HS Espoo | 102-year-old war veteran Osman Abdrahim has died

Last Tatar veteran, from Espoo Osman Abdrahim is dead. The matter is reported on the website sotaveteraanit.fi.

Osman Abdrahim was born in Helsinki on February 13, 1921. He was 102 years old when he died.

According to the death notice published in Helsingin Sanomat, he died on April 17.

The war took more than four years of the young man’s life. 4 years 2 months and 10 days to be exact, Abdrahim said in a tribute to his 100th birthday In an interview with Kentäpostia magazine in 2021.

Abdrahim’s war path began at the Kallio National School at the end of May 1940. Abdrahim, who was educated in the Protectorate, and his comrades crossed the old border at Porajärvi, on their way to the Gulf of Estonia.

There were 177 Tatars at the front, of which 21 were Lotts, Abdrahim says in his interview. There were six children from his family at the front, one of whom did not return. The eldest brother Hassan crashed at Säkkijärvi in ​​March 1940.

Abdrahim’s sixteen members of the guardianship went to war and only five boys returned. The departure of Abdrahim’s spirit was also near. The event takes place in Kannas before the occupation of Vyborg in August 1941, when Abdrahim was a bicycle messenger.

Abdrahim had put the tea water to boil and left the tent for his bicycle to get the bag Naciye-a tea package sent by his sister from home. That’s when the artillery concentration began.

“I only made it halfway back, before the concentration already started. I didn’t have time to fall to the ground when the grenade came and it went in and out, he says, pointing to his upper arm. The shrapnel from the grenades tore the tent to shreds,” Abdrahim said in his 100-year interview.

After returning from the war, Abdrahim worked in his father’s fabric shop on Iso Roobertinkatu: “I sold fabrics for 40 years.”

Kenttäpostia magazine and the website Sotaveteraanit.fi are published by the Finnish War Veterans Association and the Front Veterans Association.

Correction 22.4. 8:44 a.m.: Osman Abdrahim died on April 17. The story previously incorrectly stated that he died on April 14.

Osman Abdrahim (bottom right) returned to the front with his comrades from vacation in October 1942. Picture: Register of Finnish Tatars