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« Tuna 2 / 2021

Prisoner Train, May 1941

A consignment of 300 able-bodied male prisoners was sent on 15 May 1941 from Tallinn’s Patarei Prison to prison camps in the Pechora region. This was the first shipment of arrestees to Russia. Of these, 38 persons had been arrested for political reasons, 50 for breaching public order, 62 for offences against persons, and 54 for criminal offences against property. The portions of the prison terms that had yet to be served was less than 5 years for two thirds of the prisoners. There were many young people among them. An enquiry financed by the Memento Association attempted to ascertain their subsequent fate. Persons with Russian names who had been sentenced by military tribunals were evidently Russian soldiers and hence these individuals were left out of the enquiry. Of the approximately 200 persons who remained on the list, the death of 5 people is registered in Russia, while 28 of those persons died in Estonia. The fate of the remainder is not known. They did not return to Estonia. This raises the question of the correspondence of the punishment of criminal prisoners to their actual guilt.