View source for War crimes trials in Soviet Estonia

{{Short description|1960s war crimes trials in Soviet Estonia}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=January 2024}}
A number of '''war crimes trials''' were held during the [[Occupation of the Baltic states|Soviet occupation of Estonia]] (1944–1991). The best-known trial was brought in 1961, by the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] authorities against [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#Estonia|local collaborators]] who had participated in the [[Holocaust]] during the [[occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany|German occupation (1941–1944)]]. The accused were charged with murdering up to 5,000 [[German Jews|German]] and [[Czechoslovakian Jews]] and [[Romani people]] near the [[Jägala concentration camp]] in 1942–1943. The [[public trial]] by the Supreme Court of the [[Estonian SSR]] was held in the auditorium of the Navy Officers Club in [[Tallinn]]<ref name="Spartanburg">{{Cite news | title = War Policeman Tells Of Deaths | agency= [[Associated Press|AP]] | date = March 7, 1961 | newspaper = [[The Spartanburg Herald]] | location= [[Spartanburg]] | pages = 1 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-nksAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1ssEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2737,842902&dq=aleksander+laak | access-date=17 August 2010}}</ref> and attended by a mass audience. All three defendants were convicted and [[Capital punishment|sentenced to death]], one in absentia. The two defendants present for the trial were executed shortly after. The third defendant, [[Ain-Ervin Mere]], was not available for execution.
A second trial was held in [[Tartu]] in 1962. The accused Estonian collaborators were charged with killing Soviet citizens and were sentenced to death [[Trial in absentia|in absentia]]. The trial verdict and testimony were inadvertently published in the magazine ''Sotsialisticheskaya zakonnost'' ('Socialist Legality') before the trial began.
==The trials==
=== The accused ===
*[[Ain-Ervin Mere]], commander of the [[Estonian Security Police and SD]] (Group B of the [[Sicherheitspolizei]]) under the [[Estonian Self-Administration]], was tried [[trial in absentia|in absentia]]. Before the trial he was an active member of the Estonian community in England, contributing to Estonian-language publications.<ref>''Estonian State Archives of the Former Estonian KGB (State Security Committee) records relating to war crime investigations and trials in Estonia, 1940–1987'' (manuscript RG-06.026) – [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] – document available on-line through [https://collections.ushmm.org/search/ this query page] using document id ''RG-06.026'' – Also available at [http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=15937 Axis History Forum] – This list includes the evidence presented at the trial. It list as evidence several articles by Mere in Estonian-language newspapers published in London</ref> At the time of the trial he was however held in captivity, accused of murder. He was never deported<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=rL8cAAAAIAAJ&q=%22extradition+to+estonia+was+refused+by ''Masses and Mainstream'', 1963]</ref><!--this is a periodical-->  and died a free man in England in 1969.
* Ralf Gerrets,<ref name="Shot Children">{{Cite news | title =Nazi Firing Squads Shot Children | date = March 7, 1961 | newspaper = [[Montreal Gazette]] | location= [[Montreal]] | page = 1 | url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=T4stAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1ZwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1604,1064352&dq=alex+laak | access-date=August 17, 2010}}</ref> the deputy commandant at the [[Jägala concentration camp]]. He was executed by shooting on March 31, 1961, at the age of 55.
* Jaan Viik, (Jan Vijk, Ian Viik),<ref name="Shot Children" /> a guard at the Jägala concentration camp was singled out for prosecution {{Citation needed|date=June 2007}} out of the hundreds of Estonian camp guards and police for his particular brutality.<ref name="weiss-wendt">[[Anton Weiss-Wendt|Weiss-Wendt, Anton]] (2003). [http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/17/1/31 Extermination of the Gypsies in Estonia during World War II: Popular Images and Official Policies]. ''[[Holocaust and Genocide Studies]]'' 17.1, 31–61.</ref> He was accused of throwing small children into the air and shooting them. He did not deny the charge.<ref name="video">[https://web.archive.org/web/20070622043316/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_fi.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005448&MediaId=1970 Estonian policemen stand trial for war crimes] – Video footage at the [[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]]</ref> Viik was executed by shooting on March 31, 1961, at the age of 44. Viik had already served time in prison prior to his trial. In 1946, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for voluntarily serving in a concentration camp.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Maripuu |first=Meelis |title=Cold War Show Trials in Estonia: Justice and Propaganda in the Balance |url=https://mnemosyne.ee/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Meelis_Maripuu_Cold_War_Show_Trials_in_Estonia_Justice_and_Propaganda_in_the_Balance20191122-34195-1vmjzbg.pdf}}</ref>
* A fourth accused, [[Aleksander Laak]], the commandant of [[Jägala concentration camp]], was discovered in Canada; he committed suicide in 1960.<ref name="Shot Children" />
=== The crimes ===
While the accused may have been involved in other [[crimes against humanity]] during the [[occupation of Estonia by Nazi Germany|German occupation of Estonia]], the trial focused on the events of September 1942. According to testimony of the survivors, at least two transports with about 2,100–2,150 people,<ref name="epl"/> arrived at the railway station at [[Raasiku]], one from [[Theresienstadt concentration camp]] with [[Czechoslovakian Jews]] and one from [[Berlin]] with German Jews. Around 1,700–1,750 people, mainly Jews, not [[Selektion|selected]] for work at the Jägala  camp were taken to [[Kalevi-Liiva]] and shot.<ref name="epl"/>
Transport '''''Be 1.9.1942''''' from Theresienstadt arrived at the Raasiku station on September 5, 1942, after a five-day trip.<ref>[http://old.hrad.cz/kpr/holocaust/hist_zid_uk.html The Genocide of the Czech Jews]</ref><ref name="levandehistoria">
[http://www.levandehistoria.se/default.php?tid=955&ss=&id=45 De dödsdömda vittnar] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927033348/http://www.levandehistoria.se/default.php?tid=955&ss=&id=45 |date=2007-09-27 }} ''([http://www.levandehistoria.se/default.php?tid=893&ss=&id=45 Transport Be 1.9.1942] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927033341/http://www.levandehistoria.se/default.php?tid=893&ss=&id=45 |date=2007-09-27 }})'' {{in lang|sv}}</ref>
According to testimony by one of the accused, Gerretts, eight busloads of Estonian [[Schutzmannschaft|auxiliary police]] had arrived from [[Tallinn]].<ref name="levandehistoria" /> A selection process was supervised by Ain-Ervin Mere, chief of [[Sicherheitspolizei]] in Estonia; those not selected for slave labor were sent by bus to an execution site near the camp. Later the police<ref name="levandehistoria" /> in teams of 6 to 8 men<ref name="epl"/> would execute the Jews by [[machine gun]] fire, on other hand, during later investigation some guards of camp denied participation of police and said that execution was done by camp personnel.<ref name="epl"/> On the first day a total of 900 people were murdered in this way.<ref name="epl"/><ref name="levandehistoria" /> Gerrets told that he had fired a pistol at a victim who was still making noises in the pile of bodies.<ref name="video" /><ref name="levandehistoria" /> The whole operation was directed by [[Obersturmführer]] [[Heinrich Bergmann]] and [[Oberscharführer]] Julius Geese.<ref name="epl">[http://www.epl.ee/?artikkel=316769 Jägala laager ja juutide hukkamine Kalevi-Liival] – [[Eesti Päevaleht]] March 30, 2006 {{in lang|et}}</ref><ref name="levandehistoria" /><ref>{{cite web | url=http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2357&p=1569092 | title=SD and SiPo in Estonia - Page 2 - Axis History Forum }}</ref>
Usually able bodied men were selected to work on the [[oil shale]] mines in northeastern Estonia. Women, children, and old people would be executed on arrival. In the case ''Be 1.9.1942'' however, the only ones chosen for labor and to survive the war were a small group of young women who were taken through concentration camps in Estonia, Poland and Germany to Bergen- Belsen, where they were liberated.<ref>[http://www.bterezin.org.il/newsletter/dapey_59/eng59.doc From Ghetto Terezin to Lithuania and Estonia] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927121545/http://www.bterezin.org.il/newsletter/dapey_59/eng59.doc |date=2007-09-27 }}</ref> Camp commandant Laak used the women as [[sex slave]]s, killing at least one who refused to comply.<ref>[http://iisrael.ee/js.php3?id=343 Omakaitse omakohus] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607004456/http://iisrael.ee/js.php3?id=343 |date=2007-06-07 }} – JERUUSALEMMA SÕNUMID {{in lang|et}}</ref>
According to an article published by the journal "[[Contemporary European History]]" in 2001,
<blockquote>In 1942, transports of Jews from other countries arrived, and their murder and incarceration in slave labour camps was organised and supervised by German and Estonian officials (including Mere and the German head of A-IV). The final acts of liquidating the camps, such as [[Klooga concentration camp|Klooga]], which involved the mass-shooting of roughly 2,000 prisoners, were committed by Estonians under German command, that is by units of the [[20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian)|20.SS-Division]] and (presumably) the Schutzmannschaftsbataillon of the KdS. Survivors report that, during this period when Jewish slave labourers were visible, the Estonian population in part attempted to help the Jews by providing food and so on.<ref name="Birn">[[Ruth Bettina Birn|Birn, Ruth Bettina]] (2001), [http://journals.cambridge.org/production/action/cjoGetFulltext?fulltextid=81766 Collaboration with Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe: the Case of the Estonian Security Police]. ''[[Contemporary European History]]'' 10.2, 181–198. P. 190–191.</ref></blockquote>
The [[Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity]] rests the responsibility for such crimes mainly on 2.5–4 % of the Estonian [[Selbstschutz|Omakaitse]] civil defence units and the Estonian [[Sicherheitspolizei|Security Police]].<ref>[http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm#crimiger1 Conclusions of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070621094523/http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm |date=2007-06-21 }}</ref> A number of foreign witnesses were heard at the trial, including five women, who had been transported on ''Be 1.9.1942'' from Theresienstadt.<ref name="levandehistoria" />
=== The verdict ===
<blockquote>The accused Mere, Gerrets and Viik actively participated in crimes and mass killings that were perpetrated by the Nazi invaders on the territory of the Estonian SSR. In accordance with Fascist racial theory, the [[Sicherheitspolizei]] and [[Sicherheitsdienst]] were instructed to exterminate the Jews and Gypsies. For that end in August–September 1941 Mere and his collaborators set up a death camp at Jägala, 30 km from Tallinn. Mere put Aleksander Laak in charge of the camp; Ralf Gerrets was appointed his deputy. On 5 September 1942 a train with approximately 1,500 Czechoslovak citizens arrived to the [[Raasiku]] railway station. Mere, Laak and Gerrets personally selected who of them should be executed and who should be moved to the Jägala death camp. More than 1,000 people, mostly children, the old, and the infirm, were translocated to a wasteland at [[Kalevi-Liiva]] where they were monstrously executed in a special pit. In mid-September the second troop train with 1,500 prisoners arrived to the railway station from Germany. Mere, Laak, and Gerrets selected another thousand victims that were condemned by them to extermination. This group of prisoners, which included nursing women and their new-born babies, were transported to Kalevi-Liiva where they were killed. In March 1943 the personnel of the Kalevi-Liiva camp executed about fifty Gypsies, half of which were under 5 years of age. Also were executed 60 Gypsy children of school age...</blockquote>
::Quoted from the verdict passed on 11 March 1961, published in Немецко-фашистская оккупация в Эстонии. 1941–1944. Tallinn, 1963. Pages 53–54.
Original documents related to the Mere-Gerrets-Viik trial are to be found in Estonian State Archives – Party Archives Branch – ERA PA, Collection 129, boxes 63–70.<ref name="weiss-wendt" />
Mere, Gerrets, Viik and were all sentenced to death. Gerrets and Viik were both executed by shooting on March 31, 1961. Gerrets was 55 and Viik was 44.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Two Estonians Who Helped Nazi to Kill Jews Are Executed |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/two-estonians-who-helped-nazi-to-kill-jews-are-executed |access-date=2022-05-21 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |date=20 March 2015 |language=en-US}}</ref>
== Tartu trials ==
By the early 1960s, the Soviet government was pursuing [[:et:Juhan Jüriste|Juhan Jüriste]], [[Karl Linnas]] and [[Ervin Viks]], who were accused of murdering 12,000 people in the [[Tartu concentration camp]]. A more recent estimate concluded that the number was around 3,500 people, mainly Estonian and Estonian Jews as well as some Soviet POWs and Jews from Poland and Czechoslovakia.<ref name='Legge'>{{cite journal|last=Legge|first=Jerome S.|year=2010|title=The Karl Linnas Deportation Case, the Office of Special Investigations, and American Ethnic Politics|journal= Holocaust and Genocide Studies|publisher=Oxford Journals|volume=24|issue=1|pages=26–55|doi=10.1093/hgs/dcq002}}</ref> According to an official Soviet account: "the main culprit, Ervin Viks, fled the ire of the people and now lives in Australia, whereas Linnas found shelter in the USA".<ref name="Nazis">Немецко-фашистская оккупация в Эстонии. 1941–1944. Tallinn, 1963. Page 57.</ref> The Soviet authorities requested the extradition of both men, but against the background of the [[Cold War]], were flatly refused.<ref name="Nazis"/>
In January 1962, a show trial was conducted with the three accused [Jüriste present and Linnas and Viks absent] men tried [[trial in absentia|in absentia]] in [[Tartu]] and sentenced to death. The transcript and verdict of the trial were published in the magazine ''Sotsialisticheskaya zakonnost'' (Soviet Jurisprudence) in December before the trial had even occurred. The actual trial started in January the following year, delayed because one of the defendants was ill.<ref name='Legge'/><ref>{{cite book|last=Paul|first=Zumbakis|title=Soviet evidence in North American courts: an analysis of problems and concerns with reliance on communist source evidence in alleged war criminal trials|publisher=Americans for Due Process|year=1986|page=14|isbn=978-0-685-17594-1}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Luryi|first=Yuri|year=1977|title=The Role of Defence Counsel in Political Trials in the U.S.S.R.|journal=Manitoba Law Journal|publisher=University of Manitoba|location=Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada|volume=7|pages=307–324|issn=0076-3861}}</ref> Jüriste was executed on March 16, 1962, at the age of 65.
During the trials in Tallinn and Tartu several witnesses pointed out Heinrich Bergmann as the key figure behind the extermination of Estonian [[Romani people]].<ref name="weiss-wendt"/><ref>{{cite web | url=http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=128304&start=0 | title=SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Bergmann - Axis History Forum }}</ref>
The Australian [[Attorney General of Australia|Attorney General]], Sir [[Garfield Barwick]], continued to reject extradition requests for Viks, saying that since the USSR and Australia did not have an extradition treaty and Viks had passed immigration screening processes, any such extradition would undermine Australian sovereignty.<ref>David Fraser ''Daviborshch's Cart: Narrating the Holocaust in Australian War Crimes Trials'', University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln Ne., 2011, pp56&ndash;7</ref> Viks died in Australia in 1983.
In 1987, Linnas was deported to the USSR, after a US federal appeals court had deemed evidence against him "overwhelming and largely uncontroverted."<ref name="Allen">[[Charles R. Allen]] ''Patrick J. Buchanan: Master Holocaust Denier'' ([http://reformjudaismmag.net/1096ca.html online] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070722235233/http://www.reformjudaismmag.net/1096ca.html|date=2007-07-22}})</ref> The American judge remarked that his crimes "were such as to offend the decency of any civilized society."<ref name="Allen"/> Linnas died in a Soviet prison hospital, reportedly of old age, in the same year, 1987.
==See also==
*[[Occupation of the Baltic states]]
*[[Soviet war crimes]]
*[[Soviet deportations from Estonia]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070621094523/http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/conclusions.htm Conclusions of the Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity] – ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20070629191844/http://web-static.vm.ee/static/failid/051/1941-1944_ik.pdf Phase II: The German occupation of Estonia in 1941–1944]''
== External links ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070929163624/http://www.destfor.de/defor_root/defor_deutsch/aktuelles_und_presse/2005_01_06/2005_05/holocaust_estland/holocaust_estland.htm The Holocaust and the concentration camps in Estonia] {{in lang|de}} – ''[http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=de_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.destfor.de%2fdefor_root%2fdefor_deutsch%2faktuelles_und_presse%2f2005_01_06%2f2005_05%2fholocaust_estland%2fholocaust_estland.htm English translation]''
* [[:de:Kalevi-Liiva|Kalevi-Liiva]] on German Wikipedia {{in lang|de}} – ''[http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=de_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fde.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fKalevi-Liiva English translation]''
* Video extract of the trial - [https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/estonian-policemen-stand-trial-for-war-crimes]
* Grandson's blog about tracing his grandmother who was killed at the site - [https://www.telaviv1.org.il/2018/12/finding-my-grandmother-hope-and-horror.html]
* Geni (partial) list of people executed [https://www.geni.com/projects/Kalevi-Liiva-Estonia-Execution-Place/people/37138]
{{Holocaust Estonia}}
[[Category:Holocaust trials]]
[[Category:1961 in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet show trials]]
[[Category:1961 in law]]
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[[Category:1960s in Estonia]]
[[Category:Legal history of Estonia]]
[[Category:Military history of Tallinn]]
[[Category:History of Tartu]]
[[Category:Holocaust perpetrators in Estonia]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in Estonia]]
[[Category:War crimes trials in the Soviet Union]]