Part Two – The Estonian Martyrs

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (November 11^th 2021)

Within a quarter of a century Latvians, Lithuanians and especially Estonians paid a very heavy price for winning their independence. The story of their Olympian football Martyrs has been told (see The Estonian Olympic Football Martyrs at https://empowersmag.com/empowersmagwp/2021/11/27/olympic-war-crimes-murdered-3/, and The Olympic Football Martyrs (Part One) at https://empowersmag.com/empowersmagwp/2021/11/26/olympic-war-crimes-murdered-2/). But it wasn’t just football. The Baltic States lost many Olympians to their occupiers’ vindictive brutality. (Part One) The Baltic State Martyrs at https://empowersmag.com/empowersmagwp/2021/11/28/olympic-war-crimes-murdered-4/ details the price paid by Latvia and Lithuania and it cannot be blamed on the terrible suffering endured by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as those atrocities were largely before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union.

The Estonian Martyrs

Erich Altosaar competed in the 1936 Olympic Games basketball tournament. He also carried Estonia’s flag at the games. A sporting phenomenon, he won Estonian titles in volleyball and football as well in the 1920s and 30s. He won the national football championship for JK Talinna Kalev in 1930. He was arrested in 1941 and shot in a prison camp in Kirov in the USSR in October 1941.

Light-heavyweight weightlifter, Saul Hallap competed in that class in the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris. He had won a world title in a lower weight class previously. Among the jobs he had in the inter-war years was one which sealed his fate later – he was a police officer. Like the footballer Harald Kaarmann, that counted against him. He was executed in Umbusi, a village in eastern Estonia in July 1941, after the Soviet Union had taken control of Estonia.

During the Red Army’s campaign in Estonia, they behaved brutally on occasion. When they arrived in Tartu, they executed Estonians. Rower, Elmar Korko, competed in the Single Skulls event at the 1936 Olympic Games for Estonia. He was eliminated in the first round. Korko was one of those executed by the Soviet forces in Tartu in July 1941.

A War Crime?

Light heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestler, Otto Pohla, won national titles and competed in the 1928 Olympic Games for Estonia. His fate is an unusual one – one that can’t be blamed on the Soviet Union. He was conscripted into the Red Army but died in mysterious circumstances. In July 1941 conscripted personnel and recruits were being shipped to Leningrad. The vessel was attacked by German submarines and sunk, killing all on board. They were eventually declared dead.

Murder in the Gulags

Leonhard Kukk was shot dead in Talinn in 1944 by a Soviet soldier for no apparent reason –Kukk was a civilian. He had also been a middleweight weightlifter for Estonia in the 1928 Olympic Games. Estonian athlete, Johan Meimer, competed in the decathlon and javelin events at Amsterdam’s Olympic Games in 1928. While trying to escape from a prisoner of war camp in Piirsalu in Estonia he was killed by Soviet forces while being transported to another prisoner of war camp in December 1944.

Like Harald Kaarmann, Estonian speed skater, Alexander Mitt, paid for his day job. He competed for Estonia in the Winter Olympics of 1928 and 1936 at St Moritz and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but in 1929 he made the decision that later cost him his life. He became a police officer in Tartu, Estonia. He was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to death. He died at a prisoner camp in Kirov in April 1942.

Estonian Bantamweight Greco-Roman wrestler, Evald Sikk, competed in the1936 Olympic Games for Estonia. He was sid to have been executed in a gulag at Tarasovka, near Moscow on August 8^th 1945 – the date is odd. The USSR had been at war with Nazi Germany and its European allies since the summer of 1941. That was the very day that the USSR finally declared war on Imperial Japan and moved more than a million soldiers into Manchuria (Japanese occupied China). The timing of the killing of Sikk is therefore very odd. Estonian decathlete Eugen Uuemaa was executed in Talinn in July 1941 on the orders of the NKVD. He had competed in the 1924 Olympic Games. It’s unclear why he was singled out for such punishment, but few excuses were required by NKVD to do whatever they wanted to its own citizens let alone those whose countries they occupied.