According to Valérie Luebken, Deputy Head of Mission at the French Embassy, the letter sent to Minister of Justice Liisa Pakosta was not an official request, but rather the ambassador's wish to initiate dialogue. Luebken said the letter should not have appeared in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' public document register, from where its contents reached the media.

"This was a draft letter, which is why it did not bear Ambassador Emmanuel Mignot's signature," Luebken explained. "We wanted to express our wish to open a discussion about the museum. We are certainly not trying to impose anything on the Estonian government. Our relations with Estonia are very good in all areas, including culture and memory," she said.

Luebken added that the embassy was very disturbed that the draft letter became public. "This is a very sensitive issue. We understand what communism means in Estonia, but we also know very well what the Holocaust means to France," she said.

It is currently unclear whether the ambassador will send an official letter to Pakosta, but the embassy will most likely continue communicating with the ministry about Patarei Prison. If it does, Luebken noted, there is a possibility that the embassy's partners may join the appeal.

Pakosta: The museum is about communism — and so is the name

According to a representative of the Ministry of Justice, the ministry has not yet responded to the French Embassy, and even if it were to do so, it would not comment publicly on the contents of such correspondence beforehand.

However, Minister of Justice Liisa Pakosta has provided clarification to the media, indicating that Estonia wishes to keep the focus in the museum's name on the crimes of the Red Terror.

"With the 2018 decision to sell the Tallinn Patarei complex, the government made it a condition of the transaction that one wing of the building be used to establish an international memorial museum for the victims of communism. The need for such a museum is unanimously and broadly recognized in Estonian society. It is a long-standing need. It has also been supported by all Estonian political parties," Pakosta told ERR.

"Accordingly, the main part of the museum's exhibition and the research conducted there will focus primarily on studying and discussing the crimes of communism," the minister added.

Impunity encourages the continuation of crimes

Pakosta said that maintaining this focus is essential in order to fulfill the museum's primary mission, while naturally also drawing parallels and comparisons with the crimes of other totalitarian regimes. "It is important that the museum's main focus is also reflected in its name," the minister said.

Pakosta recalled that no international court or tribunal has ever convened to address the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by communist regimes.

"The communist ideology that justified horrific mass crimes, and the individuals who carried out those atrocities, have never been held accountable or punished. Impunity encourages the continuation of crimes time and again, from generation to generation. The moral and behavioral continuity between today's Russian Federation and the Soviet Union is a telling illustration of this," Pakosta explained.

The minister emphasized that the preparation of the museum's detailed concept and exhibition has been entrusted to the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, and that the Ministry of Justice and the government will not interfere in that process, while ensuring budgetary support.

Area dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust

In April, the French Embassy sent an appeal to Pakosta stating that the name of the Patarei museum should reflect its entire history, not only the crimes of the Soviet communist regime.

"The future Museum will have a specific area dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust. The Patarei prison was the final arrival point of 300 of the Jewish deportees of Convoy 73, which left Drancy in France on May 15th 1944 to Lithuania and Estonia. They lived in inhumane conditions, were forced to perform slave labor, and some of them were executed. Among them were André and Jean Jacob, father and brother of Simone Veil, first Chairwoman of the European Parliament (1979-1982) and Minister in France. Only 22 returned," the embassy wrote in its letter to Pakosta.

The embassy holds the view that it is essential in this matter to bring words and actions into alignment.

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