Page "Jaan Kross" Paragraph 3

Kross was first arrested by the Germans for six months in 1944 during the German occupation of Estonia ( 1941-1944 ), suspected of what was termed " nationalism ", i. e. promoting Estonian independence.

Then, on 5th January 1946, when Estonia had once again become part of the Soviet Union, he was arrested by the Soviet occupation authorities who kept him a short while in the cellar of the NKVD ( later KGB ) headquarters, then kept him in prison in Tallinn, finally, in October 1947, deporting him to a Gulag camp in Vorkuta, Russia.

He spent a total of eight years in this part of Siberia, six working in the mines at the labour camp in Inta, then doing easier jobs, plus two years still living as a deportee, but nevertheless not in a labour camp.

Upon his return from Siberia to Estonia in 1954 he became a professional writer, not least because his law studies during Estonian independence were now of no value whatsoever, as Soviet law held sway.