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[ Boris Kovalyov ] Every accident, every mistake,
every disaster surely has a surname,
 
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a first name, and a patronymic
 
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[ VO ] Greater Finland to the Urals.
The Nazi theory of racial superiority, Finnish style. Four
 
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years of Karelian SSR occupation.
14 concentration camps, 34 POW labour camps, ten prisons.
 
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[ Sergey Verigin ] In Karelia,
there was genocide of Russians
 
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[ Sergey ] They divided the
population into 2 parts:
 
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privileged Karelian-Finnish
and Russian
 
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[ VO ] Approximately 25,000
people went through the
 
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archipelago of Finnish camps,
according to official figures.
 
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[ Lenina Makeeva ] The HQ was here,
and the gates
 
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[ Lenina ] We're on
the area of the camp
 
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[ Klavdia Nyuppieva ] My sister Maria,
Nadya Rostovtseva, Gena Kostromin... This is me
 
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[ VO ] Famine. Disease. Forced labour.
Torture by the wardens.
 
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[ Denis Popov ] Carts took
corpses off 2 or 3 times a week:
 
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25 to 30 coffins at a time
 
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[ Sergey ]We still don't know
how many died in the camps,
 
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not even in Petrozavodsk's
 
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[ VO ] Thousands of testimonies of
crimes and the impunity of criminals.
 
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[ Margarita Prokhorova ] Warders took us outside,
naked, and sat in front of us taking pictures
 
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[ Margarita ] People who were
there wrote this testimony
 
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[ Margarita ] It's proof of
what happened there
 
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FINNISH: FACE OF FASCISM
 
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[ Sergey Zhukovsky ] It's 77 years since
the end of the Great Patriotic War
 
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[ Sergey ] The renowned
Nuremberg Tribunal is history
 
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[ Sergey ] But have all
the victims been found?
 
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[ Sergey ] Have all the wrongdoers been brought to justice?
No!
 
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[ Sergey ] Every year,
we find new sites of mass shootings and brutal murders
 
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[ Sergey ] That's why,
to preserve the historical memory, seek justice,
 
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and protect our country's
national interests,
 
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an appeal has been filed to
recognise the genocide of Soviets
 
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[ VO ] In October 2022, the Leningrad Regional
Court and Saint Petersburg City Court ruled
 
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that the Nazis' actions in the region constituted
genocide against the Soviet people.
 
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[ VO ] Revised figures on the Nazis’ carnage
during the siege and documents constituting state
 
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secrets were presented for the first time.
1,093,000 people died in Leningrad, 1.5 times
 
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more than the previously reported figure.
The Siege has never had a full legal assessment,
 
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not even at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Court verdicts attested to the scale of crimes
 
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committed during the Great Patriotic War.
It’s particularly relevant now as the concept
 
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of 'Nazism' is interpreted differently in Moscow
compared to some European countries.
 
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[ Nadezhda Cherepenina ] In the 1940s,
the expression 'genocide' wasn't used
 
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[ Nadezhda ] That's why,
at the Nuremberg Trials,
 
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they adopted the term
'extermination of peoples'
 
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[ Nadezhda ] It was the Nazis who
first said the city had been besieged
 
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[ Nadezhda ] They spread leaflets showing
exactly how the city had been encircled,
 
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and that people were doomed to die.
They promised a decent life,
 
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but in reality,
the city was practically doomed to perish:
 
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either by starvation, 'Go ahead, starve to death!'
Or by shelling
 
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[ Nadezhda ] If anyone wanted to get out,
as the leaflet suggested,
 
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they'd face machine guns.
No one was going to feed the people
 
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[ Nadezhda ] No one
would save their lives
 
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[ Nadezhda ] That's what later
was referred to as 'genocide'
 
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[ Nadezhda ] And when the revision
of the war's outcome began,
 
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the Vlasovites were
the good guys,
 
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and the SS were just walking around,
enjoying life
 
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[ Nadezhda ] Sooner or later,
a line had to be drawn:
 
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the civilised nations that
attacked our country...
 
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[ Nadezhda ] Around Leningrad,
there were the French, Spanish,
 
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and a few Hungarians,
 
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not to mention Balts and Finns
 
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[ Nadezhda ] These civilised nations
took part in the extermination
 
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of the civilian
population of a big city
 
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[ Boris Kovalev ] What's the problem
with the Siege of Leningrad
 
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and identifying victims of
the Nazis' genocidal policy?
 
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[ Boris ] It started with Stalin.
In 1946, he was asked for a casualty count
 
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[ Boris ] He put the number of
Russian deaths at 6-7 million
 
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[ Boris ] Why was this undoubtedly
reduced figure given?
 
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[ Boris ] We should
understand the following:
 
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WW2 was over, and, unfortunately,
the next war began immediately:
 
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the Cold War...
 
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when our former allies became
our potential enemies,
 
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including those who
had nuclear weapons
 
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[ Boris ] Stalin well understood
that if he named the true losses,
 
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it would be an additional incentive to
attack a weak and depleted nation
 
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[ Boris ] There is another very
big and hypersensitive issue
 
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[ Boris ] Why is talking about specific
categories of victims often avoided?
 
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[ Boris ] Because if you start talking not in abstract,
general terms,
 
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the question instantly arises:
 
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here's a victim,
but who's the executioner?
 
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[ Boris ] Who's the killer?
 
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[ Boris ] Suddenly,
the following happened:
 
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yesterday's allies
became enemies,
 
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and Finland became their satellite,
ally, and friend
 
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[ Boris ] How many books
have been written about
 
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ethnocide,
about the crimes the Finns committed both in Karelia
 
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and during their murderous
operations in Russia and Belarus?
 
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[ Boris ] Here's an example:
 
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1942: A Finnish death squad
comes to the Bryansk forests
 
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and asks: 'Which of your
relatives and fellow villagers
 
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took part in the Winter War?'
The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40
 
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[ Boris ] Addresses are given.
They go there, drive everyone into the houses,
 
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nail up the doors and windows,
and torch them
 
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[ VO ] Today, a copy of the famous 'Prisoners of
Fascism' photograph can be found in most World War II
 
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museums. This picture was presented at the Nuremberg
Trials as photographic evidence of Nazi crimes.
 
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[ VO ] But few notice the camp's warning sign isn’t in
German but in Finnish. The photo was taken by Soviet
 
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war correspondent Galina Sanko in 1944 in Petrozavodsk,
which had just been liberated from the Finns.
 
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[ VO ] This is how she remembered that day: 'On the way there,
the girls from the Komsomol told me about a camp where young
 
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children were imprisoned.
I went there. Soon I saw barracks and
 
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frightened faces behind barbed wire.
They looked at me warily
 
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with their unchildlike eyes.
I tried to talk to them, but they
 
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would not answer.
After taking a few photos, I walked through
 
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the gate. Suddenly some girl said to me, 'Auntie.' The kids
were crying. They kept saying through their tears: 'Mommy.'
 
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[ Man ] All right! Here we go! OK, smile!
And one more time! That's it, good!
 
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[ VO ] The Karelian Union of Former Juvenile Prisoners of
the Nazi Concentration Camps is an association of people
 
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who share a common fate. It was formed to provide assistance
and support to defend the common interest of keeping
 
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the memory of the concentration camp survivors alive.
In the photo’s foreground, near the fence, there is a girl
 
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of about eight or nine, looking intently into the camera.
This is Klava Soboleva. Today she is Klavdia Nyuppieva.
 
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[ Klavdia ] I'm from Zaonezhye,
from the village of Rim
 
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[ Klavdia ] My dad was an accountant,
my mum was a housewife
 
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[ Klavdia ] There were six of us kids.
When the war started,
 
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[ Klavdia ] Dad fought in a combat
battalion here in Petrozavodsk
 
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[ Klavdia ] He joined up as a volunteer.
Mum hesitated moving,
 
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what with the farm,
the cows, the kids
 
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[ Klavdia ] In November, the Finns came.
The lake was already frozen
 
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[ Klavdia ] They came to our
house wearing white coats
 
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[ Klavdia ] They asked
my mum for milk
 
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[ Klavdia ] Mum pulled the curtain aside,
revealing 6 of us on the stove
 
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[ Klavdia ] Apparently,
the village head said my father was at the front
 
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[ Klavdia ] He'd fought
in the Finnish war
 
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[ Klavdia ] They brought a sledge,
they didn't let us take anything with us
 
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[ Klavdia ] Dinner was left in the oven,
the cows were left too
 
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[ Klavdia ] We travelled
25km in freezing weather
 
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[ Klavdia ] They took us to Camp No.
6
 
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and gave us a kitchen with a window,
where we all lived:
 
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6 kids and Mum.
There were 7,000 prisoners here, in Camp No. 6
 
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Chapaev St, Olonetskaya St,
Ostrovsky St...
 
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[ Klavdia ] The Perevalka district was behind barbed wire,
two layers of them
 
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[ Klavdia ] On the four corners,
there were towers with machine gunners
 
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[ VO ] Finnish media try to gloss
over and deny the obvious fact
 
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that concentration camps existed in Karelia.
The Petrozavodsk camps
 
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are described almost as resorts.
And Finland's entry into World
 
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War II is presented as something
the country was forced to do.
 
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[ Sergey ] Of course, Finland was preparing for war.
Hitler said on June 22
 
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that Germany's ally against the USSR,
among others, was Finland
 
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[ Boris ] Finland has
a 'floating log' theory
 
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[ Boris ]It claims the nation
was drawn into this war,
 
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like a log gets pulled into the
fast-flowing northern rivers
 
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[ Boris ] A nice comparison!
 
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[ VO ] The 'rafting log' analogy rests
on the idea that Finland's entry
 
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into World War Two was inevitable
and involuntary due to the loss
 
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of its territories following the
defeat it suffered at the hands of
 
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the Soviets in the Winter War of 1940.
The Soviets needed to push back
 
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the Finnish border from Leningrad.
It was just 32 kilometres from the
 
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city and could serve as a springboard for a German attack,
leaving the
 
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city vulnerable.
The Soviets asked Finland to lease part of the Hanko
 
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peninsula in exchange for a larger
piece of Soviet land in Karelia.
 
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[ VO ] But the Finnish government did not agree to this.
As a result of
 
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the bloody fighting in 1940,
the border on the Karelian Isthmus was moved
 
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130 kilometres from Leningrad.
Finland had to cede about a tenth of its
 
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territory to the USSR and pledge not
to participate in hostile coalitions.
 
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[ Sergey ] On June 26, 1941,
Finnish President Ryti announced entry into the war
 
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[ Sergey ] His pretext was that Soviet
aviation had attacked peaceful cities
 
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[ Sergey ] But on June 22-23,
the Finns had given their airfields to the Germans,
 
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who struck the country's
northwest and Leningrad
 
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Soviet aviation retaliated,
but it wasn't entirely successful,
 
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and some bombs exploded in Helsinki,
killing citizens
 
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[ Sergey ] That became Ryti's excuse.
They would have gone to war anyway,
 
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because they'd made
plans before the war
 
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Mannerheim and Hitler had agreed
the basics of combat operations
 
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[ VO ] Greater Finland from the Baltic to the Urals…
The former lieutenant general of the Russian Army,
 
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Marshal of Finland Carl Mannerheim,
spent about a third of his life pursuing this glorious goal.
 
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[ Sergey ] Since 1900 or so,
there'd been a radical plan to establish
 
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Greater Finland,
to include all Finno-Ugric nations under the Finns
 
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[ VO ] Before attacking the USSR in 1941,
Mannerheim said in his 'Sword
 
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Scabbard Declaration': 'Soldiers,
this land you are about to set foot
 
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on is watered with the blood of our
fellow countrymen and steeped in
 
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suffering. This is a holy land.
Your victory will liberate Karelia.'
 
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[ Boris ] I remember reading 'The
Unknown Soldier' by Vaino Linn,
 
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a kind of Finnish Remarque
 
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[ Boris ] There's a very interesting scene,
in which, in 1941, a soldier crosses
 
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the old Soviet-Finnish border
 
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[ Boris ] It seems that the Soviet Union
is about to be defeated. He says:
 
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'Men, up to here is OK.
But as soon as we get further across, we...
 
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lose the moral capital we had accumulated,
as we thought,
 
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following the defeat,
because then we turn into ruthless invaders'
 
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[ Sergey ] The Finns launched an attack
on the night of June 30 to July 1, 1941
 
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[ Sergey ] The Red Army
conducted a fighting retreat
 
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[ Sergey ] Most Karelians
were evacuated:
 
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528,000 to the south of the country,
leaving about 86,000
 
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[ Sergey ] The Finns did a census: about
50,000 were Slavic and non-Finno-Urgic...
 
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and Finno-Ugric,
numbered about 36,000
 
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[ Sergey ] In 1941, they went further
than just reclaiming their lost territories
 
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[ Sergey ] They occupied
almost all of Karelia
 
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[ Sergey ] Petrozavodsk was never Finnish,
or Zaonezhye
 
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[ Sergey ] They'd been Russian for centuries.
They captured them too
 
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[ VO ] Finns divided the population
of occupied Soviet Karelia into
 
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'citizens' and 'non-citizens.'
Citizens were people of Finnish and
 
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Ugrian origins.
They received shelter, jobs, and ration cards. All
 
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other nationalities, mostly Slavs,
were superfluous to Greater Finland.
 
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[ Sergey ] Mannerheim issued order No.
132, with a clause stating:
 
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put Russians in
concentration camps
 
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[ Sergey ] Karelia hadn't fallen,
but the Karelians' fate had been decided:
 
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Russians put in camps
and then expelled
 
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[ Sergey ] They wanted to
wipe out everything Russian
 
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[ Sergey ] Names changed to Finnish:
Petrozavodsk became Aanislinna
 
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[ Sergey ] Streets were renamed after
Kalevala heroes or Finnish marshals
 
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[ Sergey ] Mannerheim St.
in Petrozavodsk...
 
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[ Sergey ] All place names
were changed to Finnish
 
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00:15:48,226 --> 00:15:51,226
[ Valentina Kondratenko ] The Finns
also removed the Lenin monument
 
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00:15:51,267 --> 00:15:54,767
[ Valentina ] Because he'd granted
them independence in 1918,
 
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they took a more
positive view of him
 
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[ Valentina ] Lenin was dismantled,
taken to their territory
 
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00:16:00,975 --> 00:16:05,100
[ Valentina ] A cannon took its place,
and it became Liberty Square
 
202
00:16:05,476 --> 00:16:09,476
[ Valentina ] Kirov's statue fared less well.
He was a revolutionary,
 
203
00:16:09,518 --> 00:16:13,767
and they felt class hatred for him.
They put a sack on his head
 
204
00:16:13,809 --> 00:16:17,809
[ Valentina ] They used it for
target practice for 4 years
 
205
00:16:18,580 --> 00:16:22,106
[ VO ] They began to foster Karelian
children to become worthy
 
206
00:16:22,130 --> 00:16:26,076
citizens of the future Greater Finland.
Finns opened schools. The
 
207
00:16:26,100 --> 00:16:29,836
teachers were men brought from Finland.
They taught in Finnish.
 
208
00:16:29,860 --> 00:16:33,596
[ VO ] For speaking Russian in class,
children were severely beaten.
 
209
00:16:36,809 --> 00:16:41,975
[ Boris ] Each totalitarian,
political culture has its own specifics:
 
210
00:16:42,017 --> 00:16:47,184
Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy,
Falangist Spain,
 
211
00:16:47,226 --> 00:16:50,850
the national idea of Finland,
and so on...
 
212
00:16:51,267 --> 00:16:56,518
[ Boris ] Although,
if you look at the map of Europe of that period,
 
213
00:16:56,599 --> 00:17:01,809
many tried to emulate
their big brother
 
214
00:17:02,267 --> 00:17:04,683
[ Boris ] I'm referring
to the Third Reich
 
215
00:17:04,725 --> 00:17:08,142
[ Boris ] They tried to
create a system of values
 
216
00:17:08,184 --> 00:17:11,725
similar to those
proclaimed in Berlin
 
217
00:17:13,580 --> 00:17:19,380
[ VO ] Sergey Verigin has been studying the history of
Karelia since his university years. He became interested in
 
218
00:17:19,404 --> 00:17:25,203
military issues, studied the partisan movement, underground
agents, and the Karelian Front’s military activities.
 
219
00:17:26,518 --> 00:17:29,309
[ Sergey ] The Finns were
as brutal as the Germans
 
220
00:17:29,434 --> 00:17:32,476
[ Sergey ] Karelia saw
genocide against Russians
 
221
00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:35,392
[ Sergey ] In fact,
I'd call it ethnocide
 
222
00:17:36,059 --> 00:17:40,599
[ Sergey ] They divided the population:
privileged Karelian-Finnish,
 
223
00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:44,226
Karelians, Veps, and Ingrians,
the Soviet Finns,
 
224
00:17:44,267 --> 00:17:47,599
were to be future citizens
of Greater Finland
 
225
00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:50,599
[ Sergey ] Why did they set
up concentration camps?
 
226
00:17:50,642 --> 00:17:54,975
[ Sergey ] They wanted Slavs in there,
and brainwashed Karelians,
 
227
00:17:55,017 --> 00:17:58,850
saying Russians were enemies,
aliens, immigrants,
 
228
00:17:58,892 --> 00:18:01,975
and that the indigenous
Karelians and Veps
 
229
00:18:02,017 --> 00:18:04,809
would live happily
in Greater Finland
 
230
00:18:05,460 --> 00:18:13,188
[ VO ] In Karelia’s occupied territories, Finns created more
than a hundred detention centres for the Slavic population:
 
231
00:18:13,212 --> 00:18:16,767
Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians.
14 concentration
 
232
00:18:16,791 --> 00:18:20,940
camps, 34 POW forced labour camps,
nine prisons, and a colony.
 
233
00:18:21,392 --> 00:18:24,975
[ Sergey ] We're off to Kindasovo,
a small Karelian village,
 
234
00:18:25,017 --> 00:18:28,767
where Finns set up a
concentration camp and a prison
 
235
00:18:28,850 --> 00:18:31,226
[ Sergey ] During the
Great Patriotic War,
 
236
00:18:31,351 --> 00:18:32,975
this was a tragic place
 
237
00:18:33,059 --> 00:18:38,309
[ Sergey ] The strict-regime Kindasovo
concentration camp was here,
 
238
00:18:38,476 --> 00:18:42,392
'for an extremely dangerous people!'
as the Finns said
 
239
00:18:42,434 --> 00:18:44,642
[ Sergey ] It was also
the central prison
 
240
00:18:44,683 --> 00:18:49,434
[ Sergey ] This is a bit of the barbed wire
that used to stretch around the camp
 
241
00:18:49,476 --> 00:18:55,809
[ Sergey ] What they did was not build
special barracks but seize farmers' houses,
 
242
00:18:55,850 --> 00:18:57,683
Kindasovo residents
 
243
00:18:57,767 --> 00:19:01,142
[ Sergey ] They put up barbed wire,
built watchtowers
 
244
00:19:01,184 --> 00:19:03,017
with machinegun posts
 
245
00:19:03,100 --> 00:19:06,017
[ Sergey ] Prisoners
recall terrible conditions
 
246
00:19:06,059 --> 00:19:08,850
[ Sergey ] Up to 30 people
were kept in a tiny room
 
247
00:19:09,226 --> 00:19:13,599
[ Sergey ] There was terrible famine.
People worked 10 to 12 hours a day
 
248
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:19,184
[ Sergey ] At the lumber mill,
small mistakes led to beatings, even shooting
 
249
00:19:19,267 --> 00:19:23,642
[ Sergey ] Recently declassified
documents mention specific people
 
250
00:19:23,683 --> 00:19:29,100
who committed these crimes: in particular,
the camp's director,
 
251
00:19:29,142 --> 00:19:31,226
[ Sergey ] Captain Toivonen
 
252
00:19:31,518 --> 00:19:35,267
[ Sergey ] When they worked in the fields,
they recall Toivonen
 
253
00:19:35,309 --> 00:19:39,226
rode his horse, whip in hand.
If someone worked poorly,
 
254
00:19:39,267 --> 00:19:41,809
he whipped them,
some even to death
 
255
00:19:41,850 --> 00:19:46,142
[ Sergey ] Of course, it can't be said that,
in the camp and prison,
 
256
00:19:46,184 --> 00:19:51,184
there were mass executions
by firing squads and so on
 
257
00:19:51,351 --> 00:19:54,683
[ Sergey ] However,
harsh conditions meant people died
 
258
00:19:54,767 --> 00:19:57,683
without weapons being
used against them
 
259
00:19:57,809 --> 00:20:01,850
[ Sergey ] Starvation, torment,
and unreasonably hard labour...
 
260
00:20:01,892 --> 00:20:04,267
[ Sergey ] In fact,
genocide without guns!
 
261
00:20:05,809 --> 00:20:09,518
[ Sergey ] We still don't know
the exact death toll in Karelia,
 
262
00:20:09,599 --> 00:20:11,767
even in Petrozavodsk's camps
 
263
00:20:11,809 --> 00:20:17,309
[ Sergey ] Finns say 4K prisoners killed,
the State Commission says 7-8K
 
264
00:20:17,476 --> 00:20:21,351
[ Sergey ] We've yet to determine
the exact number of civilians
 
265
00:20:21,392 --> 00:20:25,142
who died in Finnish
concentration camps in Karelia
 
266
00:20:27,940 --> 00:20:33,537
[ VO ] Lenina, then a small girl, spent almost three
years in Petrozavodsk concentration camp no. 5.
 
267
00:20:36,309 --> 00:20:39,892
[ Lenina ] This is Settlement No.
5, formerly Camp No. 5
 
268
00:20:40,934 --> 00:20:43,934
[ Lenina ] These wooden
buildings are from that time
 
269
00:20:44,017 --> 00:20:46,767
[ Lenina ] There was an
HQ here and gates there
 
270
00:20:46,934 --> 00:20:50,559
[ Lenina ] All this was the camp's area,
up to the railway
 
271
00:20:52,059 --> 00:20:55,975
[ Lenina ] Goodness gracious!
The trees have grown so tall!
 
272
00:20:58,090 --> 00:21:02,979
[ VO ] A mother and four of her children were
incarcerated by the Finns in December
 
273
00:21:03,003 --> 00:21:07,892
1941. LenIna Pavlovna’s two younger
sisters —Galya and Nina—had just been born.
 
274
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:15,892
[ Lenina ] When we got here, there was a 20 sq.
metre room, housing 17 people
 
275
00:21:16,351 --> 00:21:21,434
[ Lenina ] Here is where we lived.
It used to be Barrack No. 42
 
276
00:21:22,500 --> 00:21:26,972
[ VO ] The staff of the Centre of Military
Glory in Petrozavodsk managed to recreate
 
277
00:21:26,996 --> 00:21:31,468
the interiors of the concentration camp
barracks from the only surviving photograph.
 
278
00:21:31,767 --> 00:21:36,975
[ Valentina ] There wasn't enough space.
They had pallet beds, but in short supply
 
279
00:21:37,100 --> 00:21:39,184
[ Valentina ] People
slept on the floor
 
280
00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,226
[ Valentina ] These are
boots with wooden soles,
 
281
00:21:42,267 --> 00:21:46,017
made for Finnish
concentration camp inmates
 
282
00:21:46,100 --> 00:21:50,267
[ Valentina ] Wooden soles don't bend,
you can't walk fast, let alone run
 
283
00:21:50,309 --> 00:21:55,392
[ Valentina ] They're audible on any surface,
so you'd always be heard
 
284
00:21:55,518 --> 00:21:58,683
[ Valentina ] The Finns
sort of followed a doctrine
 
285
00:21:58,809 --> 00:22:04,892
of not intentionally killing prisoners,
but they didn't help,
 
286
00:22:05,267 --> 00:22:09,725
either with medicine or food.
They just waited for them to die
 
287
00:22:09,767 --> 00:22:11,642
from disease or the cold
 
288
00:22:14,351 --> 00:22:18,059
[ Lenina ] There were many bed bugs and lice.
It was awful
 
289
00:22:18,100 --> 00:22:23,599
[ Lenina ] They took us to a steam room.
We had to leave our clothes outside,
 
290
00:22:23,683 --> 00:22:26,934
while they disinfected us
 
291
00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:31,059
[ Lenina ] Come rain, sun or snow,
clothes were left outside
 
292
00:22:31,100 --> 00:22:35,059
[ Lenina ] Folk went into the hot steam room,
heated to 100 degrees
 
293
00:22:35,184 --> 00:22:40,309
[ Lenina ] When an exhausted person is put inside,
in this 100-degree heat...
 
294
00:22:40,975 --> 00:22:45,142
[ Lenina ] They carried children out,
because they had fainted
 
295
00:22:45,267 --> 00:22:47,642
[ Lenina ] It was forbidden
to open the door
 
296
00:22:47,683 --> 00:22:52,309
[ Lenina ] When everyone,
kids and adults, men and women,
 
297
00:22:52,434 --> 00:22:57,600
are in the same room,
it's challenging and humiliating
 
298
00:22:57,683 --> 00:23:03,476
[ Lenina ] They saw it as a disinfection,
but for us it was sheer torment
 
299
00:23:04,300 --> 00:23:11,799
[ VO ] The Republic of Karelia’s FSB office has for the
first time declassified documents about Finnish wartime
 
300
00:23:11,823 --> 00:23:19,113
concentration camps in Petrozavodsk. The first camp
was set up in the city on October 24, 1941, followed
 
301
00:23:19,137 --> 00:23:26,567
by another five. Passports were issued to citizens on
an ethnic basis. Finns, Karelians, and Vesps received
 
302
00:23:26,591 --> 00:23:33,671
blue passports, while Russians got red ones.
Most of the Russian population was imprisoned in camps.
 
303
00:23:34,518 --> 00:23:37,767
[ Elena ] Our archive
preserves lists of citizens
 
304
00:23:37,809 --> 00:23:41,599
released from the
Petrozavodsk camps
 
305
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,892
[ Elena ] People were brought here
from all the surrounding areas,
 
306
00:23:45,934 --> 00:23:50,100
from the Lake Onega region
and northern Leningrad Region,
 
307
00:23:50,184 --> 00:23:54,309
under occupation.
According to sources and documents,
 
308
00:23:54,351 --> 00:23:59,309
there were about 25,000 camp
prisoners by the spring of 1942
 
309
00:23:59,434 --> 00:24:02,809
[ Elena ] That's the peak
number of people kept there
 
310
00:24:02,934 --> 00:24:07,351
[ Elena ] Even on the cards we got
from the National Archives of Finland,
 
311
00:24:07,434 --> 00:24:10,351
then still the Finnish
Wartime Archive,
 
312
00:24:10,392 --> 00:24:14,476
we see in the very 1st column,
'Nationality'
 
313
00:24:14,518 --> 00:24:18,434
'V' is for Russian.
So, if you look through the records,
 
314
00:24:18,518 --> 00:24:22,850
almost everyone would have 'V' or 'VV',
meaning Belarussian
 
315
00:24:23,700 --> 00:24:30,365
[ VO ] The Finnish Wartime Photograph Archive has very
few photos of the concentration camps. And, in those
 
316
00:24:30,389 --> 00:24:37,504
few, it seems as if prisoners moved behind the barbed
wire of their own accord and are very content with their
 
317
00:24:37,528 --> 00:24:44,449
lives. Here, for instance, a photo from one of the
Petrozavodsk camps inscribed: 'Today is Sunday, a day off
 
318
00:24:44,473 --> 00:24:51,718
in the large labour camp. Female workers have lined up
in the yard to shop at a mobile van that’s just arrived.
 
319
00:24:53,580 --> 00:24:58,953
[ VO ] Trade is brisk,
and the customers are happy because they're
 
320
00:24:58,977 --> 00:25:04,864
allowed to buy bare necessities such as cleaning products,
household
 
321
00:25:04,888 --> 00:25:10,346
goods, and sweets.
Artist Elstella entertains the labour camp’s
 
322
00:25:10,370 --> 00:25:15,829
residents.' Idyllic, isn’t it?
The photo is dated May 31, 1942.
 
323
00:25:18,700 --> 00:25:23,465
[ VO ] According to preserved documents,
1942 was the hardest year for prisoners of the
 
324
00:25:23,489 --> 00:25:28,708
Finnish concentration camps during the four-
year occupation. And one with the most deaths.
 
325
00:25:29,142 --> 00:25:33,476
[ Elena ] At the end of 1943,
the name changed to 'Resettlement Camps',
 
326
00:25:33,518 --> 00:25:37,559
but essentially they were the same.
From the end of 1943,
 
327
00:25:37,599 --> 00:25:40,642
only 2 were termed
'Concentration Camp'
 
328
00:25:40,725 --> 00:25:44,351
[ Elena ] It was obvious the war
had reached a turning point
 
329
00:25:44,392 --> 00:25:47,392
[ Elena ] It was unknown
how things would turn out
 
330
00:25:47,476 --> 00:25:52,518
[ Elena ] The term 'Concentration
Camp' had a bad ring,
 
331
00:25:52,559 --> 00:25:57,267
because everyone knew what a
German concentration camp was,
 
332
00:25:57,309 --> 00:25:58,559
what it meant!
 
333
00:25:59,351 --> 00:26:04,975
[ Elena ] So, Finns probably found the
name 'Resettlement Camp' more palatable
 
334
00:26:05,050 --> 00:26:08,507
[ VO ] The death rate in the
Finnish concentration camps was
 
335
00:26:08,531 --> 00:26:12,415
higher than in the German ones.
According to historians, due to
 
336
00:26:12,439 --> 00:26:15,900
hard labour, famine, disease,
and executions, almost 14,000
 
337
00:26:15,924 --> 00:26:19,803
people died in Karelia,
and estimated one fifth of the remaining
 
338
00:26:19,827 --> 00:26:23,618
population.
The people’s only fault was that they weren’t Finns.
 
339
00:26:23,642 --> 00:26:27,433
Entire families simply died out.
In the first year alone, camp
 
340
00:26:27,457 --> 00:26:31,187
No. 5’s prisoners decreased by 25 percent.
In 1941, there were
 
341
00:26:31,211 --> 00:26:34,941
up to 8,000 people there; by the middle of 1942,
just 6,000.
 
342
00:26:37,599 --> 00:26:41,351
[ Lenina ] There were gates here,
and a booth stood opposite it
 
343
00:26:41,434 --> 00:26:46,725
[ Lenina ] People gathered here and
were then taken to the city to work
 
344
00:26:46,850 --> 00:26:51,351
[ Lenina ] Because the place had been destroyed,
they patched it up
 
345
00:26:52,184 --> 00:26:58,100
[ Lenina ] They took youngsters
of around 16 to the lumber mill
 
346
00:26:58,226 --> 00:27:01,267
[ Lenina ] Up to 50
percent never returned
 
347
00:27:01,309 --> 00:27:05,767
[ Lenina ] Then they sent another
batch of people to the lumber mill
 
348
00:27:06,975 --> 00:27:11,017
[ Klavdia ] They gave us flour,
which we rationed on a weekly basis
 
349
00:27:11,226 --> 00:27:14,226
[ Klavdia ] We were 6 kids,
plus Mum: 7 people
 
350
00:27:14,642 --> 00:27:17,767
7 spoonful's a day...
 
351
00:27:18,226 --> 00:27:21,600
[ Klavdia ] We diluted it with water.
It's all we had!
 
352
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:29,392
[ Klavdia ] We were lucky to get salt.
We fried and baked those little flatbreads
 
353
00:27:30,267 --> 00:27:31,434
and ate them
 
354
00:27:31,476 --> 00:27:34,476
[ Klavdia ] We also made
gruel from the same flour
 
355
00:27:34,559 --> 00:27:39,975
[ Klavdia ] It was mostly rye flour.
Sometimes, it had worms in it
 
356
00:27:40,683 --> 00:27:46,351
[ Klavdia ] When the snow melted in spring
of 1942 and the 1st plants appeared,
 
357
00:27:46,518 --> 00:27:48,725
they were eaten within an hour
 
358
00:27:48,767 --> 00:27:53,683
[ Valentina ] Areas reachable through
the barbed wire were stripped
 
359
00:27:53,725 --> 00:27:58,892
[ Valentina ] Nothing grew because
the prisoners had eaten everything
 
360
00:27:59,809 --> 00:28:04,226
[ Lenina ] There used to be a
mound here where clover grew
 
361
00:28:04,392 --> 00:28:08,142
[ Lenina ] We gathered them,
and also some blades of grass
 
362
00:28:08,226 --> 00:28:14,309
[ Lenina ] In spring, we wandered about,
searching for sweet roots
 
363
00:28:14,809 --> 00:28:22,683
[ Lenina ] Behind the wire,
aromatic sorrel grew, and big bellflowers too
 
364
00:28:23,226 --> 00:28:29,059
[ Lenina ] In the camp, when nettles grew,
whoever was quickest got them
 
365
00:28:29,100 --> 00:28:35,850
[ Lenina ] The older kids dug under the barbed wire.
You know, just in case...
 
366
00:28:35,934 --> 00:28:37,934
[ Lenina ] Security was tight,
 
367
00:28:37,975 --> 00:28:40,975
but someone might
manage to sneak out
 
368
00:28:41,100 --> 00:28:46,809
[ Lenina ] People seized the chance,
especially kids, to get beyond the wire
 
369
00:28:46,850 --> 00:28:49,767
to the city,
to sniff around dumpsters
 
370
00:28:49,850 --> 00:28:52,850
and go to Finnish
kitchens to beg for food
 
371
00:28:52,892 --> 00:28:56,850
[ Klavdia ] We sneaked out,
crawling under the barbed wire
 
372
00:28:56,892 --> 00:29:03,100
[ Klavdia ] Finns were said to have
ripe peas growing somewhere
 
373
00:29:03,142 --> 00:29:08,017
[ Klavdia ] They loved pea soup,
and sometimes we got burnt leftovers
 
374
00:29:08,059 --> 00:29:12,809
from the pot,
but we found no peas
 
375
00:29:13,642 --> 00:29:17,351
[ Klavdia ]Actually,
we barely made it back in the evening
 
376
00:29:17,392 --> 00:29:24,809
[ Klavdia ]The guards started shooting,
and I was hit here in the hip
 
377
00:29:25,100 --> 00:29:27,934
[ Klavdia ]It ripped
my skin and flesh
 
378
00:29:28,017 --> 00:29:31,767
[ Klavdia ]Sometimes,
guys were killed at the barbed wire
 
379
00:29:31,809 --> 00:29:35,017
[ Valentina ] If Finns caught them,
they flogged them
 
380
00:29:35,100 --> 00:29:38,142
[ Valentina ]In one camp,
there was a special punisher
 
381
00:29:38,184 --> 00:29:41,725
who disciplined kids.
A child was stripped naked,
 
382
00:29:41,850 --> 00:29:47,184
laid belly-down on a bench,
and the punisher sat on the child's head
 
383
00:29:47,599 --> 00:29:54,434
[ Valentina ]Kids were whipped with
birch rods soaked in salt water,
 
384
00:29:54,476 --> 00:29:55,892
from 5 to 50 lashes
 
385
00:29:55,934 --> 00:30:02,392
[ Valentina ]Even five lashes inflicted
on a small child could cause death
 
386
00:30:02,453 --> 00:30:06,460
[ VO ] Lenina Pavlovna’s newborn sisters
didn't survive even a year in the camp.
 
387
00:30:07,100 --> 00:30:12,481
[ Lenina ] Galya died first,
and about 6 weeks later,
 
388
00:30:12,505 --> 00:30:15,728
Nina perished. It was in 1943
 
389
00:30:16,515 --> 00:30:19,806
[ Lenina ] My sisters
died of starvation
 
390
00:30:20,892 --> 00:30:26,392
[ Lenina ] Mum was seriously ill,
she had no milk, and she was malnourished
 
391
00:30:26,476 --> 00:30:28,725
[ Lenina ] Grandma
died of starvation too
 
392
00:30:28,767 --> 00:30:32,226
[ Lenina ] She would say,
'I'm not hungry, I've just eaten'
 
393
00:30:32,392 --> 00:30:35,267
[ Lenina ] She left food for us,
and then she died
 
394
00:30:36,518 --> 00:30:38,767
[ Lenina ] They were
buried in Peski
 
395
00:30:38,809 --> 00:30:42,100
[ Lenina ] There's a
memorial with their names:
 
396
00:30:42,683 --> 00:30:44,599
[ Lenina ] Nina and Galya Ilyukova
 
397
00:30:45,780 --> 00:30:49,047
[ VO ] Denis Popov’s been a history
student since he was eight.
 
398
00:30:49,071 --> 00:30:52,612
[ VO ] He’s studied the Russo–Finnish wars.
When he was in first grade,
 
399
00:30:52,636 --> 00:30:56,095
his father gave him a book called 'Winter War'.
Since then, he's
 
400
00:30:56,119 --> 00:30:59,468
been interested in a topic
that’s little studied even today.
 
401
00:31:00,017 --> 00:31:03,809
[ Denis ] Camp No.
5 had more people than were in Petrozavodsk
 
402
00:31:03,850 --> 00:31:07,434
[ Denis ] Due to famine, cold,
disease, harsh conditions,
 
403
00:31:07,476 --> 00:31:09,934
[ Denis ] Finnish camps
had high mortality
 
404
00:31:09,975 --> 00:31:14,725
[ Denis ] Of course, they had to be buried,
mainly here in the Peski cemetery
 
405
00:31:14,850 --> 00:31:18,642
[ Denis ] The memorial here
was erected quite recently
 
406
00:31:18,683 --> 00:31:22,600
[ Denis ] These are the names of
people we're certain are buried here,
 
407
00:31:22,642 --> 00:31:24,683
but most are still unknown
 
408
00:31:26,226 --> 00:31:31,059
[ Denis ] In 1944,
officials investigated the Finnish occupiers' crimes
 
409
00:31:31,100 --> 00:31:35,309
[ Denis ] They inspected the
Peski cemetery and found it had
 
410
00:31:35,351 --> 00:31:43,017
39 huge graves, 30 to 100 metres long,
1.5 m deep by 3 m wide
 
411
00:31:43,642 --> 00:31:49,059
[ Denis ] Officials of the Extraordinary
State Commission exhumed 137 corpses
 
412
00:31:49,184 --> 00:31:54,683
[ Denis ] 41 men, 55 women,
6 of unidentified sex, and 35 children
 
413
00:31:56,725 --> 00:31:59,892
[ Denis ] Prisoner Borisov:
'Hunger and disease
 
414
00:31:59,934 --> 00:32:02,683
led to high death rates in Camp No.
5
 
415
00:32:02,725 --> 00:32:09,599
[ Denis ] I saw corpses carted off 2 or
3 times a week: 25 coffins at a time'
 
416
00:32:10,017 --> 00:32:12,767
[ Denis ] Aside from famine,
cold, hard labour,
 
417
00:32:12,809 --> 00:32:16,267
typhus, scurvy,
and malaria often struck
 
418
00:32:16,351 --> 00:32:19,142
[ Denis ] Victims of these
were also buried here
 
419
00:32:19,725 --> 00:32:24,226
[ Denis ] In July 1944, Shvyryov,
the editor of a local newspaper,
 
420
00:32:24,267 --> 00:32:28,600
carried out research
at the cemetery
 
421
00:32:28,683 --> 00:32:31,892
[ Denis ] He reproduces
in his document
 
422
00:32:31,934 --> 00:32:36,059
inscriptions seen on the
crosses at the cemetery
 
423
00:32:36,100 --> 00:32:40,767
[ Denis ] Of course,
the inscriptions and the crosses didn't last long,
 
424
00:32:40,809 --> 00:32:45,975
but here, in the document,
we can see and read what people inscribed
 
425
00:32:47,059 --> 00:32:51,725
[ Elena ] Irina Evdokimova,
born 1942, died 1943:
 
426
00:32:51,767 --> 00:32:55,351
'Sleep,
my sweet little one in peace made eternal
 
427
00:32:55,392 --> 00:32:58,059
by hunger, bondage,
and captivity'
 
428
00:32:58,518 --> 00:33:01,017
[ Elena ] Here lie
Spiridonov's children:
 
429
00:33:01,059 --> 00:33:04,476
[ Elena ] Daughter Nina born 1935,
in Podporozhye,
 
430
00:33:04,518 --> 00:33:08,599
son Lyonya born 1937,
son Tolya born 1940
 
431
00:33:08,850 --> 00:33:11,767
[ Elena ] All died in 1943,
in Petrozavodsk
 
432
00:33:11,892 --> 00:33:15,850
[ Elena ] The entire family
was buried in one place
 
433
00:33:16,184 --> 00:33:20,100
[ Denis ]We're at old memorials
also dedicated to prisoners
 
434
00:33:20,142 --> 00:33:22,309
who died in the Finnish camps
 
435
00:33:22,392 --> 00:33:27,017
[ Denis ]But it says,
'In memory of prisoners of Nazi concentration camps'
 
436
00:33:27,184 --> 00:33:30,559
[ Denis ]In the Soviet era,
we were friends with Finland
 
437
00:33:30,599 --> 00:33:35,184
[ Denis ]We didn't like to talk about their occupation,
or Nazi alliance,
 
438
00:33:35,226 --> 00:33:39,226
so we referred to a 'fascist
occupation' instead
 
439
00:33:40,398 --> 00:33:46,327
[ VO ] A Prisoner of War (POW) camp known as
'Transit Camp #17' was located on the outskirts
 
440
00:33:46,351 --> 00:33:52,613
of the occupied city of Olonetsk.
At various times, it housed between 600 and 1000 prisoners.
 
441
00:33:53,184 --> 00:33:56,642
[ Woman ] The last house
burned down about 2 years ago
 
442
00:33:56,809 --> 00:34:02,476
[ Woman ] Lists here include surname,
name, patronymic, birth year,
 
443
00:34:02,559 --> 00:34:04,934
date and place of capture
 
444
00:34:04,975 --> 00:34:09,184
[ Woman ] Show them the
nationalities - They're listed here…
 
445
00:34:09,226 --> 00:34:13,725
[ Woman ] Belarusians,
Russians, Ukrainians - Tatars
 
446
00:34:13,767 --> 00:34:17,559
[ Woman ] Yes,
them too - Not a single Finn!
 
447
00:34:17,599 --> 00:34:21,142
[ Woman ] But how many Karelians?
- We didn't see any
 
448
00:34:22,500 --> 00:34:25,738
[ VO ] Still, several hundred Karelians,
a kindred people of the
 
449
00:34:25,762 --> 00:34:29,000
Finns, ended up in camps.
These were the so-called 'politically
 
450
00:34:29,024 --> 00:34:35,160
unreliable persons' who didn't accept the occupation. The
Finnish authorities felt they were too, quote: 'Russified.'
 
451
00:34:36,476 --> 00:34:40,683
[ Woman ] Our sources are incomplete,
only 2 books in our archive
 
452
00:34:40,767 --> 00:34:43,184
[ Woman ] Finns, I think,
hide documents
 
453
00:34:43,267 --> 00:34:45,518
[ Woman ] I think
they still have some
 
454
00:34:46,260 --> 00:34:51,451
[ VO ] The Olonetsk archive preserved letters from
former Karelian concentration camp prisoners.
 
455
00:34:51,476 --> 00:34:56,309
[ Woman ] This is archived
correspondence from juvenile prisoners
 
456
00:34:56,351 --> 00:34:59,683
and relatives in the
concentration camps
 
457
00:34:59,725 --> 00:35:03,767
[ Woman ] Aleksandr Arestov...
He even drew us the layout
 
458
00:35:03,809 --> 00:35:06,434
of the camp he was in
 
459
00:35:06,476 --> 00:35:10,476
[ Woman ] Here,
he writes: 'I did menial work from May 1, 1942,
 
460
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,559
to July 1, 1944
 
461
00:35:13,725 --> 00:35:17,850
[ Woman ] Carried wood,
sawdust around the camp, cleaned latrines
 
462
00:35:17,892 --> 00:35:21,850
[ Woman ] I was once beaten half
to death for leaving the camp
 
463
00:35:21,975 --> 00:35:26,476
[ Woman ] I got food for the family
and had to steal some stuff'
 
464
00:35:26,642 --> 00:35:30,184
[ Woman ] Roza Korolyova
from Zhitomir in Ukraine:
 
465
00:35:30,226 --> 00:35:33,975
'I recall us all being put in
the bathhouse together:
 
466
00:35:34,100 --> 00:35:36,351
kids, old folk, women, and men
 
467
00:35:36,518 --> 00:35:40,434
[ Woman ] They shut us in there
for some time and watched
 
468
00:35:40,518 --> 00:35:44,599
[ Woman ] If some old woman couldn't wash,
they kept us in that hell
 
469
00:35:44,642 --> 00:35:48,725
[ Woman ] They kicked us out
naked at any time of the year
 
470
00:35:48,809 --> 00:35:53,309
[ Woman ] The guards sat in front of us
and took pictures to remember us by!
 
471
00:35:53,392 --> 00:35:57,017
[ Woman ] Then we looked for our
clothes and shoes in the heap
 
472
00:35:57,059 --> 00:36:00,434
[ Woman ] I think as they fled,
leaving documents behind,
 
473
00:36:00,476 --> 00:36:03,226
these photos could
have remained too
 
474
00:36:03,267 --> 00:36:07,600
[ Woman ] I'd recognise my mum in them,
I remember how she looked then'
 
475
00:36:08,725 --> 00:36:13,226
[ Woman ] There was a case of a child
asking police for kerosene for a lamp
 
476
00:36:13,309 --> 00:36:17,559
[ Woman ] One took the bottle and hit the child on the head,
killing him
 
477
00:36:17,599 --> 00:36:21,226
[ Woman ] And a baby
crawling to the fence,
 
478
00:36:21,351 --> 00:36:24,559
a child not understanding
where he was going
 
479
00:36:24,599 --> 00:36:27,683
[ Woman ] A warden whipped
the child with full force!
 
480
00:36:27,725 --> 00:36:29,351
[ Woman ] It's all in here...
 
481
00:36:29,850 --> 00:36:34,059
[ Woman ] written by witnesses who were there.
It's testimony...
 
482
00:36:34,518 --> 00:36:38,184
and confirmation
that it happened
 
483
00:36:40,060 --> 00:36:46,526
[ VO ] On June 21, 1944, the Red Army launched the
Svir-Petrozavodsk offensive. Dogged fighting continued
 
484
00:36:46,550 --> 00:36:52,698
throughout July. Soviet troops kept pressure on
the Finns and crushed their defensive positions,
 
485
00:36:52,722 --> 00:36:59,029
approaching Petrozavodsk from the north and south,
while the Onega flotilla attacked from the west.
 
486
00:36:59,053 --> 00:37:05,360
[ VO ] The sailors were the first to enter Karelia’s capital
in June 1944, after the Finns had already left.
 
487
00:37:06,226 --> 00:37:10,518
[ Sergey ] When the Finns left,
retreating in summer of 1944,
 
488
00:37:10,599 --> 00:37:13,351
they invited the people
to go with them
 
489
00:37:13,392 --> 00:37:16,642
[ Sergey ] Of the 86,000,
only 3,000 left
 
490
00:37:16,683 --> 00:37:21,767
[ Sergey ] Who went?
Finnish collaborators, Karelian girls who'd married Finns,
 
491
00:37:21,809 --> 00:37:23,226
or police workers
 
492
00:37:23,309 --> 00:37:27,934
[ Sergey ] Most stayed in Karelia,
awaiting the Red Army, their liberators
 
493
00:37:28,017 --> 00:37:29,725
[ Sergey ] That was their choice
 
494
00:37:30,476 --> 00:37:37,809
[ Lenina ] The camp commandant said: 'We're leaving,
you're to stay here'
 
495
00:37:38,059 --> 00:37:41,559
[ Lenina ] They didn't say why.
As soon as they left,
 
496
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,226
people began to cut
the wires to escape
 
497
00:37:47,267 --> 00:37:49,850
[ Lenina ] The surrounding
area was mined
 
498
00:37:49,934 --> 00:37:53,142
[ Lenina ] Some got blown to bits,
others were crippled
 
499
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,267
[ Klavdia ] Everyone was hungry.
The guys ran in search of food
 
500
00:37:57,309 --> 00:38:00,683
[ Klavdia ] Our Raya,
3 years older than me, went too
 
501
00:38:00,767 --> 00:38:05,267
[ Klavdia ] The retreating Finns were
riding bicycles with machine guns
 
502
00:38:05,309 --> 00:38:09,809
[ Klavdia ] They fired at the kids.
We watched from the barracks, shouting:
 
503
00:38:09,850 --> 00:38:13,850
[ Klavdia ] 'Raya, stop! Don't run!'
One boy was shot to death
 
504
00:38:16,540 --> 00:38:20,842
[ VO ] Sergey Verigin wrote a book about
the concentration camps in Karelia
 
505
00:38:20,866 --> 00:38:25,168
in collaboration with writer and journalist Armas Mashin.
In Armas’ family,
 
506
00:38:25,192 --> 00:38:29,523
the grandparents only spoke Finnish,
so he has two native languages. Today,
 
507
00:38:29,547 --> 00:38:33,820
he’s the editor-in-chief of the Karelian magazine,
published in Finnish.
 
508
00:38:34,850 --> 00:38:40,017
[ Armas Mashin ] 'Former juvenile
prisoners live or lived very close to us,
 
509
00:38:40,184 --> 00:38:45,600
and, very often,
we didn't know what happened to them during the war'
 
510
00:38:47,599 --> 00:38:50,226
[ Armas ] The topic
was little studied
 
511
00:38:50,351 --> 00:38:54,767
and almost never covered
in Soviet literature
 
512
00:38:54,850 --> 00:38:59,392
[ Armas ] The first probable reason,
objectively, was unwillingness
 
513
00:38:59,434 --> 00:39:05,309
to admit the bitterness and pain of defeat,
and the second reason:
 
514
00:39:05,392 --> 00:39:10,767
the Soviet Union had no desire
to overshadow its friendly,
 
515
00:39:10,850 --> 00:39:16,100
partner-like,
and neighbourly relations with Finland
 
516
00:39:17,434 --> 00:39:21,184
[ Sergey ] For a long time,
the crimes of the Finnish occupation
 
517
00:39:21,309 --> 00:39:24,518
were overshadowed by
Nazi Germany's crimes
 
518
00:39:24,599 --> 00:39:28,184
[ Sergey ] Germany was to blame
for the Leningrad blockade,
 
519
00:39:28,309 --> 00:39:33,392
and the northern blockade held
by Finns generally never came up
 
520
00:39:33,518 --> 00:39:37,642
[ Sergey ] This was because, after the war,
strong Soviet-Finnish relations
 
521
00:39:37,767 --> 00:39:42,100
were developed,
setting a Cold War standard
 
522
00:39:42,309 --> 00:39:46,351
[ Sergey ] Both sides tried
to avoid sensitive issues,
 
523
00:39:46,392 --> 00:39:50,767
never mentioning the occupation
and the crimes committed
 
524
00:39:51,642 --> 00:39:57,100
[ Boris ] Once an enemy of the Soviet Union,
Finland became almost an ally
 
525
00:39:57,642 --> 00:40:02,017
[ Boris ] If we look at the 'Pravda'
newspaper from May 1945,
 
526
00:40:02,059 --> 00:40:06,226
we read that Finnish President
Mannerheim congratulated
 
527
00:40:06,309 --> 00:40:10,767
the Soviet people on their
victory over evil fascism,
 
528
00:40:10,850 --> 00:40:12,892
and Stalin thanked him...
 
529
00:40:12,934 --> 00:40:16,559
[ Boris ] What can we do?
This is what they call politics
 
530
00:40:17,184 --> 00:40:20,725
[ Armas ] In 1989,
the situation started to change
 
531
00:40:20,975 --> 00:40:25,476
[ Armas ] Former juvenile prisoners
of the Finnish concentration camps
 
532
00:40:25,559 --> 00:40:30,642
decided to unite and talk
about their experiences
 
533
00:40:30,809 --> 00:40:34,809
[ Armas ] Very little had been
said about it for decades
 
534
00:40:34,934 --> 00:40:41,434
[ Armas ] That's why many memoirs,
interviews, essays, and articles
 
535
00:40:41,476 --> 00:40:45,725
started to appear,
in which these people told their stories
 
536
00:40:45,850 --> 00:40:50,600
[ Armas ] I deliberately used
Finnish-language sources
 
537
00:40:50,642 --> 00:40:52,892
because the book is in Finnish
 
538
00:40:52,934 --> 00:40:57,600
and is primarily aimed
at Finnish readers
 
539
00:40:57,767 --> 00:41:01,100
[ Armas ] Some may say,
'It doesn't matter what he wrote
 
540
00:41:01,142 --> 00:41:05,267
[ Armas ] He just translated
what you can find anyway'
 
541
00:41:05,351 --> 00:41:08,725
[ Armas ] You can go to
major Finnish libraries
 
542
00:41:08,850 --> 00:41:13,017
and see it appeared
in Finnish back then
 
543
00:41:13,267 --> 00:41:18,017
[ Armas ] When trying to
reach a Finnish reader,
 
544
00:41:18,100 --> 00:41:22,934
one must use materials that
are most convincing to them
 
545
00:41:23,934 --> 00:41:29,059
[ Armas ] There was no public reaction,
and that was to be expected
 
546
00:41:29,142 --> 00:41:34,434
[ Armas ] Mainstream Finnish media would
like to pretend the book doesn't exist
 
547
00:41:35,060 --> 00:41:38,897
[ VO ] The book's publisher,
Finnish political scientist, historian,
 
548
00:41:38,921 --> 00:41:42,758
and professor at Helsinki University,
Johan Bäckman, says the first
 
549
00:41:42,782 --> 00:41:46,419
time the genocide of Russians in
Finland was discussed was in the
 
550
00:41:46,443 --> 00:41:50,480
early 80s, when they tried to ignore it.
Now he’s reminded them again.
 
551
00:41:51,142 --> 00:41:56,600
[ Johan Bäckman ] We must say that, unfortunately,
Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany,
 
552
00:41:56,642 --> 00:42:00,693
and that Finland's
goals in that war
 
553
00:42:00,717 --> 00:42:04,767
were exactly the
same as the Nazis'
 
554
00:42:04,934 --> 00:42:08,309
[ Johan Bäckman ] That is,
the destruction of the Soviet Union!
 
555
00:42:08,351 --> 00:42:13,559
[ Johan Bäckman ] Basically, the liquidation
of its people: the policy of ethnic cleansing
 
556
00:42:13,642 --> 00:42:17,559
[ Johan Bäckman ] The Finns would
now very much like to falsify all this
 
557
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,850
and say they behaved
better than the Nazis,
 
558
00:42:20,892 --> 00:42:24,518
claiming they had no
concentration camps at all
 
559
00:42:24,642 --> 00:42:28,599
[ Johan Bäckman ] There was also the
issue of communism's dehumanisation
 
560
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,767
[ Johan Bäckman ] Occupation supporters
said living in a Finnish concentration camp
 
561
00:42:32,809 --> 00:42:35,767
was better than living
in a Soviet house!
 
562
00:42:35,892 --> 00:42:41,559
[ Johan Bäckman ] An example is the famous
Finnish academic and cultural figure,
 
563
00:42:41,599 --> 00:42:47,059
Martti Haavio,
an occupier and propagandist in Karelia
 
564
00:42:47,184 --> 00:42:49,476
[ Johan Bäckman ]
He wrote to his wife,
 
565
00:42:49,518 --> 00:42:53,599
boasting how many Russian
slaves he had working for him
 
566
00:42:53,975 --> 00:42:59,476
[ Johan Bäckman ] His wife, Elsa Enajarvi-Haavio,
was also a leading cultural figure
 
567
00:42:59,518 --> 00:43:04,267
[ Johan Bäckman ] She wrote saying they
had to destroy all Russians in Karelia...
 
568
00:43:04,683 --> 00:43:07,142
a mother saying
things like that!
 
569
00:43:08,663 --> 00:43:13,094
[ VO ] Captured Red Army soldiers were
treated by Finnish fascists with bestial
 
570
00:43:13,118 --> 00:43:17,550
cruelty. Prisoners' eyes were gouged out,
heads cut off and impaled on spikes.
 
571
00:43:17,574 --> 00:43:22,005
[ VO ] There are recorded cases of Finnish
officers ordering a prisoner's skull to be
 
572
00:43:22,029 --> 00:43:26,460
boiled as a gift to their bride,
or to be kept as a souvenir for themselves.
 
573
00:43:26,809 --> 00:43:30,683
[ Johan Bäckman ] You asked where
this brutal attitude comes from?
 
574
00:43:30,725 --> 00:43:34,518
[ Johan Bäckman ] It's propaganda
dehumanising the image of Russians
 
575
00:43:34,642 --> 00:43:39,392
[ Johan Bäckman ] In our society,
there was an ideology claiming they weren't people
 
576
00:43:39,434 --> 00:43:42,518
[ Johan Bäckman ] Sadly,
this dehumanising of Russians
 
577
00:43:42,559 --> 00:43:45,392
continues in Western media
 
578
00:43:45,600 --> 00:43:50,017
[ Johan Bäckman ] I see little difference
between the Nazi's decommunisation
 
579
00:43:50,059 --> 00:43:55,559
and today's dehumanisation
of Russians' image by NATO
 
580
00:43:56,142 --> 00:44:00,351
[ Johan Bäckman ] It's a perilous process.
Reading our Western press,
 
581
00:44:00,518 --> 00:44:04,434
they also write that Russia
has no right to exist,
 
582
00:44:04,476 --> 00:44:06,767
and that it must be liquidated
 
583
00:44:07,142 --> 00:44:11,683
[ Johan Bäckman ] That the collapse of
Russia is a desired future for us, and so on
 
584
00:44:15,518 --> 00:44:19,642
[ Sergey ] A new generation in Europe
is ignorant of the horrors of war
 
585
00:44:19,767 --> 00:44:25,267
[ Sergey ] For them,
war is like something out of a comic or a computer game
 
586
00:44:25,934 --> 00:44:29,100
[ Sergey ] There is no sense
of the danger posed by war
 
587
00:44:29,142 --> 00:44:32,934
[ Sergey ] So,
now the Finns say they'll join NATO
 
588
00:44:32,975 --> 00:44:37,351
and offer their territory to
NATO troops and infrastructure
 
589
00:44:37,518 --> 00:44:39,725
[ Sergey ] Have they
forgotten history?
 
590
00:44:39,809 --> 00:44:43,476
[ Sergey ] Previous clashes with
Russia led to major defeats
 
591
00:44:44,392 --> 00:44:48,476
[ Armas ] The Finns try to highlight
what's beneficial to them
 
592
00:44:48,683 --> 00:44:54,642
and hush up, deny,
and disagree with what is unfavourable
 
593
00:44:54,683 --> 00:45:00,599
[ Armas ] There was a very active discussion
in Finland about Stalin's repressions
 
594
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:05,434
[ Armas ] I read that
respected people claimed:
 
595
00:45:05,476 --> 00:45:09,725
'Stalin destroyed all that was
Finnish in the Soviet Union
 
596
00:45:10,184 --> 00:45:15,017
[ Armas ] After Stalin,
there was no Finnish language, no Soviet Finns,
 
597
00:45:15,142 --> 00:45:18,059
no Russian Finns, nothing'
 
598
00:45:18,100 --> 00:45:19,267
[ Armas ] How so?
 
599
00:45:19,850 --> 00:45:23,142
[ Armas ] What about the
powerful national literature
 
600
00:45:23,184 --> 00:45:28,809
that existed and developed in our country,
written primarily in Finnish?
 
601
00:45:29,351 --> 00:45:33,725
[ Armas ] Finnish newspapers,
magazines, radio, TV, theatres...
 
602
00:45:34,309 --> 00:45:39,476
[ Armas ] Where did it all come from
if Stalin had destroyed everyone?
 
603
00:45:40,392 --> 00:45:44,476
[ Armas ] Arguing with the Finns,
I asked: 'Where did I come from?
 
604
00:45:44,683 --> 00:45:50,309
[ Armas ] Born over 10 years after
the death of comrade Stalin,
 
605
00:45:50,351 --> 00:45:53,434
and speaking two
native languages!'
 
606
00:45:55,719 --> 00:46:01,505
[ VO ] Since 1990, the Union of Former Juvenile
Prisoners has appealed to the Finnish government
 
607
00:46:01,529 --> 00:46:06,817
three times, demanding compensation for the
physical and psychological damage caused
 
608
00:46:06,841 --> 00:46:12,658
during the occupation. In response,
they received either silence or a refusal referencing the
 
609
00:46:12,682 --> 00:46:18,500
1947 Paris Peace Treaties, which made no
provision for compensation to citizens of the USSR.
 
610
00:46:19,392 --> 00:46:24,599
[ Woman ] Our society's members are dying out,
few of us are left
 
611
00:46:24,809 --> 00:46:30,017
[ Woman ] We all, of course,
will fight to the end with our walking sticks,
 
612
00:46:30,142 --> 00:46:35,642
but we're very glad to see you,
dear friends!
 
613
00:46:36,100 --> 00:46:41,059
[ Woman ] We're growing old,
but still devoted to our homeland and country
 
614
00:46:41,226 --> 00:46:45,434
[ Woman ] All of us are hard workers,
all great patriots!
 
615
00:46:46,060 --> 00:46:52,719
[ VO ] Surviving prisoners of the Finnish concentration camps
appealed to the Investigative Committee of the Russian
 
616
00:46:52,743 --> 00:46:56,504
Federation,
asking to investigate and prosecute those implicated
 
617
00:46:56,528 --> 00:47:00,110
in these crimes but remained unpunished.
In April 2020, the
 
618
00:47:00,134 --> 00:47:03,807
Investigative Committee opened
a criminal case on the genocide
 
619
00:47:03,831 --> 00:47:07,383
of the civilian population of Karelia,
taking into account
 
620
00:47:07,407 --> 00:47:10,782
the archival documents on the
Finnish concentration camps,
 
621
00:47:10,806 --> 00:47:14,656
declassified as part of the 'No
Statute of Limitations' project.
 
622
00:47:18,340 --> 00:47:24,837
[ VO ] The war isn't over until all crimes against civilians
and Soviet prisoners of war are fully investigated.
 
623
00:47:26,809 --> 00:47:31,683
[ Boris ] For the first
time in many years,
 
624
00:47:31,725 --> 00:47:35,017
we are seriously
raising this issue
 
625
00:47:35,059 --> 00:47:39,934
with a good,
closely-knit community of professsional research scientists,
 
626
00:47:40,100 --> 00:47:45,934
theorists, archaeologists,
and law enforcement officers
 
627
00:47:45,975 --> 00:47:50,934
[ Boris ] We are thus,
to a large extent,
 
628
00:47:51,017 --> 00:47:55,559
restoring our historical memory
 
629
00:47:57,100 --> 00:48:00,892
[ Boris ] We confirm by deeds,
and not just in empty words,
 
630
00:48:00,934 --> 00:48:07,892
the fact that we're the heirs
of those who fought and won,
 
631
00:48:07,975 --> 00:48:14,892
and also the heirs of the
sacrifices that our people
 
632
00:48:14,934 --> 00:48:17,975
made 80 years ago
 
633
00:48:19,226 --> 00:48:23,934
[ Boris ] And, of course,
it's highly impudent and shameless
 
634
00:48:23,975 --> 00:48:28,975
to declare us criminals
and executioners,
 
635
00:48:29,559 --> 00:48:33,351
responsible for unleashing
the Second World War