Harry Mannil presented
the readers of La Nacion with a very rosy picture of his biography,
one designed to convince readers that he truly was “an honorable
businessman.” Unfortunately, Mannil’s version of his
life is full of half-truths and distortions of the facts that he
does not want Costa Ricans to know.
Among the important names that Mannil did not mention are: Ida
Frank, Kune Frank, Leo Muller, Agnia Ryzhova, Maria Pavlovski,
Kira Rubanovich and Vera Rubanovich. These are seven of the individuals
interrogated by Mannil when he worked for the Estonian Political
Police who were executed or disappeared. Their murder was part
of the Nazis’ plan to annihilate all the Jews of Europe,
which they implemented in Estonia with the help of the Estonian
Political Police and Nazi collaborators like Harry Mannil.
Mannil wants you to believe that the activities of the Estonian
Political Police were harmless. So it is particularly important
to read the conclusions of the International Commission appointed
by Estonian President Lennart Meri to investigate the crimes committed
in Estonia during the Nazi and Communist occupations. In the section
entitled “Detailed Assessment of Responsibility” (page
19), the report makes the following assessment regarding the Estonian
police (including the Political Police):
“Although Estonian police structures were formally subordinated
to the German Security and Order Police, evidence shows that Estonians
exercised significant independence of action in arresting and interrogating
suspects, and determining and carrying out sentences.
“The Commission reviewed the structure and operational competence
of the police through their various reorganizations…[and]
believes that the police were actively involved in the arrest and
killing of Estonian Jews. The police were also actively engaged
in actions against Estonians deemed to be opponents of the Germans….”
It is also interesting to note the Commission chose to “particularly
single [out]” Mannil’s direct boss Evald Mikson as
one of the individuals most responsible for the crimes committed
by the Estonian police against innocent civilians, noting that
Mikson “signed numerous death warrants.” In 1991, Mikson,
who like Mannil left to Sweden during the war, was exposed by the
Wiesenthal Center in Iceland, which opened a criminal investigation
for murder against him. Unfortunately, he died before he could
be prosecuted for his crimes.
In this context, it is important to read the testimony before
the Sandler Commission, which investigated the Baltic refugees
who entered Sweden during and immediately after World War II, of
Uno Richard Andrusson, who served together with Mannil under Mikson
in the Estonian Political Police in Tallinn in 1941. According
to Andrusson, he and Mannil carried out arrests of civilians under
orders received from Mikson and Roland Leppik. Those arrested were
brought to Tallinn Central Prison, where they were interrogated
and either freed or sentenced to death. The latter were taken to
a forest outside the city where they were executed by the “Omakaitse,” an
Estonian group of nationalist vigilantes. Both Mannil and Andrusson
participated in the interrogation of the prisoners, and the former,
after a few months was promoted to be top assistant in his department.
Mannil obviously excelled in these tasks.
The evidence was confirmed by three additional Estonians who testified
before the Sandler Commission. As a result of this investigation,
Mannil was dismissed from his job at a local archives, and was
later denied permission to remain in Sweden. During this period,
he was also barred from entering Great Britain.
Mannil tries to claim that the charges against him are baseless
but the fact remains that he was kicked out of Sweden, denied entry
to Great Britain and remains, to this day, barred from entering
the United States, all solely because of his role in the Estonian
Political Police in Tallinn during the years 1941-1942. Mannil
of course never mentioned the first two facts and downplays the
third by claiming that “the Justice Department found no legal
evidence against me.” But if that were really true, why was
the decision never changed? The reason is obvious. Anyone who collaborated
with the Nazis during World War II is barred from entering the
US and Mannil’s service in the Estonian Political Police
certainly fits that description perfectly. This is also the reason
why former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger resigned from
the International Advisory Board of the Baltic Institute for Strategic
and International Relations established by Mannil after the facts
about his World War II activities were brought to his attention.
Notwithstanding all the evidence against him, Mannil has not been
put on trial. In retrospect, there are three major reasons for
this situation: geography, history, and biography. The fact that
Mannil acted in Estonia is very important. Due to the very small
size of the local prewar Jewish community (4,500) and the relatively
low number of victims (about 1,000, which is practically every
Jew living in Estonia when it was occupied by the Germans), the
crimes of the Nazis and their Estonian collaborators received scant
attention outside the country. The fact that Estonia became part
of the Soviet Union made it difficult to obtain documents and witnesses,
and thus it was only in the early nineties after Estonia regained
independence that I discovered the case of Harry Mannil, in the
course of my investigation against his superior Evald Mikson.
Estonia, like her Baltic neighbors Lithuania and Latvia, has proven
extremely reluctant to take legal action against local Nazi collaborators,
none of whom has hereto ever been prosecuted For this reason, Estonia
has been given a grade of “F” or total failure by the
Wiesenthal Center’s Annual Status Report on the investigation
and prosecution of Nazi war crimes for the past two years.
If we add the fact that Mannil is very wealthy and a generous
contributor to Estonian cultural institutions, it becomes increasingly
clear why he has not been called to account before any court.
And thus, unfortunately, he remains free to travel to different
countries. I do not think that such individuals, rich as they might
be, deserve the privilege of visiting a great democracy like Costa
Rica and I hope that the government will soon take measures to
see to it that this will no longer be possible, because while Mannil
might be a “ business man” in Venezuela, his role in
Estonia was clearly different.
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