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Copyright © 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Extermination of the Gypsies in Estonia during World War II - Popular Images and Official Policies
Anton Weiss-Wendt studied modern European history at Tartu University, Estonia. In 1997 Mr. Weiss-Wendt received his M.A. in Judaic studies from New York University. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brandeis University, where he is writing a dissertation on the Holocaust in Estonia. Mr. Weiss-Wendt has worked on comparative genocide studies and Stalin's terror. He has published in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the Journal of Baltic Studies, and Nationalities Papers.
Acknowledgments
A discussion of Nazi anti-Gypsy policy in Estonia needs to centre on local interpretation and implementation of RSHA and RKO orders. Contradictions between various German instructions, which often discriminated among sedentary and itinerating Gypsies, created a state of confusion that increased chances for survival. Since in Estonia Sonderkommando 1a of the German Security Police exercised oversight rather than itself carrying out atrocities, the destruction of the Gypsy community in Estonia proceeded at a pace slower than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Interested in exploiting slave labour, the German Security Police in Estonia did not consider liquidation of the Gypsies a priority. Acculturated to traditional anti-Gypsy prejudices and burdened by their own wartime travails, the majority of Estonians remained indifferent when Estonian police deported Gypsies. Among all ethnic groups in the Baltic States, the Gypsies are the most under-studied. So far most research on the Nazi extermination of the Gypsies in this area has been done in Latvia, with authors including both survivors and scholars. [1] Several younger scholars are working on the subject in Lithuania. [2]The first attempt to summarize the fate of the Estonian Gypsies under the Nazis was Jüri Viikberg and Roman Lutt's admirable contribution to a collection dealing with minorities living in the territory of Estonia. [3] Some scholars of the Porrajmos (the Gypsy Holocaust) concentrate on documents of central German agencies, whereas local historians often stress the importance of regulations issued on the spot, sometimes short-changing the broader context. The following attempts to bring the two currents together, first by introducing the Estonian case into the discourse on Nazi handling of the "Gypsy Question," and in particular by investigating whether orders proceeded without impediment down the chain of command. To what extent did local initiative delay or contradict the implementation of directives? To put it differently, did central and peripheral interests intersect, and if not, what were the issues at stake? On a more general level this article recounts the fate of the Estonian Gypsies starting with a short overview of their original settlement in Estonia.
The Gypsies in Estonia However insignificant the numbers, the Gypsies did not settle in Estonia as a homogeneous group. One should distinguish among three main geographical and linguistic groups: Latvian, Russian, and Laiuse. The most distinctive and also the oldest were the Gypsies of Laiuse, the Lajenge Roma as they are known in Romani. In 1841 the authorities ordered all Gypsies in Estonia to be concentrated in Laiuse Parish, about twenty-five miles north of Tartu. By the time Estonia became independent in 1918 the Lajenge Roma had been largely assimilated, and the dialect they spoke - closely related to that of the Finnish Gypsies and something of a hybrid of Gypsy and Estonian - was disappearing. According to the Estonian linguist Paul Ariste, who has extensively studied Gypsy language, the older groups of Gypsies such as Lajenge Roma underwent thorough Estonization. No rigid social barriers separated the latter and the peasants. The majority led a sedentary way of life. Over time, Estonian was substituted for the Gypsy language; intermarriages were frequent. The eminent Estonian writer Friedebert Tuglas is perhaps the best-known example of an Estonian with Gypsy roots. [7] The question of language is particularly important here. The great majority of Gypsies who settled in Estonia during the interwar period of the twentieth century came from Latvia. Another distinctive group, the so-called Russian Gypsies, was concentrated in the eastern borderlands. While the Latvian Gypsies generally had a good command of Estonian, only a few among the Russian Gypsies knew it. Because of that fact, their movements were limited to the predominantly Russian-settled areas, that is, the vicinity of Narva, Lake Peipus, and the Southeast. Each Gypsy group kept largely to its own, which, however, did not completely stop interactions among the Laiuse, Latvian, and Russian Gypsies. There were cases of intermarriage and occasionally even itinerating together. [8] Ariste argues that despite the assimilation of some Estonian Gypsies, there was no decisive break with tradition. The percentage of illiterates remained high. Others have found little indication of the religious indifference that Ariste ascribes to them. Partial evidence suggests the continuing importance of the traditional Gypsy connection with horses. [9] According to the 1934 Estonian census, there were 766 Gypsies in Estonia. Ariste estimates 900 on the eve of World War II (60 Laiuse, 800 "Latvian," and 10 "Russian" families). In the Holocaust literature the number usually is rounded up to 1,000. In June 1941 the number of Gypsies who were sedentary amounted to 743. [10] Shortly after their occupation of the Baltic countries the German authorities conducted a census to calculate human losses during the preceding year of Soviet rule; not surprisingly, however, the census-takers were prohibited from counting Jews and Gypsies. [11] For that reason the German civil authorities never knew the precise number of Gypsies in Estonia. [12] Considering that the overwhelming majority of Gypsies in Estonia were sedentary, a good estimate would seem to be 800 to 850. The partial assimilation of the Gypsies into the Estonian majority in no way eliminated social and racial prejudices against the "swarthy aliens." The very Estonian word for Gypsies, mustlased (Finnish, Mustalainen) - "black," "dirty" - has negative connotations. The scornful "mustlased" may be contrasted with the Estonian word for "Germans," sakslased (related to "Saxons"). It is significant that a shortened version of sakslane "saks" (master) - was extended in the nineteenth century to include any educated, non-working-class, German-speaking individual, regardless of nationality. Thus in the case of the Gypsies, the national was identified with the racial, while in the case of Germans, national overlapped with class. [13] Traditional antisemitism and anti-Gypsy attitudes share certain characteristics. Most of the popular images and clichés were created by the Church. This is true in the case of Germany, [14] but to some degree also Estonia. For example, one story recorded in 1922 talks explicitly about Gypsy use of Christian blood for religious purposes. The story starts with the Gypsies, and then continues - "but Jews have been even worse!" According to the narrator, a priest mentioned the "blood offerings" in his sermon. Little research has been done on the images that Jews and Gypsies had of each other. Some have suggested that Gypsy folklore is bereft of anti-Jewish sentiments. The following example, which comes from Latgale, the easternmost province of Latvia, proves the opposite. The Latvian Gypsies, while wanting to scare their children, used to say "a Jew will murder you!" (zhid zarezhet, in Russian). [15] Although this single example does not change the overall picture, it may testify to the fact that interaction between Gypsies and Jews in the Baltic states remained minimal. Contacts with the majority population were, however, more frequent. Estonians during the interwar period usually perceived Gypsies as outsiders, except for the Lajenge Roma, assimilated by the turn of the century. Prejudice against the Gypsies was as strong in Estonia as any other East- or Central European country. Knowledge of both the Estonian and Russian languages made it possible for Gypsies to maintain irregular business contacts with the rural population. An indication of the importance of language is the fact that the Russian Gypsies, without a proper command of Estonian, were able to itinerate only in areas with a predominantly Russian population. Despite the Gypsies' ability to eke out an existence, the majority population seems to have regarded interaction with them - basically limited to the marketplace - as a nuisance. Considering the marginal position of the Russian minority in independent Estonia, anti-Gypsyism was one of the few attitudes it shared with most Estonians. But everywhere negative representations of the Gypsies were widespread and usually generalized, while positive evaluations by and large were based on personal interaction with one or another specific individual. Gypsy dress and habits were so exotic that they both alienated and attracted. A Gypsy woman smoking a pipe aroused particular consternation. The significant role the Gypsies played in horse trading rather reinforced social stereotyping. Thefts on market days were often ascribed to Gypsies, all the more so incidents of the theft of horses. The belief that Gypsies were dishonest vendors was widespread. For some, a natural desire to profit was accentuated by the flamboyant desire to "outwit the Gypsy"; it would be considered particularly commendable to sell a Gypsy a defective horse. Despite the ongoing process of nation-building, interwar Estonia remained very much a traditional rural society, and thus negative attitudes toward Gypsies continued to be transmitted from generation to generation. Children were warned away from this "tribe of beggars and thieves." Only a small minority of Estonians were neutral toward the Gypsies, stressing their "otherness" without condemning it. Examples of a positive disposition were extremely rare. As for the Gypsies' attitudes towards Estonians, according to one observer, those individuals whom the Gypsies accepted as their own would be treated with hospitality and generosity. [16] Soviet rule in Estonia in 1940 and 1941 had no strong effect on the Gypsy community. Secluded from the rest of the population, the Gypsies were traditionally apolitical, and only a few references to the Roma during that period have survived. Despite the Soviet authorities' attempts to press the Gypsies into employment and their children into school - something the Gypsies did not perceive as a positive development - the new regime won some support from the Gypsy population. The fact that the Soviets did not discriminate did not, however, completely eliminate anti-Soviet sentiment among the assimilated minority, particularly the students. Some individuals even started looking favourably upon Nazi Germany as a force that might cast out the communists. [17] In this the Baltic Gypsies were far from alone: Albanian Gypsies, for instance, perceived the Serbs as enemies worse than the Nazis. [18] Among Estonian Jews, too, there were individuals who at first hoped that life under the Nazi occupation would be better than the miserable existence under the Soviets. [19] The Gypsies, unlike the Jews, did not become any more visible as a result of the Soviet occupation. Consequently, there was no reason for Estonians to blame the Gypsies for their loss of independence. However, social stereotypes persisted. One of the ways Estonians disparaged the new regime was to equate its representatives with Gypsy stereotypes from the past. On June 23, 1940, for instance, the Soviet authorities organized in the southern town of Tõrva a "march" and a meeting in support of the new government, to which only twenty-five people showed up; witnesses referred to the event as the "Gypsy funeral procession." [20]
"Socially Dangerous Elements" In the Soviet Union too the concept of Gypsy as social outcast was endemic. The policing of "marginals" stood apart from the political and administrative purges of the 1930s. The process of removing "socially alien" and "socially dangerous elements" started with the round-ups of prostitutes in the summer of 1929, if not earlier, and culminated in mass operations that took place during the Great Terror of 1937-38. A definition of "danger" referring specifically to habitual criminals was established as early as 1924. With the crash industrialization program that got underway in the late 1920s, the words "Gypsy" and "criminal" once again grew close. Gypsies now might be assigned to categories such as "parasites" and "pests." [24] The first known legal case against them, when eighteen members of a Gypsy cooperative enterprise were arrested and tried in early 1932, should be viewed as part of the gathering campaign against minority cultures in general. The charges included economic sabotage, conspiracy, and bribe-taking; the authorities interpreted the maintenance of Gypsy kinship networks as disloyalty to the state. In the summer of 1933, the OGPU (security police) were instructed to expel from Moscow all beggars and those with a criminal past. Around the same time, 5,000 itinerant Gypsies were deported from the Moscow region to internal exile in remote regions. It is unlikely, however, that the Soviet authorities intended the expulsion of Roma as ethnic cleansing; rather, it was more likely part of a general social purge. But increasing administrative pressure on petty criminals led in the late 1930s to a redefinition of categories of "ordinary" versus "political" crime. Gradually, public-order offenses merged with the category of "counter-revolutionary crimes." During the period of mass operations a considerable number of Gypsies were picked up and sent east. Their criminal reputation combined with the regime's eagerness to settle "backward" nomadic people encouraged local officials to see the Gypsies as "socially harmful" and therefore a potential threat to the Soviet system. During the collectivization of agriculture some Gypsies were arrested as "kulaks." [25] Nazi segregationist legislation defined Sinti and Roma, despite their meagre numbers (0.04% of the population), as a separate category. Nevertheless, for the first six years of the regime, the "Gypsy Question" was treated primarily as a social problem. The December 1937 Interior Ministry decree authorizing preventative custody aimed at "asocial" elements in general. Thus the Gypsies rounded up during Operation Work-Shy later the following year were detained as "asocials" without permanent residence. Nevertheless Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's December 8, 1938, decree for "Combating the Gypsy Plague" signalled an important departure from previous practice. From then on the Criminal Police were advised to treat the Sinti and Roma by racial criteria. The decree made a distinction between "pure Gypsies," Gypsies of mixed ancestry (Zigeunermischlinge) and "Gypsy-like itinerants." [26] Regarding the treatment of the Gypsies, Soviet and German security police functions bore much in common. Following the abolition of the OGPU in February 1934, its police functions were incorporated into the newly established NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs). Several months later a Special Board of the NKVD was created, with the power (among others) to exile "socially dangerous" persons for up to five years. [27] As regards persecution of the Gypsies in Nazi Germany, a similarly important restructuring took place in 1936. Having embarked on a campaign to control both political enemies and asocials, Himmler organized the police into two main components: the Security Police, which included the Gestapo and the Kripo (Criminal Police); and the so-called Order (or uniformed) Police. Until the outbreak of war, the Gypsy Question was handled by the Kripo. [28] Essential issues such as definition, deportation, and ultimately killing, however, were later confirmed on the highest level, that is, by Himmler himself or the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the security apparatus), into which both Gestapo and Kripo were integrated in September 1939. Unfortunately, there has been no proper research on police practice in interwar Estonia. Thus we cannot substantiate the thesis of Ruth Bettina Birn, a distinguished authority on indigenous collaboration with the Nazi occupation: according to Birn, one of the main factors contributing to Estonian collaborationism lay within Estonian society itself. The conservatism of the "respectable people" who constituted the Estonian elite made them view the world as "threatened by the revolt of the lawless underclass, which was lazy, promiscuous and comprised mainly of non-Estonian ethnicities." [29] In order to demonstrate that, however, one would need to identify continuities in official state policy with regard to the Gypsies, something about which we can only speculate in the case of Estonia. As regards the Jews, by way of comparison, there were no such outbursts of violent antisemitism in Estonia in the late 1930s as occurred in other East European countries or as would occur under the German occupation; nor did the Jewish minority suffer any restrictions of its cultural autonomy during the period of independence. In the case of the Gypsies the majority of the population certainly continued to harbour traditional cultural stereotypes, but this did not require any deliberate encouragement on the part of the state.
The Einsatzgruppen and the First Killings Those few Gypsies murdered during the first months of the German occupation of Estonia were handled nearly exclusively by indigenous collaborators. The first killing is closely connected with the establishment of the Tartu concentration camp. It is not clear whether the camp came into existence on a direct German order or as a result of local initiative. The German military authorities probably approved the establishment of the detention facility ex post facto, on 14 July, four days after the city was conquered. In any case, it was the chief of anti-Soviet partisans units in the south of the country who appointed the first head of the camp. At first the camp operated under the auspices of the Tartu Self-Defence, or Omakaitse (Estonian auxiliary police created by the Germans on the base of the anti-Soviet partisans); thereafter, however, the German Sipo took over, the city military commandant sending his own representative as overseer. During the first days of operation some 100 people, including a dozen Jews and Gypsies, were taken into custody. Arrests were carried out by members of the Self-Defence, who also guarded the camp. The prisoners were quickly executed as suspected political enemies. [38] Itinerant Gypsies families were ordered into a separate building across the Emajõgi River. There they were kept for about two months, until October, when the police characterized the Gypsies' complaints as "rioting" in order to justify sending them to the concentration camp where they were shot. [39] During the summer no proper judicial proceedings were observed, court duties being delegated to a department of the concentration camp. In the absence of special execution-commandos, guards unassigned to other duties carried out death sentences. According to witness testimony, no one had to be forced to take part in the executions, for there were always volunteers. [40] It appears, however, that the city military commandant adopted a milder stance with regard to the Gypsies. In the autumn the remaining sedentary Gypsies from the Tartu concentration camp were subjected to compulsory labour outside the city. Gypsies still at liberty were barred from the city without special permission. [41] Considering that even those incarcerated itinerant Gypsies were killed as "criminals" and not as Gypsies, it is rather difficult to establish the precise number of them who lost their lives during the summer of 1941. Thus on September 19 the Sipo reported that out of 1,200 cases of arrest in the Tartu area, the total number of executed communist functionaries and criminals amounted to 405, among them fifty Jews - but Gypsies were not mentioned. [42]
Sedentary vs. Itinerant Gypsies The numerous - and often contradictory - decisions about the fate of the Baltic Roma evolved around the question of their social status. The occupied territory of the Soviet Union, including the Baltic countries, was one of the few areas in Europe where the Nazis drew a distinction between sedentary and itinerant Gypsies. Since the Estonian Gypsy population was directly affected by fluctuations in Nazi policy towards the Gypsies in general, it makes sense to consider the decision-making process. The incoherence of Nazi policy left space for local initiative. Past experience taught the Nazis to prepare justifications for their gruesome deeds. Public revulsion at the execution of Jewish women and children in the Latvian town of Liepāja (Libau, in German) in late September was still on their minds. German military opposition to some killings prompted Lohse to take up the issue with Franz Walter Stahlecker, commander of Einsatzgruppe A. [49] However it seems unlikely that Lohse objected on principle to the latter's approach. Moreover, Lohse's decree of December 4, 1941, which defined anti-Gypsy policy in the Baltic States, most probably was supposed to provide an after-the-fact justification for the execution of 100 Libau Gypsies, an event that took place around the same time. The order dealt with the Gypsies "who wander about in the countryside." According to Lohse, those Gypsies constituted a twofold danger. First, they carried disease, especially typhus. Second, they were unreliable elements who could not be put to useful work. The essence of the order was formulated in the last paragraph, where Lohse - branding the Gypsies potential spies - determined that they should be treated in the same way as the Jews. [50] The fact that Lohse did not specify what should be done with sedentary Gypsies permits different interpretations. In the case of Latvia, Lewy finds it difficult to define whether the individuals murdered were itinerant or sedentary, concluding that much depended on the whim of local authorities. In corroboration he cites the rather evasive statement of Higher SS and Police Leader Ostland Friedrich Jeckeln, according to whom the Gypsy Question "was being solved by the police in the exercise of its own jurisdiction." [51] Zimmermann is more nuanced, insisting that the commander of the Security Police and the Security Service in Latvia, Rudolf Lange, did discriminate between nomadic and sedentary Gypsies, exempting the latter from execution. The SS and Police Leader in Latvia, however - so Zimmermann argues - did not convey this stipulation further to the commander of the Order Police. Therefore, the Order Police understood the term "non-nomadic Gypsies" broadly, which resulted - during the first months of 1942 - in the death of a significant segment of both categories of Latvian Gypsies. [52] The absence of a clear differentiation between nomadic and sedentary Gypsies did indeed give the police a free hand. Contrary to what Zimmermann argues, however, the commander of the Latvian Order Police did indeed receive, on January 12, 1942, the SS and Police Leader's instructions regarding the "Gypsy Question": all nomadic Gypsies were to be arrested, and of the sedentary Gypsies only those engaged in regular employment and deemed neither criminal nor politically dangerous might be exempted. [53]
From Police Surveillance to Compulsory Labour Itinerant Gypsies were incarcerated locally. For Gypsies from the Türi (German, Türgel) District (Paide Prefecture), for example, the destination was the Paide (German, Weissenstein) Prison. According to numerous testimonies, by summer 1942 the number of Gypsies in Tallinn Central Prison reached one hundred. It is likely that all were shot. [60] Otherwise there is no evidence of any single bigger execution of Gypsies in Estonia before October 1942. Zimmermann's suggestion that some Gypsies incarcerated in the Harku camp [61] had been killed in the autumn of 1941 runs contrary to the existing evidence: The Harku camp, located in Harju Province near Tallinn, had been in operation since 1922. After the retreat of the Soviets in September 1941 the detention facility was re-established. Officially, Harku was a branch of the Tallinn Central Prison. Most of the Gypsy inmates of the Harku camp probably were rounded up during the Zigeuneraktion of 19 February 1942. [62] Within the next couple of days, officials of Tallinn-Harju (German, Reval-Harrien) Security Police - who exercised jurisdiction over the camp - started interrogating the Gypsies. Shortly, the lists of Gypsy prisoners were compiled. [63] As of July 1942, there were altogether 1,133 prisoners in the Harku camp. It is significant that the Gypsies were listed separately, as interned persons. According to the head of the Harku camp at that time, from among 328 Gypsies (170 men and 158 women, 189 of whom were under the age of eighteen), only forty-two were fit for work. However, even those few, due to the contagious disease, could not be employed. But during the period under consideration the Tallinn-Harju Security Police executed only one Gypsy, a woman. [64] Only adult Gypsies were kept in Harku. After arrest family members were immediately separated. Shelters accommodated small children (through age eleven), while adolescents went to the "work and education colony" for young criminals in Laitse, also Harju Province. Needless to say, none of some sixty to seventy-five Gypsy boys incarcerated in Laitse had committed any "crime" other than being born into an "impure race." Speaking both Estonian and Russian, the Gypsies very quickly found a common language with the rest of the colony inmates. The youngest of the twelve-to-seventeen-year-olds studied at school, while the rest were set to various types of manual labour. The situation in the colony was so "idyllic" that the director could mention the existence of a Gypsy choir there. [65] Police kept track of all Gypsies, including those killed. According to a circular issued by the Estonian Security Police on June 11, 1942, local branches were to maintain card files on executed Jews, Gypsies, and POWs, these categories to be listed separately. [66] This leads back to the question of how Gypsies were categorized and which particular agency dealt with them in Estonia. The role of the Estonian Criminal Police was to handle the formalities in each particular Gypsy case, which was then submitted to the Political Police, who exercised the highest authority over the Gypsies in Estonia. If a Gypsy was charged with "political crimes," the material went further to the German Special Court, or Sondergericht. [67] Surveillance was entrusted to the Criminal Police. The police apparatus had been created immediately after Estonia fell to the Germans, retaining for convenience much of the pre-war Estonian apparatus. While the Estonian Criminal Police was for the most part independent in its conduct, the Security Police reported to the German Security Police. [68] In 1941, the Security and the Criminal Police (800 people altogether) were united in an overall structure; yet the most significant reorganization followed on 1 May 1942, when the Security Police apparatus was divided into two sections, a German (Group A) and an Estonian (Group B). [69] Investigation was carried out by the Estonian Security Police. The so-called Punishment Planning Commissions (Strafprojektierungskommissionen) linked the two sections. Those commissions, consisting of three Estonian Security Police officers, prepared case summaries and made recommendations that were decided ultimately upon by the Germans (in the case of execution, exclusively by the Commander of the German Security Police in Estonia, KdS-Estland). Dr. Martin Sandberger, commander of the Security Police and Security Service in Estonia, had always promoted cooperation between the Estonian and the German branches of the Security Police. Similarly Obersturmführer Heinrich Bergmann, head of the Criminal Division of the German Kripo in Estonia (and later Bergmann's successor Obersturmbannführer Dr. Ullmann) stressed the important role his Estonian colleagues were to play in the fight against "asocial elements." Gypsies - along with prostitutes, habitual criminals, and the work-shy - thus constituted a group defined as "incorrigible offenders." Instructions from Bergmann concerning the treatment of the Gypsies in Estonia repeated general Nazi discourse: as asocials who wander the countryside "like nomads" (nomadenart), the Gypsies were to be treated like the Jews. Sedentary Gypsies engaged in regular work, however, should be tolerated, but remain under police supervision. In the fight against habitual criminals, preventive police custody was considered a particularly effective means. Bergmann recommended sending such individuals to the Tallinn concentration camp. In the case of asocials with a significant history of previous convictions (bei besonders asozialen Personen mit entsprechenden Vorstrafen), officials could propose execution. [70] What Bergmann called a "concentration camp" had since 29 July 1942, borne the euphemistic name of "work and education camp" (Arbeits- und Erziehungslager, or AEL). [71] The belief in social utopia found its way as well into AEL regulations. Through education and work - it was stated - the individuals confined in AEL would be saved for society. Asocial elements were just one category among those imprisoned in the camp. [72] Assignment to the AEL - explained the head of the Estonian Security Police - was meant as punishment and retribution, but at the same time the AEL was the place where that individual should be "educated." [73] In order to facilitate the work of the Estonian Criminal Police, during 1942 central Nazi legislation regarding preventive police custody was translated into Estonian. [74] By June 1942, there were no more itinerant Gypsies in Estonia according to the author of an unidentified commentary on a presentation by Bergmann on 27 May 1942. According to the compiler, the "Gypsy Problem" in Estonia had been completely resolved, as all remaining Gypsies by then had been subjected to compulsory labour service (als sich sämtliche Z. im geschlossenen Arbeitseinsatz befinden). [75] Actually police records from winter 1943 show that the statement reflected wishful thinking rather than established fact, for quite a few Gypsies, particularly in the south-eastern districts, still exercised freedom of movement. Thus on 22 June 1942, the Valga Province Security Police filed a report on the Gypsies "who have not yet been confined to a concentration camp." [76] Increased interest in the "solution of the Gypsy problem" on the part of German police officials in Estonia paralleled that of the Ostland Ministry in Berlin. On 11 June 1942, Dr. Otto Bräutigam, head of the General Politics Department of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories, for the first time asked Lohse for information on the Gypsies. Bräutigam was particularly concerned whether the Gypsies in the Baltic States were sedentary; he also asked which occupations they practiced, and whether the number of Zigeunermischlinge was substantial. Keeping in mind the establishment of a unified policy, he inquired about the Ostland Reich Commissioner's opinion on whether the Gypsies were to be treated "like the Jews." The reply of the Reich Commissariat Ostland implied that the sedentary Gypsies should be shot as well. This suggestion served as the basis for drafting (during July) of a decree on "the treatment of Gypsies in the Occupied Eastern Territories." It was affirmed that, unlike foreign citizens who might be permitted to remain temporarily in the Ostland, the Gypsies should be treated as the Jews. This, as a rule, included the Mischlinge. No distinction was to be made between sedentary and itinerant Gypsies. [77] Even though the July draft did not materialize in a fully fledged decree until May 1943 - and at that time with completely opposite provisions - it provides the context in which the mass murder of a significant proportion of the Estonian Gypsy population took place. The scarcity of documentary evidence does not allow us far-reaching conclusions regarding the origin of the order to kill the Gypsy inmates of the Harku concentration camp. However, one is inclined to see local initiative behind the decision. In the search for immediate culprits the figure of Heinrich Bergmann inevitably appears. Bergmann, who advocated the imprisonment of Gypsies on the grounds that they were a nuisance to the general populace, should have been the most interested in the disappearance of the Gypsies from the territory he was in charge of. On 30 October 1942, Ervin Viks, the head of the Tallinn-Harju Security Police, informed Bergmann of the execution of the Gypsies imprisoned at Harku three days before. The list of executed consisted of 243 names - 91 men and 152 women. [78] In his desire to accelerate the pace of elimination of "socially undesirable elements" (at his 1960s trial he claimed that he had signed the execution order only "ex post facto"), Bergmann might have been prompted by both incoming communications from the Ostland Ministry, and participation in, or knowledge of, an infamous meeting between the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels and Dr. Otto Thierack of the Justice Ministry. [79] The latter had proposed on 14 September 1942, that "Gypsies should be exterminated unconditionally." It should be noted that in any case the October executions, and others that followed, could always have been explained as "necessary security measures": the mere fact that Estonia was close to the front and therefore belonged to a combat area - actually it was under dual military and civilian control - made explanations optional. [80]
The Winter 1943 Deportation During the first week of January the Petseri Criminal Police requested from the local administration information on the Gypsies living there. According to the statistical data provided by parish elders, as of 13 January 1943, there were altogether eighty-seven Gypsies (thirty-three men and fifty-four women) living in the province. The information included name, date of birth, place of residence, and occupation. The authorities were particularly interested in "work-fit" Gypsies. Usually one or several extended families made up the entire Gypsy population of a particular parish; the ratio of children to adults was one to two. Civil authorities claimed that all Gypsies then in the area were free, and that as of summer 1942 all work-capable adults (twenty-six) had been employed. The statistics reveal only an insignificant number of "asocials." In six parishes in which the Gypsies were registered the great majority were employed in agriculture. Only a few individuals were listed as "vagabonds" and/or "beggars." [81] The next stage involved the expropriation of the Gypsies' property. Only in rare cases did the number of requisitioned items exceed twenty or thirty. Virtually the entire operation was carried out in one day, February 7. Both Criminal Police officials and the "elder" of each respective parish were present. Customarily, the property - mostly harnesses and other equipment for horses - was left in the care of the latter, their final disposition to be decided subsequently. Sometimes, as for instance in the case with Evgenii Ivanov, illiterate owners could not even verify the compiled list. [82] What was going to happen next to the Gypsies was clear from the outset: the very lists referred to the "deported" (väljasaadetud) Gypsies. The concentration of the Gypsies started on 8 February and continued through the next day, when forty-seven were taken to the Petseri prison. This measure was temporary though, and two days later an order followed to send the Petseri Gypsies to Tallinn, where they would be at the Security Police's disposal. The transport departed Petseri at 5 a.m. on 12 February. [83] With later additions, the total number of Gypsies deported from Petseri Province during the month of February amounted to seventy-three. [84] In the rest of Estonia a similar pattern was followed, except that the deportation was supposed to be accomplished by 8 February. Not later than 10 a.m. on 8 February, the police prefects had to inform the Sipo authorities in Tallinn of the numbers to be removed. In response the former would announce the exact timing for the deportations, by train (Rakvere, Petseri) or truck (Haapsalu; German, Hapsal) depending on the distance from the destination. The February 1943 Zigeuneraktion was the first and the only all-Estonian police operation aimed specifically at Gypsies. At the time it was not yet clear to which particular camp the incoming Gypsies would be transferred. Apparently, the Harku camp was not a destination. Eventually, all remaining Estonian Gypsies, with the exception of a group of Gypsy teenagers temporarily imprisoned in the Laitse colony, ended up either in Tallinn AEL or in Tallinn Central Prison. The most significant departure from all previous, selective, regulations was that the KdS-Estland Order of 22 January did not discriminate between sedentary and itinerant Gypsies. All of them, regardless if already in custody or still at liberty, were subjected to deportation. [85] Confusion ensued among some local police officials, who failed to understand the order correctly. Thus the Rakvere Security Police inquired whether it was not a mistake on the part of the local district commissioner (Gebietskommissar) to remove forty Gypsies employed at the Kunda Cement Plant. Otherwise, the Rakvere Police assistant went on, because of the limited amount of manpower available, the plant might meet severe difficulties. A reply from the German Security Police (via the Narva office) was short and unequivocal - the train with interned Rakvere Gypsies was scheduled for 12:45 on 8 February. [86] The deportation order included all working Gypsies. The representatives of a construction company in Püssi, near Rakvere, sent a complaint that the three Gypsy workers removed from the power station construction site had failed to return the overalls, gloves, and boots the employer provided them. [87] Except for sixty-nine deported from Haapsalu and seventy-three from Petseri, we do not know the total number of Gypsies concentrated in Tallinn. However, it is clear that the purge was complete. The question is what happened to those Gypsies transferred to Tallinn. Considering the indirect evidence available, it would seem that the majority of those fit to work survived the summer of 1943. Let us first check if, following Himmler's decree, any Estonian Gypsies had been sent to their death in Auschwitz. The main deportation of Gypsies from the territory of the Third Reich, the Protectorate, Austria, Hungary, Holland, and Belgium, took place in March-April 1943. However only small, irregular transports from east or north of Poland, including those from Grodno and Orel on November 28, ever arrived in Auschwitz. [88] Of all Gypsies registered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, only twenty-seven were from Russia (pre-1939 Soviet Union?), and twenty-two (all females) from Lithuania. It is true that among the Gypsy prisoners were listed thirty-year-old Hanna Gorbanowitcz, a worker from Narva, and nine-year-old Edmund Böhmer, whose place of birth was indicated as Tallinn. The latter, it is said, arrived in the camp on 15 February, while the entry for Gorbanowitcz was made in June. [89] However, considering that we do not know the circumstances under which these individuals entered Auschwitz, both cases seem rather accidental. The same accidental element may apply to a man from Riga listed among the inmates of the Gypsy Camp. Altogether, some scholars have argued recently that Himmler's Auschwitz-Erlass applied to the German Gypsies only. [90] If not sent to die at Auschwitz, were the Estonian Gypsies murdered on the spot, immediately after arriving in Tallinn in February 1943? Apparently not. In order to trace the fate of the remaining Gypsies in Estonia, we need to return to the Ostland Ministry decree, originally proposed in July 1942 though not adopted until May 1943.
The Final Chapter We have very little information on who was still alive, and in most cases even their last journey remains an untold story. The fate of work-unfit Gypsies sent to Tallinn Central Prison is an exception. Their path ended in Jagala. Established in September 1942 by the German Sipo as a "work and education camp," Jagala soon came to play its role in the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jewry. After having received during the month of September two Judentransporte from the Theresienstadt ghetto and from the Reich territory, the camp was to have been dissolved. Nearly all the Jews from the two echelons were liquidated upon arrival. Not more than fifty young women remained to sort the clothes of the victims or work in the fields. It was still cold in early March 1943; the freshly dug pit in Kalevi-Liiva - the usual place for executions at the Jagala camp - was full of snow. After having received instructions from the Estonian Sipo in Tallinn, Alexander Laak, the commandant, notified his subordinates about the forthcoming execution of Gypsies. A group of Gypsies under escort of Sipo officials arrived earlier than scheduled: a small bus with some twenty-five Gypsy women and the elderly from Tallinn Central Prison, and on a truck about the same number of "five- and six-year-olds" from Vasalemma. The bus stopped in front of a pit already surrounded by guards from the Jagala camp - all of the personnel of the camp, including Commandant Laak, were Estonians. Ralf Gerrets, the deputy commandant, directed the arrivals toward the pit. After realizing what was going on, the women started crying hysterically. Insensitive to their cries, the guards drove them, one by one, to the pit, where Laak dispatched them with a single shot to the back of the head. The last one was an old woman without legs. Only after she had handed over to the guards - by then well drunk - her last money and a gold ring, was she carried, instead of being dragged, toward the mass grave. After the bus drove away, the truck pulled up. Gerrets threw the children, shivering in the cold and screaming in terror, onto the ground. Guards took two children each to the pit. This time - a departure from the usual practice - the children were not even ordered to remove their clothes, dirty and full of holes as they were. And another departure: Laak, whose seemingly limitless ability to kill was restrained only by the size of the pit he had to fill, could not bring himself to start shooting. The guard Ian Viik saved everyone's face by opening fire first. [93] Indirect evidence that the Final Solution of the Gypsy Question had not been completed in Estonia before early October 1943 comes from Robert Ritter's Institute for Criminal Biology. [94] In September 1943 Georg Wagner, a former staff member of that institute, went on a field trip to Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland to investigate the Indo-Germanic roots of the Gypsies on behalf of Himmler. [95] Considering that the Institute for Criminal Biology had been operating under the auspices of Himmler's security apparatus, one can suppose that Wagner had been supplied with information regarding the Gypsies of the Baltic region before departing on his trip. A "racial biologist" under the special patronage of Himmler likely would not have gone on this journey if the subjects of his study already had been destroyed. On 24 September 1943, the Office of Estonian Security Police in Haapsalu notified the Tallinn authorities about the arrest of Otto Koslovsky, a nineteen-year-old Gypsy. Koslovsky claimed to have been travelling all over Lääne as a casual farm labourer. He apparently had been jailed first in the Haapsalu prison, whence he was supposed to be transferred to Tallinn AEL and then to "an appropriate camp" (edasisaatmiseks Tallinna TKL'I teie korraldusse, tema paigutamiseks vastavasse laagrisse). [96] Thus, as late as September and even October 1943 at least some Estonian Gypsies were still alive. In October, however, in response to a request from the Department of Labour and Social Welfare (Abteilung Arbeitspolitik und Sozialverwaltung) of the Ostland Ministry, High Commissioner for Estonia Karl Litzmann reported that all Gypsies had long been apprehended by the Security Police. [97] According to Friedrich Jeckeln's subsequent testimony, in mid-1943 Friedrich Panziger, commander of the Security Police and the Security Service Ostland from September 1943 to May 1944, conveyed to him (via Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Reinhard Heydrich's successor as head of the RSHA) Himmler's order regarding the liquidation of the Gypsy population (why Kaltenbrunner would have been delivering messages for Panziger is a mystery). Jeckeln sanctioned the order. [98] We do not know the date on which the remaining Estonian Gypsies were shot, but we do know the place, the town of Hargla, near Tallinn. Kenrick and Puxon mention Hargla, adding that those killed included the Mitrowski, Kozlowski, and Burkewiecz families. [99] All three names appear on the list of those deported from the district of Petseri in February 1943. By 24 March 1944, out of the original 2,867 inmates, only some sixty-one Jews and thirty-one Gypsies remained at the Tallinn concentration camp. [100] Among the last Gypsy victims on Estonian soil were the teenagers from the Laitse colony. Alfred Rosenberg's circular of 16 December 1943, equating sedentary Gypsies with the rest of the populace [101] did not spare the lives of the colony's wards. In early spring 1944 (the exact date is unknown), the director of the institution was ordered by the Sipo to deliver the children. They were told that they were going to meet their parents, and they were issued holiday clothing. To maintain this fiction, the Sipo officials said they would return in a week, and those who were sick (perhaps fifteen, perhaps seventeen) were not sent (we don't know their subsequent fate). Upon request of the director regarding the clothing (or so interrogators were told), it turned out that the teenagers in Kalevi-Liiva had been executed as well. [102] How many Gypsies perished in Estonia? An estimate of 1,000 appeared for the first time in Kenrick and Puxon's study, based on the number of Estonian Gypsies prior to World War II. [103] Their figure later appeared in numerous popular publications. [104] It should be noted that, because of the lack of documentary evidence, no figure can be anything more than an intelligent guess. Actually the calculation may be accomplished in two ways. First we can add all Gypsy victims listed in German documents to those mentioned by witnesses. This rather uncritical method would produce a conclusion that the entire Gypsy population of between 800 and 850 was exterminated. The second figure can be derived by deducting the latest known number of Gypsies still alive in 1944 (thirty-one in Tallinn and fifteen in Laitse) from the total Gypsy population on the eve of the war: about 850. That makes the percentage of survivors not higher than five or six - close to the estimate offered by Lutt and Viikberg. [105]
What Estonians Thought To many Estonians, the Gypsies seemed a nuisance - asocials who could not be tolerated at a time of mobilization against "the Bolshevik enemy." In the case of the Russians, however, other factors applied. The Russian minority, particularly in the eastern districts, had been living under constant fear that they might also be deported or subjected to compulsory labour. Nor were rumours that the Estonians wanted to get rid of their Russian neighbours without basis. Thus, in August 1941, Kasepää Parish Omakaitse undertook the deportation of the Russian population from the Lake Peipus area. It was not until the German authorities interfered that the villagers were allowed to return. [108] Russians' approval of Gypsy deportations may have reflected a psychological defence mechanism: if it sated the cruelty of the Germans and Estonians it might lessen the likelihood that the latter would turn on the Russians. On the other hand, it should be re-emphasized that neither Estonians nor Russians hoped for the extermination of the Gypsies, but for their elimination. [109] The majority of Gypsies spoke Estonian. Unlike the Jews, the Gypsies eschewed politics and therefore did not seem pro-Soviet: even a vivid imagination could not transform the Judeo-Bolshevik into a "Gypsy-Bolshevik." [110] As the Soviet partisan movement was nearly nonexistent in Estonia, no connection between Gypsies and pro-Soviet guerrillas could be conjured up. Estonians might have been annoyed by Gypsies, but not to the point of demanding their extermination. This may be fairly well illustrated by the following example. One of the members of Pärnu District Self-Defence was reprimanded for loudly conversing in the middle of the sidewalk with a group of Gypsies he was conveying. As a result, ordinary pedestrians had had to use the road. Needless to say, the guard himself was drunk. [111] But the point is that people got annoyed - that's all. As a rule, in regular police reports, Gypsies were listed under the category "Russians, Other Foreigners, and Individuals of Alien Origin." Those rare cases when racial categorization was employed may be attributed to aping the Germans rather than local tradition. It is notorious, however, that Lohse's December 1941 decree was written on the letterhead of the Department of Health and People's Welfare (Gesundheit und Volkspflege), while the Estonian Security Police advised its local offices to report on the population's attitude toward the Jews and the Gypsies under the rubric "Race and Public Health" (Rasse- und Volksgesundheit). [112] Those most imbued with racist hatred were primarily, but not only, officials of the Estonian Security Police. An official of the Estonian Sipo in Haapsalu, the Tartu University Law School graduate Roland Rand, had been active in the Haapsalu Punishment Planning Commission. On November 3, 1941, he signed a death sentence against Karl Ernst Siimann for alleged participation in the Shock Battalion movement (Soviet paramilitary units operating in the Baltics during the summer months of 1941). Across the file of the accused was written "Gypsy." [113] The officers of the Estonian Sipo were often characterized as "openly antisemitic" and made no effort to disguise their anti-Jewish sentiment. [114] Combined with persistent social stereotyping, sometimes racist hatred found its way into Gypsies' files of the Estonian Security Police, too. Thus in January 1943 (after a year-long investigation) the Punishment Planning Commission condemned to death Vilep Indus, a Gypsy from Narva. The statement read: "Gypsy by nationality. Taking into consideration that he has not hitherto acquired permanent residence and job, it is doubtful that he may become a useful citizen of the state in the future either." [115]
Conclusion
Notes
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