Original subtitles

Heldur,

I received your letter.

I'm in our homeland.

As the summer began

it seemed like the best one ever.

Our wild apple tree that grew in the middle of the field

was covered with a white carpet,

as if to hide its few leaves with blossoms.

That ever so delicate smell of the blossoms

is in my nostrils to this day.

These delicious morning smells...

The voices of you and our little Eliide...

Those haven't changed.

I see in my mind's eye how you looked at me.

How you gently stroked my cheek with your hand

and tied a ribbon around my waist.

I can still hear your words,

that this will keep us together forever.

That you will keep us.

Under your protective wing.

That we are free.

But what is freedom worth, Heldur?

Heldur,

I hope my letter finds you.

Eliide is weak from the heat here

but otherwise we're doing well.

There are wives of other Defence League men here.

We're sticking together.

When we crossed Estonia's border, the Church bell rang,

did you hear it?

It was for a funeral.

I wondered if somebody really was on their last journey just then

or they rung those bells for us.

Then someone in the cattle car took up the song Estonia, Your Manly Courage.

Then everyone in the other cattle cars joined in.

Heldur, that was...

the most powerful chorus.

Straight from the heart...

In that dark cattle car, the women on the top bunks are our eyes.

Those narrow windows

are like a frame that transforms our homeland

receding into a painting that is beyond our reach.

Many of us think this is all one big mistake.

One woman, Hermiine,

overheard Russian guards saying that war had broken out.

If that's true, we'll be back home soon...

That same woman, Hermiine, shared her bread with us,

as ours remained in your luggage.

I can not comprehend,

what evil have we

simple people

done to enormous Russia?

One regime can't rob thousands

of all they believe in

and love.

Heldur,

I sent you a letter through the gap in the window of our cattle car.

And then we got word that the cattle cars were uncoupled...

That you went in another direction...

Surely, you are already trying to find your way to us.

Today is July 9th.

We were in the cattle cars for 26 days

and nobody could get undressed or wash themselves the whole time.

Those weeks on rails robbed Eliide of her health.

She came down with dysentery.

She's weak, keeps asking for you.

I traded your trousers for milk in a village.

We'll get you new ones when we get home.

We travelled by river for another 4 days and nights.

And then about another 60 km northwards by foot convoyed by armed guards.

With Hermiine,

we've been housed 3 km away from the village, in a solitary mud hut.

As punishment. That's what they said.

We intervened

when the chairman of the local kolkhoz beat a boy from Tartu.

We're in their bad books now.

In the evening, they held some sort of a meeting.

We were lectured on what we can and can't do.

Tomorrow we'll be assigned to work.

Whoever doesn't work won't be given any bread.

Of the 51 women and children in our cattle car,

42 made it here...

Last night,

one woman took her own life...

her own and her child's.

Is death really easier than what awaits us?

Heldur,

time has taken on another dimension.

The temporary has passed.

We measure time by the news that reaches us.

That way the days and weeks seem shorter.

Eliide is feeble.

She hasn't been able to get out of bed for over a month.

Her legs are swollen from starvation.

We get 200 g of bread, about a handful,

for doing lumberjack work.

That's our daily ration.

Sometimes they give us flour.

But only if we fulfil our work quota.

There's no bread for children.

Hermiine...

showed me where the bread is kept.

Heldur,

I asked Eliide a week ago

what she would want as a present for her birthday.

Eliide replied. A loaf of bread.

I asked her what she would want if she had enough to eat.

Heldur, she started crying and still said

a loaf of bread...

Constant hunger doesn't let her dream of anything other than food.

We have to register at the village militia station every two weeks.

So they check to see that we haven't run away.

Some people who don't have children have tried to escape.

They've all been brought back and punished.

We're prisoners of nature...

I wonder if there have ever been any prisoners

with so much space that you long for boundaries.

...breach of the military power of the USSR,

iys independence or terriyorial inyegriyy

by espionage beyraying, miliyary or state secreys.

Defecyion to yhe enemies side, escaping abroad.

Senyenced yo execuyion by shooying ,

yogeyher wiyh the confiscayion of yhe whole properyy

or yhe deprivation of liberty for 10 years

yogeyher wiyh the confiscayion of yhe whole properyy.

Please forgive me, Heldur.

The local chairman summoned me to the kolkhoz office on Sunday.

He put the slice of bread on his table.

The one I had stolen for Eliide.

And some vodka...

I had to choose...

whether...

to be taken further north

or...

to drink vodka with him, and...

Heldur, it's like we're living in darkness here.

And lots of things are done differently in the dark than in daylight.

Tell me, Heldur, is there a word...

A widow is a woman who loses her husband.

An orphan

is a child who loses its parents.

But who is a mother

who loses her child?

That feeling doesn't deserve a word.

The weather is so gloomy.

The clouds hide the sun...

And I long to go for a walk.

My steps always lead to where the locals peel birch bark.

So that the white trunks have become black.

How those sooty trees still grow...

In that rich fertilised soil.

Hermiine said I shouldn't go to the woods alone any more.

Where should one go

after being robbed

of everything they believe in and love?

I'm left with Hermiine,

and other Estonians.

I'm left with you, Heldur.

I often see you in my dreams.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of you among the trees when I'm out logging.

Sometimes in the gaze of strangers,

in the darkness of the room.

This year when we secretly celebrated Christmas Eve behind covered windows,

an Estonian man arrived in our village.

That gave everyone new hope.

Me as well.

I promise, Heldur,

that when I'm released,

I will find you.

Wherever you may be.

Tell me, where are you?

Each evening turns everything around me

to a dim, dull, black and white picture.

The sky also exchanges blue for pitch black.

And I journey home

in my dreams.

I had a dream at night.

It was spring and we were in our orchard.

Pruning apple tree branches.

You were up in a tree and asked, this one,

and pointed at it with the saw.

But I pointed, no, that other one.

You sat on a three-pronged branch and laughed.

At yourself and me.

But then suddenly you were gone.

I ran under the tree, but you weren't there anymore.

I called out, and you called out in response.

But from up in another tree.

I ran to it but you weren't there.

And then suddenly it was already summer.

And I still ran and called out

but only the wind blew and the leaves rustled.

You weren't anywhere.

I was spent and started crying.

Your saw was on the ground.

I wanted to pick it up

but then you suddenly jumped out from behind a tree

and laughed, pushing me down.

And I shouted that you can't do that ever again,

you can't disappear.

But you just laughed.

And I told you to let go.

But inside I didn't want you to.

You started kissing me

and you kissed all my tears away

and I asked if they were salty,

but you said they're sweet instead. Like drops of apple juice.

Your head lay on my breast

and I promised myself that I'd never let you go

so that you wouldn't disappear again.

But you untied my dress and...

And then the apples were already ripe.

We were lying on the ground

with ripe apples all around.

Suddenly a branch full of apples snapped under its weight.

And I said to you, see, the trees weren't pruned because of you.

Why did you have to disappear?

You asked me not to be cross,

sighed and smiled.

Heldur, I think I've never even told you that you have a beautiful smile.

But then you didn't say anything anymore.

And when I looked in your direction again,

you weren't there anymore.

It was autumn instead.

Damp and dark.

I stood under the apple tree alone.

Under our wild apple tree that grows in the middle of our field.

I woke up

and shivered.

Heldur, I promise that whatever the future brings,

I won't ever be cross with you.

Where are you, Heldur?

Come already, let's go home...

Dear Heldur,

the years after the end of the war

haven't brought the changes we hoped for.

Even though deep down everyone is still homesick,

we now live more in the present of the days given to us.

We've learned to get along even with those we don't want to associate with.

I have tried to walk the line, too.

Relations and connections count.

Even more than the little money.

Most of the women are looking for the security

of being under the protective wing of the chairman of the kolkhoz.

You can't fault them for that.

I've fulfilled all my work quotas, even more than what's required.

I manage pretty well.

They lined up the best workers in the rajon's wall newspaper.

They left my name out.

Apparently it's not customary to print enemies of the people on paper.

Our brigade leader got so mad,

swore to set things right at rajon headquarters.

He came back with his tail between his legs.

Still he praised me for my work

and promised to keep me in mind when they hand out bonuses.

I can use that little something, too.

I've been waiting for months already for an answer

to my request for information about you.

We hear that as long as Stalin is in power, we won't get away from here.

But I promise that...

when I get permission, I'll find you.

I think about you constantly.

Maybe...

you've been released and you're somewhere...

in the expanses of Siberia and...

Many Estonians here have started new families.

I don't wish to do that.

I'm thinking about...

our little Eliide.

Those days haunt me.

The days before they took us away.

Those last days in our homeland.

I'm haunted by that decision that I made on behalf of the rest of our family.

It seems that the years have taken everything else with them...

I still think of those letters

we sent to our relatives.

I'm looking at our free wild apple tree now.

The hay around it is chest-high.

Its branches no longer look towards the sky.

Instead they droop towards the ground.

Does it long to enter the soil where its roots are hidden

or does it still hope to burst into bloom?

If people look like their choices

then tell me, Heldur,

who do I look like,

that I took the two of you the chance to see those blossoms once again?

Who do I look like

that I thought it was right not to flee across the sea.

The courage to believe that we wouldn't be taken away...

The courage to stay home.

The loveliest years of my life passed as if standing still.

Regretting that we didn't flee when we had the chance,

holding all our lives to ransom.

Heldur,

we finally got a few days off

at the beginning of March.

We fulfilled our work quotas ahead of time to earn it.

Hermiine now belongs to the chairman of the kolkhoz,

they got married.

He proposed to many of us,

me, too.

Finally, Hermiine agreed.

We got to hear music and laughter for the first time in ages.

There are others besides Hermiine and the chairman

who have found each other.

It's easier together.

People need one another. Regardless of the times we live in.

Fortune has smiled on me as well.

I was able to ask for a month's wages in advance

since I had exceeded my work quota, and they gave it to me.

And I bought myself a cow.

Heldur, now I have my own milk and butter on the table.

I even have enough to sell some.

You're probably thinking how can I manage with a cow.

But I've learned to do all kinds of jobs here.

My heart is filled with joy

that I don't have to ask around the village for milk anymore.

Everyone came to see the cow when she was brought to my yard.

The men from our brigade helped to bring her over.

How she studied me with her big eyes...

She surely didn't understand my joy.

Hermiine got the chairman,

I got a cow.

At the wedding reception, the Estonian women joked

that mine is more purebred.

And they predicted that our life together will be easier...

With a great sorrow

we announce yo the Paryy

and all the working people of the Soviey Union,

thay on 5 March at 950 pm ..,

following a serious illness,

yhe chairman of yhe Council of Ministers of the USSR,

and the sec etary of the Cenyral r Commityee of the Communisy Party,

Josif Vissarionovich Syalin, has passed away.

We will not forget him.

He will remain in our hearts forever

as a token of our gratitude for that eternal bliss

that we, the Soviet people, have had the good fortune

to experience first in the history of mankind.

All the people of the world are jealous of us for that.

We swear to bear with honour and forever

the standards of Lenin and Stalin

and to save the peoples of the rest of the world

so that they could enjoy the same good fortune

that we enjoy here.

And the whole world will become one big family.

These years after Stalin's death

have brought us changes that we longed for.

The chairman of our kolkhoz

was sent to the far north as punishment.

Since he married an enemy of the people.

And also because he used Stalin's plaster bust

as a hat stand.

Word in the village was that they'd been looking for an excuse for a long time.

Hermiine was sent to a labour camp...

I really don't understand what kind of country this is.

This autumn they've started sending us back to our homeland little by little.

They're gradually issuing passports as well.

Since I was in the good books in our brigade,

I also received official permission to go.

Heldur, this happiness

about being released

is greater

than we could have imagined.

Our standard of living is different now than it was recently.

We get paid for our work and most of us have a plot of land.

Now there is food on the table

and there's enough to sell to others.

Some people have been sent packages from our homeland.

Regardless of all that has happened,

we now feel as if we're... at home.

Quite a few Estonians have decided to stay...

So that...

mothers,

daughters,

sons

and fathers could share the same soil...

Heldur, I promised myself when I arrived here that...

that I would find you.

But how have these years changed you?

What do you look like?

Perhaps

you're standing beside me right here in the railway station

and I don't recognise you.

Tell me where I should look for you?

In the soil under my feet as I walk in the woods?

Or in a solitary blade of grass in an autumn flock of birds?

Heldur, my heart hasn't forgotten you.

There is still a place in my soul that belongs to you.

I have your words,

your touch on my cheek.

And part of you is around my waist.

But that's all...

I have of you.

The hope that one day I'll see you

walking towards our home,

or sitting under our wild apple tree

will probably never vanish.

Please forgive me,

but this time I'm not staying...

I'm going back to our homeland.

To me, you are there...

And if you aren't,

then keep in mind that a part of me will remain here forever.

With you.

As well as with Eliide.

I'm going home...

Because what is freedom worth

if you have to pay for it

with solitude...

Dear Erna,

when your eyes read these lines,

you and Eliide will already be in our homeland.

Since I didn'y know where to wriye to you in Siberia,

I wrote yo our relatives in Esyonia.

Surely yhey'll pass this letyer on yo you.

Know yhat I'm well.

As well as can be under yhe circumstances.

We've been in the same place for the fifyh monyh now.

We're being held in a cell. In a prison camp.

The men of Defence League have been seny yo the tribunal one after another.

Erna...

yomorrow is my turn.

I'm writing because...

because none of ourmen have come back afyer the tribunal.

Some think yhat yhey are being sent to yhe front,

but my heary won't let me lie yo you...

Don'y wait for me to come back.

When yhis leyter finds you, follow our relayives yo the Wesy.

You can probably still gey away by train.

And one day we'll meey again!

Then come from the west as a fresh, free wind.

And I'll come from here as yhe easy wind.

And we'll meey in the crosswind.

We'll meet where yhe winds meey ,

by our apple yree

under the wing of the Creayor.

Wiyh love ,

Heldur.

Subtitling: Monal Group