The Baltics - Tallinn & Riga

Tallinn, Estonia, USSR

We entered the Soviet Union through the port of Tallinn, Estonia. 

I was standing by the railing as our ferry approached Tallinn, and a man, perhaps in his middle 30's, came up to me. He asked if I was American, and I said that I was. He said that he was also an American, but in a way that surprised me - with an awkward rush of enthusiasm. I didn't know why he had approached me, but he seemed to be filled with emotion and anxious to talk with someone.

We started chatting. He was very friendly. He spoke English well, with only a slight accent, but his account was hard to follow. He said that he was going to Estonia for the first time, but then he said that he and his family "left on the last German destroyer." I didn't understand, and I'm sure I gave him a puzzled look. He said "yes, yes," that he "was born here," pointing toward Tallinn. It was a jumble. After we talked for a while, though, I pieced it together.  

Here is his story: The man was Estonian by birth, and he was a boy during the Second World War. Estonia had been an independent nation, but it was occupied by Soviet forces early in the war. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and occupied Estonia for several years. The man's parents had opposed the Soviet occupation, like many Estonians, and they cooperated in some fashion with the German occupation. When Soviet forces re-captured Estonia in 1944, his family was evacuated by sea (hence, "the last German destroyer") along with other Estonians who had opposed the Soviets and helped the Germans. Had they not left, the man told me, they would have been killed by the Soviet authorities. The family survived the war, and eventually they emigrated to the United States. The man became a naturalized US citizen and made his home, I think, in Virginia. He was returning to visit his native country for the first time since fleeing as a child, 25 years before, in the midst of war, fear and chaos.

I never saw the man again after we debarked from the ferry. I have thought of him from time to time. Was his story true? Was he a KGB agent trying to ferret out visitors with dangerous sympathies? In any case, that brief encounter was one of the most remarkable events on the whole trip.

Here is a bit more about the historical context of the man's boyhood experience:

Wikipedia tells us that the German navy evacuated some 70,000 soldiers and civilians from Estonia by sea in September 1944, mostly from Tallinn, over a six-day period as Soviet forces approached the city. The evacuation flotilla consisted of about 50 small naval vessels, including escort ships, mine tenders and mine sweepers, patrol boats and launches, and at least one hospital ship. The ships and boats came under attack from the Soviet air force. Several were seriously damaged or sunk, including the hospital ship. Most of the vessels escaped unharmed, however, and more than 99% of the evacuees were safely landed at German-controlled ports. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallinn_Offensive