Jägala concentration camp

Jägala was one of the first Nazi German concentration camps in occupied Estonia (1942–1943), near Jägala village in Harju County. It is inseparably linked with the mass killings at Kalevi-Liiva.

The camp and its command

The camp operated from August 1942 to August 1943. Its commandant was the Estonian Aleksander Laak, appointed by SS-Sturmbannführer Ain-Ervin Mere; Ralf Gerrets was his assistant. It held Jews deported to Estonia from Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland; the number of prisoners never exceeded about 200 (in November 1942, 53 men and 150 women).

Kalevi-Liiva

A large share of the Jews who arrived at Raasiku railway station — an estimated 3,000 — were taken straight from the station to Kalevi-Liiva and shot. Estonian auxiliary units took part in the killings. From December 1942 prisoners were transferred to the Tallinn Central Prison (Patarei); by August 1943 the camp was closed and most of those remaining were shot.

The victim figures vary widely between sources — from Soviet investigators' 2,000–3,000 (Jägala and Kalevi-Liiva combined) to higher modern estimates; the total number of Jews killed in Estonia in 1941–1944 is put at about 8,500 (most of them brought there from elsewhere in Europe); of Estonian Jews themselves about 950–1,000 were murdered. See also the overview of the camps. Sources: Jägala concentration camp (Wikipedia).