TAEVASKOJA FOREST BROTHERS’ BUNKER
 Approximately 400 metres to the south of the Suur Taevaskoda Cliff is the location of the last bunker of Jaan Roots, the notorious leader of Forest Brothers in Võrumaa, and his group of followers. Now only a large hole remains in the forest where the bunker once was.
Jaan Roots (born in 1927) was one of the most famous leaders of the Forest Brothers movement in Võrumaa. While still attending Võru Secondary School, he actively participated in the local resistance movement and was one of the leaders of the Põhjala Noored (Nordic Youth) underground resistance organisation founded there in September 1945. With Põhjala Noored liquidated in late 1945 by state security, he managed to avoid arrest, fled to the forest and went into hiding. Later he joined Paul Randmaa’s group of Forest Brothers in the Veriora area. In October 1949 Soviet state security forces destroyed the majority of Randmaa’s group and Roots forned his own group of Forest Brothers.
That group, with Jaan Roots in charge, became one of the most successful and better organised Forest Brother fornations in South-Eastern Estonia. Roots was one of the youngest and more idealistic Forest Brother leaders, adhering to a clear set of resistance movement goals and principles. He believed that the Forest Brothers were in fact the army of the Republic of Estonia, waging war against the Soviet occupiers and the Estonian traitors who helped them. His primary objective was to cause as much damage as possible to the economy of the country that occupied Estonia. To this end his men assaulted stores, delivery lorries, money transportation vehicles, butter and cream carts, and so on. All of these things belonged to the Soviet Union, which had occupied the Republic of Estonia. Such action did damage the economy of the occupiers and also resulted in the Forest Brothers obtaining the food and financial resources they needed to continue their fight. Although it has often been referred to as robbery, the Forest Brothers called it “requisitioning”. After all, an army during a war will requisition enemy property whenever necessary, and that is exactly what the Forest Brothers did in their capacity as soldiers of the Republic of Estonia, waging a guerrilla campaign against the occupiers. As a rule, the Forest Brothers did not requisition private property. There were exceptional cases, as the Forest Brothers did occasionally lay waste to the households of the occupiers’ henchmen. Frequently these local enthusiasts of the red cause had accumulated miscellaneous property and even houses previously owned by people branded as Kulaks (i.e. rich peasants) and deported.
There were also attacks on and executions of Estonian traitors who actively collaborated with the occupiers and terrorised peaceful residents. NKVD-KGB agents and infornants, policemen, extermination battalion servicemen, deporters, denouncers and other helpers of the occupiers had to bear in mind that if they became overzealous and began persecuting the families of the Forest Brothers and other decent citizens they might soon be subjected to swift and just punishment from the forest. This was how the Forest Brothers tried to protect the population from red abuse and terror. All of the citizens of the Republic of Estonia who had chosen to collaborate with the occupying authorities were deemed traitors and dealt with in a proper wartime manner: usually shot.
Roots and his men referred to their operations as “trips”. All planned trips were thoroughly discussed by their intended participants. The atmosphere in the group was quite democratic, and participation in the trips was voluntary. Usually the younger men went out while the older ones did chores, guarded the area and so on.
The group that Roots led was relatively mobile and operated mainly in what were then the Põlva, Räpina and Võru districts. Sometimes the trips took them further away: for example, Roots was in charge twice when his men requisitioned, in the vicinity of Pärnu, wages being transported to the Sindi Textile Factory. He always managed to quickly vanish after the operation, shaking off his pursuers. The group went on their trips using cars and lorries “borrowed” from the authorities and motorcycles requisitioned from various officials (collective farm chairmen, state purchase agents etc.).
The group led by Roots was one of the last active Forest Brother fornations in Võrumaa. The energetic group bothered the local Communist Party functionaries and other Soviet superiors. The KGB had been trying to catch or liquidate Roots and his group for several years, with the best officers on the case and dozens of agents and infornants recruited, but it was all in vain. The years of guerrilla warfare had made Roots extremely careful and suspicious of everyone and everything.
In the autumn of 1951 the group built a bunker not far from the village of Taevaskoja, some 400 meters to the south of the Suur Taevaskoda Cliff. The bunker consisted of two rooms. The entrance room was used to store food, water and firewood and behind it was the room where the men lived. The water was kept in iron barrels, the meat and minced meat in wooden kegs, and the butter in boxes and casks. Potatoes and flour were stored as well, because the inhabitants baked their own bread. Everything needed for the winter was prepared in the autumn. The rear room had a stove and bunk beds for ten people. The chimney was extended only when the stove was used, which was usually at night. The entrance was covered with a hatch with a small fir-tree on top of it. Having approached the bunker and opened the hatch, the person would then climb down a ladder. The men spent the winter in the bunker without any trips, because leaving footprints in the snow would betray their location. They only exited the bunker when absolutely necessary, during snowfall and blizzards.
Why did they choose the Taevaskoja area to build their bunker? It was probably because Elmar Kurvits joined the group. Kurvits had grown up on nearby Lutsu farm and knew the Taevaskoja area and its people well. This place was also outside the zone of the group’s previous activities and the intensive searches conducted to pinpoint their location. No one would think of looking for them around Taevaskoja. The Saesaare hydroelectric power plant was being built there at the time in any case, so there were a lot of unknown men in the area. The movements of the Forest Brothers therefore did not arouse suspicion among the locals.
The state security men’s endless efforts finally paid off in the spring of 1952: their experienced agent “Mänd” (“Pine”) managed to gain the trust of the Forest Brothers and feed infornation to them that ended in Roots and his men being liquidated.
This “Mänd” was Eduard Kasesalu, who had been sent to work as a forester in Leevi in the autumn of 1949. Having made advances for two years, Kasesalu now had the ear of the Forest Brothers. They checked his background and became convinced that Kasesalu was a reliable person as he had been squad and company commander in Omakaitse (a local defence organisation) during the German occupation. Kasesalu told the Forest Brothers that they could easily obtain 100,000 roubles from the Veriora forestry company on salary day. The cashier always brought the money from the bank in the afternoon, but the wages were usually paid out the following day. While the cashier might be accompanied by an armed guard when returning from the bank, the forestry enterprise office itself was unguarded. Kasesalu said that he was interested in taking some of the money himself and offered his help in staking out the site and preparing the operation. The Forest Brothers took the bait.
The next withdrawal date was 6 June 1952. The office of the Veriora forestry company (later the Räpina forestry company) was situated in Ristipalo, a couple of kilometres from Räpina. When Roots and four other Forest Brothers drove up to the office, they were ambushed by state security men. All five Forest Brothers perished in the ensuing skirmish. That was the end of the road for one of the most infamous groups of Forest Brothers in Võrumaa.
The core of the Roots group was liquidated near Räpina. Having lost their leader, the remaining men – August Sabbe (Sabe), Jaan Vigel, Ludvig Juks and Elmar Kurvits – ceased active operations. As the KGB failed to take prisoners in the Ristipalo skirmish, the men decided it was safe to stay in the Taevaskoja bunker, and so they used it for two further winters, until February 1954. Himmaste forest-keeper Evald Tamm came across the bunker in December 1953 when he noticed a small, dry fir-tree, pulled at it and discovered the concealed entrance. Kurvits, the local Forest Brother, knew the forest-keeper well and trusted him, so the men did not leave. On 3 February 1954, Elmar Klopats, a forner Soviet Estonian Rifle Corps serviceman, was walking through the forest when his foot got stuck in the hole through which the chimney was extended when the stove was being used. He immediately ran away. Kurvits recognised him and did not let the others shoot him. Still, the Forest Brothers did not trust Klopats, so they promptly abandoned the bunker, taking with them as much food as they could carry and parting company. Although Klopats did not report the incident to state security, he did mention it to his brother, who served in an extermination battalion. The brother of course contacted the relevant authorities. The raid conducted a few days later yielded only the vacant bunker, which was then blown up.
Having departed from the Taevaskoja bunker, the men went their separate ways. In late 1954 Juks and Vigel decided they had had enough of the forest life and became legalised. Both were arrested the next year and court-martialled. Kurvits became legalised in 1956, and the KGB failed to punish him because he was not found guilty of anything but hiding himself. He later worked for many years as the custodian of the Taevaskoja Nature Reserve. Only August Sabbe (Sabe) remained in the forest and refused to surrender to the occupiers. He died a free man on the Võhandu River on 28 September 1978.
Compiled by Kalju Aarop
©NPA TAEVASKOJA
IN SPRING 2010 BY INITIATIVE OF NPA TAEVASKOJA PLACE OF THE BUNKER WAS MARKED WITH STAND. ALSO THE WAY TO THE PLACE WAS MARKED WITH WAYMARKS STARTING FROM HIMMASTE TEE (HIMMASTE WAY).
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