“Estland ist Judenfrei” [“Estonia is Jew Free”—The title echoes terminology used by the Nazis to describe their high rate of success in exterminating Estionia’s Jewish population]
Eesti Ekspress
By Andres Maimik
January 2, 2004

[Translated by UCSJ’s Baltic Bureau.]

Cauliflower and vodka are on the table. Grandfather is saying a toast. People talk about wedding anniversaries, grandchildren and life in the past and now. Grandfather becomes belligerent after the fifth toast and starts talking about the Jews. He talks about the machinations the Jews plan in Estonia and the terror acts they commit in the world.

Familiar, isn’t it? The same phrases, the same rules of thumb and the same mythology. “Black people are the descendants of monkeys,” “you can smell Jews from a distance”—Estonians love proverbial sayings! This not something that Nazis say but ordinary Estonian men. They deny being racists and antisemites, but after a few drinks or in the sauna their real attitudes show up. [Nazi hunter Efraim] Zuroff’s demands, prescriptions of the U.S. embassy, missionary work by Jüri Lina and the “revelations” of [Swiss Holocaust denier] Jürgen Graf only make it worse. Homophobes and homosexuals have already dared to step out and it is just a matter of time when the first xenophobic political party will show up.

Jews are just perfect objects for sneaky xenophobia because they have an extremely strong agenda of national integration that can easily be understood as an international conspiracy. Germans, Russians or Americans cannot be accused of the troubles of the world, but you know who can. You can guess who came up with communism. You can guess who initiated the [Soviet] annexation [of the Baltic states] in the 1940s. You can guess who is behind the American war against Iraq. You can guess who controls our money through banking and our consciousness through Hollywood movies! Even Hitler has been called a Jew.

I believe that Estonians are not against the European Union because they are sceptics but because Estonians have always been afraid of strangers (black people, homosexuals, Jews). We are afraid that they will come to our homes, urinate in our tankard, rape our daughters and take away the taxpayers’ money.

Now, when we have finally successfully fought for the return of our independence, we have to bend down to minorities and use politically correct language.

Original at: http://www.ekspress.ee/viewdoc/4354F87CDA75A8F4C2256E0B0045F95D

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