Estonia's forests conceal thousands of stories. They live on not only in history books, but in people themselves. At 102, Helmi Roost is believed to be the oldest surviving member of the Forest Brothers — Estonia's postwar anti-Soviet resistance movement. She was barely 20 when, in the late summer of 1945, she had to leave her family's farm and flee into the forest while pregnant.

"We were supposed to get married, but it didn't happen. Everything fell apart, they took our home away. Then my father and I were taken away and locked up in some kind of grain dryer," Roost recalled, adding it was because her brothers were in the woods and had not joined the Red Army. "They beat my father so badly, but they didn't beat me because I was expecting a baby."

The family then had to adjust to life in the forest. At first, eight of them lived there together: her mother and father, four brothers and two sisters.

Two days after Helmi gave birth to her daughter Tiiu in December 1945, her father and four brothers were killed in a Soviet raid.

For Roost, being a forest brother was not about ideology — it was about survival. "In some places the forest brothers fought, but we did not fight at all. We did have a simple rifle. They never harmed anyone," she said.

Years later, Roost's mother and sister were deported to Siberia. Roost herself escaped that fate because she was living under a new family name. Helmi's daughter, Tiiu Roost, said the family initially kept their life as forest brothers from her.

"At first they hid what had happened and all those things from me. I don't know whether it was exactly like this, but in my memory there is the day my aunt and grandmother were taken to Siberia. I remember that day," Tiiu Roost recalled.

Helmi's former fiancé and Tiiu's father died in the forest. Helmi's future husband, who was also a forest brother, managed to avoid Soviet repression and the couple went on to have four more children.

At the age of 101, Helmi Roost received the Merit Cross of the Estonian Former Forest Brothers Association.

"When there was an anniversary of a battle, the old lady was brought there. I wondered how they would bring her. She stepped out of the car and walked over herself. Incredible! It was such a grand occasion that many people, including her, had tears in their eyes," historian Martin Andrellen recalled.

Today, Helmi Roost already has a fifth generation of descendants. Her story lives on both within her family and in historical memory.

"We have to remember because we need to understand that evil well enough that we do not allow it to happen to us again," emphasized Helmi's grandson, Madis Roost.

The Estonian Forest Brothers (metsavennad) were partisan fighters who escaped Soviet repressions and waged a guerrilla war against the occupation during and after World War II. Their name stems from their primary tactic: using Estonia's dense forests as a base of operations and a sanctuary.

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