The Jews were typically executed because they were Jews. Often of course, some "reason" could be given - the accused had attended a communist meeting, or had been a trade union member. But ethic Estonian trade union members were not routinely executed.michael mills wrote:It does appear that Puide has selected a couple of cases where innocents were killed in order to give the impression that persons killed by the Omakaitse were usually or typically innocent.
In order to form a true picture, we would need to look at the details of the total number of people killed by the Omakaitse in Estonia. For example, how many of the persons killed by them had been members of the "istrebitel'nye bataliony" (a term that is better translated as "extermination battalions" rather than "destruction battalions", since the Russian verb "istrebliat' " actually means "exterminate" or "extirpate" rather than to destroy objects).
Puide also reproduces documents about death sentences of Estonian communists, taking the case of Aade Arst as an example. She was interrogated by Evald Mikson on July 17, 1941. His interrogation protocol is four printed pages long. She was born 1903, and had attended school for only half a year. She had been to a Seventh Day Adventists' conference in Tallin in June 1940. In December 1940 she became an agitator for the election campaign for the Highest Soviet. She was active in all communist activities in Mäksa parish. She threatened other villagers with "blood weddings", "deportations", etc. There is also an accusation of her luring Estonian forces into a Russian line of fire. She had hit somebody. She required payments for not reporting somebody.
She was executed July 26, 1941. Reasons: "Member of the communist party, activist and terrorist; extorsion of money by threats." The "verdict" of Omakaitse had been confirmed by the SD.
While this Aade Arst seems to have been a very unsympathetic person, I think the death penalty is rather harsh, to say the least. The judicial procedure was of course outrageous.
