On 18 September 2019, the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory organised an international conference, where researchers analysed the Klooga concentration camp massacre and the events of Holocaust in our region.
75 years ago, by 1944, the tide had turned and the end of the WWII was approaching. In August and September, the German army was forced to retreat from several occupied countries. On 19 September 1944, an unprecedented massacre took place at the Klooga concentration camp in Northern Estonia when the SS troops leaving Estonia brutally executed about 2000 Jewish prisoners in a single day. Three days later, Red Army units that had reached Klooga discovered wood pyres with half-burned bodies of the victims. After a few days, Soviet, British and US journalists, who were originally sent from Moscow to Tallinn to inspect German weapons left behind in Port of Tallinn during the German evacuation, were also invited to Klooga. It was one of the first Holocaust murder sites to be photographed and documented.
Nowadays, this event is mainly commemorated through preserving and presenting the evidence in museums and memorials (including Yad Vashem and the Klooga site), but it deserves a wider and more comprehensive approach. The conference aimed to study and disseminate information about this tragic event in the discourse of WWII in Estonia and abroad. The conference took place on 18th September 2019 in the premises of the former Patarei prison – a site that was the beginning of the end for hundreds of victims of the Holocaust. The conference was followed by a memorial service at Klooga the following day.
The conference was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Photos of the event can be found here.
The presentations can be found here:
Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke
Holocaust memory in postwar Europe
Establishment and Evolution of the Klooga Memorial
Lithuanian Jews in Klooga 1943-1944
Einsatzkommando Finnland: Finland and the Holocaust
