Museum of Occupations

There is a museum in Talliinn which is unlike any other museum I have visited. In comparison to the Le musée de l'Armée in Paris or the Imperial War Museum in London, this may seem a like a minor affair, being no larger than three or four houses. But what makes this place so unique and worth visiting is that unlike its grander colleagues whose walls relate stories of military aggression or at the very least an equal struggle of arms and men, this building tells the story of an oppressed people, of a nation that has known little of personal or political freedom in the twentieth century having been occupied and terrorized by the Tzar, the Nazi's and then Stalin's Red army. The displays are somewhat limited as the financing for this enterprise presumably isn't available to do this story justice. But the displays of the German WWII uniforms, newspapers that tell the story of Estonia's liberation by Hitler's forces and hopes of freedom that were quickly crushed as one tyrant simply replaced another. When World War II ended, it wasn't just Germany that had lost but also the peoples of three Baltic countries, Czechoslovakia, Romania and all the other countries that fell on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. Estonia has only been free since 1991 and to a large degree still lives under the shadow of Russia. For those of you that get to the Museum of Occupations, try visiting Kilmaniham jail and remember how another small country was oppressed by its more powerful neighbour. http://www.okupatsioon.ee/english/photos/index.html