Eighty years ago, Estonia fell under Soviet occupation, forcing some 80,000 people to flee the country.

"Both of them were kids," said Ulvi Haagensen, sharing the story of her parents' escape from their homeland in 1944. "My mother was nine years old, and my father was 14 years old; they didn't know each other yet. My father went to Germany with his family, and my mother went to Sweden with hers. While living in Germany, my father got a camera and took photos of the refugees in various places."

To honor the memory of these refugees' stories, eight exhibitions have been opened across Estonia this summer, telling the stories of their departures. The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory (EMI) has been collecting and researching these stories for years.

"People didn't only leave in small fishing boats, which is often a stereotypical image," explained historian Meelis Maripuu. "In terms of numbers, a greater share of people left Estonia on large transport ships arranged by German authorities. On these, they first arrived in Poland and then Germany, and their life in war-torn Germany was much more difficult for them than for those who reached Sweden."

According to Maripuu, refugees were met with quite a bit of aversion, and most of them ended up wherever receiving countries were willing to accept them. Some ended up in Great Britain, some in Canada or the U.S. – and many also ended up in Australia.

"My father's family was able to go to Australia because they were willing to work," Haagensen explained. "My grandfather and father dug the sewer pipes and holes and ditches in Sydney, and meanwhile my grandmother and my mother lived elsewhere, in a sort of camp."

While Ulvi Haagensen tells the story of her father Olav, her son Aksel Haagensen turned his grandmother Vella's fate into an art project.

Life for refugees in Sweden wasn't actually easy either.

"Grandma remembers how they were called 'damn foreigners' in Swedish," the younger Haagensen said. "They were in refugee camps for three years, and then the Swedish state extradited Baltic troops – those who had served in the German Army – to the Soviet Union, and after that they no longer felt so safe in Sweden. By that time it had also become clear that the occupation wasn't going to be ending anytime soon, so they decided to journey to Australia."

Aksel Haagensen said that his interest in researching refugee stories was first piqued when the first Syrian refugees began arriving in Estonia.

"I saw in the media how there was a lot of hostility among Estonians toward these refugees, and I thought I'd seize the fact that I myself am also a descendant of refugees – and that Estonians are refugees too," he recalled.

Ulvi Haagensen visited Estonia for the first time together with her mother in 1984.

 "We came for ten days, because that's all that was allowed," she recalled. "We arrived at the Port of Tallinn on the Georg Ots. It took a long time to get off the ship; all of our suitcases were searched and everything. And then there were 23 relatives there – had all come to meet us, with flowers. And I didn't know any of them; I didn't know who they were. My grandmother had nine brothers and sisters, so there were a lot of descendants. And my mother recognized them, and those she'd played together with as a kid and... It was really nice."

She and her English-Norwegian husband visited Estonia several times together, and eventually realized that she wanted to move to Estonia so that their children would speak Estonian. And so they made the move, 25 years ago.

Asked if he, the second generation born in Australia, considered Estonia or Australia his homeland, Aksel Haagensen said that he likes to say both.

"100 percent one and 100 percent the other," he specified.

Things left behind

"I make objects," the elder Haagensen said. "I'm an installation artist, and I've thought about whether this may be rooted in the fact that homes have been abandoned, things have been left in Estonia."

She added that her parents lost all of their belongings in the bombing of Nuremberg too.

"My father had left with a photo album they had in Estonia, and a stamp album," she recalled. "He had carried them in a briefcase, and they were all destroyed. I don't know if that's why these objects are so important to me, these things that have been left behind, but just a thought that it could be."  

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