TALLINN - The first of the long-awaited occupation-victim certificates that provide access to a number of benefits were ceremonially distributed last week at the Occupation Museum in Tallinn.
Issuance of the certificates - gray, plastic cards with magnetic strips - by 11 bureaus of the pension insurance board began on June 10 and are part of the Law on Individuals That Suffered From the German and Soviet Occupation Regimes that went into effect in January 2004.
Elve Tonts, from the pension insurance board under the Social Affairs Ministry, said that 5,435 certificates were issued by the end of last week.
"About 6,000 people have applied for the cards, perhaps many of them wanted to use them already for [free access to] the Song Festival," she said.
Tonts added that in order to receive benefits, people who did not yet own a card could use any document, such as an archive document copy, proving that a particular person had been deported or repressed in other ways.
The law on occupation regimes aims to support people who either fought or surrendered for Estonia's independence. The state is offering a number of allowances and benefits for individuals who were genocide victims or suffered for their beliefs, origin or financial status. This category includes people who were deported, imprisoned, forced to serve in labor battalions, forced to pass mental treatment courses, suffered from radioactive emissions, were born in Siberia because their parents were deported and people who fought as partisans.
The Social Affairs Ministry estimated that the number of effected people stands as high as 25,000, of which about 19,000 are pensioners and the rest are individuals born in Siberia.
About 500,000 euros from the state budget will contribute to their allowances and benefits this year.
Other than such benefits as partly refundable medical and dental expenses and spa services, the cards provide the right to recreational fishing without a regular permit and free access to museums and other cultural institutions.
However, in many cases the cardholder must pay for the service first, with expenses reimbursed by receipt twice a year (in August and March).
Memento, an organization uniting Estonians who suffered from the occupations, earlier criticized the government for not providing enough benefit coverage funding.
Sixty-three years ago on June 14, 1941, about 10,000 people were deported to Siberia. During the Soviet occupation, a total of about 100,000 residents of Estonia were deported.
"Pain and injustice will never fall into oblivion. Systematic mass extermination of innocent people, no matter who carried it out, cannot and must not be forgotten. Although it is not possible to change what has happened, we must remember it in order to be able to look into the future more peacefully and more securely," wrote President Arnold Ruutel, Chairperson of the Riigikogu (Estonia's parliament) Ene Ergma and Prime Minister Juhan Parts in a joint statement on the occasion.
