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Fortunately, the resettlement in Estonia on 14th June 1941 [13] didn’t affect our family. There were no wealthy people or politicians in our family. One week later, on 22nd June 1941, the war began. Hitler’s army attacked the Soviet Union. On that very day I was with my parents in Kähri. The academic year at school was over, and I was to spend the summer with my parents.
My father was mobilized right away. He was a doctor, and all doctors were subject to call-up, whatever the specialty. My father insisted that we evacuated from Estonia. He was appointed as chief of an evacuation train, so we evacuated as a family, including my grandfather. The families of my father’s sister and brother and my grandfather’s sister Hanne Amitan also evacuated, but separately from us. Only Hanne’s husband stayed in Tallinn. He bluntly refused to leave home and there was no way to convince him otherwise. He perished on the first days of the German occupation. This was what we found out after we returned home from evacuation.
I have dim memories of our trip. My mother had a two-month-old baby, and I had to take care of my brother Leo, who was not yet two years old. We reached Siberia, and all Estonians were sent to the village of Nizhniaya Uvel’ka, near Krasnoyarsk [Russia, about 3000 km from Moscow]. My father had to move on to join his military unit.
My father was mobilized right away. He was a doctor, and all doctors were subject to call-up, whatever the specialty. My father insisted that we evacuated from Estonia. He was appointed as chief of an evacuation train, so we evacuated as a family, including my grandfather. The families of my father’s sister and brother and my grandfather’s sister Hanne Amitan also evacuated, but separately from us. Only Hanne’s husband stayed in Tallinn. He bluntly refused to leave home and there was no way to convince him otherwise. He perished on the first days of the German occupation. This was what we found out after we returned home from evacuation.
I have dim memories of our trip. My mother had a two-month-old baby, and I had to take care of my brother Leo, who was not yet two years old. We reached Siberia, and all Estonians were sent to the village of Nizhniaya Uvel’ka, near Krasnoyarsk [Russia, about 3000 km from Moscow]. My father had to move on to join his military unit.
Period
Year
1941
Location
Talinn
Estonia
Interview
Ester Vee