FINLAND: Soviet Partisan Killings in the Continuation War
During the Continuation War, Finland experienced harrowing war crimes at the hands of the Soviet Union's army. Among these tragic events were the relentless attacks carried out by Soviet partisans within Finland between 1941 and 1944. These ruthless assaults targeted vulnerable locations such as remote border villages and ambushed vehicles, sparing neither civilians nor military personnel. As an irregular military force, the partisans conducted long-range penetration raids and reconnaissance missions deep inside Finnish territory.
The toll of their violence was staggering, with approximately 170 Finnish civilians killed and 50 wounded in these raids. In this blog post, we delve into the details of these events and share the stories of survivors who witnessed the devastation wrought by the Soviet partisans.
RUSSIAN PARTISAN RAIDS AND ACTIVITIES
Soviet partisan operations played a pivotal role in the Soviet Union's strategy during Finland's Continuation War. Operating predominantly along the Karelian Front, approximately 2,400 Soviet partisans conducted a campaign marked by various factions, with three groups—Stalinets, Bolshevik, and Poljarnik—gaining particular notoriety. Remarkably, around ten percent of these partisans were women. Alongside these operatives, the Soviets deployed airborne reconnaissance troops and numerous spies linked to the Soviet military, all operating within Finnish territory.
Under the oversight of the NKVD and various factions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, three leaders orchestrated partisan activities. These figures included Sergey Vershinin, a Major General in the NKVD; Gennady Kupriyanov, First Secretary of the Karelo-Finnish Communist Party; and Yuri Andropov, who would later ascend to leadership in the Soviet Union. Andropov, at the time serving as the First Secretary of the Karelo-Finnish Komsomol, was tasked with training partisans operating in Karelia, with partisan headquarters situated in Belmorsk.
In response to these incursions, the Finnish Army established the Separate Detachment Unit, Sau, that specialized in partisan hunting. In 1942, they successfully neutralized a partisan brigade based in Northern Karelia. However, criticism mounted over perceived inadequacies in Lapland's preparations to counter partisan activities, particularly amidst the presence of the German army stationed there. The Germans sought greater control over the Finnish populace, proposing evacuations and the issuance of German identification cards to counter suspicions of collusion with partisans—a proposal staunchly rejected by the Finnish government. Compounding matters, the Finnish Air Force lacked sufficient aircraft for effective anti-partisan patrols and duties.
Predictably, Soviet partisans misrepresented their raids on Finnish territories, labeling civilian targets as military garrisons in official reports. By 1944, these raids escalated in violence, coinciding with the Soviet Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive. Partisan bands swelled to as many as 200 fighters, resulting in numerous civilian casualties and injuries amidst the chaos unleashed by these brutal raids.
CIVILIAN MASSACRES
While Soviet partisan raids were spread all over the east of Finland, there has been two key massacres that we will discuss in this blog post.
Seitajärvi
In the early hours of July 7th, 1944, forty-eight Soviet partisans launched an attack on the village of Seitajärvi in Savukoski. They caught the few village defenders off guard, overpowering the nine Finnish soldiers on duty. Despite the barking dogs waking the villagers, the partisans quickly took control, deceiving civilians into coming out with promises of safety in Finnish.
The partisans then set fire to most of the village, taking civilians as prisoners. However, some of the villagers managed to escape in the forest, where they contacted the army by phone. The anti-partisan unit Sau arrived nine hours later, discovering dead bodies in nearby forests with the help of search dogs. They found that women and children taken by the partisans had been killed by shooting and stabbing, with reports of rape on some of the women.
In retaliation, Sau tracked the partisans, engaging them in combat. Thirty-three partisans were killed, but most escaped over the Kemijoki river. Despite the official Soviet report claiming the destruction of a "Finnish garrison" and the death of 94 men, the reality was starkly different. There were killed fourteen civilians and two Finnish soldiers. An eight years old girl who had been stabbed, had played dead and survived with her life.
Following the attack, autopsies were performed by a Swedish doctor, revealing the brutality of the violence inflicted. The Finnish authorities wanted a neutral party to investigate the details of the atrocities. Richard Lindgren was sent to perform this task. He found that most of the civilians had been shot in the head or the neck. There were also several children that had been killed. Valma, at five years of age, had been stabbed in the head with a knife. A baby, Ritva, had also died from blunt force trauma to the head. She was 7 months old at the time of death. The rapes could not be thoroughly proven as the bodies had been washed and started to decompose. However, from the marks present on the bodies, it was surmised that rapes had happened.
Lokka
On the 14th of July 1944, tragedy struck the village of Lokka in Sodankylä, where twenty-one innocent civilians lost their lives in a brutal attack. The assault was perpetrated by the Stalinets partisan group, who launched a coordinated strike from three different directions at 7:45 p.m. The chain of events unfolded after a Finnish civilian, reacting to the presence of a partisan nearby, fired a rifle in their direction.
The situation escalated rapidly as the partisans set ablaze the school building where terrified civilians sought refuge. Amidst the chaos, those attempting to flee the inferno were met with gunfire from the assailants, adding to the horror of the ordeal. Among the victims were Hilja Kumpula and her five children, including an infant just one month old.
Remarkably, the partisan group managed to evade capture and escape unscathed before Finnish Army units could intervene. In subsequent reports, Gennady Kupriyanov, the leader of the partisan activity, falsely claimed that the village was a heavily fortified garrison. However, it was later revealed that the NKVD had precise intelligence on the village, and the partisans had been monitoring it for days, fully aware that it housed no combatants.
THE AFTERMATH
For a considerable period, the atrocities committed by the partisans were shrouded in secrecy, shielded from the Finnish public eye. This veil of silence stemmed from a desire to maintain "peaceful relations" with Russia in the aftermath of the wars. It wasn't until the publication of Veikko Erkkilä's groundbreaking book, "The Untold War" (Vaiettu Sota), in 1998 that the events in Seitajärvi and Lokka came to light. Erkkilä's work sparked widespread public discourse, earning him the prestigious Tiedonjulkistamisen valtionpalkinto, the state award for information publication.
One captain in the Finnish Army, Olavi Alakulppi, who bore witness to the horrors of Seitajärvi, endeavored to seek justice by appealing to the United Nations to investigate the events as war crimes. Armed with a testimony and compelling evidence, including photographs and contemporaneous newspaper articles, Alakulppi's efforts were met with vehement opposition and denial from the Soviet Representative to the UN. Despite Alakulppi's impassioned plea, the Finnish UN Permanent Representative at the time, Ralph Enckell, opted for neutrality, declining to pursue the matter further.
Alakulppi was awarded a Knight of the Mannerheim Cross for his service.
 |
| Olavi Alakulppi and his men out hunting partisans in the Finnish forests |
Three years later, in 2006, the Finnish Defence Forces made a pivotal decision to declassify numerous sensitive wartime photographs from that era, many of which pertained to the Soviet partisan raids. These haunting images laid bare the grim reality of the atrocities, depicting the charred remains of villages, the armed defense of communities by elderly individuals, and even the tragic presence of children amidst the devastation.
CONCLUSION
The Soviet partisan raids cast a dark shadow over Finnish history, revealing the depths of brutality inflicted upon civilians, much to the shock of the populace upon learning the truth. Sadly, justice remained elusive for the victims of these horrific events. Nevertheless, it is heartening that the government acknowledged the atrocities and provided some form of restitution to those affected.
It is deeply troubling to witness similar tactics being employed in the current conflict in Ukraine, stemming from Russia's illegal invasion that commenced in February 2022 and now extends into its third year. This serves as a stark reminder of the perils of ignoring history's lessons. It underscores the urgent need for Europe to stand resolute and united in preventing the recurrence of such atrocities. Only through unwavering vigilance can we hope to avert similar tragedies in the future.
References
- Vintage Point North: Forgotten war crimes – Soviet Partisans murder and rape Finnish civilians
- Kirsi Laurén - From Silence to Recovery: Traumatic Home Front Memories of the Soviet Partisan War in Finland
- YLE: Seitajärvellä tapetut naiset ja lapset olivat jatkosodan vaiettuja uhreja
- IltaSanomat: Partisaani-iskussa Seitajärven kylään naisille ja lapsille tehtiin kammottavia asioita – 92-vuotias veteraani kuvaa näkyä ”raakalaisnäytökseksi”
Comments
Post a Comment