Enquirer_E. Soovere chronicled his WWII journey (February 10)

10.02.2008

BY MIKE MCQUEARY | MMCQUEARY@ENQUIRER.COM, Last Updated: 7:04 am | Sunday, February 10, 2008

CLIFTON - Sometime in the early 1940's, Eric Soovere traded Lithuanian lighter flints on the European black market for a Contax brand camera. He risked his life to take historic photos of his family's journey through Northern Europe at the end of World War II.

"If the local Nazi population suspected you of being a spy ... it was under great risk. The pictures were taken under the threat of death," said his son, Ilo Soovere of Belcamp, Maine.

In 1999 he published "Karu ja Kaameraga" or "With Cart and Camera," a photojournalism text showing the journey, and in 2001 the president of Estonia, Lennart Georg Meri, recognized Mr. Soovere for services rendered with the country's Order of the White Star Award for his historic work.

Mr. Soovere died Jan. 27 in his sleep at home after battling a series of illnesses. He was 91.

Born to a farm family in the Konnu Village in southeast Estonia, Mr. Soovere went to primitive rural schools and found a love for math attending Tartu Boys Gymnasium in Estonia. He worked on a railroad and took classes in physical science on the side at Tartu University.

He met Leili Trees though mutual friends in high school, and they married on Christmas, 1939. During the war, they had to flee their village as Russian forces began to close in.

In September 1944, Mr. Soovere and his family left with their goods on their backs and fled through Czechoslovakia to Germany, "always one foot ahead of the advancing Russian Army," according to his son.

A Catholic relief organization helped the Sooveres find a pediatrician, Dr. Benjamin Hoyer, who sponsored them, and they immigrated to Cincinnati's West End and lived in St. Mary's Hospital in 1949.

"My first vision of America is my father mopping floors and my mother emptying bedpans," Ilo Soovere said.

Mr. Soovere earned his living as a medical photographer and eventually moved his family to Mount Auburn. He made friends with Dr. Louis Z. Gordon, a pathologist, and when Gordon was offered a job at Good Samaritan Hospital, he took Mr. Soovere with him in 1956.

The family eventually moved to Clifton, and he lived there the rest of his life.

Mr. Soovere retired from Good Sam in his late 1960s and began a gardening hobby. He also joined in the city's Estonian Heritage Society.

With the help of his daughter-in-law, Aira Soovere, Mr. Soovere began to gather his accounts for his book in the late 1990s. It is in circulation in Estonia, but his son is working on an English version.

He said that although he had a group of friends, his father was self-sufficient and asked for little praise for his work.

"He was happy just being outside following the clouds... it reminded him of his homeland."

His wife died in 2005.

Private services have been held, and his body was cremated.

Condolences can be sent to the family at www.busseborgmann.com.