What Does Communism Look Like? In her own words... Tiia-Ester Loitme

Deportations: Just a Number “We were deported because they [The Soviets/Communists] wanted a clean slate.” “They wanted to bring in new people to take over.” “As a 14 year old child, I was given a number. Quotas had been given.” “My mother, with her 4 children were just numbers that were used to fill a quota that day.” Estonians were put in trains in cattle cars and taken from their homes.

Deportation Lines

A True Picture “A woman who had been nabbed somewhere and she didn’t know what had become of her four very small children. Her wild screaming never abated during the entire journey [on the train’s cattle car].” “This was truly awful. This was a true picture of what was actually happening.”

The Collective Farm “Thankfully we worked with the animals so we could eat what they ate. The animals were brought grains and these interesting corn disks. We were able to sneak a drink of milk while milking the cows.”

Living Arrangements Provided by Communism “It was so cold at night, that the water froze in pails.” “…we burned everything for heat, no one completely cooked their food.” “…people often burned their rooves, their walls [for heat].” “We lived is some barracks – a box with four walls.”

Born Free Tiia-Ester Loitme was born in 1933, a free Estonian. “…that is why I knew exactly what our country looked like as a free country. What the people were like, what the city looked like.” “I remember what the stores looked like, the confectionary and dessert shops on Lai St. What sort of waffles were sold, what Pirita looked like... how the smell of vanilla ice cream wafted over all of Pirita.”

No Ice Cream “I have to say to you that the only thing that remains with me of that free country is the smell of that ice cream, the dream of that ice cream.”

Communism Treated Them As... A number But couldn’t treat anyone to ice cream!

If Communism Were Such A Good Idea… Why was force needed to institute change? Why were people deported? Why did some people have to choose between freezing and burning pieces of the structure they were living in to keep warm? Why were children separated from their parents? Where was the vanilla ice cream? While that may seem like a silly question, it is telling about what communism really looks like.