[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 13, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 13, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                   COMMEMORATING THE KLOOGA MASSACRE

                                 ______


                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 13, 1994

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, 50 years ago Nazi troops in Estonia killed 
over 2,000 Jews after forcing them to build their own funeral pyres. 
This terrible atrocity, known as the Klooga Massacre, was commemorated 
by Estonians and Jews at the site of the massacre on September 1, 1994.
  Only a few thousand Jews lived in Estonia before the war. After 
invading the Soviet-occupied country in 1941, Nazi units and their 
local supporters and collaborators sought to kill every Jew in the 
country. The final killings took place in Klooga in 1944 while 
advancing Soviet troops were only hours away.
  In groups of 300, innocent Jewish citizens, children among them, were 
ordered to build stacks of logs and lie on top of them.
  The Nazi officers then shot them and ordered the next group to stack 
wood on top of the dead and wounded and lie down so that they in turn 
could be shot. Eventually, those initiating this heinous action set the 
whole construction ablaze. Only 87 Jews survived this degenerate 
brutality.
  Mr. Speaker, it is important that, as Estonia emerges from the 
darkness of dictatorship and foreign occupation, its new democratic 
government has taken special measures to commemorate the Klooga 
Massacre.
  At the September 1st ceremonies, the deaths of these innocent victims 
were commemorated with the unveiling of a memorial to the victims at 
Klooga. Members of Israel's parliament participating in the ceremonies 
expressed the belief that such a heinous and vile act could never be 
repeated in the new Estonia, where freedom of belief is now the rule.
  Mr. Speaker, I join them in commending the Estonian Government for 
dedicating this memorial and publicly acknowledging the heretofore 
obscured history of the innocent victims of the Klooga Massacre. I 
invite my colleagues to take note of this measure by the Estonian 
Government, which is now engaged in the work of building a new 
democratic Estonia where such atrocities will never again take place.

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