The case of Ewald Mikson

[DXTR]

Michael Mills wrote:

Philosemites also assume that the autobiography of an Estonian policeman who fought against the philosemitic Soviet occupiers must necessarily be a "revision" of history.

Is this really the scope of your argument that anyone who dares confront your anti-wisenthal campaign are written off as philosemites? the opposite of an antisemite.... if we follow this crude logic of yours does this then make you an antisemite?

I gather (and hope) that you would take offence of such accusations - just as someone, myself included would take offence of your accusations that we defend Wiesenthal out of a philosemitic view. I have no particular favouritism or dislike towards jews or any other race including my own. And neither are my views on wiesenthal shapped by such particular likes or dislikes.

michael mills wrote:

It is perfectly obvious to me why Jewish activists and malevolent philosemites would consider an anti-Soviet patriot as ipso facto a war criminal. After all he was fighting against a power ruled by malevolent philosemites.

As you well know it was at the heart of nazi ideology to link jewism with communism - Judeo-bolshevism as it was called. So when you claim that the soviet union was ruled by 'malevolent philosemites' shall I assume that you really mean Judeo-Bolshevism? A person bearing your name, occupation and origin seem to have been quoted a number of times on different holocaust denial sites:

"It is legitimate to adopt a critical attitude toward the relatively large number of Jews who particularly in the first decade after the Bolshevik revolution collaborated with the Soviet Government in the persecution of other peoples."

Shall I understand this quote (original from the Forward march 10) that you sense a jewish conspiracy against other nations of the soviet union, and therefore that communism was a vehicle for jewism? Sorry for dragging this into the debate, but when you argue about philosemitism it is relevant to know what you mean.

[Pieter Kuiper]

According to the Swedish governmental report of 1999 that I referred to above, approximately 25 000 Estonians citizens (many of them Swedish speaking) had fled to Sweden. Many of them had fled for the Soviets. Sweden knew what they had to fear from Stalin, and welcomed them.

Of all these thousands of people who fled Stalin, 150 became the subject of special investigations by Swedish authorities. Mikson was one of these people, and he was expelled by a court order.

I just borrowed from the library a book by Peeter Puide (1997). I have only been leafing though it, but on page 192 he reproduces a report that was signed "Ev[ald] Mikson, Omakaitse-organizer", dated July 17, 1941. So Mikson was a member of this Estonian Selbstschutz ("self-defense").

On page 92-95 Puide reproduces a travel report by a member of the Finnish intelligence service. The agent was in Tallinn from October 1 till 11 (1941), with the purpose of finding out more about estonian communist's activity in Finland. The Finnish agent reports that the political police had found three radio transmitters, an illegal press, and many weapons. Estonian police used torture to get confessions. He mentions methods: beating the head against a wall, beatings against "tender parts", electric shocks.

Mikson, who is apparently acting as a leader at these 'festivities', said that this method had (except for one case) made even the toughest perpetrators talk.

The Finnish agent did not see any Jews in Tallinn, and asked the SD gentlemen where they had gone. They had been moved inland. An Estonian told him about concentration camps. Then the Fin asked some people of the political police, amongst other Mikson. They told that all male Jews had been shot. In Tartu, many children had starved to death.

A few days before my return to Finland, Mikson said that several elderly Jewish women would arrive at Tallinn Central Prison. According to another person present, these women would be "served desert". They both explained that the world had no longer any tasks for such old people. I was not explicitly told what it meant to be "served desert", but I assume that these Jews were shot a few days later, because Mikson had told me on the morning that I had visited Central Prison, that they had driven 80 Jews on a truck to the forest, had told them to kneel at the edge of a ditch, and shot them from behind.

This is probably not in agreement with what Mikson told in his autobiography. It seems that he portrayed himself there as a victim of the nazis, rather than as a collaborator and perpetrator. It seems that this was typically the kind of hypocrite behaviour that would set Wiesenthal off.

The Finnish intelligence report (written by O. Viherluodo) indicates that Mikson was a brutal torturer, and that he was the kind of coward that let small children starve to death and shot old women in the back.
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/ftp.py?pe ... erluoto.01

[Reigo]

At first I make clear that I don't know if Mikson is guilty or not.

Pieter Kuiper wrote:

I cannot read Estonian, but it seems clear that this info is from Ur Eldinum til Islands, Mikson's own autobiography.

Yes, correct.

Mikson's claim that he was imprisoned by the Germans seems to be correct. The reason for this was theft of Jewish property (which of course the Germans regarded as theirs). A Swedish government report about possible Jewish property in Sweden says that Mikson was said to have been arrested together with police chief Leppick in December 1941. His driver witnessed in Sweden that Mikson had come out of a Jewish jewelry shop with 28 kg of gold. He said that this was for the Germans. But that he took a piece of gold weighing 0.5 kg for himself.

I believe that one can establish the truth about the reason of arrest on the basis of German documents.

The Finnish intelligence report (written by O. Viherluodo) indicates that Mikson was a brutal torturer, and that he was the kind of coward that let small children starve to death and shot old women in the back.

Before I see the original of this report I am a bit sceptical, since Puide is, like I pointed out, not too trustworthy (but of course, it is possible that the report is correct).

[Reigo]

Correction:

Ur Eldinum til Islands is not Mikson's own biography but the Icelandic version of his biography by Sanden.

[Reigo]

One more thing

From the Finnish report:

After the conquest of Tarto 2600 Jews and communists were shot. In Tarto a great number of even very small
Jewish children starved to death.

Maybe indeed the Finnish agent heard this, but historically this is not correct. In Tartu about 50 Jews were killed. Jewish children were in another camp ( or camps). The number of communists is too great too.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... onia+reigo

[Pieter Kuiper]

Correction:

Ur Eldinum til Islands is not Mikson's own biography but the Icelandic version of his biography by Sanden.

OK. The English titel is "An Estonian Saga" (Cardiff, 1996).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0906967554/

[David Thompson]

Michael -- You said:

It is clear from the material posted by Reigo that Mikso was an Estonian patriot, leading resistance fighters against the brutal Soviet occupation.

It is perfectly obvious to me why Jewish activists and malevolent philosemites would consider an anti-Soviet patriot as ipso facto a war criminal.

This remark is a crude smear. One might as well say in reply: "It is perfectly obvious to me why neo-Nazi activists and malevolent antisemites would consider a Nazi puppet desk murderer as ipso facto a patriot."

[Pieter Kuiper]

The Finnish intelligence report (written by O. Viherluodo) indicates that Mikson was a brutal torturer, and that he was the kind of coward that let small children starve to death and shot old women in the back.

Before I see the original of this report I am a bit sceptical.

The report was used in an early Finnish trial:

Right after the Continuation War ended in September 1944, Arno Anthoni, who had resigned from his post in February 1944, escaped to Sweden but soon returned. He was placed in custody in April 1945, and charged with misconduct. The charge concerned not only the eight Jews who had been sent to Tallinn, but also nearly seventy other people who had been handed over to German authorities during the years 1942 and 1943.

In court, Anthoni claimed he had had no idea of what would happen to the Jews in Germany. The prosecution presented as evidence a report of a visit to Estonia in the autumn 1941 by a State Police official, Olavi Viherluoto. On his visit Viherluoto had heard from Estonian police officers that there were few Jews left in Estonia, for all men had been killed. He also mentioned a German SS officer who had been surprised to hear the number of Jews in Finland. “So few! Are they still alive?” the officer had asked, and another had remarked, “Not for long”.
Anthoni denied having read the report, though his initials were on it. He explained he had seen it but not read it. He also referred to his “weak eyes” as having impeded his finding out about the persecution of Jews from newspapers and reports.

http://www.uta.fi/~tuulikki.vuonokari/fin-1.html

The online article gives references to printed works (in Finnish). I do not think there can be doubts about the authenticity of this document.

[michael mills]

There were about 5000 Jews in Estonia in 1940.

Most of them collaborated with the Soviet occupation in that year. When the German armed forces commenced their invasion in June 1941, almost all the Jews of Estonia, being agents of the Soviet Government or members of the families of such agents, were evacuated to the Soviet interior, along with the rest of the personnel of the Soviet occupation administration.

Membership in an Estonian patriotic organisation such as Omakaitse, which existed to liberate Estonia from the Soviet occupation, should not be regarded in itself as a crime. Violent actions by the members of such an organisation against agents of the Soviet occupation regime, even though contrary to the standards of today, are understandable in the context of the time, and should not be punishable today. If some of those agents were Jewish, that makes no difference.

Even if certain of the remaining Estonian Jews who received punishment at the hands of Estonian anti-Soviet patriots were personally innocent of any wrongdoing, the action taken against them is understandable in the context of the collaboration of a large part of the 5000 Estonian Jews with the Soviet occupation, and should not be punishable today. Jewish tradition itself recognises group responsibility for actions committed by members of the group; the concept that "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children" is Judaic.

The torture of suspected Soviet agents for the purpose of gaining information about activities aimed at re-establishing the former Soviet domination may be contrary to the standards of today, but given that at the time the Estonian people was involved in an existential struggle for its national independence, it should not be punishable today.

In addition to the native Estonian Jews, large numbers of Jews from elsewhere were sent to Estonia during the period of German occupation, for the purpose of forced labour under very harsh conditions, mainly peat-digging. Many of those Jews were killed when they became unfit for exploitation as labour. When the Red Army invaded Estonia in 1944, some of the surviving Jews were evacuated by sea to camps in Germany; those could not be evacuated were killed.

It is clear that Jews brought to Estonia from elsewhere bore no guilt for collaboration with the Soviet occupation regime. Any Estonian who participated in the killing of such Jews purely because they were unfit for exploitation as labour could reasonably be considered to have committed a crime, and would be legally liable to prosecution today.

But not all members of the Estonian police working under German supervision should be held guilty simply because of their membership. Individual guilt for specific acts would need to be proved conclusively.

As for Mikson himself, if he participated in the torture of Soviet agents for the purpose of extracting information about their activities, I do not think that is something we should get worked up about today.

If he told a visiting Finnish police official that Jewish children had died of starvation in a concentration camp at Tarttu, that does not make him guilty of anything, unless it could be proved that he had been in command of the camp and made the decisions that led to the death of the children.

If he told that same official that Jewish women unfit for labour were being shot, that also would not make him guilty of anything unless it could be proved conclusively that he had participated in a meaningful way in such shootings.

Persons proceeding from a philosemitic point of view make the assumption that all Jews are ipso facto innocent, and that any action undertaken against any Jew or group of Jews is ipso facto a crime. They also assume that any person belonging to an organisation that undertook actions against any group of Jews must be guilty of a crime.

In that way, Pieter Kuiper assumes the guilt of Mikson, even though the evidence appears very scanty. On the basis of the report of the Finnish police officer, it is reasonable to assume that Mikson was aware of the starvation of Jewish children in a concentration camp and the killing of Jewish women unfit for labour, but whether he was personally responsible for those things is another matter. His participation in the interrogation of suspected Soviet agents should not be regarded as a crime at all, regardless of whether those suspected agents were or were not Jewish.

[michael mills]

Further to my previous post:

On re-reading the information about the visit of the Finnnish police official, I see that it occurred in October 1941. At that early date, I do not think any Jews had yet been sent to Estonia from elsewhere, so the conversation he had with Mikson and other Estonian policemen must have involved onlythe few native Estonian Jews who had not been evacuated by the retreating Soviets.

As I recall, about 2,000 Estonian Jews were not evacuated by the Soviets, and fell into German hands.

According to the information passed to the Finnish police official, all the male Jews who had not been evacuated had been shot. A harsh action, particularly as the Jewish men who had not been evacuated were as a group probably less guilty than those who were evacuated, but understandable against a background of one year of very oppressive Soviet rule, with which there had been Jewish communal collaboration.

The death by starvation of the Jewish children is less pardonable, but individual responsibility would need to be established, particularly if it is a matter of a prosecution today, when the passions of the time have evaporated after the elapse of 60 years.

The shooting of the old Jewish women is also less pardonable, but maybe the alternative was starvation. Again individual responsibility would need to be proved.

Remember that we are talking about prosecuting individuals some 60 years after the event. While I regard the shooting of Jewish men by anti-Soviet Estonian partisans in 1941 as understandable in the context of the time, I do not think that if a 90-year old Estonian Jew who had individually participated in Soviet oppression of the Estonian nation in 1940 were to be located today, any action should be taken against him. At this late stage we should let bygones be bygones, on both sides of the fence.

[Pieter Kuiper]

There were about 5000 Jews in Estonia in 1940.
Most of them collaborated with the Soviet occupation in that year.

Mr Mills does not source his allegations.

However, such sources are available.

Peeter Puide begins his 1997 book with a series of documents about the execution of the jewess Beile Ratut. She was locked up in Tallinn Central Prison November 29, 1941, under suspicion of having taken part in communist activities.

Her previous address had been a home for mentally handicapped children.

She was 12 years old. She was interrogated.

Beile could not write her name.

She did not know her date of birth, nor the exact address of where she had been living.

Beile Ratut was excuted November 30, 1941, for being Jewish.

[DXTR]

Most of them collaborated with the Soviet occupation in that year. When the German armed forces commenced their invasion in June 1941, almost all the Jews of Estonia, being agents of the Soviet Government or members of the families of such agents, were evacuated to the Soviet interior, along with the rest of the personnel of the Soviet occupation administration.

As Pieter Kuiper has pointed out Mr. Mills does not mention where he gets these figures from. Christopher Browning too list the 5000 jews lived in estonia prior to 1940. But to draw the conclusion that since 1.5 mill jews out of a population of 4 mill escaped eastward during the german opening of operations in the summer and fall of 1941 is to do with those jews as being soviet agents shows the true views of Mr. Mills.* Unless he of course can produce evidence that those jews were not fleeing but was evacuated by the soviet authorities and that this evacuation had to do with them being agents (agents what an euphemism) of the soviet regime - Did it ever occur to Mr. Mills that reason that those people fled eastward might have more to do with the jewish population sensing what was in store for them at the hands of the nazis and less to do with them being agents of the Soviet Union?

But as you will notice from scrutinizing mr. mills' post you will see that all his sourceless arguments are centered around an idea of a conspiracy between judaism and communism. A conspiracy that we need to see some proof of since the most notably of all soviet jews a year prior to Barbarossa had received an icepick from his good 'friend' stalin and the popular Kirov was supposedly 'murdered' by a young jew in 1937 sparking the purging of the soviet union.** What Mr. Mills is endeavouring to do, is not to deny the holocaust as a whole, since such an act would be against the rules of this forum, but instead we have a clever attempt at excusing acts against estonian jews as justified since they were all 'just communist infiltrators'.

And dear readers take notice of his language:

The death by starvation of the Jewish children is less pardonable, but individual responsibility would need to be established, particularly if it is a matter of a prosecution today, when the passions of the time have evaporated after the elapse of 60 years.

The shooting of the old Jewish women is also less pardonable, but maybe the alternative was starvation.

So now the estonians and germans who murdered old jewish people should be applauded for 'saving' these old jewish ladies from starvation through genickschüssen? I highly doubt that this was their intent. What kind of appogelic argument is this? Allow me to further point to the use of 'less pardonable' does this mean that it is pardonable to a certain degree?

Strange as it is Mr. Mills are of the opinion that since the majority of jews collaborated with the soviets (a claim still not backed up by sources) it is somehow 'understandable' i.e. acceptable that the rest of the jewish community should bear the responsibility of those acts since jewish belief recognises collective guilt ... once again it is quite evident that mr. mills is clutching at straws. One could use the same argument against iranians living in western europe, 'since your country of origin administers islamic law you should have your hand cut off for theft':

Even if certain of the remaining Estonian Jews who received punishment at the hands of Estonian anti-Soviet patriots were personally innocent of any wrongdoing, the action taken against them is understandable in the context of the collaboration of a large part of the 5000 Estonian Jews with the Soviet occupation, and should not be punishable today. Jewish tradition itself recognises group responsibility for actions committed by members of the group; the concept that "the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children" is Judaic.

The same argument could be used against any community where individuals commit crimes. I fail to see the legal basis for such a claim. So the alleged involvement of a jew in the burning of the reichstag is enough justification for the whole holocaust, or where does this collective guilt ends mr. mills?

*Christopher Browning Masters of Death p. 119
** Simon Sebag Montefiori Stalin the court of the red Tsar p. 171-178

[michael mills]

The only way anyone could escape eastwards from Estonia in the summer of 1941 was to be evacuated by the Soviet authorities.

The borders between all three Baltic States and the RSFSR were closed and guarded, and nobody was allowed to cross without official permission. According to witness statements, persons who tried to flee into the RSFSR without official permission were turned back by the NKVD guards manning the republican borders; examples are given in the book by Ezergailis "The Holocaust in Latvia".

The fact that the majority of the Jews of Estonia were allowed to cross the border into the RSFSR indicates that they were officially evacuated. The Soviet Union was after all not the sort of country where a citizen could just get into his car and drive off to Moscow.

The persons evacuated by the Soviet authorities in the face of the German invasion were those that the Soviet Government particularly wanted to evacuate for its own reasons, not those who most wanted to get away. The evacuees were thus primarily members of the Soviet administration, but also workers in important industries who were needed for war production, plus their families.

You can take your pick as to which category of evacuees the Estonian Jews belonged. I would think most of them would have been officials in the Soviet administration and their families, since in all the territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939-40 local Jews were one of the groups favoured in employment in the new bureaucracy.

While there had never been a tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment in Estonia, primarily due to their negligible numbers, their prominence among collaborators with the Soviet occupation (along with a lot of Estonians, of course) would have attracted the wrath of those Estonians resisting that occupation, of which Mikson seems to have been one.

[michael mills]

A history lesson for DXTR.

Sergei Kirov was assassinated in his office in December 1934, not in 1937.

I have never seen any reference to his assassin being a Jew. Most accounts state that the assassin was a jealous husband whose wife had been seduced by Kirov.

[Earldor]

Another useful item on the subject of Jews and Bolshevism might be: http://www.holocaust-history.org/bolshevik-canard/