Confirmation that Lappeenranta mass graves date back to 19th century, not Continuation War

Most missing soldiers from Battle of Vyborg accounted for

print this

A group investigating the mass graves uncovered last year at a camping ground in Huhtiniemi in the southeastern city of Lappeenranta say that the human remains found there are not related to events of the Continuation War with the Soviet Union.
      Investigators found the remains of 13 men who were between the ages of 15 and 50 when they died. Studies on the skeletons revealed that they had been buried in the first half of the 19th century, and that they were probably Russian soldiers who died of an epidemic.
      Traces of at least three other bodies were found at the site.
      The investigators got numerous tipoffs from the public, and some people brought them bones that had been found in the area over the years.
      Professor Helena Ranta of the Institute of Forensic Medicine said that the bones brought to them were from cows or wild animals.
     
The excavations in and around Huhtiniemi are to continue for another three weeks before the summer, and will resume in the autumn for another three weeks.
      The investigation was sparked by stories that had circulated in Lappeenranta for years about events in the area near the end of the Continuation War in the summer of 1944, according to which a secret military court would have operated in the area, and sentenced hundreds of deserters to death.
     
Meanwhile, a study on the battle that led to Finland's loss of the city of Vyborg in June 1944 concludes that hundreds of soldiers were not lost in the battle as had previously been claimed.
      The study accounts for nearly every soldier that had been thought to have been lost, thereby contradicting rumours of hundreds of executions in Huhtiniemi.
      The Red Army took Vyborg from the Finns in a single day. The 20th Brigade, which had defended the city, retreated in tatters. After the battle more than 500 of the 5,133 soldiers were listed as missing. Most of them wandered in the Karelian Isthmus looking for their unit.
      In a previous history of the events, the writers recorded the figures of losses that were given immediately after the battle. The figures on the missing were exaggerated because of the chaos.
      When the Lappeenranta excavations began last autumn, the number of fallen was believed to have been 19, and the number of missing as high as 419, many of whom were suspected of having ended up before a firing squad in Huhtiniemi.
      Almost all of those who had been declared missing were later found to have been either killed in battle, or to have died in Soviet prisoner of war camps.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Bodies in Lappeenranta mass grave date back to 19th century (21.12.2006)
  Orthodox regalia found in Huhtiniemi graves (1.11.2006)
  New tipoffs on locations of more possible wartime mass graves (24.10.2006)

Helsingin Sanomat