Allow me to read a few passages.

"The Russians took Southern Estonia in a very short time and only stopped for a while when they reached Emajõgi. Now, we needed urgently to decide what would happen before the Russians got here. Terrified after the 1941 deportations, it was widely believed the entire Estonian people would be deported should Russia return.
*
The three of us set out – mom, dad and I.
*
We took with us a lot of food, some household items and even a beautiful trumeau mirror my father had made, and a writing desk.
*
The front line followed us like a rabid dog, and we had lost hope of getting back home upon reaching Vigala, I think, as we left all our less than essential things there, including the furniture, as well as one of the horses and a cart. By now, it was our firm desire to reach the sea and get to Sweden, which was the promised land of all refugees. But we soon had to abandon that dream when it turned out that the boats were only taking those with gold to pay. We, of course, had no gold.
*
We joined the flow of refugees going toward Virtsu Port. We got there on September 23 or 24, that is around the time the Russians conquered Tallinn. It apparently came as a shock to people that the capital fell so quickly, as the refugees were in a state of panic in Virtsu. Many had come on bicycles or by foot, wearing summer clothes and carrying no belongings. We were all of us despondent, as the capital being lost meant there was no more hope.
*
The Gotenhafen refugee camp in Germany was among the largest. Those who arrived on ships made up only a fraction of refugees, as most people took the road westward, including people from Estonia.
*
Our family spent a relatively short time at camp. My parents got jobs at the Brandenburg railroad (father as a mechanic and my mother as a cleaner). We lived in the town of Belzig, located some 80 kilometers south of Berlin.
*
By March-April, it was clear the war was about to end. What mattered to us now was whether the Western allies would reach Belzig first, or whether we would be left at the mercy of the Russians.
*
Sometime in mid-April, my parents decided we could no longer stay in Belzig. There were rumors of a possibility to cross the Elbe and reach the American side somewhere in the Dessau region. We decided to take it.
*
But once we reached the Elbe, it turned out that while it had been possible to cross over to the American side in the first days after their arrival, the Russians had done away with this "disorganization" by the time we got there.
For the umpteenth time in the past year, we had to decide what would become of us.
I wanted to return home so badly that I started to quite fiercely nudge my parents in that direction. Other than being homesick, I was worried about my education that had been cut short. There had been no opportunities to continue my studies in the war-torn foreign land I was in. I was 16 but had only had six years of school.
I remember that the decision to return home was made quite quickly, and it was not like we had much choice. There were rumors that the Russians were sending all of their citizens back to Russia (three guesses as to where exactly!). We counted as those citizens, and we could only hope we would go unnoticed in the post-war confusion. We figured that the safest thing was to just start walking toward where our home was.
*
We had completely run out of food, and for the first time in my life, I knew hunger.
*
We mostly slept in hay barns. I always slept between mom and dad, and there was a reason for that, since rumors suggested the Russians were raping every woman they came across. I felt that my parents were seriously worried for me.
*
I cannot recall whether we went to Pskov and to Estonia from there, or whether we moved through Valga. I cannot remember the station where we got off. I also cannot remember the crucial moment of meeting relatives in Härma.
*
We had been away from home for a whole year. I came home starved, in the only chintz dress that I owned and knowing I had grown up too fast."

These are the memories of my mother, Virve. It is the tale of one family out of many. It has typical refugee elements, while every story also has its original moments. Tens of thousands were aiming for the gates of freedom, while not everyone got through, as such gates can be very narrow indeed.

My mother and her family also got stuck on the way and returned to Estonia. She later became an agricultural scientist, but the journey of hardships and the choices they had made stayed with her always. I'm infinitely grateful that she considered it necessary to write it down for my family.

World War II and the suffering during and after was the harshest in our recent past. Estonia lost a fifth of its people to the war, the German and Soviet occupations, and we can still feel the effects of that great loss soon to be a century later.

In addition to those who lost their lives and were killed, we must also remember the horrendous mental and physical suffering, which most people went through, and the sheer scale of destruction the war and occupations caused. Also the spiritual void left after so many died, were intellectually stunted, deported or escaped to get away from the war.

The losses and human casualties of those years were recorded in the people's historical memory and have shaped our choices and decisions. All of it had a tragic effect on life here.

The way to survive such a tragedy is not by allowing oneself to become bitter and yearning for revenge, but through talking and writing about those years and what happened, studying the period and remembering the thousands of victims, whether they were murdered or deported by foreign powers, died fighting on opposing sides or became refugees.

That is why it matters a great deal to me for those people's fates and stories to be as clear as possible. That is why the Estonian Memory Institute's WWII refugee database is crucial, as they numbered 70,000-80,000 people – 70,000-80,000 of our people. I only wish we could soon end up with a more accurate figure.

It is difficult to do 80 years later, as most of those who survived have passed away by now, taking with them much that would be of use to researchers today. However, this complexity is also motivating. We can still record memories direct from refugees and have them or their offspring hand over materials, which might otherwise be lost forever. Numerous archival documents are waiting to be found and analyzed.

When else? We just celebrated 33 years from restoration of independence.

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