ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHS
The present small selection of photographs has been confined to prison and camp photos. That is, photographs depicting the arrested in years of forced deportation after camp have not been used. The photographs made before detention are above.
KGB files are bound to contain prison photographs of tens of thousands of Estonians, but not by far of all the arrested, not to speak of photos depicting the bodies of those who died of torture and hunger or were killed during an escape attempt. As far as is known, there is in Estonia not a single photograph of the everyday life in prison camps in the 1940s and photos of the labour zones are rare. Karl Neitsov’s photo of timber transporting in a prison camp in 1953 is the earliest known camp photograph with the exclusion of photos of prisoners. Everything that went on in camps was kept under wraps so that taking photos became possible only after Stalin’s death when new winds began to blow in camps.
Former political prisoners, their children and grandchildren are bound to preserve many unique photographs documenting the past. It is to be hoped that some of them will come into the hands of compilers of next volumes of repressed person’s records.
Prison and camp photographs, like documents, are still waiting for a separate publication.
Prison photo of the Estonian statesman, ex-president of the Bank of Estonia Jüri Jaakson is preserved in his file against the background of the decision of a special council – to be executed by shooting
Branch of the Estonian State Archives
Prison photo of Aili Jürgenson, one of the destroyers of a wooden Soviet monument erected in Tallinn. She was a 15-year-old student at the time
1946, ERAF – 1946, Branch of the Estonian State Archives
Norilsk, Spasski
View of the prison city Norilsk across the camp from the slope of Mt. Schmidt in 1956
Photo by Lembit Kadalipp
Spassk labour camp in the second half of the 1950s
Rein Põlluste’s collection
Vorkuta, Nizva
Convict in the Vorkuta coal mine
Memento circular collection
Political prisoners transporting timber in the Nizva camp in Ural Mountains in 1953
Karl Neitsov’s collection
Karaganda
Woman coalminers in Karaganda in the 1950sEstonian State Museum of History collection
Ivdel, Kargopol
Estonian political prisoners in the Ivdel camp in Ural Mountains on Aug. 14, 1954
Memento circular collection
Woman prisoners in the Kargopol camp in 1955
Karl Neitsov’s collection
Mordva, Vorkuta
Mordovian prison camp No. 385/19 in 1960
Karl Neitsov’s collection
Last resting place of Vorkuta prisoners
Endel Ritsu’s collection
Monument to Estonians who perished in an uprising of Vorkuta prisoners in 1953, made and erected by current and former prisoners in 1956
From Memento circular collection
