Concentration camps in Estonia
Both of Estonia's occupations ran camps here. This page is a categorised overview — which camp was Nazi Germany's, which the Soviet Union's, and which both occupation authorities used. Each camp will get its own article; names not yet linked are awaiting theirs.
How it worked
Under the Nazi occupation (1941–1944), Estonia was used above all as a forced-labour and killing site for Jews brought from elsewhere. The largest was the Vaivara concentration-camp system (1943–1944) — a main camp and nearly 20 sub-camps in north-eastern Estonia (including Klooga, Ereda, Kiviõli, Kuremäe). Most prisoners were Jews deported to Estonia from the Vilnius and Kaunas ghettos in Lithuania, from Latvia and from Central Europe; they were forced to mine and process oil shale for the German war industry. By varying estimates, 10,000–20,000 prisoners passed through Vaivara's gates. As the front approached in 1944, prisoners were either evacuated by sea to Stutthof or killed on the spot — on 19 September 1944 about 2,000 people were killed at Klooga and their bodies burned. Earlier, in 1942–1943, the Jägala camp operated, from which some Central European Jews were sent to forced labour and most were murdered at Kalevi-Liiva.
The Soviet occupation (1940–1941 and 1944–1991) worked differently — through mass deportation, POW camps and filtration camps. The June 1941 deportation sent nearly 10,000 people from Estonia to the Siberian Gulag; the March 1949 deportation (Operation Priboi) over 20,000. After 1944, prisoners of war were held in NKVD GUPVI camps — for example Kohtla-Järve camp No. 289 put German POWs into the oil-shale mines. Filtration camps screened Estonians who had ended up in the West (POWs, forced labourers, refugees) for alleged disloyalty. Forced labour was extracted in the north-eastern oil shale, the Maardu phosphorite and the Sillamäe uranium plant, built in 1946–1948 for the Soviet nuclear programme.
Some of the infrastructure served both occupations. In the north-eastern oil-shale region, where the Nazis forced Jewish prisoners to mine, the occupation authorities after 1944 built industry on the same fields, worked partly by German POWs. The clearest continuity is Patarei prison in Tallinn, used in turn by the NKVD (1940–1941), the German security police (1941–1944) and the occupation authorities again (1944–1991).
Nazi German concentration camps (1941–1944)
Under the German occupation several concentration camps were set up in Estonia. The largest were Jägala, Klooga and Vaivara.
Jägala (1942–1943) — one of the first; Central European Jews were brought there, many murdered at Kalevi-Liiva.
Vaivara concentration-camp system (1943–1944) — Estonia's largest camp complex: a main camp and about 20 subcamps in north-eastern Estonia, mainly for forced labour in the oil-shale industry. Subcamps: Aseri, Auvere, Ereda, Goldfields (Kohtla), Hungerburg (Narva-Jõesuu), Ilinurme, Jõhvi, Kiviõli, Klooga (Laoküla, Paldiski), Kukruse, Kunda, Kuremäe, Lagedi, Narva, Putki, Saka, Sonda, Viivikonna, Ülenurme, and the border-area Kerstovo, Kūdupe, Pankjavitsa, Petseri and Soska.
Used by both occupation authorities
Patarei (Tallinn Central Prison) — an instrument of terror under both the Soviet Union (1940–1941 and 1944–1991) and Nazi Germany (1941–1944).
Soviet-occupation camps
The Soviet occupation (1940–1941 and 1944–1991) operated in Estonia chiefly through prisons, POW camps and filtration camps, and above all by deporting people to the Gulag camps of Siberia; in 1944–1953 dozens of camps and camp points operated in Estonia. See Soviet POW camps in Estonia, Kohtla-Järve (No. 289), Maardu and filtration camp No. 0316.
Sources: Vaivara concentration camp and Patarei Prison (Wikipedia).