Exhibition boards installed on Saaremaa to remember Great Flight 1944
Eight outdoor exhibition boards will be placed on Estonia's largest island to commemorate the Great Flight of 1944, when 80,000 people fled the second Soviet occupation. Many started their journeys in Saaremaa.
The texts will be erected on Kuressaare beach, at the top of Sõrve peninsular, and at Mihkli Farm Museum by the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory (Eesti Mälu Instituut).
In total, more than a tenth of the population fled from Saaremaa mostly to Sweden.
Curator Meelis Maripuu said the biggest unknown in the case of refugees is the people who never arrived.
"We count the 80,000 according to who arrived somewhere, but those who perished in the stormy sea could number in the thousands," he told Wednesday's "Aktuaalne kaamera".
He added that there is on reliable source for how many people perished at sea.
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Editor: Kaspar Viilup,Helen Wright
