page_title: Soviet deportations from Estonia
section_title: Legal status
hierarchical_section_title: Soviet deportations from Estonia / Legal status
caption_attribution_description: English: Plaque memorizing members of Estonian government who were killed by Communist terror. Location: residence of Government of Estonia (a.k.a. "The Stenbock House"), Toompea,Tallinn, Estonia. Date: May 2006. Dansk: Mindetavle over de medlemmer af den estiske regering, som blev myrdet under den kommunistiske terror. Regeringsbygningen i Estland, Toompea, Tallinn Estland, maj 2006.
context_page_description: Soviet deportations from Estonia were a series of mass deportations by the Soviet Union from Estonia in 1941 and 1945–1951.
  The two largest waves of deportations occurred in June 1941 and March 1949 simultaneously in all three Baltic states. The deportations targeted various categories of anti-Soviet elements and "enemies of the people": nationalists, Forest Brothers, kulaks, and others. There were deportations based on nationality and religion. Estonians residing in the Leningrad Oblast had already been subjected to deportation since 1935.
  People were deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union, predominantly to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, by means of railroad cattle cars. Entire families, including children and the elderly, were deported without trial or prior announcement. Of March 1949 deportees, over 70% of people were women and children under the age of 16.
  The Estonian Internal Security Service has brought to justice several past organizers of these events. The deportations have been repeatedly declared to constitute a crime against humanity by the Parliament of Estonia and acknowledged as such by the European Court of Human Rights.
context_section_description: On July 27, 1950 diplomats-in-exile of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania appealed to the United States to support a United Nations investigation of "genocidal mass deportations" they said were being carried out in their countries by the Soviet Union.
caption: Plaque on Stenbock House, the building of Government of Estonia, Toompea, commemorating government members killed by communist terror
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