HI, I AM THE EFÜR WEB-MASTER AND
THE WEB-EDITOR OF THE ESTONIAN PHILATELIST

If you have any information that you believe would be of interest to your fellow collectors,
then please send me an e-mail. Please write in English or Swedish. Articles, however, may of course be written in English, German, Estonian or Swedish languages. Images to follow the articles should be attached as jpeg-files, preferably as large as possible.

The above drawing is a self-portrait that I made a couple of years ago.
Click here if you wish to find out some more about me.

I am the son of Edgar and Koidula Pastarus.
I was born June 12, 1943 in Tartu, Estonia. As many other Estonians, we were forced to leave our country when the Russians invaded in September 1944. I have been told by my parents that we did leave Estonia by boat together with hundreds of other refugees, but I am not positive about the name of the ship. It was probably the "Nordstern" headed for Danzig. I have also been told that we were hiding in Poland for some time, and that we at the end of the war were very close to Berlin - in the middle of the shit, so to speak.

This is the first "home" that I do remember - the Valka Camp (Valga Laager in Estonian language) at Märtzfeld, near Nürnberg in southern Germany. This camp was administrated by UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency). My father has told me that we lived in the leftmost barrack. It really wasn't as bad as it might look. The war was over, and to a four year old boy there was always some exciting things going on. Unfortunately, I don't know much about this camp. I believe that it was a camp exclusively for Baltic refugees. If you have any information about this camp then please contact me. I would be very grateful for any kind of information.

The entrance to the Valka Camp. I don't know who the man is.

In the Valka Camp I did get my very first friend. His name was Tarmo and he was also an Estonian refugee. This picture was probably taken in the spring of 1947 (me at left, Tarmo at right). I believe that Tarmo and his family moved on to Canada later on and settled down there. Dear Tarmo, if you read this, then please contact me.

November 1947. We are finally leaving the Valka Camp and going to Sweden. In the foreground stands my father and mother. I am standing proudly at the top of the truck. I don't know the names of the others, but I believe that we were all going together. Because of some problems in Lübeck, our arrival to Sweden was delayed until February 1948.