A new book has been published containing a collection of childhood stories from Estonian children who were born in Sibera following the Soviet deportations that took place during the 1940s. The book was compiled and published by the NGO "Siberis sündinud laste" ("Children born in Sibera"), which was founded two years ago and now has 200 members.
The book features recollections from 84 Estonians of their childhood in Siberia. One of the book's authors is Virve Tuubel, who is also a methodologist at the ERM's Education Centre. Tuubel said that through the stories we can learn a lot about how people perceived the place where they were born and the living conditions they experienced as children.
In one story, a child describes his home, "that dirt floor, that one room. A lot of different kinds of people lived there together, but there were also rats, mice, cockroaches, lice, fleas, and mosquitoes in summer. And, he says that when he and his mother returned to Estonia, they were not very welcome here. We lived here and there," says Tuubel.