Address to veterans' gathering on Sinimäe in 1998
Our planned gathering has whipped up some red and black dust. There are weird circles, which still seem to represent the mindset of the outdated Soviet war tribunals, they believe that ever since 1918 Estonia in its essence has been the ugly scar on the glorious October Revolution’s face. Thus any activity, born out of the spirit of free and democratic Estonia was and is still viewed as a crime against the Soviet Union and its successors.
As is known, fate threw many Estonians into battles of WW2, in the Russian troops, in the German troops and in the Finnish troops. Although some joined the troops voluntarily, the majority weren’t even given a choice in the matter and only a few believed they were serving the cause of Hitler or Stalin, almost unanimously the men were under the impression that in one way or another they were fighting for Estonia`s independence.
With Hitler’s fall even the few, who had at the time believed they were fighting for Germany and Hitler, grew disillusioned. However, those claiming to have fought for Stalin only developed this idea with the rise of Stalin the Victor’s personality cult or purely out of necessity of the period.
We distanced ourselves both from Hitler and Stalin and I find it hard to believe we should cherish Beria and his apprentices any more than Himmler.
We were protecting the idea of the restoration of Estonia's independence in WW2 and now, in a democratic Europe, we are protecting the restoration of our beloved republic. We are not war criminals, but veterans of European democracy here in Estonia, which is why if we ever did discover a war criminal amongst ourselves, we would never defend them, but demand for their expulsion in order to keep our own good name.
For us WW2 in our lands was about independence, regardless of the fact that the freedom we fought for arrived 50 years after the battle.
Jaan Kross
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Jaan Kross
(1920-2007)
Estonian prose writer, poet and novelist, who's been nominated for the Nobel Prize on several occasions.
He was born in Tallinn and after finishing Jakob Westholm College studied law at University of Tartu (1938–45). He was arrested at the time of the German occupation for belonging to the underground resistance organisation National Committee of the Republic of Estonia.
During the summer battles of 1944 Kross was being investigated by the German secret police at Patarei prison, however as the German army was forced out of Tallinn Kross was released. He continued his studies at Tartu, where he stayed on a lecturer until his arrest in 1946.
He was arrested by the Soviet NKVD for still belonging to the National Committee of the Republic of Estonia, which on this occasion was described as an anti-soviet movement, and sentenced to the Gulag camps from where he wasn’t released until 1954.
Upon his return he became a professional writer.
