Creating an Estonian-American Exhibit at Vabamu

“The Trei Family in New York City” is part of Vabamu’s new exhibition “Ilmaküla eestlased” or “Estonia Worldwide,” which tells the story of Estonian diaspora communities from the mid-19th century to the present.

“The Trei Family” installation, designed as a digital photo album, highlights the lives of my grandparents, Alice and Peter Trei. Unlike most Americans of Estonian descent, my grandparents were not World War II refugees. They chose to leave Saaremaa for America in the 1920s in search of a better life.

In spring 2024, after retiring from Stanford University, I joined Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom as a Fulbright Specialist to develop an exhibition called “Vabaduse tuuled” or “Free Winds”: https://freewinds.vabamu.ee/et/. This is the story of hundreds of Estonian refugees in Sweden who, in the late 1940s, were so fearful of being extradited to Soviet Estonia that they fled in old, rickety boats and sailed thousands of miles across the Atlantic to safety in the United States, Canada, South America, and South Africa. “Free Winds” is part of my master’s thesis in Estonian Studies I’m pursuing at Tallinn University.