Red Stars and Yellow Stars: The Soviet Investigation of Klooga Concentration Camp

This study considers the extent to which Stalinist political goals influenced the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission’s information gathering about Nazi crimes on the local level. Examining the investigation of Klooga concentration camp in Estonia, the author compares the statements that Jewish survivors gave to commission investigators with these same survivors’ testimony preserved in other Soviet and non-Soviet sources. She argues that investigations took fundamentally different courses in different places due to local agendas and conditions. In cases such as Klooga, Jewish survivors and Soviet investigators worked together to document Nazi atrocities, creating the accurate record that Stalin’s government required to pursue its political objectives.