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-   -   Fascist Estonia. (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/fascist-estonia-953420/)

Landmann Oct 12th, 2012 05:31 AM

Fascist Estonia.
 
Last month visited sambo championship in Estonia with my son. This year fights took place in Tallinn (September 21-24). Came there from Israel and what I'm here to say is that for our being in the capital of Estonia (3 days only) I personally felt full feeling palette, starting it from constant outlook and ending with wild fear and loathing. For the very first day of tournament my son heard in his address hundreds of swear-words and invectives. Shameless Estonian public hooted every time announcer named my son and the country he came from. But that was still not even a half of it! The next day my son in his locker room received an anonymous letter saying: "Jew! Your main match is waiting you on your way back this evening. Watch your back!" Happily at my request the competitions' organizers gave us personal guard that evening. The third fight day unluckily was the last one for my son at the Tallinn's tournament - haven't yet he lost his fight Estonian police with all their blinking lights on took us to the airport. So even country's police in Estonia do little against their fascist radical youths - much easier it turned for them to show us the door. SHAME!

tarquin Oct 12th, 2012 06:52 AM

A very sad experience, but anti-semitism is not a dead issue in many countries in eastern Europe.

Ackislander Oct 12th, 2012 08:05 AM

Sadly, Estonia's opposition to the Soviet Union after its bitter occupation led to strong support for Germany, including an SS unit and a Waffen SS Grenadier Division.

Many of the former East European countries sadly have poor records in antisemitism.

Pegontheroad Oct 12th, 2012 08:49 AM

I'm really sorry to hear that you were treated badly. Anti-Semitism seems to be alive and well in some parts of the world.

Reports like this make me rethink any future trips to that area of the world.

aadi12345 Oct 23rd, 2012 10:56 AM

This is unbelievable. I am 99% sure that anything even slightly resembling Landmann's story would have caused a full scale national scandal. As it should everywhere. I have never heard of sambo in Estonia, though, so perhaps it really is an attraction for anti-Semitist nuts- hence the 1%. Need for police escort simply cannot be true, though.

I can assure you that there is no (and has never been) anti-Semitism in Estonia. BTW Estonia was the first country in the world to grant the Jews cultural autonomy (schools, synagogues etc), already in 1920s. This has been fully acknowledged by Israel as well.

People of Estonia (as Latvia,Lithuania,Poland,Ukraine, Belarus) had to choose between Hitler and Stalin in WWII. That says everything. I sincerely wish no nation would ever have to face a similar choice...

Michael Oct 23rd, 2012 12:38 PM

<i>I can assure you that there is no (and has never been) anti-Semitism in Estonia</i>

Absolutes do not exist. From Wikipedia (my emphases):

According to an article published by the journal "Contemporary European History" in 2001,

"In 1942, transports of Jews from other countries arrived, and their murder and incarceration in slave labour camps was organised and supervised by German and <b>Estonian</b> officials (including Mere and the German head of A-IV). The final acts of liquidating the camps, such as Klooga, which involved <b>the mass-shooting of roughly 2,000 prisoners, were committed by Estonians</b> under German command, that is by units of the 20.SS-Division and (presumably) the Schutzmannschaftsbataillon of the KdS. Survivors report that, during this period when Jewish slave labourers were visible, the Estonian population in part attempted to help the Jews by providing food and so on."[13]

The Estonian International Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity rests the responsibility for such crimes mainly on 2.5–4 % of the Estonian Omakaitse civil defence units and the Estonian Security Police.[14]


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