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Bit over a week ago one of the more famous Forest Brothers, Alfred Käärmann, passed away. A story of his life was impressive IMO. Here´s from New York Times 2003 article of him:
THE SATURDAY PROFILE - THE SATURDAY PROFILE - A 'Forest Brother' Remembers a Life on the Run - Biography - NYTimes.com
RIP
When i grew up, there was one Forest Brother in the village where i grew up - former Lieut. of Est.army, who went to the woods 1940, came out in 1957 after Khruschev´s amnesty. As a kid i was scared to death of him - rather big fellow, wild beard half a meter long, always silent, the windows of his apartment were covered with pictures of pin-ups from 30´s writings, all in extraordinarily neat handwriting. He sort of never got back into human society, lived in an little apartment, collected berries from woods and was a street beggar. A really sad story for a guy who had the world wide open back in 1939.
THE SATURDAY PROFILE; A 'Forest Brother' Remembers a Life on the Run
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: August 23, 2003
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Correction Appended
VYRUMAA, Estonia— ON a leafy hillside just outside this village, a half-hour walk from Estonia's border with Latvia, there are nine capacious holes in the ground. On rare days when he feels up to it, Alfred Kaarmann hides in them and waits for the children to find him.
Then he answers their questions. ''I tell them we had to do everything ourselves,'' Mr. Kaarmann, leathery and white-haired at 81, said one recent afternoon. ''We had to wash our clothes. We had to feed ourselves. We had to be on watch.
''And they don't believe it. The times were so frightening. Young people don't understand.''
Nearly 60 years ago, Mr. Kaarmann hid in bunkers just like the ones here, built by a summer camp to educate children in Estonian history. A soldier against the Soviet occupation during World War II, he fled to the woods when the Red Army prevailed, knowing capture would mean prison, or worse.
He did not come out for the next eight years, one month and seven days. That was only the beginning of his trials.
Mr. Kaarmann is one of the last of the so-called Forest Brothers, the bands of Baltic-state guerrillas regarded as heroic figures here for spending years, even decades, in hiding from Soviet forces, who wrested Estonia from the Nazis. In a land tossed between one occupier or another, Mr. Kaarmann makes no secret of preferring the Germans. ''The conquerors from the West tried to enslave us,'' he said. ''The conquerors from the East had another approach. They tried to kill as many of us as possible -- to wipe us off the face of the earth.''
This is, of course, an exaggeration. But it is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Kaarmann's life is a monument to man's astounding ability to endure the unbearable.
ALFRED KAARMANN was born in 1922, to a family ''more poor than rich,'' in Hargla, a southern Estonian village. He had a normal rural childhood. In 1939, the Soviets marched into Estonia, courtesy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which divided Europe between Berlin and the Kremlin.
When the Nazis reneged and invaded in 1941, many here -- but not the Jews -- greeted them as liberators. Mr. Kaarmann entered technical school in a nearby town. There he met a girl, Kleina, and the two fell in love.
But the Red Army counterattacked in February 1944, and the German occupiers summoned all young men to the front. Mr. Kaarmann went, and fought for seven months until his army was routed.
The victorious Soviets ordered all former Estonian soldiers to register. Mr. Kaarmann's brother did so, and was arrested and sent to a Russia's most dreaded Arctic prison camp, Vorkuta. ''I didn't want that to happen to me,'' Mr. Kaarmann recalled. ''We understood that it is better to die in the forest with a weapon in your hands than in a Soviet camp.''
So on Oct. 4, 1944, Mr. Kaarmann returned from the front at 3 a.m., his feet bloody from the walk, and hid in his parents' shed. When his feet healed, ''I went into the forest,'' he said.
With him were about 18 other Estonian fugitives. They soon met Latvian Forest Brothers, some fleeing the Germans, who taught them how to live in the woods -- covering tracks, digging and concealing the clammy bunkers, no bigger than walk-in closets.
Few were so lucky. With diligence and subterfuge -- women were dangled as bait -- the Soviets winnowed the Estonians' ranks. Those who survived became hermits, meeting by chance, never disclosing their whereabouts.
The war ended. But with Estonia then part of the Soviet empire, the hiding did not.
On Oct. 17, 1945, a year after he went into hiding, Mr. Kaarmann was walking a forest path when he heard a metallic click. He wheeled, ''and then I saw the exploding bullets, and one of them hit my left arm. My arm was destroyed,'' he said.
Miraculously, Mr. Kaarmann escaped, spending the night in a frigid swamp and seeking help, house to house, until an old woman sent a message to the Latvian Forest Brothers to rescue him.
Some 10 days later, a young nurse from Riga sneaked to his bedside and gave him ether. ''She told me it was too late, that even hospital conditions couldn't save the arm,'' he said. ''I said: 'Do whatever you want. I agree to everything.' ''
Then she cut off his arm at the shoulder.
(Page 2 of 2)
When he awoke, he was lying under a pine tree, covered in blankets and snow. Other Forest Brothers were digging him a new bunker. For seven more years, disabled and mostly alone, he lived in a hole in the ground.
He saw almost no one: his mother died in 1947, and he missed her funeral. His betrothed, Kleina, never knew where he lived; he says that he visited her secretly only in summer, when there was no snow to leave tracks.
At the time, Mr. Kaarmann says, he was driven by the knowledge that capture would be even worse. But he eventually was captured, in 1952, by the K.G.B. He soon found that his fears had been understated.
First, he says, he was beaten. Then a Soviet tribunal sentenced him to 25 years' hard labor. A series of prisons followed, including a notorious Ural Mountains prison near Perm. He spent three years there before being moved to a camp in Mordova, 300 miles from Moscow, next to a secret prison for foreigners where captives had only numbers, not names. ''They tormented me,'' he said.
After 13 years in the gulags, mostly in Mordova, Mr. Kaarmann was told by a tribunal that his sentence had been too severe, and that he would be freed if he survived two more years. On Nov. 11, 1967, he was let out.
He returned to his village, where his brother, a veteran of 12 years in the gulags, greeted him. He moved into the house where his father had died three years before. He found his beloved Kleina was still waiting for him after 23 years. But his agony was not over.
Three months later, the local militia summoned him, and gave him 72 hours to leave Estonia. ''They took my passport, and on the spot where I was registered, they wrote 'annulled,' '' he said. ''They said, 'We don't need people like you. Go where you want.' ''
IN the Soviet Union, where passports determined one's residence, Mr. Kaarmann had effectively been declared homeless. He spent the rest of his working years adrift.
He was not allowed to hold a job until 1972. He lodged wherever someone, like a landlord in Latvia, was brave enough to register him as a tenant. When the landlord died, Mr. Kaarmann refused an order to move, arguing that he was legally registered to live there.
''And then the house burned down,'' he said, shaking his wizened head. ''I was like a cosmonaut -- I had neither heaven nor earth. For a year and a half, I was weightless.''
In August 1981, the Soviet government apparently decided Mr. Kaarmann had suffered enough, and granted him permission to take up residence in Estonia.
He returned to his village. Kleina was still there. They had 11 years together before she died, in 1992.
Today many Estonians complain about their meager government benefits. Not Mr. Kaarmann. ''Now I am a pensioner,'' he said, ''the only pensioner who is happy with how much he receives. I can live with this.''
Photo: ALFRED KAARMANN (Photo by Micheal Wines/The New York Times)
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By MICHAEL WINES
Published: August 23, 2003
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Correction Appended
VYRUMAA, Estonia— ON a leafy hillside just outside this village, a half-hour walk from Estonia's border with Latvia, there are nine capacious holes in the ground. On rare days when he feels up to it, Alfred Kaarmann hides in them and waits for the children to find him.
Then he answers their questions. ''I tell them we had to do everything ourselves,'' Mr. Kaarmann, leathery and white-haired at 81, said one recent afternoon. ''We had to wash our clothes. We had to feed ourselves. We had to be on watch.
''And they don't believe it. The times were so frightening. Young people don't understand.''
Nearly 60 years ago, Mr. Kaarmann hid in bunkers just like the ones here, built by a summer camp to educate children in Estonian history. A soldier against the Soviet occupation during World War II, he fled to the woods when the Red Army prevailed, knowing capture would mean prison, or worse.
He did not come out for the next eight years, one month and seven days. That was only the beginning of his trials.
Mr. Kaarmann is one of the last of the so-called Forest Brothers, the bands of Baltic-state guerrillas regarded as heroic figures here for spending years, even decades, in hiding from Soviet forces, who wrested Estonia from the Nazis. In a land tossed between one occupier or another, Mr. Kaarmann makes no secret of preferring the Germans. ''The conquerors from the West tried to enslave us,'' he said. ''The conquerors from the East had another approach. They tried to kill as many of us as possible -- to wipe us off the face of the earth.''
This is, of course, an exaggeration. But it is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Kaarmann's life is a monument to man's astounding ability to endure the unbearable.
ALFRED KAARMANN was born in 1922, to a family ''more poor than rich,'' in Hargla, a southern Estonian village. He had a normal rural childhood. In 1939, the Soviets marched into Estonia, courtesy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which divided Europe between Berlin and the Kremlin.
When the Nazis reneged and invaded in 1941, many here -- but not the Jews -- greeted them as liberators. Mr. Kaarmann entered technical school in a nearby town. There he met a girl, Kleina, and the two fell in love.
But the Red Army counterattacked in February 1944, and the German occupiers summoned all young men to the front. Mr. Kaarmann went, and fought for seven months until his army was routed.
The victorious Soviets ordered all former Estonian soldiers to register. Mr. Kaarmann's brother did so, and was arrested and sent to a Russia's most dreaded Arctic prison camp, Vorkuta. ''I didn't want that to happen to me,'' Mr. Kaarmann recalled. ''We understood that it is better to die in the forest with a weapon in your hands than in a Soviet camp.''
So on Oct. 4, 1944, Mr. Kaarmann returned from the front at 3 a.m., his feet bloody from the walk, and hid in his parents' shed. When his feet healed, ''I went into the forest,'' he said.
With him were about 18 other Estonian fugitives. They soon met Latvian Forest Brothers, some fleeing the Germans, who taught them how to live in the woods -- covering tracks, digging and concealing the clammy bunkers, no bigger than walk-in closets.
Few were so lucky. With diligence and subterfuge -- women were dangled as bait -- the Soviets winnowed the Estonians' ranks. Those who survived became hermits, meeting by chance, never disclosing their whereabouts.
The war ended. But with Estonia then part of the Soviet empire, the hiding did not.
On Oct. 17, 1945, a year after he went into hiding, Mr. Kaarmann was walking a forest path when he heard a metallic click. He wheeled, ''and then I saw the exploding bullets, and one of them hit my left arm. My arm was destroyed,'' he said.
Miraculously, Mr. Kaarmann escaped, spending the night in a frigid swamp and seeking help, house to house, until an old woman sent a message to the Latvian Forest Brothers to rescue him.
Some 10 days later, a young nurse from Riga sneaked to his bedside and gave him ether. ''She told me it was too late, that even hospital conditions couldn't save the arm,'' he said. ''I said: 'Do whatever you want. I agree to everything.' ''
Then she cut off his arm at the shoulder.
(Page 2 of 2)
When he awoke, he was lying under a pine tree, covered in blankets and snow. Other Forest Brothers were digging him a new bunker. For seven more years, disabled and mostly alone, he lived in a hole in the ground.
He saw almost no one: his mother died in 1947, and he missed her funeral. His betrothed, Kleina, never knew where he lived; he says that he visited her secretly only in summer, when there was no snow to leave tracks.
At the time, Mr. Kaarmann says, he was driven by the knowledge that capture would be even worse. But he eventually was captured, in 1952, by the K.G.B. He soon found that his fears had been understated.
First, he says, he was beaten. Then a Soviet tribunal sentenced him to 25 years' hard labor. A series of prisons followed, including a notorious Ural Mountains prison near Perm. He spent three years there before being moved to a camp in Mordova, 300 miles from Moscow, next to a secret prison for foreigners where captives had only numbers, not names. ''They tormented me,'' he said.
After 13 years in the gulags, mostly in Mordova, Mr. Kaarmann was told by a tribunal that his sentence had been too severe, and that he would be freed if he survived two more years. On Nov. 11, 1967, he was let out.
He returned to his village, where his brother, a veteran of 12 years in the gulags, greeted him. He moved into the house where his father had died three years before. He found his beloved Kleina was still waiting for him after 23 years. But his agony was not over.
Three months later, the local militia summoned him, and gave him 72 hours to leave Estonia. ''They took my passport, and on the spot where I was registered, they wrote 'annulled,' '' he said. ''They said, 'We don't need people like you. Go where you want.' ''
IN the Soviet Union, where passports determined one's residence, Mr. Kaarmann had effectively been declared homeless. He spent the rest of his working years adrift.
He was not allowed to hold a job until 1972. He lodged wherever someone, like a landlord in Latvia, was brave enough to register him as a tenant. When the landlord died, Mr. Kaarmann refused an order to move, arguing that he was legally registered to live there.
''And then the house burned down,'' he said, shaking his wizened head. ''I was like a cosmonaut -- I had neither heaven nor earth. For a year and a half, I was weightless.''
In August 1981, the Soviet government apparently decided Mr. Kaarmann had suffered enough, and granted him permission to take up residence in Estonia.
He returned to his village. Kleina was still there. They had 11 years together before she died, in 1992.
Today many Estonians complain about their meager government benefits. Not Mr. Kaarmann. ''Now I am a pensioner,'' he said, ''the only pensioner who is happy with how much he receives. I can live with this.''
Photo: ALFRED KAARMANN (Photo by Micheal Wines/The New York Times)
< Previous Page
* 1
* 2
RIP
When i grew up, there was one Forest Brother in the village where i grew up - former Lieut. of Est.army, who went to the woods 1940, came out in 1957 after Khruschev´s amnesty. As a kid i was scared to death of him - rather big fellow, wild beard half a meter long, always silent, the windows of his apartment were covered with pictures of pin-ups from 30´s writings, all in extraordinarily neat handwriting. He sort of never got back into human society, lived in an little apartment, collected berries from woods and was a street beggar. A really sad story for a guy who had the world wide open back in 1939.
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