Karelia. Petrozavodsk behind barbed wire.

Concentration camp No. 1 was located on Kukkovka (now - Old Kukkovka). Concentration Camp No. 2 was located in the former homes of the North Point. Concentration camp No. 3 was located in the former houses of the Ski Factory. Concentration camp No. 4 was located in the former houses of Onegzavod. Concentration camp No. 5 was located in the Railway Village (during the war - Krasnaya Gorka, now the 5th Village microdistrict). Concentration camp No. 6 was located on the Transshipment Exchange (now the Transshipment Microdistrict).

The mortality rate in all six Petrozavodsk concentration camps during this period was unusually high. It was even higher than in German camps, where the death rate reached 10%, and in Finnish - 13.75%. During the initial period of camp life, whole families died out. In the first year alone, the number of prisoners in Camp 5 fell by one quarter. If in 1941 there were up to 8000 people in this camp, by the middle of 1942 there were already 6000 people. In three years, half. Up to 20-25 prisoners died in each camp every day. Particularly high mortality was in the Kutizhem forest camp.

The prisoners were divided into two main categories:

1. Karelians, Finns, Veps, Ingermanlanders, Estonians

2. Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians...

Developing the ideology of Great Suomi to the Urals, the occupiers planned to evict the Slavic population beyond the administrative boundaries of the territory, which according to their plan would belong to Finland. Here is what Vasily Lukyanov writes in the book "Tragic Zaonezhye", also published in the year of the 60th anniversary of the Victory in Karelia: "To us, the Slavs, only in Petrozavodsk, the Mannerheim regime "provided" 30,000 places in concentration camps and 16,000 graves in the cemetery in the Sands. Think about it, 16,000 men and women! In total, several tens of thousands of civilians died from hunger, cold, disease and Finnish terror!

Damage caused to minors by the occupation regime can be described in the following categories:

mortality, which persecuted former juvenile prisoners as a result of hunger and cold and various diseases without medical care, which affected their health in subsequent years disability forced labor destruction of families physical injuries ethnic inequality

On April 21, 2009, Russian President D.A. Medvedev, on a state visit to Finland, visited the Hietaniami Memorial Cemetery in Helsinki and laid a wreath at the grave of Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim. A source in the Russian delegation explained to the correspondent of the newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” the motives for this action: “Marshal fought with us honestly, did not build concentration camps.”

The “unrelated” (mainly ethnic Russian) population was sent to the concentration camps. It should be noted that Mannerheim’s order was not fully implemented, as can be seen from the statistics of the population of concentration and labor camps. In total, 10 Finnish concentration camps operated on the territory of occupied Karelia, 6 of them in Petrozavodsk. During the years of occupation, about 30,000 people passed through them.

Due to the lack of soap and detergents for washing in baths and washing laundry, the people themselves and their clothes were forcibly “roasted”. For many people who were physically weak, this “roasting” became worse than many punishments. The procedure with steam and carbolka at high temperature lasted 30-40 minutes. Many failed and lost consciousness.

The prisoners were forced to take blood. There was a lot of evidence in that regard. Incidents of violence and abuse of prisoners were a daily occurrence. So, the manager of the bakery a certain Rachkala for the slightest fault put prisoners in vats with cold water. The Finnish doctor Kolehmainen, instead of treatment, often tortured people. Childless Finns, whose husbands died in the war of 1939-40, were allowed to adopt Russian captive children.

More often than not, they were punished for unauthorized exit from the camp. And because it was children and teenagers who were driven by hunger into the city in search of food that violated these requirements, they were also punished with the utmost severity. They put them in a cold box, beat them with rubber sticks, often even shot at them. Many children were injured and even killed. The camp guards were as sophisticated as they could in their abuse. So, Lieutenant Salavaara in Camp 2 drove sick people to work with the help of a wicker. Sergeant Veikko made the children whip each other with a whip.

Developing the ideology of Great Suomi to the Urals, the occupiers planned to evict the Slavic population beyond the administrative boundaries of the territory, which according to their plan would belong to Finland. Each prisoner has a personal card. It also took into account ethnicity along with other data.

Personal cards for persons of the first category were practically not started. As a rule, they were not accommodated in camps, but were simply in occupied territory, with appropriate passports and cards in hand for increased rates of food.”

Mikhail Marin, Petrozavodsk: Here everything was trampled, rammed and cemented with hundreds of boots and boots. It is not that the flower - the most unpretentious blade of grass had nothing to cling to, nothing to take root in. And suddenly a six-year-old resident of a concentration camp saw behind barbed wire this little beckoning miracle, a flower, which he did not know the name. And he reached for him, forgetting everything. Where was he in those moments to remember the strictest ban of the camp authorities: under the threat of shooting not to leave the camp. His dry, thin body slid under the wire; and then a hail of blows struck the boy. The guard's rubber wool only stopped dropping when the last signs of life had left his frail body.”

Arkady Yaritsyn, Petrozavodsk: Many years after the liberation, and now sometimes, as soon as I close my eyes, I see rows of barbed wire with sentries on the towers. In front of me are the skinny faces of women and emaciated men, children with extinct eyes, dressed in rags. I see a terrible sign with a shooting warning. From the house that still stands on Olonetska Street in Petrozavodsk, from time to time terrible cries came. They tortured and tortured people. Those guilty of violating the camp regime or those whom the guards considered as such at their discretion were brought there. The new executioners, regardless of maiden shyness, did not hear the crying of children, tore off their victims’ clothes and beat them with rubber lashes. Anyone could have been subjected to such a beating, for no one could have foreseen what the guard would attack.”

Vera Gavrilina, Petrozavodsk: Sometimes young people ask me what games did you play there? And I always say we didn't have a childhood in camp. We were little old men and old women, and we had the only "game" - hide-and-seek from guards and guards. Lived in the hope of liberation.”

None of the Finnish military accused of war crimes was punished for crimes against humanity and war crimes, unlike, for example, Nazi war criminals and collaborators from the Baltic republics and Ukraine, with the exception of those who found themselves in Soviet military captivity. Finland never extradited any of its Nazi criminals.