Klooga concentration camp

Klooga was a Nazi German concentration camp in Harju County, a subcamp of the Vaivara system (1943–1944). It is best known for the largest Holocaust crime committed on Estonian soil — the Klooga massacre of September 1944.

The camp and its prisoners

Klooga was established in September 1943. Between about 1,500 and 2,500 prisoners were held there at a time: Soviet POWs, Estonian political prisoners and — the majority — Jews brought in August and September 1943 from the Kovno and Vilna ghettos and the Salaspils camp in Latvia. The guards were German SS units and the 287th Estonian Police Battalion. Prisoners were forced to work in peat harvesting and in the camp's cement works, sawmill and brickworks.

The Klooga massacre (19 September 1944)

As the Red Army approached, the camp was liquidated. On 19 September 1944, with the camp perimeter guarded by 60–70 Estonian recruits, the prisoners were massacred. By Soviet sources about 2,000 people were shot, their bodies stacked on wooden pyres and burned. A few days later Soviet troops found only 85 of the roughly 2,400 remaining prisoners alive. The death toll at Klooga is estimated at 1,800–2,000. Because many bodies were left unburned, the massacre drew immediate international attention.

See also the overview of the camps and Vaivara concentration camp. Sources: Klooga concentration camp (Wikipedia).