From this heightened sense of awareness I began to recall details about the cultural life in the refugee camp our family managed to reach after the war. It was located in a northwestern German city in which there were two other camps housing Estonians. Our camp of about 300 refugees was the smallest, made up of four former military barracks– one family or more per room.
What made our small camp special was an adjacent beautiful community building
with a small park and a mid-size concert hall. Somehow a troupe of actors and singers, part of the Escape, collected in our camp. They were given permission to use these facilities by the occupying British authorities. I remember some of the concerts and names of well-known singers, whether visiting or local, such as Andrei Christiansen and Maret Pank. I was even given a role in a Christmas pageant. However, my only chance as a child actor alongside professionals was cut short by a sudden attack of the mumps, childhood disease being a common feature of camp life.
The energy and determination of the performing artists in early exile eventually found a bridge to the new world – Australia and North-America in particular. Concert-music and theatre had established itself earlier in Sweden as Estonian artists actually integrated with Swedish musical life, adding vigour to their own community concerts as well. The formation of choirs in communities in Sweden and refugee camps in occupied Germany resulted immediately in a number of choral festivals which echoed the cultural life that had just been left behind. One could say these foreshadowed broader musical events later on in more distant and established exile settings in New York and Toronto.
A more clearly perceived result of the Escape was the globalization of the church. Amidst personal tragedies, spiritual life and the role of the church took on new meaning among refugees. Ministers or pastors were considered enemies of the Soviet state and were generally arrested and executed or deported to Siberia, where many died. While the refugees in Sweden were quick to establish an organized Lutheran Church complete with bishop (Sweden itself being Lutheran), it was difficult to establish congregations in refugee camps in occupied Germany. Subsequent joint efforts and communication among dynamic ministers and congregations, Lutheran and otherwise, created a network which included locations as remote as Argentina.
Another aspect of the legacy of the Great Escape was an educated and active second generation, since schooling has been and still is priority number one in Estonian populations in the mother country and abroad. Who could imagine that camp-bound political refugees in a defeated Germany would set up secondary schools such as the one my older cousin attended? Or a university in bombed-out Hamburg during their brief time in limbo? Well, we did, since Estonian escapees had minds as their main resource. Minds free to act on their intents and purposes.
The principal part of the legacy of the Great Escape, however, is less complicated. But rather dramatic. Technically, the people of the land, the Estonians, had lost their country again to one of their colonial oppressors, this time under the guise of ,,liberators”. They lost it de facto, in terms of reality. But as long as some democracies on the globe recognized the legality of the Estonian Republic of 1918 – 1940, a vital essence of this legality remained, an existence de jure, as the exiles often referred to it.
What was the basis of this essence? It was not only the fact that almost 70,000 Estonians had decided to escape foreseen terrors. What nailed the issue was the refusal to be repatriated.
One my memories of refugee camp life was the fear of the Russians coming again. Why? They came to the camps with a demand that we go back to the occupied territories. Incredible! The Allies considered that as normal but came to understand that this was a preposterous demand. Since they had given us the task of running our own camps, they listened to our representatives, the heads of the camps, including one Haakon Raudsepp, who, among many in numerous camps, stood their ground and explained the reasons for the refusal.
This refusal, it can be maintained, underscored the fact that we were political refugees, not the displaced persons (DP's) that the free world liked to call us. The French language had a far elegant definition of DP – déporté politique (déporté = exilé). This historical fact soon laid the foundation to the struggle that followed – the struggle for getting our country back, culminating in the the Estonian second generation formulating the successful Black Ribbon Day – the result of an intelligent thought process with a unifying effect.
While scholars in Estonia currently examine the exile years, the repressive experience of the occupation is finding common ground with the circumstances surrounding Great Escape. The impetus of that deliberate departure still reverberates, particulary 70 years later, as we appreciate its legacy while rejoicing in the New Age of Freedom with its Singing Revolution and the inspiring National Song Festivals that maintain the spirit of Eesti.
Andres Raudsepp
