ESTONIAN MASSACRE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25660, 7 October 1944, Page 8

ESTONIAN MASSACRE

THOUSANDS OF VICTIMS (Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 6. '“To-day I saw the burned remains of 2800 men, women and children and the bodies of 70 men and women and one infant whom the Germans had not time to burn,” says the British United Press correspondent in a despatch from the village of Klooga, 22 miles from Tallin. “ Survivors of the massacre told a story, evidence of which lay before our eyes. _ On September 19, as the Germans began to flee from Estonia' they wrecked sadistic vengeance against helpless victims in the Todt Labour Camp. They drove 322 groups of ab ut 100 each into a two-storeyed eightroomed house. When one room was filled Germans standing in the doorway massacred the roomful of people with tommy-guns. Then another group would be called into a second room, and slaughtered in the same way. When the house was full of dead the Germans set fire to it. This was one way, but most of the victims were burned on huge pyres. „ , “ The Germans laid a row of logs on the ground in a great square and i the workers were forced to lie on' logs, where each was shot. The next victims were forced to put another layer of logs over the bodies and then lie down themselves to be killed. This went on until there were four or five layers of bodies. Petrol and flames did the rest. Not all the victims, were dead when the pyre was lighted and some were without heads, arms, or legs: The slayers had hacked off ,limbs in a. sadistic frenzy. There were 1400 Jews, 800 Russians, and 700 Estonians in camp, and few escaped.”