Finnish war children do not want to fade into oblivion

By Riitta Vainio
     
      The military history of Finland during World War II covers three wars: the Winter War (November 1939-March 1940) and the Continuation War (June 1941-September 1944) against the Soviet Union, and the Lapland War (September 1944 to April 1945) against Germany, while the Paris Peace Treaties were signed on February 10th, 1947.
      The Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland ended 69 years ago today, on March 13th, 1940. The war left the Finnish people deeply scarred.
      Seven so-called war children gathered together to mark the day and to discuss their experiences, which none of them are likely to forget.
      In 1939, Eino Teini wrote a Christmas letter to his family from the front, saying between the lines that he had a feeling that he was to die soon. Teini was killed on March 9th, 1940, just before the end of the fighting.
     
Following her father’s death, Teini’s daughter was orphaned for life. She feels that she also lost her mother as well as contact with her siblings, as the widowed mother entrusted the girl to her grandmother and aunt, being herself unable to take care of all five children. One of the children was sent to Sweden.
      Eino Teini’s daughter, the present pastor Orvokki Harjuvaara, is secretary of a new wartime children’s organisation, which was founded to promote the rights of those Finns who were children during the war.
     
During the Second World War , some 70,000 to 80,000 Finnish children were sent from Finland mainly to Sweden and Denmark to avoid the fighting and the bombing.
      A total of 40,000 to 70,000 children lost one or both parents, but no one knows for sure exactly how many children were evacuated.
     
Today, these traumatised children are past retirement age, and the wartime children’s organisation they have founded is demanding recognition. They are also demanding to be granted their rights.
      Pastor Orvokki Harjuvaara represents war orphans with definite goals.
      ”For example, we have never been entitled to any rehabilitation rights”, Harjuvaara says.
     
At the same time, the Finnish wartime child evacuees want to know the total number of children evacuated from their homes during the Second World War.
      When the Winter War began, Tyyne Martikainen and her pregnant mother were forced to leave their home in the village of Kuosku in Lapland.
      Her baby brother was born on the floor of their new home. Later on the evacuees returned home, but had to leave again. In all, the Kuosku village was destroyed three times - twice by Soviet action and once by fleeing German troops, who were driven out through Lapland and used scorched earth tactics to cover their withdrawal.
      In the early summer of 1944, Iiris Saloranta’s mother and her three children were evacuated from their home in Karelia. The father of the family had died during the war. The foursome ended up in Ähtäri, in Ostrobothnia.
     
Furthermore, Finland’s child prisoners also demand to be recognised, calling for investigations into the number of those who are still alive.
      Viljo Hiilinen is one of those children who were held in captivity in the Karelian districts of Suojärvi and Salmi, which according to the peace conditions was handed over to the Soviet Union.
      Most of the approximately 2,000 prisoners were children or the elderly. They were held for two months in the war zone, and then taken to the Soviet Union, from whence they returned after hostilities had ended, in May 1940.
     
German soldiers came to Finland during the Soviet-Finnish Continuation War. Many of them found love and a number of children were born of these relationships.
      In September 1944, Finland and the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty, ending the Continuation War, whereupon Finland was obliged to expel German troops from the country.
      This led to the Lapland War, as former allies became adversaries. That conflict, initially almost symbolic, rapidly turned sour and "hot", leaving huge swathes of Lapland razed to the ground.
     
”When the Germans had to leave Finland as enemies, their children were left here”, says Pertti Hartikainen (formerly Bertil Rudolfi), whose mother never told him about his German father. Hartikainen found information about his father and his two step-sisters after the war in Germany.
      ”Nobody has been responsible for these children, nor for finding their roots. Neither have those mothers and children ever received any compensation”, Hartikainen complains.
      Some of the German fathers had signed an alimony agreement with the mother of their child, but the children never received any money, according to Hartikainen.
      ”This issue needs to be examined”, Hartikainen demands.
     
Those Finnish women who had married Hungarian and German soldiers were taken to internment camps - accompanied by their children - for 18 months, whereupon their property was confiscated.
      The new wartime children’s organisation demands that the silence surrounding these events must be broken.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.3.2009

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Orphans and prisoners

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Over 70,000 children sent to Sweden to avoid war sixty years ago (2.11.2004)
  A second home left behind in Skåne (2.11.2004)

See also:
  Karelian evacuees featured in Berlin exhibition (23.8.2006)

Links:
  A lengthy article on Finnish involvement in World War II, by Max Jakobson (Virtual Finland, originally in Helsingin Sanomat, 4.9.2004)
  Scorched earth tactics - Lapland War (Wikipedia)
  Military history of Finland during World War II (Wikipedia)
  Finnish War Children (Wikipedia)