Klooga concentration camp

Klooga concentration camp was a Nazi forced labor subcamp of the Vaivara concentration camp complex established in September 1943 in Harju County, during World War II, in German-occupied Estonia near the village of Klooga. The Vaivara camp complex was commanded by German officers Hans Aumeier, Otto Brennais and Franz von Bodmann and consisted of 20 field camps, some of which existed only for short periods. It is estimated that 1,800–2,000 prisoners perished at Klooga from wanton killings, epidemics and working conditions. Most of them were Jews. Those who survived were transported to the Stutthof concentration camp in occupied Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. During the German occupation, Estonia was part of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a German civilian administration that governed the Baltic states and western Belorussia. Over time, at any moment Klooga held between about 1,500 and 2,500 male and female prisoners. Prisoners included Soviet POW, Estonian political prisoners and Jews. Jews constituted a vast majority after large numbers of them forcibly relocated in August and September 1943 from the Kovno and Vilna Ghettos in Lithuania, and Salaspils Ghetto in Latvia. Smaller numbers of inmates were from Estonia, Russia and Romania. The entire camp was enclosed by barbed wire. The men's and women's camps, which were separated by some 600 yards, had large two-story buildings for housing the prisoners. German SS units and members of the 287th Estonian Police Battalion served as guards. Prisoners were forced to work in peat harvesting as well as in the camp cement works, sawmills, brickworks, and factory, which manufactured clogs for camp prisoners. Conditions were extremely harsh. In the early years of the camp's operation, a group of some 75 prisoners began to organize resistance within Klooga; however, the frequent transfer of prisoners from camp to camp — both within Estonia and throughout Nazi-occupied territories — stymied the underground movement's ability to mount an effective resistance.