Book review|Two recent books draw the path of Finnish prisoners of war to the camps without illusions. The status of those who returned home was uncertain and they were met with suspicion.
Information books
Ariela Säkkinen: The worst was the cold. Paavo Yli-Vakkur’s years as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. Minerva. 367 pp.
Petri Saraste: My father’s silent prisoner of war. Big Dipper. 237 pp.
Pretty cool it’s a coincidence that two good books about Finnish prisoners of war appear around the same time. First of all, because the Continuation War ended eighty years ago – and also because the story of the prisoners is largely covered under the Kumu of other military history.
Those captured by the Soviet Union were shrouded in silence for a long time, and their Prisoners of War association was not founded until 1969.
They were no mean bunch. In the subsequent war, the Soviet Union captured around 3,400 soldiers, of which 1,900 returned home alive. One and a half thousand men starved into camps and transports.
Supplier Ariela Säkkinen written by The worst was the cold -the work describes the kauhajokinen Paavo Yli-Vakkurin (1914–2014) prison term, which lasted a total of 1,234 days from August 1941 to December 1944. Petri Saraste is a journalist himself, and presents My father’s silent prisoner of war – in the Rovaniemi book Far Sarasteen (1923–1996) stages of imprisonment from June to December 1944.
Both works are executed with care and patience, and both are based on the main character’s post-narrative about his time in prison. It is clear that in the prison camps they did not have the opportunity to write down the events. Fortunately, human memory worked after all.
The memories of both Paavo Yli-Vakkur and Kauko Saraste reflect a lifelong shock and horror. It can be characterized that in the concentration camps of the Soviet Union, nothing inhuman remained a stranger, human dignity sank below zero and survival was a matter of chance.
Suffering is not noble, as Saraste recalled: “The longer time went by, the less important our old values seemed.”
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“There was nothing worse that I was taught than to give myself up as a prisoner.”
In August 1941 Second Lieutenant Yli-Vakkur’s motorcycle driver strayed across the lines in the dark at Ruokolahti and they were captured. The officer’s prisoner was a big catch, but during interrogations Yli-Vakkuri only gave his name.
According to many prisoners, the conditions in the Jelabuga monastery were “from the best”. In winter, it was unbearably cold there, because the prisoners didn’t even have blankets. In the winter of 1941–42, the frost dropped to over fifty degrees at its worst. – Illustration of Säkkinen’s book.
Threats of execution, brutal violence and more disgusting methods were immediately used – to no avail.
Far Saraste
High school boy Saraste, on the other hand, had entered the ranks in 1942, and served in Maaselä and Salla. The transfer in the early summer of 1944 to the Karelian Peninsula led to his group getting lost from their own retreating section, a week of desperate wandering in the woods, and finally being captured.
“I too stood with my hands up, surrendered, I, the guardian’s son and having dreamed of the deeds of a hero. There was nothing worse that I was taught than to give myself up as a prisoner,” Corporal Saraste wrote in middle age.
These too the books reflect the universal consistency of prisoners’ fates, although each prisoner’s experiences are individual. An iron pattern repeats itself: initial shock, desecration rituals of prisoners, diseases and malnutrition, uncleanliness, cockroaches and bedbugs, collapse of weight and resistance…
Guards guarding prisoners of war assigned to road works at Temnikov camp 58. – Illustration of Säkkinen’s book.
Forced labor in hellish cold, with non-existent clothes and food, was finally sealing the death of almost every second man.
Yli-Vakkuri permanently hurt his back while dragging heavy logs. But the cycle of violence and interrogation to which he was initially subjected in the cells of the Kresty prison in Leningrad was also difficult. Two men dragged bamboo sticks along the bare back, for hours on several nights in a row – and information was squeezed in between.
Didn’t remember.
Finnish prisoners suffered from violence and torture, which many never wanted to talk about. – The picture in Säkkinen’s book is from the Karangandan Gulag Museum.
He was often recruited to cooperate with the NKVD. Grim is a description from the Oranki prison camp in February 1943, when the interrogating senior officer, originally Finnish, presented him with the options: to Finland as a spy or execution. The message was confirmed by a pistol placed on the table.
“It’s nice to die today, because it’s Kalevala day in Finland,” Yli-Vakkuri replied.
Yli-Vakkurin reading about the prisoner’s path in the four camps, one wonders how he could last alive until the journey home. In any case, he returned to Finland by Christmas 1944, and after the Hankon interrogations and the hospital, he returned home to his family in Kauhajoki in January 1945.
A new batch of prisoners has arrived in Temnikov again. The first to be carried out of the train were those who died and those who fell ill during the journey. After that, there may not have been many left in the wagon. – Illustration of Säkkinen’s book.
Saraste must have been saved for a couple of lucky reasons. His imprisonment did not last more than half a year, and as he knew German, he was assigned as an interpreter for the German prisoners at the Volosovo camp in Inker. Three months passed there.
The light build also helped to survive, but the weight of a normally 68-kilogram man was 38 kilograms when he returned.
The books describe prison life competently. The threat of death created solidarity and lasting camaraderie, although due to the threat of whistleblowers, one had to speak and act with extreme caution. In particular, Yli-Vakkur’s imprisonment of more than three years contained a lot of variety, and with her deep background work, Ariela Säkkinen creates a general view of the reality of the concentration camps.
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The books force you to ask what was the situation of the prisoners of war after they got home.
These two men survived being a prisoner of war – how did they survive peacetime?
Perhaps they were exceptional individuals, but the surprise is how each of them was able to take a full-fledged civil life. We can’t see the cracks of the internal breakdown, but we can feel it.
“A picture of our home in Lahti on Hämeenkatu, where we had moved from Oulu”, writes Petri Saraste. “At that time, Isä-Kauko had received a position as a Finnish language teacher at Launee’s joint high school. Jukka-Pekka was already under the spell of classical music at that time.”
Before the Winter War, Yli-Vakkuri had studied to become a forester, he received his doctorate in 1954 and was a professor of forestry in the 1950s and 1970s. The camp experiences radiated at least in such a way that he did not receive or shake hands with Soviet guests at Metsätalo. In general, silence about the war characterized the man, who was promoted to lieutenant in 1956.
After his studies, Saraste took root as a native language teacher at the high school in Lahti, and as such, in favor of the legendary. Veijo’s character was captured by the character of this lively socialite and red wine lover Kerttu-Kaarina Suosalmen in the novel Well-to-do people (1969).
Neither Paavo Yli-Vakkuri nor any of the other young men who took their military oath in Korpijärvi in July 1941 would have ever hoped to have to fulfill their promise in practice. – Illustration of Säkkinen’s book.
Sarasteen among those who knew me – which I was able to include – there is a broad consensus about a memorable person. Intelligence and charisma overlapped with restlessness. He was definitely one of Lahti’s thin-skinned cultural elite, and of his three children Jukka-Pekka Frostbite has become a world-class conductor.
Books are compelling to ask what was the situation of the prisoners of war after they got home.
From the return interrogations, you can sense a deep suspicion towards them. Their war path was also kept quiet in public. Status and rights were vague for (too) long. As if the horror of being at the mercy of the enemy and the constant fear of death wasn’t enough.
The worst was the cold and My father’s silent prisoner of war -works paint an illusion-free picture of Finnish prisoners of war and their conditions. There aren’t many of these hard-luck warriors among us anymore.
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