The Estonian Kuna Regi, resident of Krasnoyarsk, spent ten days with Hitler
and ten years with Stalin. Today he hatesboth fascists and communists in like
manner.
Siberia was settled by resettlers and exiles, just like Australia. The fate of our ancestors isd often connected to reprisals, forced labour and expulsion. The Estonians who happened to get to our region from North-Europe are no exception.
Kuna Regi was born in bourgeois Estonia in 1927. The famil was fairly well off. His father, Yevgeniy Regi, participant of the War of Indpendance in 1918, worked for the ship’s wharf as a chief engineer. The country was free, governed democratically, it was “smoll, bat intepentent”. Estonian families thoroughly differed from the Soviet people. Kuna Regi grew up as a free human being.
The USSR showed itself as a big, dangerous neighbour to the “chukhontsy” (former name of the Estonians; translator’s note). They feared the Red Army, but behaved well towards the local Russian immigrants. Up to a certain time there was no specific reason to offend the Russian-speaking population. However, the situation changed in 1940, when the USSR forced the independent state of Estonia to become part of their socialist paradise.
The Estonian army and aristocracy were transported away by trains. All generals, as well as the pevious Estonian government, including representatives of the bourgeoisie, were shot by firing squads or deported to Siberia. Not far from where is today situated the small town of Pechora, NKVD workers executed more than 2000 Estonian soldiers. Historics later called these events “the Esonian Katyn” (a small place in Poland, where, in 1940, about 20000 Polish officers were executed by the NKVD; translator’s note). The list specifying the names of all those who were to be arrested also mentioned the name of Kuna’s father. Acquaintances, who informed him about the impending arrests, saved theengineer’s life. Yevgeniy went underground after having sent his family to live with their relatives in another place.
- When the Russians annexed the country, life changed upruptly, - Kuna recalls. – The goods exhibited in the stores disappeared almost instantaneously. Everything was bought up by the Russian, who had never seen such an oversupply before. However, we were not ill-disposed towards the soldiers. Although I was only 13 years old at that time, I was very well aware of the fact that they were only human, too. The invasion was not their fault – their government was to be blamed for it.
Even though it sounds paradoxical, it were the Germans who helped the Regi family “in the hour of need”. There is nothing to hide about the story. Hitler’s army was very happy about the Estonians, who had just been liberated from Bolshevism, and accepted them triumphantly. For themoment everything seemed to be back to normal, but Kuna Regi already had a presentiment of the next transition of power to take place.
- We exchanged one misfortune against another. I can still remember, how the Soviet troops withdrew in complete disorder in July 1941. Six fighters from the Soviet annihilation batallion (by the way, there were no Russians among them, just Jews, Kazakhs, … Estonians) came into our house, took away the foodstuffs and almost raped my sister. Fortunately, my countrymen were able to stop the nasty gang in time. Shortly after, four of these soldiers were torn to pieces by a mine, the two who survived were later shot by German motorcyclists during the night. In the darkness I came within an ace of being shot instead of them.
The fascist regime, as it seemed, established itself on the Baltic territory for a longer period of time and became more intense. Kuna returned to the secondary school emphasizing modern languages to continue his studies. His father was called up into the Estonian army as a pioneer – at the end of the war Yevgeniy Regi’s unit was put under the authority of the Wehrmacht. The Balts were disappointed in their hopes: instead of being liberated by the fascists …
- I always felt contempt for traitors. Among my own countrymen there were quite a lot of them. Theyrather assiduously did their military service with both Bolsheviks and Hitler’s troops, because their own fatherland meant nothing to them.
In 1944 the attitude of the Estonians towards their occupants took a change. The number of trains heading to the west, to the “Great Reich” increased considerably. The waggons were crammed with workers. Kuna’s sister Lea was also sent to Germany. All Estonians from the age of 17 were subject to draft in to the Wehrmacht. Kuna himself could not escape the fate of becoming one of their recruits, either:
- When the Soviet troops reached the border, I was delivered the induction order. Damn it! Did they intend to send me to hell? But there was no way out – whoever tried to refuse to follow the order was executed. So I packed a few things together and said good-bye to my parents. The following day we put to sea to Germany with the withdrawing German troops.
Since my father was a soldier, anyway, we got separatedfor more than 23 years.
The young Estonians were assigned to anti-aircraft defense. Nobody wanted to put any weapons into the hands of the 17 year-old lads, but they received at least a uniform. From the very beginning, young Regi, recruit of the Wehrmacht, concentrated his thoughts upon one thing only: he intended to desert.
- They took us to a camp, where the anti-aircraft troops were stationed. The officers tried in great haste to give us at least some basic training regarding our new tasks. They distributed brand-new air force uniforms among us. These uniforms were of grey colour and had a gull design on the collar patches. We were not feeded badly. They supplied us with canned food, bread. The Germans neither humiliated nor offended us in any way; in general, the German soldiers showed up as quite normal people – for everybody hated the war. They did not torment us. On the contrary, they even had pity with us and tried their best to help us. Of all mobilized men I was the only one able to speak German. I was appointed as interpreter. All the time we were thinking of how to escape. It was rumoured that Germans executed Estonians, who had served in one of the neighbouring units, because they had tried to desert. We were detached to load technical and military stuff in the seaport of Tallinn.We were commanded by sergeant Bokk (Bock), an elderly,uncombed man, who showed great understanding for us and would turn a blind eye, whenever we kicked over the traces. As soon as we had reached the port, we intentionally lagged behind the others and then took the first opportunity to jump on the body of a passing by truck. Thus we travelled quite a stretch. When we saw a forest path ahead, we jumped out of the moving car. A passenger car with a machine gun behind the window-shield and an Estonian flag on the radiator hood came towards us. All of a sudden the car stopped, because SS people were ambushing them. The fascists had opened the fire on us. They menaced us with execution, but I explained to them in perfect German that we were just returning from a visit to our families and were now on our way back to the unit. This lie, in fact, saved our lives. With the greatest difficulty we managed to get home. The next morning I burned up my German uniform. In all, I had served the days in the Wehrmacht. Later I learned that our complete anti-aircraft artillery unit was wiped out by English bombers somewhere in France.
In 1945 the machinery of Bolshevist oppression in Estland was in full swing again. The men, who had survived the war activities and German occupation, defected to the partisans. Trains crammed with hundreds of deportees were moving towards the east. Anto-Bolshevik organizations were founded everywhere in the country. On the initiative of some friends, Kuna Regi became a member of the anti-communist “Front for the liberation of Estonia”. Neither he nor the “Front” were given the necessary time to realize any of their plans. In March 1946 the 19 year-old boy was arrested.
- I was detained in the prison of Tallinn for a couple of months. The beat me during the interrogation. The woman investigator took off one of a her shoes and bet my head with its heel trying to squeeze a confession out of me. I kept silence. And I was proud of it, for I knew I was suffering for a just cause. The investigator finally beat the requested evidence out of my girl, threatening her with arrest. The court made a quick decision – 10 years and the deprivation of all rights. I was sentenced on section 58-1a, 11 – anti-Soviet agitation. I did something very stupid during the legal proceedings, for I thought I had nothing to lose. I was sure they would shoot me anyway, and so I dared to fling the following words at the “troyka”: “I do not acknowledge your power and the power of this judgement. ou don’t have the right to sentence me at all!” The judges, however, did not take any notice of my patriotic, emotional outburst. Theymight have sentenced me to capital punishment, as well.
Regi served his full sentence without any kind of reduction, “from the first until the last bell”. He spent the first time in Archangelsk Region, then he was transferred to the Taishetlag. He was not even released on the basis of the 1954 amnesty, for his relatives lived across the border. The fact was that the Regi family had been captured by American soldiers and later emigrated to Australia. It was not granted to him to see his relatives before 1968. Well, the Estonians were engaged in anti-Soviet activities, and this Regi did not even have the slightest feeling of remorse!
Having served his sentence Kuna stayed in Krasnoyarsk. His efforts to return to his home country in the 1960s failed. Nobody needed the freedom and independence fighter in Estonia. He decided not to follow his relatives to Australia – the existence of his own family kept him from doing it. When Regi was asked the question, what he would do, if he could relive the years of his youth once again, he answered without much hesitation:
- I would fight against the regime in my home country by all means, even with weapons in my hands. I would fight for independence. I hate both the fascist regime and the communists. I do not hate the people. I hate the system, which pestered the life out of common communists and members of the NSDAP and destroyed all human traits.
The “soldier of the Wehrmacht” ant anti-Soviet Kuna Regi was sentenced on section 58, based on a fabricated case. When they sent him to the camp via transport, the young Estonian was hardly alive:
- They transported us away from Estonia on a train. 70 prisoners were forced to travel in one waggon; “political” Estonians crammed together with Russian criminals, who had committed crimes in Estonia, when the country was already ruled by the Soviets. The “crooks” behaved in an utterly imprudent and shameless way. Armed with knives, they approached one of us in groups, forced him to take off his clothes and took them away from him. Then they exchanged the stolen garments and other personal belongings with the guards against vodka and tobacco products. During the two-weeks’ trip they managed to strip almost all of us to the skin… They also tried to rob me. In that very moment, already being at the end of my tether, this situation made no difference to me anymore. Their “pakhan” (gangleader; transl. note) said:
“ Go ahead! Take your clothes off, greenhorn!” – I thought I would die anyway and shouted: “ I will tear you to pieces withmy teeth! You won’t get a single piece from me. Give me a quilted jacket and felt boots first; then you have something to demand from me!” Evidently, my impudence made such an impression on the thief that he replied to his comrades: “Well then, give him a jacket and footwear!” After this incident the “crooks” did not touch me again, but even slipped me something to eat every now and then. Before I came to the camp inMalatovsk, I even put on weight, although I shared every single crumb with my countrymen – we somehow had to survive, after all …
The first camp they took me to was situated in Molotovsk (Arkhangelsk Region). It was a “non-political” camp, but between the barracks of the criminals were some lodging “political” prisoners. Those, who had already “mended their ways”, were to build a slipway (wharf) for submarines. Theft, like in all the other camps, was customary on a large scale. It even assumed alarming proportions. “Kleptomania” was cured in very cruel way – for one little piece of bread stolen from someone else, the thieves had to pay with their lives. The robbers were beaten up with felt boots, until they lay there dead. Then they were tied up with cords and thrown into the crisp frost. The prisoners arriving by transports very quickly became “goners”. Regi was unlucky, too – he was taken ill with dysentery.
- At the beginning of my camp life I was half-dead. They drove me out to work. However, what they wanted me to do was no work at all, but murder. The place they took me to was called brickworks. There was no such factory at all. In actual fact, they lit a camp fire on a heap of round rocks and poured the blazing hot stones over with cold water. This procedure made the stones burst. I recovered from dysentery by the aid of another prisoner. He was a smith by profession. He rescued me by giving me the advice to eat charcoal. I escaped by the skin of my teeth. The death rate was extremely high. Many people died in the camp every day. Many suffered from dystrophy, the disruption of the nourishment of tissues and organs – the people were covered with black spots. The decision of the medical commission rescued me – they sent me away to join a group of prisoners in need of a rest. They gave me some lighter physical work to do – as a steel erecter and house painter.
Death took a heavy toll. Once someone set fire on the huge gate of the wharf. Three Estonian workers fell down from the very top of the scaffold – they fell to their death. The guards often made use of their arms, in order to ingratiate themselves with the camp administration.
- However, there were good people among the guards, as well. Mainly front soldiers showed themselves kindly and treated us humanely. I heard a story about one of the guards, who had noticed his own father among the prisoners. He shot himself for reasons of conscience. They escorts they had called up from Middle Asia, however, committed true atrocities. It would happen that one of them summoned a prisoner, while a second one shot him directly in the back of the head, as if he had attempted to escape. For such a heroic deed the guards would receive a “hook” in their personal file and were given the permission to leave on holiday prematurely.
The representatives of the camp administration behaved a little friendlier towards those camp inmates, who had to serve a sentence of long duration. Some were allowed to work outside the camp zone. hey were escorted to the “little town”. This was called self-protection, i.e. they looked after themselves. Kuno and his comrade were always accompanied by a former sergeant major, a front soldier. After having left the two prisoners, who were “under his guardship” downtown, he got drunk, so that in the evening the two prisoners had to carry him back to the camp together with his rifle.
Having spent three-and-a-half years in Molotovsk Region, Regi was transferred to Siberia, where he stayed for the rest of his life. At first they took him to the Taishetlag in Irkutsk Region.
- In Siberia I met with the whole world – I do not have in mind the different countries, of course, but the people. All peoples from the USSR, Koreans, Japanese, Germans, Italians, Yugoslavs, Romanians, Bulgarians … In the construction brigade we even had a Chinese general. He was an infirm old man. The local Chinese treated him, as if he were their own father. They provided him with food; they had even found some rice somewhere. He was quite useless, entirely unfit for any work. Nevertheless I decided to let him whiten the walls. Instead of using lime, he applied alabaster – everything had to be redone. In most cases we would not allow him to do anything. I was working with a Korean stockbroker and an American pilot, my friend Tommy. Theyhad shot him down during the Korean War. In 1953 a transport of German POWs arrived in the camp. We had never been confronted to a more pitiful sight before. Almost all of them were seriously ill, ragged and hungry. The Japanese prisoners seemed to have a better live. For some reason or other I once happened to get to their camp and was astonished about the cleanness and accuracy there. And when people take care of themselves and their surroundings, it means that they have a fair chance to survive.
In Taishet the Estonian also met some old Bolsheviks, those, who had fought for the power of the people until 1917.They all ended up the same way – in torture chambers. Chashchin, the hunter, Kuna’s fellow-sufferer from Kharbin, hastened to get to the USSR and managed to reach the last Russian steamer in the nick of time. As we say – he jumped out of the frying pan into the fire: the died-in-the-whool patriot was sentenced to a 10 year’s camp detention.
The inmates showed themselves enthusiastic about Stalin’s dead. Until March 1953 nobody had any illusions anymore. However, the amnesty “of the cold summer” did not give Kuna back his freedom.
- Almost all Estonians of my age were released – except me, because my relatives were living abroad. As if, in fact, I were to be blamed for something. Only in 1955, when I was transferred to Krasnoyarsk (to the central prison), it became obvious that I would soon be set at liberty. They intended to send us to a place called Tmutarakan, where we were supposed to settle down, but we, the political prisoners, disapproved of these plans and expressed our annoyance, while we were detained in the Krasnoyarsk prison cell. We categorically refused to be taken away to another place by force once again. Times had changed already. We finally succeeded in forcing justice. Thus, I happened to stay in our town. Here I met my wife; she was not afraid of getting married to an “enemy of the people”.
Kuna Regi receivedhis rehabilitation during the period of the perestroyka. Evidently, a simple Krasnoyarsk construction worker represented a considerable danger for the Soviet state security …
In the summer of 1940 Estonia was occupied by Soviet troops. Immediately after the occupation began the repressions against all real and potential adversaries of the new state power. Early in 1941 the wave of arrests and deportations in the country rose higher and higher. It included ten-thousands of Estonians. The re-invasion of the Soviet army unleashed a mass emigration of the local population in 1944. We have no data about the actual proportions of this emigration process, but it is an undisputible fact that ten-thousands of Estonians left their home country. There were continuous arrests between 1944 and 1953. The peak of this series of arrests was reached in 1949, when more than 40.000 Estonians were taken into custody or deported.
In all, every fifth of the 995.000 Estonians, wholived in the country before the war, had been killed or left the country by 1956 due to these fateful events.
Mjaeots Oskar, Stanislaw Patrijew
“Komsomolskaya Pravda”, Krasnoyarsk
13.02. – 20.02.2004