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Comment by p_l | Hacker News Reader

While I cannot condone bulldozing the graves... A lot of those red army soldiers fought against Estonian army. They weren't in any way liberators, just as Germans turned to not be ones.

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Only in as much as the Estonian units fought on the side of Germans. There is a reason most jews who didn't flee when the Germans advanced were killed, the level of collaboration between locals and Einsatzgruppe A was very high..

My Estonian grandfather worked as a police officer in Viljandi prior to and during the German occupation. It was only when the Russians invaded Estonia towards the end of the war that he, my grandmother and mother decided it was safer to flee; the terrible reputation of the advancing Russians, murdering and raping as they went, proceeded them. Just was well, as a number of his colleagues were murdered by Russian soon after they escaped.

If you weren't a Jew, you were - in general - treated OK by occupying German soldiers, and least according to accounts I've heard from people who where actually there. The Germans were professional and courteous, the Russians uncontrolled and ravaging thugs.

Funny how Russians always see themselves as 'liberators', not 'occupiers' of Estonia. If this was the case, once they'd driven out the Germans, why didn't they then leave?

Sure, except my family was Jewish and my father's relatives who did not flee did get killed. I have no love for Soviets but I really think we shouldnt normalize Nazi Germans.

You do know Red army invaded and occupied Estonia first? With all the fun things that getting occupied by Red army and purged by NKVD entails.

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