Jägala concentration camp
Nazi concentration camp in Estonia
Jägala concentration camp was a labour camp of the Estonian Security Police and SD during the German occupation of Estonia during World War II. The camp was established in August 1942 on a former artillery range of the Estonian Army near the village of Jägala, Estonia. It existed from August 1942 to August 1943. Aleksander Laak, an Estonian, was appointed by SS-Sturmbannführer Ain-Ervin Mere of Group B of the Estonian Security Police to command the camp with Ralf Gerrets as assistant.
Officially Jägala was a "labour education camp" or "Arbeitserziehungslager" for forced forestry and field workers. The camp housed Jews deported to Estonia from other countries, including Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Poland. About 3,000 Jews who were not selected for work at their arrival at Raasiku railway station were taken directly from the station and shot at the nearby Kalevi-Liiva extermination site.
The camp never held more than 200 prisoners and had a short life span of several months. In November 1942 it was reported that the camp held 53 men and 150 women. Most of the prisoners were eventually transferred to Tallinn Central Prison starting with about half of the prisoners moved in December 1942 and the rest in June and July. By August 1943 the camp was closed and most of the remaining inmates were shot.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12365649. Authority coordinates are 59.416, 25.240. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1942 and 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jägala concentration camp” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.