Apart from "Truth", who was the first casualty of the Winter War?

Seven-year-old girl became symbol of civilian victims

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by Riku Jokinen
     
      "The war and two little girls". The Finnish weekly magazine Suomen Kuvalehti published photographs of two girls while the Winter War between Finland and Russia was raging from November 1939 to March 1940.
      One of the girls was knitting a scarf, while the other angelic creature was looking at the camera, holding her head on one side.
      The caption to the second image read: "The first victim of the Helsinki bombing, seven-year-old Armi Hellevi Metsäpelto, who was killed by a blast close to the bus station".
     
The myth of the first victim of the Winter War turned up again, when the Board of the Helsinki City Museum recently proposed that a crack willow (Salix fragilis) that is to be planted next to Helsinki's functionalist Lasipalatsi near the City’s main bus station should be dedicated to the memory of the wartime children and youth.
      The tree is to replace the 200-year-old protected willow tree that was brought down by a fierce storm in late December 2003.
      The proposal was justified by the recollection that the first official civil victim of the war, Armi Hillevi Metsäpelto, had died near the willow at the capital’s main bus station on Thursday, November 30th 1939.
      This was the day hostilities broke out, and Helsinki received two raids by Soviet bomber aircraft.
     
Mika Smedberg from the Military Museum wanted to correct the assertion, saying that it is not possible to determine who actually was the official first civilian victim of the Winter War.
      At any rate it could not have been young Armi Hillevi Metsäpelto, as at least Vyborg and the island of Santahamina had been the targets of the Soviet air raids before the capital got its first taste of aerial bombardment.
      At that time Santahamina did not yet belong to Helsinki. Nine people were killed in Vyborg, while the number of victims in Santahamina was fifteen.
      In addition, many civilians had died in the Karelian Isthmus already prior to the air raids. The Red Army started moving before 7 a.m. and the air-raid sirens did not go in Vyborg much before 9 a.m., and only rather later in more distant places such as Helsinki.
     
The first Helsinki air raid, which began after 9.00 a.m., hit Santahamina, the Pasila railway yards, and Malmi Airport, while all that the Soviet aircraft dropped over downtown Helsinki at that point were propaganda leaflets.
      On the following day, Helsingin Sanomat described the flyers which had been dropped over Helsinki’s district of Sörnäinen. The leaflets said that Finnish men should not let their wives and children starve as there was plenty of bread in the Soviet Union.
     
At 2.50 p.m. on that Thursday, a second wave of bombers approached.
      There was no time to give any alarm until the bombs were already exploding, nor were people yet used to going to bomb shelters.
      A total of nine bombers flew over the centre of the capital from the direction of the Hietalahti market square towards the main bus station.
     
The results were devastating. A total of 91 people were killed in Helsinki within a few minutes.
      Among the first buildings destroyed was the block on the corner of Lönnrotinkatu and Abrahaminkatu close to the Hietalahti market square.
      A few bombs hit the then Technical University of Helsinki, as well as some buildings on Bulevardi, Kalevankatu, and the Fredrikintori Square.
      The last bombs struck the neighbourhood of the main bus station and the then Maitokeskus (”Milk Centre”) building next to it.
      A large number of people were waiting to be evacuated near the main bus station. One of them was the seven-year-old, Armi Hillevi Metsäpelto.
     
While remembering the legend herself, researcher Marja Pehkonen from the City Museum denies that the proposal made by the museum would have any link to Armi Hillevi Metsäpelto as the alleged first victim of the war.
      The idea was simply a response to the proposal made by Sari Näre (Greens), a member of the City Council, that the city should erect a monument dedicated to the memory of wartime children.
      The tree is seen as a much more attractive and living symbol than some block of stone.
      To some extent, being associated with such a patriotic idea as the fate of wartime children could be the salvation of the young replacement for the 200-year-old willow veteran, which suffered shamefully from the idiocy of drunks after it had been struck by lightning in 2003.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 6.12.2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Scion of original will replace Helsinki´s famous willow tree (19.10.2004)
  Freak winter storm brings chaos to Southern Finland (2.1.2004)

Links:
  Winter War (Wikipedia)

RIKU JOKINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
riku.jokinen@hs.fi