Holocaust Remembrance Day marked at memorial to French Jews in Tallinn
A memorial ceremony was held in Tallinn's Lasnamäe district Tuesday, marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The ceremony took place at a memorial stone dedicated to French Jews who were executed there during the Holocaust, and was attended by the French Ambassador to Estonia, Emmanuel Mignot.
The Ambassador of the State of Israel to Estonia, Amit Gil-Bayaz, was also present, along with President of the Estonian Jewish Community Eduard Klas, honorary member of the Estonian Jewish Community and the initiator of the Lasnamäe memorial stone Avi Dobrõš, and Tallinn city councilor and chair of the Estonian Jewish Community's board Aleksandr Zdankevits.
Lasnamäe district government elder Miroslav Berezovski and other representatives of the district government, as well as members of the Estonian Jewish Community, were also in attendance.
The memorial prayer was read by the Chief Rabbi of Estonia, Shmuel Kot.
Ambassador Mignot noted the event was: "To the memory of the 300 French Jews of convoy 73 deported to Tallinn, among them the father and the brother of Simone Veil. Only 22 survived."
À la mémoire des 300 juifs français du convoi 73 déportés à Tallinn dont le père et le frère de Simone Veil. Seuls 22 survécurent. @Shoah_Memorial #WeRemember #HolocaustRemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/hTgcx8hn0J
— Emmanuel Mignot (@EmmanuelMignot2) January 27, 2026
Simone Veil (1927-2017) was a Holocaust survivor and politician. She was also president of the European Parliament, 1979-1982.
Tuesday, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and also the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: "Today we remember the six million Jewish people and all those murdered during the Holocaust. History shows where hatred, dehumanization and silence lead. Never again."
Today we remember the 6 million Jewish people and all those murdered during the Holocaust.
— Estonian MFA | #StandWithUkraine (@MFAestonia) January 27, 2026
History shows where hatred, dehumanisation and silence lead.
Never again. pic.twitter.com/UZtx89X2Ht
Education minister: Holocaust began with 'words and the normalization of falsehoods'
Also on Tuesday, a state memorial ceremony was held at the Rahumäe Jewish Cemetery in Tallinn, attended by Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas.
The minister said that the Holocaust is not a mere detail of history. "It is a warning example of where hatred, indifference, and the denial of humanity can lead. These processes do not begin with violence – they begin with words and with the normalization of falsehood," Kallas said in a speech delivered at the ceremony.
In attendance was U.S. Ambassador to Estonia Roman Pipko, along with embassy staff.
"As President Trump said: 'We reflect upon the dark affront to human dignity posed by Nazis. We cherish the eternal memories of all those whose lives were lost to the deadly scourge of anti-Semitism. Above all, we vow to never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust. We declare that never again means now",' the embassy noted on its social media page.
The Israeli ambassador, head of the Estonian Jewish Community and chief Rabbi all also attended and spoke at the vent, as did Ireland's Ambassador to Estonia James Sherry.
An exhibition by the Holocaust research center Yad Vashem opened at the Mere Cultural Center on Mere pst 5 in Tallinn opened at 3 p.m.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day has been marked in Estonia since 2002.
The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory notes that prior to World War II, approximately 4,400 Jews resided in Estonia. In the June 1941 (Soviet) deportations, Estonian Jews were among the approximately 10,000 people deported to Siberia, on the eve of the Nazi German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Nearly 3,000 Jews were evacuated from Estonia to the Soviet Union with that invasion, while the approximately 1,000 Jews who stayed behind in Estonia were arrested that same year by the order of the German occupation authorities; by early 1942 all arrested Jews had been secretly executed, with only a handful of individuals being able to hide out until the end of the war.
This led to a report dated January 31, 1942, by the chief of the Security Police and SD in Ostland, Walter Stahlecker, responsible for the extermination of the Jewish population in the Baltic countries, who declared Estonia "free of Jews."
Later that year, and through to the end of the German occupation in 1944, an estimated 12,500 Jews were brought to Estonia from Germany and other occupied European countries, France included. Around 7,000–8,000 of these people perished in Estonia, mostly within the Vaivara camp system, created in 1943, with its largest sub-camps being at Klooga, Jägala and Kalevi-Liiva, all close to Tallinn.
Over 4,600 were also transferred to camps in other countries, where the majority of these perished too.
More information about the events and the memorial at Klooga is here
Editor's note: This piece was updated to include comments from Kristina Kallas.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
