Treasured memories Tales of buried belongings in wartime Estonia
Mats Burstrรถm Translated by Charlotte Merton
nordic academic press
Nordic Academic Press P.O. Box 1206 SE-221 05 Lund Sweden www.nordicacademicpress.com
© Nordic Academic Press and Mats Burström 2012 Typesetting: Stilbildarna i Mölle, Frederic Täckström, sbmolle.com Translation: Charlotte Merton Jacket: Jacob Wiberg Jacket image: The Kerem family farm at Mähkli in 1921. Photo: private. Map: Johan Tufvesson Printed by Livonia, Riga 2012 ISBN: 978-91-85509-87-4
Contents Preface
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1. Hidden in the ground
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2. Artefactual memory Contemporary archaeology Things to remember Memory and history
3. Historical background Estonia seized by the Soviet Union, 1940 German occupation 1941–1944 Soviet reoccupation and mass exodus, 1944 Continued Soviet occupation, 1944–1991 Estonian independence, 1991
4. Stories Searching for stories
Unknown knowledge Lost knowledge Secret knowledge Fragmentary knowledge Undervalued knowledge
Stories about buried family treasure Letti Rapp Helga Nõu Ädu Aunver and Indrek Aunver Maret Kalm Ester Salasoo Kalju and Birgitta Luksepp Ahto Kant Adam Kreek Filip Laurits Toomas Petmanson
13 14 15 19 23 23 25 26 28 29 31 33 34 35 37 39 40 40 40 45 60 66 69 73 75 81 83 88
Other voices
Maiu Preismann Tiiu AndrĂŚ Rutt Hinrikus Pille-Mai Laas Erwin Pari Virve Raag P. Aarne Vesilind Urmas Wompa Aino MĂźllerbeck Maarja Hollo Aksella Kirotaja and Regina Kirotaja Anonymous Swedish-Estonian Andres Tvauri
5. The land as memory bank Recurring narrative themes Why hide things by burying them? Looking beyond Estonia Archaeological reflections
90 90 92 93 94 94 94 95 97 98 100 101 102 102 105 106 108 110 111
Notes
115
References
121
About the author
125
chapter 1
Hidden in the ground We were standing in a field, Ahto Kant and I, waiting. Patiently. The field was an old kolkhoz field near the little town of Rapla in Estonia, about fifty kilometres south of Tallinn. Of the farm – Kivisilla – that once stood here there was barely a trace. It had been demolished in the 1980s to make way for the Soviet planned-economy ideal of large-scale, rational farming units. No one imagined then that only a few years later the Soviet Union would collapse and Estonia would once again become independent. All that remained on the ground at Kivisilla was a large, long heap of stones and rubble that had been bulldozed away and dumped at the edge of the field. But under the surface there might be other traces. Ahto and I were on tenterhooks, waiting for Johan, who was systematically searching metre after metre of field with a metal detector, to signal that he had a reading. It happened every now and again, but so far they had turned out to be bits of scrap-metal in the shape of cartridge cases, rusty nails, and other bits and pieces from the demolished farmhouse. We were looking for something different; we were looking for what the eleven-year-old Ahto and his father had buried in the greatest secrecy in September 1944, soon after which Ahto and his mother had fled from the advancing Red Army to Sweden. It was May 2009 now, almost sixty-five years since the things were hidden, but Ahto remembered it as clearly as if it were yesterday. He had carried the memory of it all those years; he had not been able to find any real peace. During the Soviet period, the idea of returning to look for the family’s possessions was just a dream; it would have been far too risky to even attempt it. But now we were standing on Estonian soil, and what had brought us together and taken us to this particular field was Ahto’s story of the objects that had been hidden here; objects that Estonia’s president had presented to Ahto’s father. In some respects Ahto’s story is unique, but it also fits into a larger 9
treasured memories
Johan Landgren searching the old kolkhoz field for the cache of belongings. In the background are the piles of rubble from when the farm was demolished. Photo: Mats BurstrĂśm.
pattern. Many families who were forced to leave their homes hurriedly have similar tales to tell. The things that they were unable to carry they hid so that they would not be stolen or destroyed. And the ground was thought a safe hiding-place. Most of the objects that were buried in the ground had little monetary value. They were things that were needed in daily life; often household utensils of various kinds such as cutlery, glassware, and china. Sometimes books. The things it would be useful to have when everything returned to normal. But things did not return to normal. When the course of history turned out to be different from what they had hoped – when it was not possible to return, and family belongings remained hidden in the ground – the objects became important in another way. They became memory caches of sorts. The stories were about much more than the objects; they were reminders of the old country and the lives their owners had once lived there. With time, the memories acquired a nostalgic glow. Then the impossible happened. Soviet rule collapsed, and the exiles 10
hidden in the ground
were finally able to return to Estonia. Some were quick to return and look for the places where their belongings had been hidden. For others, the objects were no longer important; they had been significant only as long as they were unattainable, but now there were more urgent calls on their time and energy. But Ahto, and many like him, wanted to know whether the objects they had once buried in the ground were still there, and if so, whether they could be located. So how did our search of the old kolkhoz field turn out? I will return to that later, but first I want to put the search in a wider context.
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