Estonian Justice Minister: Impunity for Stalinist crimes led to the war in Ukraine

On Sunday, a solemn remembrance ceremony was held at the Memorial to the Victims of Communism at Maarjamäe in Tallinn. The event coincided with August 23, the day when, 87 years ago, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Secret protocols attached to the pact divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence between the two powers, which for the Baltic states meant more than 50 years of occupation.

In her address, Justice Minister Liisa Pakosta recalled that in 2009 the European Parliament declared August 23 the Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, though the day is not observed everywhere. In an interview with the news programme "Aktuaalne Kaamera," the minister said the pact's devastating impact is mainly remembered in countries that suffered under both German and Soviet occupation. Elsewhere, she noted, many mistakenly believe the Nuremberg trials closed the matter — in reality, only one side was punished at the time while the other escaped punishment. According to Pakosta, the war in Ukraine today is a result of that impunity.

Witnesses to deportation

The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact did not merely split Eastern Europe into spheres of influence — it also condemned tens of thousands of people in the occupied countries to suffering and death. The parents of Anne Eenpalu, chair of the Tallinn society Memento, were among the first to be deported and spent 18 years in Siberia, where Eenpalu herself was born. Her parents survived, but five family members remained buried in foreign soil forever.

The family returned to Estonia only after Stalin's death, at her father's insistence, despite others warning him that he no longer had a home or a job in Estonia. Her father nonetheless wanted to return to his homeland, to Pärnu, where the family had once owned a meat factory. Despite the repressions she endured, Eenpalu was among the few who today found kind words for Estonia's eastern neighbour, recalling her student years in Leningrad fondly, while adding that the current war was senseless and unwanted by anyone.