviõli, and by interrogation of the local

population it is established that since 1941 till the day of the German invaders' flight,

plenty of local civilians: first, of the Virumaa Uyezd and other areas of the Estonian

SSR, and later Red Army POWs and civilians captured and abducted by the Germans

in various places, were contained here.

Since August, 1941, regular and continuous destruction of the people contained

in these camps took place. By the superficial survey and by witnesses' testimonies it

can be concluded that there are no less than 5-6 thousand massacred bodies under the

slates of the mountain and around it. According to the evidence of separate witnesses,

over 700 people were withdrawn from the Kiviõli camps and taken under a convoy in

an unknown direction.

3.

In area of the Rakvere city, of the Klodi-Kuuzik uyezd that is 5 km to the north

from the city, and Palermo-Mets, which is 3 km to the south from city, places of mass

destruction of the local Estonian population shot in 1941 after arrival of the German

aggressors are found. In the Palermo-Mets district there are some fresh tombs,

significative of the destruction and executions happening here this year.

It is established by witnesses' evidence that as early as in 1941, the German

invaders and their henchmen from the military-fascist organization ”Omakaitse” shot

here local Soviet citizens and prisoners from prisons and concentration camps

captured by them. The same testimonies indicate that in the following years, people

were brought here in closed cars at night and shot.

4.

By evidence of a witness living in the Moor Village of the Rakvere Volost of

the Virumaa Uyezd, it is established that in the beginning of 1944, four Russian

POWs that escaped from the camp and 32 local Estonians who have evaded service

in the German Army were hiding in the woods in the area of the specified village.

In July, 1944, a group of German soldiers together with a constable of the

specified volost MUREL captured 27 people from this hiding group and shot them,

profaning afterwards their bodies.

Enclosure: acts and transcripts of interrogations of witnesses [not published].

67

Chairman of the Virumaa Uyezd Commission on Investigation of

Atrocities of Fascist Aggressors

JANSON

Members:

Chief of the Virumaa UO NKGB, Major of the State Security MATVEEV

Chief of the Virumaa UO People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs Lieutenant of State

Security ENGER

Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Virumaa Ueyzd 1st Class Attorney SPADJEV

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 17à. Pages. 178-181.

A certified copy. Typescript

68

DOCUMENT 17

List of German and Estonian military criminals in charge of punitive

actions in the Virumaa Uyezd during the period of Nazi occupation

Not earlier then end of September, 1944

Last name,

name,

patronymic

Nationality

Military rank and post

Name of German, Romanian,

etc. units, institutions, and

organizations

Characteristic of crimes

Role in commitment of crimes

¹ and date of act

Issued the statement

1 SCHUTZ Ger

man - - Executions

by shooting Leader

Virumaa

uyezd

commission

2 SANDERBERG

EN = - - = =

3 BEKING =

Commissioner

of Petserski

uyezd

- = =

4 SEUMLER = Commandant of

Võru - = =

5 KATELKE =

Major,

commandant of

Võru

- = =

6 ENNOCK

The

Esto

nian

Prefect of police - = =

7 TIIGRE =

Head of Fascist

organization

Omakaitse,

Major

- = =

8 TIVEL = Captain - = =

9 RAA = Assistant chief

of prison - = =

10 ANDERSON =

Chief of

internal prison

schedule

- = =

Head of Department of the Estonian Republic Commission on Revelation and

Investigation of Atrocities of the Fascist Aggressors

PASS

Assistant Public Prosecutor of ESSR VASILIEV

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 15. Pages 3.

Original. Manuscript.

144

DOCUMENT 46

Testimony of Senior Lecturer of Tartu State University of the Estonian

SSR Valmar Adams on actions of fascist aggressors in summer and

autumn of 1941 in the Tartu City

Not earlier than October 1944

On the outskirts of Tartu (33 Nyutse Street) there is a so-called Exhibition

Ground where fascist aggressors in July, 1941 suited an improvised concentration

camp through which thousands of Soviet patriots passed in the summer and autumn

of 1941. Prisoners were located in four pavilions 60x20 meters in size, and Russian

male population from the suburb areas was for several weeks held outside on an area

between the pavilions fenced by barbed wire.

People from these pavilions, especially those from the “death chamber,” were

brought to execution every night, preliminary tied together and plundered up to

underwear. No legal proceedings were employed; the rude and eternally drunk

henchmen of Germans from the so-called “Self-Defense” [“Omakaitse”] shot

prisoners at will. I published the details in the “Uus Postimees” newspaper's issue 11

of October 3, 1944, in the article “The Garden of tortures. Personal memoirs from the

times of German occupation.”

Of my cellmates the following were shot in July and August 1941:

Professors of the State University P. RUBEL (agriculturist) and Leopold

ZILBERSHCTEIN (a genius philologist sent to Estonia by president of

Czechoslovakia BENESH to acquaint Estonia with the Czechoslovak culture),

member of the Tartu Uyezd Executive Committee GIRSH, sons of school adviser

LANG, school worker Edward PYUTSENN, director of toy factory MIYSSAAR,

tens of my students from the Tartu State University, hundreds of unknown workers,

peasants and Soviet employees. Dr. Arthur KLIMAN [professor] was also shot at that

time, the prorector of the State University, one of the best experts on the

administrative law in Europe. I stayed in the chamber of death down to the

liquidation of this temporary concentration camp. Then I was transferred to a "labor"

camp in the so-called Hupertjanov barracks.

The concentration camp on the Exhibition Ground was organized by the local

White Guards almost before the Germans came, as the German armies approached. It

was first under the jurisdiction of the military-occupational authorities (the field

commandant Colonel GOZERBUH, chief of staff Lieutenant Colonel

TEIHENBAUER), subsequently it passed to the authority of the SD police (SSFührer

ZEFELD and his assistant FARENBERGER) with the help of the Estonian

political police. The commandant of camps was Ober-Sergeant-Major of the field

gendarmerie, known in the camp under the name FRIZ, who named himself “The

145

Father of Jews” and devoted special attention to mockeries of Jewish prisoners.

Impostor judges who gathered on the Exhibition Ground and "inspectors" from the

rascals White Guards were badly informed on my [...] activities in the Soviet public

life, as on interrogations they accused me mainly of my relations with Jews and asked

foolish questions about the tasks allegedly received by me from the world Jewry, and

not concerning my activity as a member of the editorial board of the “The Tartu

Communist” newspaper and my public lectures. (This poor awareness, possibly, has

helped me to survive.) The difficulties of the camp routine were alleviated only by

the outstanding disorder that reigned in the concentration camp and by the boyish

petty tyranny of the triumphing anti-Soviet gang. For example, sometimes I was

driven in a column of women and teenagers along the streets of my native city to

forced hard labor on clearing the apartment of a rich merchant [JA]NES and its

preparation for the field commandant. However, I had more serious tests to pass: as I

was forced to sleep without a blanket on the stone floor of the pavilion, I contracted a

sharp inflammation of the middle ear, which resulted – with the absence of medical

assistance – in my becoming absolutely deaf in my left ear.

It is impossible to list in a brief account all aggression of the fascists against

the Estonian culture. However, the “cleansing” of personal libraries was especially

hurting for the subjected to repression Soviet scientists. In August 1941, in Tartu, a

special confidential commission, or a team for withdrawal of Bolshevik literature

from libraries of Soviet scientists, was formed. As it was established later, this

"campaign" was carried out by youth on instruction of the SD and under direction of

persons whose names are known, if needed. I heard that this team crushed libraries of

professors KLIMAN, KRUUZ, KOORT, KADARI and writers JACOBSON and

JURNA. My library was “cleansed” not only of all Marxist books, but also all of

books printed in Russian after 1917. The visit of the fascist bandit “librarians”

deprived a historian of the Russian literature of the most valuable collection of

Russian authors, which I was collecting for an almost quarter century, among them

editions of V. MAJAKOVSKI and I. ERENBURG, which I specially collected.

Thus, fascists have simultaneously taken away my freedom, posts, hearing and

have appreciably disarmed me ideologically and scientifically.

Master Valmar Teodorovich ADAMS

Senior Lecturer of the Faculty of Literary Criticism,

Tartu State University, ESSR;

Member of the Union of Estonian Writers since 1926;

Former Secretary of the Board of the Estonian

PEN-Club

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 23. Pages. 450-456.

Manuscript. Original.

148

DOCUMENT 48

List of persons shot by fascist criminals in Pärnumaa Uyezd of the

ESSR

Not earlier than 1944

Last name, name, patronymic # of act Year of birth Killed on Killed by

TUUL Oswald Johanovich 3 7/21/41 SD

KISKE Johan Hendrickovich 4 7/11/41 SD

SUTT Martin Martinovich 5 10/29/1903 06/17/42 SD

ERMAA Salmo 7 1941 Political Police [PP]

SAAR Leopold Antonovich 8 12/4/41 PP

LELLE Majde 8 12/4/41 PP

POLU Edward 9 7/8/41 German soldier

SOONTACK Juri 10 8/14/41 PP

PUMBU Oscar Janovich 11 8/17/41 PP

RESSAR Johan Antonovich 12 8/21/41 PP

MERE Valdemar Gustavovich 15 9/12/41 PP

LAAS Dimitriy Michaelovich 18 9/29/1901 9/21/41 SS

LERG Michael Evaldovich 19 8/10/41 PP

VILMANN Johannes Annevich 20 8/9/41 German soldier

KIRS 22 9/22/44 SS

RISTIKIVI Johan Johan. 23 8/18/41 Omakaitse

GRUNBERS Johan Jurjevich 26 8/17/41 PP

MARISF Laba 27 1941 PP

PILENISH Johannes

Georgievich

28 2/6/41 Omakaitse

PILENISH Kristian Georgievich 29 1942 German

VIILIN August Antonovich 32 12/17/1908 1/18/42 Omakaitse

PJARMANN Alexey Jakovich 33 Aug.1941 German soldier

MASSO Josep Jacovich 34 8/12/41 PP

MARDICK Zynaida 36 1914 8/25/41 PP

SAMSONOV Alexey

Danilovich

37 1905 8/1/41 PP

LUUR Artem Antonovich 38 1905 8/1/41 German on court

decision

149

Last name, name, patronymic # of the act Year of birth Killed on Killed by

SIIVESTI Anton Antonovich 40 8/17/41 Omakaitse

ERNITS Vera Andreevna 41 1943 PP, Omakaitse

MARTINSON Martin Mar. 47 5/21/1902 8/6/44

PULCK Jacob Jakovl. 50 1912 4/17/41 German soldier

MERILA Libya Carlovna 51 1920 1944 PP

POOMA Mlita Mih. 52 1941 PP

RESUSICK JAN 53 1915 1941 Omakaitse

RESDICK Erens 54 1941 Omakaitse

WHIST Elza Mihael. 62 1907 9/19/1941 SS

KALTOV Isaak Leopold. 66 1905 1941 PP

KRABUSLE David Vif. 67 1908 1941 PP

HAITOVA Fried 68 1941 PP

HAITOVA Nilla 69 1941 PP

HAITOV Abram Isaakovich 70 1896 1941 PP

MAITOV Jette Leopoldovich 73 1909 1941 PP

VESSET Boris Elis. 74 1941 PP

PARZ Gunnar Petrovich 75 1929 09/19/41 SS

HAITOV Leopold Isaakovich 76 1941 PP

HAITOV Moses Isaakovich 77 1941 PP

Vesset Max Elis. 78 1918 1941 PP

HAITOV Ester Abramovich 79 1927 1941 PP

HAITOV Palo Abramovich 80 1936 1941 PP

ROHTLA Hendrick Adovich 64 1944 German soldier

OLDERMANN Alex. Mer. 48 Omakaitse

TAMMELA Jonenski 1 1941 Omakaitse

HERNITS Ajre 39 1941 Omakaitse

VIIRA August Johim. 108 6/7/1909 1942 Omakaitse

SAALISTE Johan 109 1913 PP

OSTAVI Friz Yanovich 110 1899 9/22/44 SS

SIIM Rudolf Kristan. 112 2/21/1925 10/10/42 German soldier

LAUS Dimitriy 114 1941 PP

PRIIDICK Andres Lizavich 115 8/9/41 Omakaitse

KARUMAS Jan Lenavich 115 8/9/41 Omakaitse

KJAAR Voldemar 116 8/41 German soldier

JANIMARI Rihard Yanovich 117 1922 8/30/41 PP

150

Last name, name, patronymic # of the act Year of birth Killed on Killed by

MELLIKOV Modis Modis. 119 8/28/41 Omakaitse

TOMINGAS Johan Mih. 120 8/15/41 PP

LYMPS Johaness Mih. 121 8/30/41 SD

VELMANN Lena Vilun. 122 1893 PP

MEYMRE Arnold Jurevich 123 1941 Omakaitse

MEYMRE Linda Jurevna 123 1941 Omakaitse

POOLACK Arnold

Anatolievich

124 1909 9/13/1941 PP

HAITOV Solomon

Leopoldovich

81 1941 PP

PAZPIJANDI 82 1941 German soldier

PINSON Edward Janovich 83 7/20/41 Omakaitse

ROOIMERE Tamara 34 1919 7/15.41 PP

ERKMAN 85 1864 7/25.41 PP

SILDMAN 86 7/25.41 PP

KOITMA 87 7/25.41 PP

ITTER 88 7/17.41 PP

RULL Voldemar 89 10/13.41 PP

HIRFELD 90 10/13.41 PP

ADU Dimara 93 7/17.41 PP

KURMA Zynaida 94 8/03.41 Omakaitse

LEPP Silme 95 1918 8/03.41 Omakaitse

DITME Juli 96 7/3.41 Omakaitse

KIWI Voldemar 97 7/25.41 Omakaitse

REBECKA Pavlovsk Abrams 98 1901 1941 Omakaitse

VESSET Ceige Iuuder. 99 1941 Omakaitse

PRUUL Peter Jurevich 100 1808 9/4/1941 Omakaitse

VAIKLA Herminda Liz. 107 1910 1941 Omakaitse

KENING Jan Janovich 129 1908 1942 PP

TEINBURG Michael Janovich 130 1890 9/21/1944 SS

ARUJAGI Haldar Karlov. 132 SS

State Archives of the Russian Federation. Fund 7021. List 97. File 21. Page. 7à.

Original. Typescript.