Uprooted: Part Five -- After Nazi Liberation, The Soviets Return

The tension had been continuous during that period of hell under the Soviet occupation. Though the Western powers never recognized Soviet authority over the Baltic states, the peoples themselves were powerless to do anything about it; so, too, the rest of Europe. In the summer of 1941 the German Reich flexed its muscles. Hitler made Stalin his target and sent the German army marching East. The United States remained neutral, and watched idly from the distance.

During the period Estonia had been under Soviet control, arrests, disappearances and deportations had changed the country. Then the war took a new turn. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The German offensive, called Operation Barbarossa, extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Estonia lay directly in its path.

 

Only a few weeks earlier Soviet authorities had carried out teir mass deportations throughout Estonia. Against that background, many Estonians initially welcomed the approaching Germans. After a year of Soviet rule, they saw Germany's arrival as a restoration of Estonian independence.

 

Fighting had already begun inside the country. Thousands of Estonians took up arms against Soviet forces. Many became known as the Forest Brothers. Operating from forests and rural areas, these partisans attacked Soviet units and fought the destruction battalions that were attempting to maintain Soviet control as the Red Army withdrew. In some parts of southern Estonia, Estonian fighters drove out Soviet forces even before German troops arrived.

 

The German 18th Army entered southern Estonia in July and moved north. Soviet forces retreated toward Tallinn, destroying property and infrastructure as they withdrew. On August 28, 1941, German forces captured Tallinn.

 

For many Estonians, the departure of the Soviets appeared to be liberation. It would not be that simple. The Soviet occupation was ending. A German occupation was beginning.

 

In June, when the Soviet army retreated, so too did many of Estonia's Jewish families. Ralph might not have noticed except that a co-worker named Leo failed to show up for his shift at the distillery. The following day his absence began to cause a stir. When Ralph sought details he obtained the curt reply, "He's Jewish"

On another occasion Ralph had made arrangements to meet someone at the railroad yard. It was quite late and he expected everythng to be desolate. To his surprise there were Nazi soldiers ushering long lines of people into cattle cars. Though he initially failed to grasp the significance of what he was seeing, over time it would become increasingly self-evident that the Nazis were not the "good guys" either.

Once again the people of the Baltics were subjugated by a new regime, a new landlord with new rules. The initial response by many was jubilation. The Nazis were liberators. The dark cloud of Soviet oppression had been lifted. But this sentiment was not shared by all. 

THE SOVIETS RETURN

Like many Estonians, Ralph had mixed feelings when the Germans drove Soviet forces out of the country in 1941. He did not welcome German occupation, but after a year under Stalin, he considered it preferable to Soviet rule.

Estonia was still occupied, and the war continued around it. Some Estonian men went to Finland to fight alongside the Finns against the Soviet Union. Others remained at home, knowing that if Germany lost the war, the Red Army would probably return.

Ralph joined the Estonian National Guard. Many of the men serving with him had lost family members during the Soviet occupation. Ralph had lost his brother Karl and his closest friend Mutti. He had no desire to see the Soviets return. His damaged leg had never stopped him from bicycling or skiing. He wasn't going to let it keep him from serving.

1944, soldiers strive to block the Red Army's retur. 

By 1944, the war had turned against Germany. German forces were retreating across the Eastern Front, and the Red Army was advancing into the Baltic states. 

In September, Ralph was serving with his unit east of Tallinn when rumors began circulating that the Russians were approaching. Soldiers were accustomed to rumors. Some were true; others were propaganda or simply wrong. Ralph tried not to pay much attention, but the reports kept coming.

The Estonian units had been operating alongside German forces. One morning during the third week of September, Ralph was standing near the German headquarters tent when he overheard a major speaking to his officers. Because Ralph understood German, he learned that the Red Army was indeed approaching. The Germans had been ordered to withdraw, leaving the Estonian units behind to delay the Soviet advance.

Ralph understood what that meant. With the Germans leaving, the Estonians were expected to stay, and die fighting. This was the second time knowing another language saved his life.

When the major and his officers went inside the tent, Ralph saw the major's motorcycle nearby, hopped on it and drove away.

Ralph headed for his mother's home outside Tallinn, avoiding the main roads when he could and following trails through fields and woods. He had made a decision to leave Estonia. But first he wanted to fetch his mother.

---

Ralph was not alone in his desire to flee. As the Red Army approached in September 1944, tens of thousands of Estonians fled their country. It's been estimated that 10 percent of the people fled that week. Many headed for the coast, hoping to find passage across the Baltic Sea. Others headed south and west, into Latvia and Lithuania.

When Ralph reached home, he told Ida they had to leave.

She refused.

“I'm too old, Ralph,” she said. “I can't start again somewhere new.”

Ralph pleaded with her. Then he went to the barn, brought out a horse and wagon, and pulled it up behind the house. Finally, Ida began packing. They loaded clothing and whatever else they could take into the wagon.

Suddenly Soviet aircraft appeared overhead. The planes began strafing the area. Ralph held the horse while his mother ran back into the house. An explosion nearby shook the building.

“Mother! To the shelter!”

Their shelter was little more than a hole in the backyard with an old door laid across the top. Ida climbed inside. Ralph pulled branches and shrubs over the opening and climbed in after her.

Almost immediately someone began pounding on the door above them.

“Open up! Come out!”

The voice was German.

Ralph climbed out and found a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him. With the sound of more aircraft approaching, the soldier turned and ran.

“Macht schnell!” he shouted as he disappeared.

Ralph went back to the wagon and untied the horse. He helped Ida onto the seat and told her to take the back roads toward Tallinn. They would try to find a boat and get out of Estonia.

Still wearing his uniform, Ralph climbed onto the German major's motorcycle and rode ahead. He checked the roads, then doubled back periodically to make sure his mother was still coming.

The Red Army was behind them. Ahead was Tallinn and, Ralph hoped, a boat across the Baltic. They didn't know whether there would be one.

CONTINUED

RELATED

UPROOTED: Intro and Part One

UPROOTED: Part Two

UPROOTED: Part Three
UPROOTED: Part Four

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Four -- Family, Finns and Potatoes

During the months Karl was in hiding, Estonia continued to change. Banks were closed or taken over. Churches were restricted. Prominent people were arrested. Statues and portraits of Lenin and Stalin appeared in public buildings, along with Soviet flags bearing the hammer and sickle. 

One night the following spring, Ralph's cousin Uno came to the house with a message.

Karl wanted to see Ralph.

 

Late that night Ralph and Uno took a train to the home of an uncle, where Karl had been hiding in a crawl space beneath the house. Karl had decided to turn himself in. He wanted to say goodbye. After that night, Ralph never saw his brother again.

 

* * * 

Ralph also told me a story about the origin of his family name.

 

Estonia had spent much of its history under the control of larger powers. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, while much of the land remained controlled by Baltic German landlords.

 

According to the story passed down in Ralph's family, Estonian peasants did not commonly have surnames. When surnames were assigned, German landlords or officials sometimes chose names based on occupations, places or personal characteristics.

 

One of Ralph's ancestors was known as a particularly stubborn man who resisted those in authority. He was given the name Kand, which Ralph said meant the root or base of a tree stump—something firmly planted and difficult to move.

 

Ralph said this ancestor later took part in an uprising against the German landlords. Men involved in the revolt were severely punished, and some were killed. According to Ralph, that man was his great-great-grandfather.

 

Whether every detail had survived the generations exactly as it happened, I could not know. But Ralph knew the story well, and he was proud of the name. Kand meant something that would not easily be moved.

 

* * * 

The Kand home stood in a lightly populated area outside Tallinn. Before the Soviet occupation, Sunday dinners often brought together cousins, aunts, uncles and friends.

Ralph's cousin Uno was a regular visitor. So was Ludi, the older brother of Eitzi. Ralph had first met Eitzi through Ludi, who was one of Karl's closest friends. Karl and Ludi had joined the police force together in 1938.

 

Now Karl and Ludi were gone. So were Eitzi and Mutti. Most days the house belonged to Ralph and his mother. Ralph's father had died several years earlier. Estonia had been independent for barely two decades when the Red Army arrived, and daily life was changing quickly.

 

Ralph and Karl had kept a radio hidden upstairs under a bed. At night they would listen to the BBC for news from outside Estonia. Soviet-controlled newspapers and radio could not provide the information they wanted.

 

They followed reports about the war in Finland. The Soviet Union had invaded Finland in November 1939, beginning what became known as the Winter War. The fighting interested young Estonians for an obvious reason. Finland was a small neighboring country fighting the same power that was tightening its control over Estonia.

Some young men left the Baltic region to help the Finns. Ralph and Karl talked about doing the same. Their mother put an end to the idea and they stayed home.

 

After Karl disappeared, Uno sometimes joined Ralph in listening to the radio.

On one occasion, before Karl surrendered, the NKVD again surrounded the Kand house and came inside looking for him.

 

They knew Karl might be armed. The radio was playing upstairs. Ralph realized they had not turned it off. The NKVD men moved rapidly through the house with their pistols drawn. Ralph stood listening to their boots on the floor and the sound of the radio upstairs. The men searched the house but did not find Karl. Then they left.

 

Afterward Ida said something Ralph remembered for the rest of his life.

“Did you see their eyes?” she asked. “They were as scared of us as we were of them.”

Ralph hadn't noticed. He had been too frightened himself. His mother had.

* * * 

Potatoes were a regular part of the Kand family's meals, and Ralph had become a fussy eater. His mother often scolded him for leaving the potato skins on his plate. Ralph didn't like them. His mother told him to eat them anyway. Before the war was over, Ralph would remember those potato peelings for a very different reason.

 

Ralph also remembered an argument during one of the family gatherings before Karl, Mutti and Eitzi disappeared. Mutti wanted to know why Estonia had allowed itself to be occupied without fighting. The question had become harder for him to accept after watching what was happening in Finland.

 

“I want to know why we didn't fight,” Mutti said. “The Finns are fighting to the death. Estonia simply surrendered.”

 

“Mutti, Estonia has no army,” Karl replied. “What could we do? Our leaders did what they felt was best.”

 

“What kind of army does Finland have?” Mutti answered. “They will fight and they will stay free.”

 

Ida interrupted them. “Boys, you don't know what you're saying. Do all young men think fighting and dying will fix everything?”

 

CONTINUES

RELATED

UPROOTED: Intro and Part One

UPROOTED: Part Two

UPROOTED: Part Three

 

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Three -- Darkness Sets In

Ralph lived with his mother, Ida, and his brother Karl in Rahumäe, a suburb of Tallinn. The Soviets had made it illegal for citizens to own radios and listen to foreign broadcasts, but Ralph and Karl, like many Estonians, secretly kept a radio so they could hear news from outside the country. The newspapers could no longer be trusted. They carried what the Communist authorities wanted people to read.

At first, the Soviet presence was mostly visible through military bases and soldiers. Before long, arrests and disappearances became part of daily life. As a policeman, Karl sometimes witnessed them firsthand.

 

Darkness at noon,

One day he was riding his horse along a narrow street in Tallinn when he noticed a man, woman and young boy walking along the sidewalk. A large black car followed slowly behind them. A window was open, and someone inside was calling to the man. The family kept walking.

 

The car pulled ahead and stopped at the curb. Two men got out. One carried a pistol.

Karl urged his horse toward them, but by the time he arrived, the woman had been struck with the butt of the pistol and knocked to the ground. The man was forced into the car at gunpoint and driven away. The men were secret police.

 

Incidents like this were taking place throughout Estonia.

 

Ralph and Mutti were best friends, but they were also rivals for Eitzi. Both were in love with her. That spring, Mutti and Eitzi announced that they were getting married. Ralph was happy for them, although he wondered whether he would ever find someone like Eitzi. The wedding was planned for the end of June.

 

Then came June 14

After the Soviet occupation and annexation of Estonia in 1940, the NKVD prepared lists of so-called “anti-Soviet,” “socially dangerous,” and “kulak” elements and their families—politicians, officers, civil servants, farmers, intellectuals, and others.In the night and early hours of 13–14 June 1941, squads woke people, read a decree, gave them little time to pack (often an hour or less), confiscated property, and trucked them to rail stations. Tens of thousands were loaded into freight/cattle cars. Men were often separated from women and children. The operation ran across the country at once. (See "Sea of Tears" Memorial.)

Ralph said that during the night, the NKVD went from house to house throughout Estonia, arresting and deporting thousands of people. By morning, families across Tallinn were discovering that husbands, fathers, wives, mothers and children had been taken away. The streets were filled with wailing for lost loved ones. Mutti was among them. There would be no wedding.

 

Eitzi's family had relatives in Sweden and arranged for her to leave Estonia. Within a short time she was gone as well. Ralph had lost his two closest friends. He never saw either of them again.

 

As Soviet control tightened, Ralph heard more stories about people being taken away by the NKVD. His mother worried about both of her sons. Karl tried to reassure her that Ralph was probably safe because of his damaged leg.

 

Karl knew that his own position was different. As a policeman, he believed he might eventually be arrested. He began sleeping in different places rather than returning home every night.

 

Ralph made an important distinction when he told me about this period. He did not remember ordinary Russian soldiers as the people Estonians feared most. Soldiers could be seen at stores, parks and dance halls. It was the NKVD they feared. The secret police were the ones who came looking for people.

 

Eventually they began arresting Estonian police officers. The first arrests took place at police barracks and headquarters in Tallinn. Karl was not there when the arrests began.

When he learned what was happening, he went into hiding. He did not tell Ralph or his mother where he was.

 

Ralph never knew exactly why the police were being arrested. He assumed one reason was that they were armed and therefore represented a possible source of resistance.

A few days later, shortly after supper, Ralph and Ida were sitting at the table talking about Karl when two vehicles stopped outside their house. There was a knock at the door.

 

Before anyone could answer, about half a dozen NKVD men in civilian clothes and greatcoats entered the house with pistols drawn. Ralph and his mother were forced against the wall. Ralph felt the barrel of a pistol pressed into his ribs. From his mother's expression, he could tell that a gun was being held against her as well.

 

Then Ralph heard something else. The radio was playing upstairs. He knew they could be arrested if the NKVD discovered it. The men searched the house. Two went outside with flashlights while others searched the rooms. Two remained with Ralph and Ida.

Their leader questioned Ralph about Karl.

 

“You know where he is, don't you?”

 

“No, I don't know,” Ralph said. “And I don't want to know.”

 

“I don't believe you.”

 

The questioning continued, but eventually the officer ordered his men to leave.

Before going, he turned to Ida.

 

“When you hear from your son, tell him his country, Mother Russia, needs him. If he turns himself in, everything will be fine.” Then he added, “Otherwise, when we find him, he'll be shot like the rest.”

Story Links

Uprooted, Part Two.

Uprooted, Part One and Intro

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story, Part Two -- The Day It All Broke Open

Another of the early stories Ralph told me took place during the Soviet occupation of Estonia. On September 28, 1939, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin signed an agreement that divided much of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. The following month, Estonia was forced to accept Soviet military bases on its territory. In June 1940, Soviet forces occupied the country.

At first, Ralph said, daily life continued much as before. There were incidents and signs of what was coming, but then things broke open in July, on the day of a soccer match between Estonia and Latvia, one of the biggest sporting events of the year.

 

Tallinn Stadium was filled to capacity. Ralph was there with his two best friends, Eitsi and Mutti. Eitsi was twenty years old, with long dark hair. Ralph remembered Mutti as tall, handsome and somewhat vain.

 

With less than two minutes remaining, Estonia led 1–0. Displaying the Estonian flag had been prohibited, but someone had secretly distributed small flags throughout the stadium. As the clock ran down, a Soviet army band began assembling at one end of the field. Latvia was attacking in the final seconds. The crowd began counting down.

Five! Four! Three! Two! One! The gun went off.

 

Suddenly thousands of Estonian flags appeared throughout the stadium—blue, black and white. At the same time, the Soviet army band hurried onto the field and began setting up. Ralph remembered the conductor as a short, heavyset man who waved his baton as the musicians scrambled into position.

 

Then the Estonians began singing their national anthem.

 

The Soviet band began playing “The Internationale,” but the crowd drowned them out. The red-faced conductor motioned for his musicians to play louder. The crowd responded by singing louder. Ralph remembered the scene as both funny and sad. Eventually, he said, the band could hardly be heard.

 

Estonia's president Konstantin Päts had been placed under Soviet control, and the demonstration did not end at the stadium. People poured into the streets and began marching toward the presidential residence.

 

At the front of the procession, marchers carried Kristjan Palusalu on their shoulders. Palusalu was a national hero who had won gold medals in both Greco-Roman and freestyle heavyweight wrestling at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Ralph was near the front of the march.

 

The demonstrators did not know that Soviet troops were waiting ahead with machine guns. A fence separated the marchers from the presidential grounds. When the crowd reached it, some people moved toward the fence and tried to get across. Then the shooting began.

 

Ralph had never heard automatic weapons fired before. People scattered. He took cover behind a tree and became separated from Eitsi and Mutti.

 

The crowds retreated into the streets of Tallinn, but the demonstration continued. The city's main streets filled with people shouting, singing and protesting. The Soviets ordered the Estonian police to disperse them.

 

Ralph's brother Carl, a mounted police officer in his mid-twenties, was among those sent into the streets. According to Ralph, the Estonian police made little effort to break up the demonstration. Instead, people surrounded the mounted officers. Some grabbed the horses by the legs and tried to lift them while shouting: “Long live the Estonian police! Long live the Estonian police!”

 

The fire department was called next. Fire trucks moved slowly through the streets with orders to hose down the demonstrators. The firemen wouldn’t turn on the hoses.

Finally, Soviet tanks were sent into the streets. People moved aside as the tanks approached, allowing them to pass, then closed ranks again behind them.

 

“They were only sent to frighten us,” Ralph told me. The tanks did not fire.

UPROOTED: Intro & Part One

Uprooted: The Ralph Kand Story

This is a story about a man with a singular quest: Freedom. It's one of the primary reasons people leave their homelands, often at great personal sacrifice.

In 1940, without firing a shot, the Soviet Union absorbed the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. Along with territorial acquisition, this move was a major coup in projecting Soviet naval presence westward. Besides taking in the tiny navies and merchant marine fleets of the three states, the Soviet Red Banner Baltic Fleet acquired a number of important naval bases on the Baltic Sea. Chief among them was Tallinn, capital of Estonia and a major port city.  --Victor J Kamenir, Warfare History Network, 2008

INTRODUCTION

I met Ralph in the early 1990s on the beach at Park Point in Duluth, Minnesota. I was lying on a blanket reading while my children played in the sand near the water. At some point I glanced behind me and noticed an elderly man making his way across the beach.

He walked with considerable difficulty. One leg was badly withered; the other was strong and muscular from years of compensating for it. He was somewhat stooped and wore shorts and a button-down shirt. When he reached the water, he removed his shirt and slowly made his way into Lake Superior.

He stayed in the cold water for nearly twenty minutes. When he came out, he gathered his belongings and began the slow walk back toward his car. As he passed me, he stopped.

“You like to read,” he said. He had a strong Eastern European accent.

I told him I did, and we began talking. He told me he had loved libraries while growing up. When I mentioned that I was a writer, Ralph said people had told him many times that someone should write the story of his life.

He had grown up in Estonia, outside Tallinn on the Baltic Sea, and was now in his seventies. Before leaving, he offered me a glimpse of the story he wanted to tell.

“Would you like to hear how learning new languages saved my life?” he asked. “Come to my apartment and I will tell you more.” 

Chapter 1

Ralph Kand was born on August 7, 1919, during Estonia's War of Independence. He grew up with his parents and brother on the outskirts of Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. When Ralph was three, he fell from a fence post and broke his hip. The injury left his left leg permanently damaged. It remained thin and crooked, and Ralph walked with a limp for the rest of his life. He would never run again.

The disability did not keep him from doing the things he wanted to do. When he learned to type, he practiced until he became the second-fastest typist in Estonia.

As a teenager, Ralph wanted to ski. Nearly everyone in Estonia skied, but his damaged leg made it difficult. He devised a way to strap his left leg and foot securely to a ski and taught himself. Eventually he became a fast skier.

Ralph also read a great deal. He spent many hours in the library and particularly liked Thomas Mann. The Magic Mountain made a lasting impression on him. Ralph remembered Hans Castorp looking at the night sky and wondering about the size and meaning of the universe. More than sixty years later, Ralph was still talking about the book.

Within a week of meeting Ralph on the beach, I went to his apartment in Duluth to hear the story he had mentioned. That visit began a friendship that lasted for years.

Ralph had moved to Duluth because his wife needed nursing-home care. He wanted to live near Lake Superior because the lake reminded him of the Baltic Sea and Estonia.

Here is the first story he told me.

In 1939 the Red Army occupied Estonia after Estonia had been forced to sign the Bases Treaty. Ralph was 20 years old and working at a brewery in Tallinn called The Rooster. The brewery had been built by the French years earlier and stood on a hillside overlooking the sea. Ralph worked in the office, typing the paperwork for incoming orders.

After the Soviets arrived, authorities ordered windows facing the harbor to be whitewashed. Ralph assumed they didn't want Estonians watching Soviet naval activity. The brewery windows were painted as well. The next day Ralph scratched a small hole in the whitewash with his thumbnail so he could see the Russian ships in the harbor. He wasn't the only one. People all over Tallinn did the same thing.

Living under Soviet rule meant living with the possibility of arrest. Ralph's friends told him he probably had little to worry about because of his crippled leg. They were wrong.

One day two vehicles pulled up behind the brewery. Men wearing greatcoats entered through the rear door. They were members of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. One of the men carried a list containing six names. The NKVD officers asked where each man worked. One by one, the men were located and brought into a small dining area. Ralph was among the first because his workstation was nearby.

As another man was being escorted down the hallway, he saw the others being held and tried to run. He was shot in the hallway. Ralph stayed where he was.

Meanwhile, two NKVD officers went to the far end of the brewery to find the last man on their list. While they were gone, a Russian soldier entered to pick up an order. No one was at the counter, so he began shouting for someone to help him. Finally, one of the NKVD men told Ralph to go take care of the order.

The soldier was there to pick up a load of vodka. Ralph went outside with him to help carry the cases to his truck. Once they were outside, Ralph spoke to the soldier in Russian. He explained that the man inside wearing the greatcoat was NKVD and that Ralph was under arrest. Then Ralph proposed a plan. As they loaded the truck, they would stack the cases in a way that left a space where Ralph could hide. When they brought out the last case, Ralph would climb into the truck behind the vodka. The soldier was to drive through the gate without stopping.

The Russian soldier agreed. When the last case was loaded, Ralph climbed into the hiding place. The soldier got behind the wheel and drove for the gate.

The NKVD officer realized what was happening and ran outside. He fired several shots after the truck, but it was already too far away and Ralph escaped.

More than fifty years later, sitting in his apartment in Duluth, he told me why that story mattered. “If I hadn't learned Russian, I wouldn't be here today.”

TO BE CONTINUED