Soviet prison camps in Estonia
People who were repressed politically were, during preliminary investigation, detained in local prisons in Soviet Estonia. After the verdict of a tribunal, special meeting or court, people were usually transported to serve their sentences in GULAG camps elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
However, a network of prison camps was established in 1944 in the Estonian SSR as well, in the form of correctional labour colonies. These were mostly meant for people convicted of minor offences, although this was not always true. After 1944, there were a total of nine correctional labour colonies, camp stations and individual camp zones in Estonia; their names were occasionally changed.
The first prisoner war of camps for German soldiers captured in World War II by the Red Army were organised in Soviet Estonia in October 1944. Between 1944 and 1950, ten prison camps operated in Estonia, together with numerous stations at various industrial sites; there was also a special prison hospital. The camps were managed by the relevant department at the Ministry of the Interior of the Estonian SSR. Prisoners of war restored the ruined towns, harbours, roads and bridges, and worked in mines, forests and at military sites.
The number of prisoners of war in Soviet Estonian camps constantly decreased due to repatriation; some were relocated to other Soviet camps. In January 1946, the number of prisoners of war in Estonia was about 56,000. The number then diminished by 10,000 each year. The camps in Estonia housed approximately 80,000 prisoners. The repatriation of German prisoners of war was ended in Soviet Estonia in December 1949. The last camps and the hospital were closed in early 1950.
This did not mean that all German prisoners of war were released from Soviet camps. Those convicted by the war tribunal and sentenced to 25 years in prison, or other terms in a camp, had to wait until 1955. The surviving German prisoners of war were then sent home, on the basis of the agreement signed by Konrad Adenauer, the head of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union.
