Tag #116817 - Interview #83161 (Etta Ferdmann)

When we had just returned to Tallinn from evacuation, we did not feel the Soviet regime as acutely. Then the oppression of the Soviets was getting harder and starting from 1947 we started feeling how strong it was. It all started with Estonian partisan squads, which could not abide by the Soviet occupation of Estonia. Those squads mostly consisted of peasants. They attacked soldiers. It was horrible! Those peasants were caught and ruthlessly exterminated like wolves. Many Estonian families had to mourn over their relatives that perished at the hand of the NKVD [19]. Then they started imprisoning people. One suspicion that the person was helping the partisans was enough to put him in jail. People were imprisoned for disapproving remarks with regards to the Soviet regime and whole innocent families were imprisoned.

Then in 1948-1949 deportation of Estonian population resumed. This time the Soviet regime fought well-off peasants. Agricultural export was the main source of export from Estonia. Of course, the peasants were rich, having large farm. They did not have any kolkhozes – families worked hard from dawn till night. Those hard-working people were called kulaks [20], and exiled to Siberia with their families. That deportation did not refer to the Jews only because the latter were barely involved in agriculture. Estonians were exiled – the most hard-working and skilled. The rest were compelled to join kolkhozes.