Memorial plaque unveiled for Iso Roobertinkatu bombing victims
By Antti Manninen
Several dozen elderly Helsinki residents gathered on Sunday to recall the catastrophic bombing incident during the Continuation War, when 51 people, many of them children, were killed by a stray bomb dropped by a Soviet plane on the corner of Iso Roobertinkatu and Yrjönkatu on the afternoon of 8th November 1942.
The ceremony to unveil a plaque marking the event began with the chilling sounds of an air raid siren, familiar to many of those present from their childhood.
At the time of the bombing, Johannes Kvickström was seven years of age. He was among those in the queue for the Tivoli cinema, but then decided instead to go to the Valio café for an icecream instead.
The bomb interrupted his icecream interlude, but his life was spared. Thos in the queue were not so lucky.
Another who had come to see the plaque unveiled was Tellervo Attila, who lost a brother in the bombing.
There is also a small photographic exhibition in the ground-floor windows of Iso Roobertinkatu 2, showing the destruction caused by the single 250-kilo bomb.
The window contains a list of those killed, and their pictures, as published in the weekly magazine Suomen Kuvalehti at the time.
Seppo Lehikoinen was also present at the ceremony. His aunt Tyyne Schutschkoff's name is among those who died.
"My aunt was going to the movies. I was then four years old and my aunt lived with us on Agricolankatu", Lehikoinen recalls. He was not himself in the vicinity at the time the bomb fell.
Lehikoine has also heard in a museum the sounds of the sirens familiar from his childhood, urging people to take to the shelters.
"The sound has the power to stop you in your tracks even today", he said.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.11.2009
More on this subject:
 51 dead on a Sunday afternoon
ANTTI MANNINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
antti.manninen@hs.fi
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