Tag #129241 - Interview #100063 (Edith Umova)

I received 16 rubles of pension for my father till I turned 18. It was a lot of money for us. My mother and I knew my father was dead, but we thought that he either sank with the ship or was shot dead before the ship sank. However, some time later we found out what had happened. My mother bumped into Arthur Rinne, a singer from the Estonia Theater. My father used to make clothes for him, and Rinne often visited our home. Rinne told my mother that he often visited my father in the Patarei jail in Tallinn during the German occupation. Once, when he went, my father was no longer there. In the 1990s I undertook an archive search trying to find whatever information I could about my father. Perhaps, if I had tried earlier, it would have been possible to know more about my father.

I wrote a letter to the archive describing all I knew from my mother. I had little hope of getting back any response. However, I received a letter. It said that my father Hilel Umov, born in 1902, was kept in the Patarei prison in Tallinn. There were archives of the Estonian police cooperating with the Germans during the war. My father’s file had been retained. It said that my father was arrested on 23rd December 1941, and on 13th January 1942 he was shot in the prison. His identification number had also been retained. I don’t know how my father was taken to prison. I can only assume that he managed to reach the shore and was captured by the Germans. They must have sent him to prison.

Later I got to know that there were about 1000 prisoners kept in the prison. They were Jews from Estonia and from other countries. They were all executed and my father was one of them. Now there’s a memorial board on the building of this prison to commemorate those people. It’s terrible, when people die at war, but it’s more awful when the only reason why they are killed is because they belong to the Jewish nation. Who has the right to determine, which people have the right to live and which do not?