Behind the 1944 “Great Escape”

This paper presents the case of the Estonian Museum Canada in Toronto, also known as VEMU, to study the role of the community museum and archives in the Estonian migrant community’s identity formation and narrative construction. This paper takes up key concepts in diaspora studies, such as the uniquely fluid notions of home and identity embodied by diaspora communities. Through a visit to VEMU’s exhibition, titled 1944 The Great Escape, and a subsequent interview with the director of the institution, the authors find that the Estonian Canadian community provides an example of this phenomenon. Through holding archival records and active cultural events that draw upon the communal memory of overcoming hardship and maintaining cultural identity, VEMU encourages the younger generations of Estonian heritage—now third and fourth generation immigrants—to build a fluid, transnational identity that is not hard-bound to either their ancestral homeland or the newly settled diasporic land. Instead, the notion of “home” is tied to the culture people partake in enjoying and maintaining. VEMU offers a unique space for reflecting on the past and carving out a place for Estonian Canadians in the national narrative of multicultural Canada.