Both sides did not forget about those who did not return from combat missions. So, for example, on July 17, 1940, the Plenipotentiary Representative Office of the USSR in Finland made a request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Finland with a request to inquire about the presence of pilot M.I. Maksimov among the prisoners of war, who landed on February 21, 1940 Gulf of Finland". A similar request was contained in the appeal dated November 25, 1940 regarding the pilot N.A. Shalin, who made an emergency landing on the Finnish side on March 8, 1940. But to find out what happened to these pilots, apparently, after the passage of time or due to the lack of witnesses, it was not possible. Both requests from the Soviet side that we cited have a short and unambiguous note from the Finnish authorities: “There is no information about captivity.” This was conveyed to the Soviet commissioner. One of the special questions to which the Soviet investigators paid quite a lot of attention a lot of attention, there was the issue of beatings and abuse of Red Army soldiers in captivity. Former prisoners said that they were abused not only by Finnish guards, but also by some of their own comrades in captivity. According to interrogators, “Karelian prisoners of war” were especially brutal. Political reports noted: “The former junior commander, now a prisoner, Orekhov, having been captured, was appointed foreman of the barracks, he mercilessly beat prisoners of war... Didyuk, a Karelian, was a translator, beat prisoners of war... Gvozdovich from the city of Kalinin, was the foreman of the ward, beat his own people, took Soviet money, lost it at cards, bought himself a commander’s tunic from a captured commander<...>". And there are a lot of such testimonies. But still, this was not a system. Not all Karelians were traitors. It is worth considering under what circumstances this information was received. We can say with confidence that they really enjoyed some privileges as a “friendly nation "(according to the Finnish classification). And since many understood the Finnish language, they were appointed barracks seniors, translators and assistant guards. Operational work continued in the South camp. By June 1940, there were 5,175 Red Army soldiers and 293 commanders and political workers transferred to Finns. In his report to Stalin, Beria noted: “...among the prisoners of war, 106 people were identified as spies and those suspected of espionage, 166 people were members of the anti-Soviet volunteer detachment, 54 provocateurs, 13 people who mocked our prisoners, 72 voluntarily surrendered.” "For the security officers, all prisoners of war were a priori traitors to the Motherland. Senior lieutenant of the 18th rifle division Ivan Rusakov recalled these interrogations as follows:<... xx="" frets="" deutschland.="" i="" de="" jure="" facto="" sota="" imil="" ill="" lliiiji="" bjfy="">0-1". Died in the USSR 10443 MMNA Junior Sergeant Arvo Mathias Uusi-Kakkuri. MMNAEngfantllaislce pankkiporhojen k."skylilnen, Neuvovtovas-taisen sodan provokaattori.Ш Kulta, jonka Mannerheim saa Suom?j tyClalsten YaI ja talonoolkfen veresti.Soviet propaganda leaflet. Winter War. From the collection of D. Frolov Announcement of a lecture at the hospital for prisoners of war in Kokkola Camp UPVI NKVD USSR, Borovichi. RGVA Prisoner Juho Yaiuku. Died in captivity on 8/8/42 MMNA. Captured Finnish pilot Warrant Officer Teuvo Piiranen. Photo from the collection of Karl-Frederik Geust General Kirpichnikov during interrogation in Finland Announcement of a lecture at the hospital for prisoners of war in Kokkola. 1943 I.NKEDSSSR
30.08.2016 13:09
Young Finnish historians are actively working to eliminate the “blank spots” of Finnish history. As YLE writes, the topic of Soviet prisoners of war has been studied quite well, but a comprehensive academic study has not been written until recently - until the book “The Fates of Prisoners of War: Soviet Prisoners of War in Finland in 1941-1944” appeared. Author Mirkka Danielsbacka explores the reasons high mortality in Finnish prison camps.
During the war of 1941-1944, which in Finland is called the “Continuation War” (the name implies that the war of 41-44 is a logical continuation of the Winter War unleashed by the USSR in 1939), about 67 thousand Red soldiers were captured in Finland Army. Approximately every third of them, that is, over 20 thousand people, died in Finnish camps - a figure comparable to the mortality rate in German, Soviet and Japanese camps for prisoners of war.
Information about relatives who find themselves in Finnish captivity during the war, you can request by email: This address Email protected from spam bots. You must have JavaScript enabled to view it.. The POW file is currently in the National Archives. The bulk of requests are executed on on a paid basis.
Information about Soviet prisoners of war who died in captivity during the Winter War and the Continuation War and about civilians who died in the camps of eastern Karelia can be found in the created National Archives virtual database “The fate of prisoners of war and internees in Finland in 1935-1955.” " The information is compiled in Finnish; guidance for finding information is provided on the Russian-language page of the database.
On the website of the photo archive of the Finnish Armed Forces
Start -
Look which interesting photos
, despite the fact that only an idiot would deny the conclusion of the 1939 non-aggression pact between Stalin and Hitler, but other lovers of whitening the West constantly forget about the reasons, as well as previous agreements between Great Britain, Poland and others with Germany. By the way, it is still hidden - why the second person? fascist party Rudolf Hess arrived in England in May 1941. Again, these amateurs constantly post photos of Molotov and Ribbentrop. And who is this who is walking next to Mannerheim in 1942?
Hitler and Mannerheim in 1942
hence - "Forgotten. Finnish concentration camps in Russia in 1941-1944." http://gorod.tomsk.ru/index-1297965055.php
Collection of documents and materials 1945
REPORT OF THE EXTRAORDINARY STATE COMMISSION FOR ESTABLISHING AND INVESTIGATING THE ATROCITIES OF THE GERMAN-FASCIST INVADERS AND THEIR ACCELERATES
ABOUT THE ATROCITIES OF THE FINNISH-FASCIST INVADERS ON THE TERRITORY OF THE KARELO-FINNISH SSR
IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS FOR SOVIET PRISONERS OF WAR
IN TOMITSKY CAMP No. 5
Kotov Ivan Ivanovich, a native of the village of Plakhtino, Serebryaneky district. Smolensk region, showed:
“I was in Finnish camps for Soviet prisoners of war from November 4, 1941 to September 5, 1942. During this time, I visited the Petrozavodsk and Tomitsk prisoner of war camps. The living conditions of Soviet people in these camps are unbearable. The prisoners of war were kept in terrible unsanitary conditions. We were hardly ever taken to the bathhouse, and our linen was not changed. We slept 10 people in a room with an area of 8 square meters. As a result of these terrible living conditions, prisoners of war had a lot of lice. Prisoners of war were given 150 grams of low-quality bread per day. The food was such that prisoners of war had to catch frogs in the summer, secretly from the camp administration, and thereby maintain their lives. People ate grass and garbage from garbage pits. However, prisoners of war were severely punished for tearing down grass, catching frogs and collecting garbage from garbage pits.
Everyone was sent to work - both wounded and sick prisoners of war. In the camps it was introduced Slave work. In winter, prisoners of war were harnessed to sleighs and carried firewood on them. And when the exhausted people could not pull the cart, the Finnish soldiers mercilessly beat them with sticks and kicked them. I had to experience all this
to me personally in the Petrozavodsk camp, when I worked loading firewood into wagons.
The Finns also carried water and other heavy loads on prisoners of war. Every day we worked 18 hours a day. The prisoners of war in these camps did not have any rights; any of the Finns who wanted to did so beat them. Without any trial or investigation, innocent people were shot in the camps. The living, but exhausted, were thrown out into the snow. I witnessed the following facts:
In January 1942, Red Army soldier Chistyakov was beaten before the formation for finding a torn boot somewhere and bringing it to the camp location. By order of the camp commander, Chistyakov was stripped and beaten with rods until he was unconscious. The camp commander and the performing soldiers looked at each other and smiled after each blow. The blows were delivered strictly on time. One blow was struck every minute.
On April 29, 1942, in Tomitsa camp No. 5, prisoner of war Borodin was beaten to death by Finnish flayers.
In the first days of February 1942, in the Petrozavodsk camp, one of the prisoners of war was shot in front of all the prisoners of war because, while in the restroom for natural reasons, he lingered, as it seemed to the camp commander, too long. After the execution, the corpse of the prisoner of war was taken to a landfill and abandoned there.
In the first half of February 1942, I worked loading firewood at the Petrozavodsk station. At this time, two exhausted Red Army soldiers were being transported past the wood warehouse from the Derevyansky camp. Before reaching the warehouse, these prisoners of war, still alive, were thrown from the sleigh into the snow by a Finnish soldier and left to freeze.
In July 1942, during haymaking in Tomitsky Camp No. 5, for picking sorrel, a Finnish soldier set a dog on prisoner of war Suvorov, which chewed Suvorov beyond recognition.
At the end of July 1942, in the same camp, prisoner of war Morozov salted hay during haymaking and took a pinch of salt. For this, a Finnish soldier severely beat him.
In early August 1942, by order of the head of the Tomitsa camp No. 5, a pack of dogs was set on two prisoners of war (I don’t know the last names of the latter), which severely bit the Soviet people. The bandits then shot the prisoners of war, and their corpses were thrown into the camp for public viewing by the prisoners of war. Why these people were subjected to such monstrous torture and execution - no one knows.
In the same camp, prisoner of war Chum was beaten so badly in July 1942 that he could not get up. They beat Chuma, as the head of the camp announced, because he took potato peels from a garbage pit.
In April 1942, sick prisoners of war were brought to the bathhouse and put on shelves. A Finnish soldier scooped up boiling water from a barrel and began pouring boiling water over prisoners of war instead of a heater, as a result of which many of them were scalded.
All these atrocities against the Red Army soldiers were carried out by order of the camp commanders.”
AT CAMP No. 8062 IN THE VILLAGE OF KONDOPOGA
Fedosova Valentina Petrovna, from the village. Lisitsino, Zaonezhsky district K-F SSR, told
“I remember well that in February 1942 in the village. To Kondologa, the Finns delivered up to 300 Russian prisoners of war. They occupied the house in which we lived to house Russian prisoners of war. Subsequently, several more parties arrived at the camp. The camp was listed under number 8062.
I personally knew prisoners of war: I don’t know Valentin’s last name, I previously worked in Medvezhyegorsk, I don’t know Andrey’s last name, Estonian by nationality, who at first often visited our apartment, and subsequently washed in our bathhouse. From these persons I learned that there was a very difficult regime in the prisoner of war camp. The Finns starved, beat and shot Russian prisoners of war for the most minor offenses, in particular, for not going to work. I personally saw many prisoners of war who, from hunger and weakness, could not move and at work, staggering, fell. They were then taken on horseback to the camp and beaten there, which is why they soon died.
There was hunger in the camp. Working at the stock exchange, in the winter of 1942, I personally saw how Russian prisoners of war, warming themselves by the fire, ate dead cats, or walked through garbage dumps, pits and took slop, or rather all kinds of dirt, and ate it. In the summer of 1942, prisoners of war collected grass and ate. They found on the street various remains of meat from killed or dead animals, which stank strongly, and ate them. I also remember that in the summer of 1942, Soviet prisoners of war on two horses carried the dead meat of fallen horses to the camp. I then went to the store and saw this meat. Not only then, but even now, I get scared when I remember how people could eat rotten and strong-smelling meat. I asked the prisoners of war what they were carrying, the prisoners of war replied that they were carrying carrion and would eat it.
Soviet prisoners of war carried the meat accompanied by camp guards, who along the way laughed at the fact that Russian prisoners of war were carrying dead and terrible meat for food. The guards said: “The Russians will eat everything.”
I saw many times how at the stock exchange the Finnish guards Laine and Alatalo, the sergeant and others systematically beat Soviet prisoners of war to death.
One day there was a Soviet prisoner of war lying near the camp, who himself could not reach the camp. When I asked the guard Kusti Rautavuori, he replied that the prisoner of war had been shot. This was in the winter of 1942. After some time, I personally saw how the corpses of three executed Soviet prisoners of war were carried on horseback along the road to the village. New.
The Finnish camp administration was responsible for the mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war: Lance Sergeant Risto Mikkola, Lieutenant Virrankoski, Senior Sergeant Jaakko Alatalo, Senior Sergeant Saaristo and others.”
Kopylov Yakov Grigorievich, native of the village. Anfantovo, Prisheksninsky district of the Vologda region, said that on December 5, 1941, with the permission of the Finnish authorities, he settled in the village of Staraya Kondopoga. By this time, camp No. 8062 already existed in the village, which housed Soviet prisoners of war.
“As I learned from prisoners of war,” says Kopylov, “there were 750 people in the specified camp. The second small prisoner of war camp, with about 50 prisoners, existed since 1941 in the city of Kondopoga, in the house of Sunastroya, on Kommunalnaya Street. Prisoners of war from camp No. 8062 were used by the Finnish authorities for the most hard work: for rolling out, cutting, loading and shipping wood and firewood to Finland. Prisoners of war from the camp on the street. The Finnish authorities used communal services only for the repair of the railway track.
During the existence of camp No. 8002, I was acquainted with prisoners of war No. 22 and 596 (I don’t know their names). From these persons I learned that in camp No. 8062 the authorities had established a regime of terror and extermination of Soviet prisoners of war. They fed people in the camp with pieces of biscuits and water, and forced them to work a lot. Soviet prisoners of war were losing strength every day and could not work; most of them walked with the help of sticks. Many, many Soviet people were dying of hunger, and those who tried to eat dead dogs, cats and dead horses were shot by the Finnish fascists. I saw with my own eyes hundreds of exhausted Soviet prisoners of war who fell as they walked. Those who were lying down and could not get up were killed by the Finnish fascists. After much suffering they died of hunger: Borkin Alexander Vasilievich, former chairman Kondopoga artel
“Toy”, Vasily Lapin (I don’t know his middle name), a native of the village. Ustyandom, Zaonezhsky district; I don’t know the names and numbers of other deceased prisoners of war. By June 1942, out of 750 people in the camp, only 194 prisoners of war remained, the rest all died of starvation or were shot.
Executions of Soviet prisoners of war were carried out inside the camp. The dead were taken 1.5-2 kilometers from the village. Kondopoga on the road to Myanselga, or buried near the cemetery. When in the winter of 1941-42. mass extermination of Soviet people was carried out, then the dead were not buried at all, but were taken out and thrown into the snow. And only in the spring of 1942, when the dead began to spread cadaverous smell, the Finns removed the corpses into the trenches and covered them with earth. The arms and legs of the dead stuck out from many of the trenches. In 1943-44. The Finns buried all the dead in the village cemetery. Kondopoga.
Prisoners of war Boriskin, Lapin, Orekhov Alexander, for No. 22 and 596 and many others personally asked me many times not only for bread or potatoes, but also for dead cats, dogs, etc. I personally caught a dog and two cats for a prisoner of war for No. 596, Borkin Alexander found and gave the head of a fallen horse. In May 1942, I found a dead horse near the cemetery in the village of Kondopoga. This horse smelled of carrion, worms were crawling through the meat, but still I decided to tell the prisoners of war, who at that time were literally dying of hunger, about the find. Prisoners of war No. 22 and 596, together with their comrades, up to 15 people in total, carried out the meat and offal of a dead horse and ate them.
In the fall of 1941, residents of the village of Kondopoga slaughtered livestock and buried the offal of the animals on the ground. In the spring of 1942 (around May), I personally saw how a group of Soviet prisoners of war dug these offal out of the ground, washed it away and ate it. I must say that the offal was completely rotten and reeked of carrion. There were many such cases. It got to the point where prisoners of war were rummaging through garbage pits and eating | garbage without any washing or cooking.
I know from prisoners of war No. 22 and 596 that the camp foreman and the camp’s senior translator beat to death 30 prisoners of war who could not get up from their plank bunks to work in the morning. Anyone who did not rise, the Finns took and threw to the floor, and then finished off. I remember well how every morning the prisoners of war went to work, they all could barely move, and in the evening, holding each other, they returned back. In winter, most prisoners of war went out to work with sleighs to pull each other. Many people died on the road. The Finns took them outside the village and abandoned them. Almost every evening there were three horses carrying out dead prisoners of war. Finnish fascists often took prisoners of war
shot or beaten to death. One day one of the prisoners of war tried to escape, but he was detained. This man was beaten with a rubber truncheon so that all his skin burst, and he died a short time later. In December 1942, we found prisoner of war Ivan Safonov dead naked in a cement warehouse. The Nazis killed him because he could not go to work.
The culprits of the mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war are the head of the camp, Sergeant Tikkanen, who often personally shot, beat and tortured prisoners of war, a forest foreman named Virta, and others.
All these executioners went to Finland and forcibly took the remnants of the prisoners of war with them.”
July 21, 1944
IN PYAZHIYEVA SELGA
In the village of Pyazhieva Selge, liberated by our units, there was a camp for Soviet prisoners of war. In one of the barracks the following letter was found to the soldiers of the Red Army, which was forwarded to the editor by senior sergeant Korobeinikov:
“Hello, dear comrades. The sufferers of Pyazhieva Selga are writing to you. This is the third year now that we have enemies around us. I would like to describe in blood everything that we had to endure. Again we see terrible scenes of executions and beatings. All this was here in the camp.
For a person who has experienced the torments of captivity in the damned Suomi, hell with all its torments is not terrible. The Finns “put people on a hot stove, leveled the line of exhausted people with the help of a burst from a machine gun.
A wound on an arm or leg is considered our greatest happiness; it sometimes gives relief from back-breaking work, for which you get nothing except a beating. But it’s a disaster if the illness is internal. Such patients were dragged out of the barracks into the cold by the arms and legs and driven into the forest with blows. There were cases when the unfortunate people no longer got up from the ground.
I have to finish the letter so as not to arouse suspicion among the Finns. Comrades, dear, dear ones, help out the few survivors. We cannot escape from captivity. All attempts to escape so far have ended in execution. And since the front moved, we have been sitting hopelessly behind the wire, under heavy guard. We hope for you and are waiting for you, dear comrades!”
Red Army newspaper “For the glory of the Motherland” for August 2, 1944.
Silantiev, wounded in the leg, was captured by the Finns. After a successful escape, he said:
“On the cold, rainy days of November, prisoners were kept in the open air. The week dragged on so painfully. Then one group was transferred to a prisoner of war camp on the Shuya River. Here everyone was housed in dilapidated barns.
Early in the morning, when a half-drunk Finnish corporal with two soldiers appeared in the barn, all the prisoners were raised from the ground with blows from the butts and ordered to line up. Those who could not rise were pulled out of the barn and, amid the laughter and screams of the guard soldiers crowding outside, they were finished off with bayonets.
Those who remained were stripped of their Red Army uniforms, boots and all their belongings were taken away. In exchange, they gave me shabby rags and sent me to work laying roads, digging ditches, hauling huge stones. Waist-deep cold water, in the mud they were forced to work fifteen hours a day. The food consisted of one black dry Finnish biscuit weighing 100 grams, and several spoons of lukewarm slop.
The hard labor regime—15 hours of exhausting labor in unbearable conditions—is observed daily. When the working day ended and the prisoners were driven to the barracks, the guards arranged “entertainment” for themselves before going to bed. A corporal stood at the entrance to the barracks and took roll call. Everyone who was called out had to come to the door. He had to crawl back to his place on all fours. Those who did not obey were beaten with rifle butts and rods. Swearing and screams from the guards, beatings and other abuses accompanied every step of the Russian prisoners.
Winter came. In forty-degree frosts and snowstorms, prisoners were driven to work in shabby clothes, which were issued in November. The food remained the same, with the only difference that often instead of flatbreads they were given a handful of flour with bran and a mug of hot water. They slept on an earthen floor, on rotten straw, in dirt and cramped conditions.
During the whole winter we were never taken to the bathhouse. There was not a day when one of the prisoners did not die in the camp. They died from disease, from beatings from the overseer, from a bayonet blow from some Shutskor man who did not like the expression on the prisoner’s face. They died from exhaustion and the abuse of fascist executioners.
One day, the prisoner Belikov turned to the officer with a complaint about one of the guards. In the bitter frost, he took away from him the rag with which Belikov had wrapped his hands instead of mittens. The officer called the soldier over, told him about the complaint and ordered him to immediately “apologize” to the prisoner. They forced the translator to translate all this to the entire group of prisoners. They listened, not believing their ears. When the grinning officer finished this next mockery, he repeated the order to the soldier to “apologize,” and the soldier, swinging his hand, hit Belikov in the temple with the butt of his weapon so that he fell down dead.
Among the prisoners of war there were also Karelians. At first, the Finnish bandits tried to flirt with them. They were appointed as elders, requiring them to act as overseers and spies. But not a single Karelian wanted to be a traitor, and soon they suffered the same fate as the rest of the prisoners. They were treated with the same bestial cruelty as the Russians, they were mocked in the same way, beaten in the same way.
With a group of other prisoners we were driven to the Pyazhieva Selga camp. Here the work turned out to be even harder, the guards even more vicious. For every slow movement - a blow with an iron rod, for every word spoken to a comrade - a beating, for the slightest failure to complete a given “lesson” - deprivation of food. Here the cooks “entertained” themselves, handing out a thin, stinking stew once a day. Everyone who approached the kitchen with a mug received a blow to the forehead with a spoon.”
DEATH CAMP IN MEDVEZHYEGORSK
Outskirts of Medvezhyegorsk. On opposite side towns in the area of the sanatorium and military camp there is a battle going on. And it’s already quiet here. A huge camp stretched out in front of us—Russian prisoners of war languished here, Soviet people were killed and tortured here.
Two high fences, “densely intertwined with barbed wire, separated the prisoners of war from the outside world. The Finns spent many, many tons of wire on this camp.
Here is a separate barrack. Around him is a fence twice as tall as a man, braided with barbed wire. There are several more rows of wire behind the fence. This is a camp within a camp itself. There are small dungeons in the barracks. Soviet people were tortured and killed here.
Barbed wire at every step. It is intertwined with barracks and cells, paths and latrines. Wire and massive iron bars on the windows. Wire in the kitchen, in the “dining room”, where they fed rotten potato peels. Wire everywhere!
There's a stench coming from the barracks. Long rows of completely naked and dirty bunks. Here, in incredible cramped conditions and painful conditions, they languished soviet people. But now there is no one. We are looking for evidence of this terrible life. It cannot be that our people will not report anything about themselves. And we find it.
Here on the dirty bunks, in the gap between the boards, a small piece of paper sticks out. It is written in blood and tears:
“Dear Russian brothers! We are driven away from Medvezhka under escort in an unknown direction. Russian prisoners..."
Turn over the sheet. Continuation of the note. I can make out: “Avenge, dear ones, for us: Orlov, Alekseev, Nikitin, Yunov, Kulnuskin.
Leningrad, Mokhovaya, building 45, apt. 13".
This is obviously the address of one of those who were taken into slavery.
In another chamber, where there is not a ray of light, we find an old envelope. It says:
“Petrozavodsk region, Medvezhyegorsk. Russian prisoner of war Fyodor Ivanovich Popov lived here in captivity, 1942, December 16.”
In the dungeon, where the death row prisoners apparently awaited their terrible fate, the following inscription was preserved on the doors:
“I couldn’t bear the torment and killed the sergeant major. The Finns tortured me. This is where he lived and was sentenced to death for the murder of a sergeant major. Nikolai Kashirin."
We go around camera by camera. Here is one of them in the basement. A ray of light does not penetrate into it. The ceiling and walls are covered with barbed wire. This is a solitary confinement cell.
The torment and suffering of Russian prisoners of war knew no bounds. The Finns put the “disobedient” in chains. Here they lie - shackles for shackling hands and feet.
Mannerheim's scoundrels killed and hanged Russian prisoners of war. They built a mobile gallows for this. She appeared in one place or another in the Medvezhyegorsk region. Our officers Captain A.M., Krylasov, Captain L.I. Melentyev, Lieutenant V.A. Lukin discovered this gallows in the workers' village of Pindushi.
We did not see a single martyr from this camp.
All are stolen. Only things, documents and furnishings tell how our brothers languished in Finnish captivity.
Major L. Saksonov
IN LAKHTI, KEM AND FOREST CAMPS
Divnich Ivan Fedorovich, a native of the village of Yaroslavka, North Kazakhstan region, said on April 21, 1943:
During the six-month period of my stay in Finnish captivity, I visited three camps: Lakhtinsky transit camp, Kemsky and Lesnoy, located 300 kilometers away north of the mountains. Rovaniemi on the Petsam Railway.
In the Lakhtinsky transit camp, prisoners of war were housed in a car garage. This garage was not heated at all; people slept on damp ground.
Prisoners of war were not allowed to go to the bathhouse at all, as a result of which we had a lot of lice. In the Kem camp, prisoners of war were housed in a cold barracks and slept on bare bunks in three tiers.
In winter, Finnish soldiers, despite the fact that it was already cold in the prisoners of war quarters, opened the barrack doors wide open and kept them open for about two to three hours. As a result of such actions, sick prisoners of war died, and healthy ones fell ill and subsequently also died. It was so cold in the barracks that the prisoners of war had no way to dry their foot wraps.
In the Forest camp, prisoners of war huddled in a small forest hut. In all the camps I named, the premises for prisoners of war were kept in terrible unsanitary conditions. The linen was not changed. Prisoners of war were starved. Only 250 grams of bread were issued per day, and even that was mixed with sawdust.
In all these camps there was forced labor. People worked 16 hours a day. Everyone was forced to work, including the exhausted and barefoot prisoners of war. There was not a single day when one of the prisoners of war was not beaten. Prisoners of war were subjected to excruciating torture and shot without any guilt. In winter, exhausted people were thrown out into the snow, where they froze, and then special funeral teams created by the Finns at each camp stripped them naked and buried them in a trench. There was no medical assistance for prisoners of war.
Soviet people in Finnish captivity were doomed to starvation. Things sometimes got to the point where hungry people ate corpses secretly from the camp administration. This was the case in November 1941 in the Kem prisoner of war camp.
In the camps I indicated, there was a mass extermination of Soviet prisoners of war.
One day in November 1941, in the Kem camp, a team of prisoners of war was working near the kitchen, sawing and cutting firewood. I was also a part of this brigade. During our work, one Finnish woman came out of the kitchen, apparently working in the kitchen, approached the guard and, taking his rifle, took aim and shot at the working prisoners of war. As a result, one of the prisoners of war was killed and the second was seriously wounded. Seeing the result of the shot, the woman laughed, returned the rifle to the guard and went into the same room from which she had come.
In the same camp in December 1941, a prisoner of war named Abram, Finnish soldiers, by (order of the camp commander) for unknown reasons, took all the prisoners of war out in front of the line, stripped them naked, laid them face down on a wooden trestle bed, covered them with a wet sheet and then with steamed rods struck twenty times. During the beating, the camp commander looked at his watch. The blows were delivered strictly on time. One blow was struck every minute. After the beating, the Finnish soldier kicked the prisoner of war off the top-chan and, in an unconscious state, dragged him into the barracks, where he died a few hours later.
In the first half of January 1942, in the Kem camp, prisoner of war Timofeev (a resident of the city of Leningrad) was taken out of the barracks alive and laid on the snow, where he froze. Every night the Finns carried up to 10-45 exhausted and sick prisoners of war out into the snow.
In January, two prisoners of war, whose names I don’t know, were beaten in front of the formation for attempting to escape. After the beating, the Finnish soldiers threw the prisoners of war onto a car and took them outside the camp area, where they shot them. But, however, one of them was only seriously wounded and brought back to the camp.
The wounded Red Army soldier suffered for two days without any help, and then died.
At the end of January 1942, I was personally beaten because I could not go to work without shoes. After the beating, the Finnish soldiers suggested that I wrap my legs in rags and immediately go to work. I was forced to go out like this to saw wood.
In the Kem camp, at the end of January 1942, prisoner of war Gerzmala was shot. The reason for his execution was that he took potato peels from a garbage pit for himself.
The head of the Forest camp, drunk, entered the room where the prisoners of war lived and opened fire on them with a pistol. As a result of such exercises, he killed one of the prisoners of war, and seriously wounded the second, named Semyon. In August 1941, in the Lakhtinsky transit camp, Finnish soldiers, by order of the camp commander, went around the barracks, and sick prisoners of war were thrown face down from their bunks, and then doused with water, saying: “bring us to consciousness.”
All these atrocities against prisoners of war were carried out with the knowledge and on the orders of the camp commanders.”
IN THE CAMP NEAR THE TOWN OF PITKÄRANTA
Red Army soldier Sergei Pavlovich Terentyev, who escaped from Finnish captivity, spoke about the unbearable suffering of Soviet prisoners of war who languished in a camp near the city of Pitkäranta.
“In this camp,” said Terentyev, “wounded Red Army soldiers are kept. They don't find any medical care. All prisoners of war are forced
work 14-16 hours a day. The prisoners were harnessed to plows and forced to plow the land. We were given a mug of flour soup per day. Finnish executioners came up with something for us terrible torture. They surrounded the prisoner with barbed wire and dragged him along the ground. Every day the corpses of tortured Soviet soldiers are taken out of the camp.
Three prisoners of war, due to extreme exhaustion, could not go to work. The camp administration lined up all the prisoners of war. Three exhausted Red Army soldiers were brought and laid on boards in front of everyone. After that, each of them was given 50 blows with rods and thrown into the basement. The next day they were buried in the ground.”
CAMP IN THE VILLAGE OF SEMYON-NAVOLOK
A resident of the village of Semyon-Navolok, Vidlitsky village council, Olonetsky district, Zakharov I. G. said:
“200 Red Army prisoners of war were brought to the camp, some of them were wounded.
There was no medical care for the wounded, the bandages were made of dirty rags and bled, the prisoners were fed with uncleaned, half-frozen potatoes, 300 grams per person, and biscuits, with 30% paper mixed into the flour. The prisoners slept on bare floors and were tortured every day.
Over the course of 2 years, 125 out of 200 people died from torture, overwork, hunger and cold. The Finns took the remaining 75 people with them; those who tried to rest - the Finns beat them with whips, and those who fell from exhaustion were shot by the Finns.”
A resident of the village of Semyon-Navolok, M. I. Nikolaevskaya, said:
“In March 1944, the Finns brought about 50 dogs to the camp group. On the second day, a Finnish soldier led 2 prisoners of war behind a wire fence, and the second Finnish soldier released five dogs, which attacked the captured Red Army soldiers and began to tear their clothes. The unfortunate prisoners of war had nothing to defend themselves with, and there was no one to help them. |
PART X11. CHAPTER 2
Early in the morning they again read out the list of those mobilized, lined up, and we moved to the Gorky Station. There was already a train with freight cars there for us. I said goodbye to my wife; it was a separation from my family for 14 years. In the carriages where we were placed, they had previously carried livestock; the garbage was not removed, only two-story bunks were built. I got the top bunk, next to me was a young man, a 3rd year student at Gorkovsky Pedagogical Institute Gennady Knyazev. An artist from the Gorky Drama Theater was lying nearby, and along the window was a teacher from the Gorky Pedagogical Institute. Swaying rhythmically to the sound of the wheels, I tried to assess the situation. I was confident that in the long and difficult war with Germany, the Soviet Union would win. The sacrifices will be enormous: for the tyrant sitting in the Kremlin, people’s lives had no value. German fascism will be crushed, but there will be no strength to get rid of the Stalinist fascists.
Our train stopped in an open field near the town of Segezha. We were brought here to evacuate the Segezha paper mill, but it turned out that the mill had already been evacuated. We had nothing to do, we walked around the empty city, the population was evacuated along with the plant. We saw a lot of bomb craters. On the other side of the railway track there was a large Karelian-Russian village, in which there were also old men and women who refused to leave their homes. They said: “We want to die here, where our grandfathers and great-grandfathers died.” Cows, chickens and ducks roamed the streets of the village; chicken could be bought for pennies. We bought several chickens, immediately plucked them and roasted them over the fire. The train stood still for several days; no one needed us. The echelon commissar, a Gorky railway worker, tried to find our owner, Gorky refused to send us back. In the end, we found an owner, it became the 20th field construction of the Karelo-Finnish Front. It was located on the shore of Segozero. We were unloaded from the cars and driven to the location of the 20th field construction. The authorities ordered an overnight stay in the open air. Everyone was dressed for summer, I was wearing a light gray mackintosh. It blew from the lake cold wind, and I felt very cold. Knyazev also shivered in his cloak, his face turned blue. Everyone settled in for the night as best they could. Not far from the lake we found stacks of boards from which we built sun loungers.
We were driven from the village to Maselskaya. We were moving along difficult road, a lot of rubble, large and small boulders. These are traces of glaciers. Thoroughly exhausted, we reached district center Maselskaya. This town is located south of Segezha and southeast of Segozero. By this time, units of the Finnish army had already captured the city of Sortavala in the north of Lake Ladoga and the city of Suoyarvi in the northeast and were moving in the direction of Maselskaya. In this way, the Finns bypassed Petrozavodsk from the north. This is probably why the 20th Field Construction, using our detachment of Gorky militias, decided to strengthen this strategically important point. This was another stupidity of our “strategists”: the motley mass of Gorkyites, completely untrained, did not constitute a combat unit. All this testified to the complete confusion not only of the 20th field construction, but also of the entire Karelo-Finnish Front in the fall of 1941. We were put in charge of digging trenches and trenches; there weren’t enough shovels, so we dug in turns. When construction works were finished, a three-inch cannon was brought from somewhere, and we were given rifles. I was appointed squad commander. They brought us to our trenches field kitchen, fed hot cabbage soup with meat. The secret of such generous feeding was simple. At Maselskaya station there was an ownerless food warehouse, abandoned by panicked business executives. A lot of flour, pasta, and butter were stored in the warehouse. Units of the Red Army, mostly untrained youth, passed through Maselskaya. The soldiers were poorly dressed: old overcoats, torn boots, and Budyonnovkas on their heads. Many had chafed feet and could barely move. These are the units that were thrown against the Finnish army.
Suddenly a Karelian scout appeared and reported that the Finns were 10 kilometers from Segozero. Panic set in, and from that moment on the doctor didn’t show up, although Knyazev had a second attack of appendicitis, and my temperature stayed at 39-39.5. Early in the morning we heard noise, the stomping of people running, hysterical screams of women and children. Despite our serious condition, Knyazev and I got out into the street. We saw how large group people, among whom was our doctor, got into trucks with their children and things. Two loaded cars drove off, the last car remained. Knyazev and I asked to be taken in, but they told us that they imprison people only according to the list. Then we moved to Segozero, but we were too late there - the tug with the barge had already moved away from the shore, taking away children, women and a group of military men. Knyazev and I felt rejected. But something had to be done. We wandered to Maselskaya station. We walked along the shore, where did the strength come from? With great difficulty we walked about 5 kilometers and suddenly saw a line of soldiers dressed in gray overcoats and boots. We took them for our Karelian units. They soon realized that they were mistaken, they were Finns. Knyazev and I rushed into the forest and lay down in a hole half filled with water. They didn’t notice us; at that time the Finns were engaged in tugboat work on Segozero. Finnish officers looked at the tug and barge with binoculars, one of them shouted: “Moor to the shore, nothing will happen to you, you will stay in your place.” But the tug continued to move away. The Finnish officer shouted: “If you don’t stop, we will shoot.” The tug was moving away. Then the Finns began shooting at the tug with a small cannon and immediately hit the target. We heard the heartbreaking screams of women and children. Many threw themselves into the water. The Finns stopped shelling, the officer, who spoke Russian, said: “It’s your own fault.” Knyazev and I continued to lie in the hole, we even forgot about our illnesses. Looking out of the hole, I saw someone swimming up to the shore, but waving his arms in a strange way; he was drowning. I whispered to Knyazev that we needed to save the drowning man. Knyazev tried to hold me back, saying that the Finns would notice us. But I still crawled to the shore and pulled out a completely exhausted boy of 12-13 years old by his hair. We both lay down on the ground and crawled to the hole. Knyazev was right, the Finns noticed us. Several people approached the pit and, laughing, began shouting: “hu”ve paive (hello).” We stood up, water dripping from our clothes, our faces and hands covered in dirt. We were led out onto a wide asphalt road. Here I saw for the first time a regular part of the Finnish army. Several officers, dressed rather lightly, walked ahead, followed slowly by motorcyclists, and then a column of cars and trucks with officers and soldiers. On the road they gathered about 100 prisoners. We witnessed a funny scene. Among the prisoners was a Karelian coachman with a horse and carriage. The carriage was loaded with boxes of oil. The coachman, in a language understandable to the Finns, asked them to take the butter and let him go home. One of the officers ordered the oil to be distributed to the prisoners. The prisoners, among whom were officers, rushed to the cart, grabbed the boxes, angrily tore off the lids from them, began to greedily eat the butter and stuff their pockets with it. The Finns, seeing this scene, laughed. Gennady and I did not approach the cart. It was sickening to see all this. One Finnish officer came up to us, pointed his finger towards the stroller and said: “olka hu”ve (please take it).” I shook my head. Then one of the prisoners in a military overcoat ran up to us and tried to put oil in our pockets. I abruptly removed the hand of this helpful man. After this, the Finns began to look at me with interest.
PART X11. CHAPTER 3
Ever since the first war with Finland, provoked by Hitler, Soviet newspapers have been full of articles about the brutal treatment of Russian prisoners by the Finns, allegedly having their ears cut off and their eyes gouged out. I didn’t believe the Soviet press for a long time, but still, in some brain cells, suspicion was deposited towards the people who call themselves Suomi, that is, the people of the swamps. I knew well that Finland gave shelter to many Russian revolutionaries who fled from Russia. Lenin returned from exile through Finland. During the struggle against the tsarist autocracy in Finland, a strong social democratic party was formed and actively operated. workers' party. Lenin repeatedly found refuge in Finland.
In the previous chapter, I wrote that a group of prisoners ended up on the highway. A small convoy led us north from Segozero. Knyazev and I decided to run away, hide in the forest, and then get to Maselskaya or Medvezhyegorsk. They gradually began to fall behind the column, but the convoy did not react to this. We quickly lay down on the ground and began to crawl towards the forest. We walked through the forest for about two kilometers and unexpectedly came across Finnish soldiers. They surrounded us, we decided that this was the end. But two soldiers calmly led us onto the highway, caught up with the column of prisoners and handed us over to the convoy. The guards just shouted: - pargele, satana (damn, devil) - this is a common curse word among Finns. No one even laid a finger on us, only Knyazev and I were placed in the first row of the column. One of the guards pulled photographs out of his pocket and, pointing his finger at them, said in broken Russian: “This is my mother, this is my fiancée,” and at the same time smiled broadly. Such a scene could be mistaken for the fraternization of soldiers of enemy armies. We were brought to a village abandoned by its inhabitants. Not a soul on the street. They placed 5 people in each hut and strictly punished us not to touch anything in the huts. Our hut was in complete order, there were neatly folded pillows on the bed, on the wall there was a wooden cabinet in which there were plates, cups, pots, an icon with the image of Christ hung in the corner, with a wick in oil still burning on a stand under it. There are curtains on the windows. The hut is warm and clean. The impression is that the owners went out somewhere. There were homemade rugs on the floor, on which we all lay down. Despite the fatigue, I did not sleep, I kept thinking about escape. My train of thoughts was disturbed by noise; a new batch of prisoners was brought in; these were passengers from the tug that had been fired upon. Dawn came, the door swung open, and 4 Finnish officers entered the hut. We all stood up. One of the officers said in Russian that we should leave the hut because its inhabitants were returning to the village, rescued by Finnish soldiers after the tug was fired upon. We were placed in a large barn, where there were already several people. In the middle, a bandaged girl lay on the straw, moaning loudly. During the shelling of the tugboat on Segozero, this girl stood near the steam boiler. The shell hit the boiler and she was scalded by steam. The girl's face was red and blistered. The boy we saved ended up in the same barn; he rushed to me and with tears in his eyes said that his mother and sister were not saved, they drowned in Segozero. A Finnish officer came in and brought a large pot of soup and biscuits. The bandaged girl refused to eat and asked for water. Before going to bed, they brought a tank of boiling water and gave everyone two lumps of sugar. Knyazev and I did not sleep, my young friend asked me what the Finns could do to us. Soviet newspapers wrote that the Finns brutally dealt with prisoners of war. But so far we have been treated quite humanely. In the morning, 5 Finnish officers entered the barn. One of them addressed us in broken Russian: “Get ready, now we will cut off your ears, noses and gouge out your eyes.” We prepared for the worst. And then all the officers and soldiers standing near open doors , started laughing loudly. The same officer said: “Your newspapers are slandering us, portraying us as fanatics. We will not do anything bad to anyone, you are our prisoners, you will be treated as prisoners, you will work until the end of the war, and then we will send you to your homeland.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and began to smile. They brought breakfast: porridge, tea and two pieces of sugar. An ambulance arrived and took away the burned girl, two sick people and the boy we saved. He ran up to me and began to say goodbye with tears. I stroked his blond hair and turned away. It's always hard to see children suffering. Mental confusion and duality seized me in captivity, my thoughts were confused, I could not concentrate. I saw that the living conditions in Finnish captivity cannot be compared with the conditions in Soviet concentration camps. In Finland they did not mock or humiliate prisoners, but in their homeland they constantly make it clear to a political prisoner that he is not a human being, but a slave who can be treated as you please. But one thing constantly bothered me, and that was the Jewish problem. No people on our planet have been persecuted like the Jews. Is it because they did not want to bow their heads to stupidity? Is it because, having given Christians a human god, the Jews did not want to kneel before him, turned into an idol? Never has the Jewish question been so acute, one might say fateful. as after the Nazis came to power in Germany. I was tormented by the question: does democratic Finland really take the same position towards Jews as fascist Germany? My heavy thoughts were interrupted. Everyone from our barn was put into cars, and two Finnish soldiers got in with us. We moved along a wide asphalt road. There are many oncoming vehicles with soldiers and supplies. The driver of one of the oncoming cars threw two large boxes of biscuits onto the road and shouted something in Finnish. Our driver stopped the car, shouted for us to get off, pick up the boxes and divide the biscuits among ourselves. A small episode, but very characteristic. In the evening we arrived at the large Suoyarvi camp, where prisoners, military and civilian, were kept. Among the administration of this camp there was a small group of fascists who immediately showed themselves towards the prisoners. In the morning, all the prisoners were lined up in twos to receive breakfast. A group of fascists kept order, they shouted, demanded that we look at the back of each other’s heads and not talk. One prisoner, for unknown reasons, was out of action. One of the fascist officers shot and killed him. We all tensed up. But then something happened that was difficult for us to imagine. Let me explain something. In Finland, some citizens refused on principle to take part in the war. some - due to moral convictions, others - due to religious convictions. They were called “refuseniks” and were punished in a very unique way: if he was a soldier, his shoulder straps and belt were removed and, together with the deserters, they were placed in a separate tent on the territory of the prisoner of war camp. There was such a tent in the Suoyarvi camp; there were 10 people in it, tall, strong guys with meaningful faces. When they saw that the officer had killed the prisoner, these guys jumped up to the shooting officer and began to beat him, snatched his pistol, which they threw over the camp fence. The camp commandant, an elderly sergeant major, calmly walked up to the beaten fascist lying on the ground, picked him up by the collar, led him to the camp gate and kicked him out of the gate with a strong blow to the backside and shouted: “poisch, pargele, satana (get away, devil, devil) ." Then the commandant approached our line and loudly declared in broken Russian: “People like this fascist who shot are a disgrace to our people, we will not allow anyone to mock you, you are not responsible for your rulers.” The behavior of the “refuseniks” and the camp commandant made a very strong impression on me.
After this event, something became clear to me. It became clear to me that Finland is a country where compliance with laws is mandatory for everyone, that the Finnish people do not have roots for the widespread spread of the ideology of fascism and anti-Semitism. I realized that shameless lies were published about Finland in Soviet newspapers. A day after these events, the prisoners were taken to a neighboring village to wash in a bathhouse. At the bathhouse we were given fresh linen. After the bath we did not return to the previous barracks; we were placed in a large barracks, where there was not much crowding, although the bunks were double. I found myself on the upper bunk between Gennady Knyazev and Vasily Ivanovich Polyakov, a native of the city of Tambov. He was captured near Sortavala and said that the Finnish army occupied Petrozavodsk without a fight, but did not advance further, although the Germans demanded that the Finnish command move its units to Leningrad, which was surrounded by German troops. Somewhat later, I learned from the Finns that the deputies of the Finnish Sejm from the Social Democratic Party categorically demanded that the government be guided by the strategic interests of Finland, and not Germany. It turns out that the commander-in-chief of the Finnish army, Mannerheim, and the President of Finland, Rutti, were members of the “progressive” party, which arose during the years when Finland was part of Russian Empire. And what surprised and pleased me very much was the position of the Finnish government on the Jewish issue. Despite great pressure from fascist Germany, Finland did not allow Jews to be persecuted or discriminated against in any way on its territory. Moreover, Jews served in the Finnish army. In a situation where Finland was an ally of Germany in the war and when German fascism proclaimed the genocide of the Jews as the main direction of its activities, Finland's position required very great courage from its leaders.
Internationalist's daily allowance
TO
The story of the submariner Sergei Lisin, whom the Finns for a long time called their most important Soviet prisoner of war. In Soviet books it was described in a standard way: “concentration camp, famine, bullying by Finnish guards.” In fact, everything was not quite like that.Submariner Sergei Lisin noticed a gold Longines wristwatch in 1938, in a store on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. He then went to Spain to fulfill his “international duty.” group Soviet sailors They were taken to the Pyrenees by roundabout routes. First, on the ship "Maria Ulyanova" from Leningrad to Le Havre. From there by train to Paris. Then take an express train to the Spanish border. Then - on transfer buses to Barcelona. They spent several hours in Paris. It was only enough to walk around the center. Lisin saw the watch in an elegant window. They lay on a cream pillow in an elegant box. He couldn’t buy them then - there was no money. I decided to take it on the way back.
29-year-old Don Sergio Leon, as his Spanish comrades called him, spent six months in the Republican fleet and managed to serve as first mate on two submarines. It was not possible to sink anything, but military campaigns, emergency ascents and dives, maneuvers in dangerous places was enough. The Soviet military experts who commanded the Spanish submarines received good combat practice. It came in handy for them later.
The “internationalist volunteers” returned back to the Soviet Union the same way they came. Only in Paris this time we were delayed for a week - the consular department took a long time to process the documents. First of all, Diego Vensario (Sergei Lisin now walked with such documents) bought a watch with the saved daily allowance, and then went along the standard tourist route: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Montmartre...
Fast and Bold
During the Great Patriotic War, Lisin commanded the S-7 boat. He fought desperately, one might say brazenly.
One day he surfaced in Narva Bay and fired from an onboard 100-mm gun railway station and one of the factories. The German coastal batteries did not have time to uncover themselves, but the “seven” had already submerged and slipped into the bay. Some researchers claim that this was the first such attack during the Great Patriotic War. Then Lisin repeatedly approached the mouth of the Narova and repeated his number.
Another time, “S-7” surfaced opposite the Finnish coastal observation post in the Pavilosta area and, without giving anyone time to come to their senses, sank the transport “Kothe” with a torpedo.
A few days later, S-7 attacked the Finnish steamer Pohjanlahti. It was not possible to hit him with a torpedo; the commander missed. We decided to fire from the cannons. The main one, 100 mm, immediately jammed, and fire from the small 45 mm was ineffective. But the stubborn Lisin caught up with the steamer and fired at it until he turned it into a sieve and let it sink. Then it turned out that the Pohjanlahti was not transporting military cargo, but ordinary potatoes. But in that war, no one figured out before the attack what the enemy ship was carrying.
In addition to desperate courage, the S-7 commander had several signature tricks - masterly overcoming multi-stage minefields, complex maneuvers in shallow water, evading torpedo attacks and incredible tactical cunning.
Trap
"S-7" was repeatedly tracked down and fired upon, bombarded with depth charges and driven into minefields. But every time she managed to get out unharmed. But it was not possible to escape fate.
The submarine died in an absurd way. In October 1942, the “seven” scoured the Åland Islands in search of prey. On the evening of October 21, she surfaced to recharge the batteries and ventilate the compartments. It was immediately detected by hydroacoustics of the Finnish submarine "Vesihiisi" (Finnish - "water"). The Soviet submarine was brightly lit full moon and was a good target. The S-7 was shot at almost point-blank range by torpedoes. The boat sank within a couple of minutes.
Only those who were on the upper bridge were saved: captain 3rd rank Sergei Lisin and three sailors. They were pulled out of the water with hooks onto the deck of the Vesihiisi. The prisoners were dressed in dry clothes, splashed with alcohol and thoroughly searched. At that moment, someone took the gold coins from the commander’s hand. Parisian watch Longines.
Water
Perhaps there was betrayal in the story of the death of S-7. The commander of the Vesihiisi, Olavi Aittola, told his Soviet counterpart that he had long been waiting for his appearance in this area, in the South Kvarken Strait, because he knew exact time exit "S-7" from Kronstadt and monitored all its movements. Either the Finns managed to get hold of the radio encryption codes, or there was an informed spy at Baltic Fleet headquarters. In any case, soon two more were sunk in the same area. Soviet submarines, and this can hardly be called an accident.
Unfortunately for Sergei Lisin, in the Åland Sea he encountered a real sea wolf. Olavi Aittola was one of the first Finnish submariners and, absolutely, the most skillful and titled. Back in 1941, as the commander of the submarine Vesikko, he sank the Soviet steamship Vyborg with torpedoes. Then he placed many impenetrable minefields in the Baltic. Behind successful actions During the war he was awarded Finnish, Swedish and German orders.
After the attack on S-7, Lieutenant Commander Aittol was promoted - given an extraordinary rank and taken to a position first in the main operational group of the fleet, and then in the General Staff. Aitolla was never called anything other than the pride of the Finnish fleet.
POW Kettunen
In Soviet military literature, the captivity of Captain 3rd Rank Lisin and his comrades is described as if from a carbon copy: concentration camp, hunger, bullying by guards, liberation in 1944. The S-7 commander himself did not talk much about his stay in Finland. The full protocols of Lisin’s interrogations, although they were handed over to the Soviet side, are still in the special storage facility and have never been published.
Details, quite interesting, appeared quite recently. Finnish researcher Timo Laakso found the memoirs of a Finnish naval intelligence officer, senior lieutenant Jukka Mäkel, who led the “Lisin case.” Mr. Laakso shared the investigator’s memoirs with the family of the Russian submariner.
Lisin initially posed as a navigator officer during interrogations. But then they showed him Soviet newspaper with a photograph of “the hero of the Baltic, submarine commander Sergei Lisin.” I had to confess. The Finns were very proud that they were able to capture such an important person.
Jukki Mäkelä recalled that Lisin “for a long time was our most significant prisoner... For his achievements, he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He received this title recently, at the time when he was captured, and he himself did not know about it. We told him about this, and we can assume that this news brought him great joy.”
The attitude towards the prisoner was emphatically polite. Lisin was kept not in a camp or in a cell, but in a decent room in the officers’ guardhouse of the famous Katajanokka prison complex (now a hotel has been set up in the prison). The sergeant of the commandant's platoon, a former sailor, looked after him merchant fleet. Lisin sometimes somehow communicated with him in English and thus learned the news.
“As an interrogator, he was the most difficult person who visited us during the entire war... We nicknamed him Kettunen (from Kettu - “fox”), which was a translation of his surname into Finnish and reflected his character traits.”
The investigator noted that Lisin-Kettunen masterfully cunned and dodged during interrogations. He pretended to be ready to cooperate, but gave out information no more valuable than what was contained in standard maritime textbooks and instructions for submariners. Finnish counterintelligence officers quickly realized that they would not be able to extract anything from the prisoner, and closed the investigation. He was about to be escorted to the camp when the Germans intervened. They asked their allies to transport Soviet commander for interrogation in Germany. What the Finns happily did and forgot about Lisin. But in vain!
Returned to the Finns without an escort
In Berlin, Lisin-Kettunen was placed in a special prison for important prisoners. Many legends subsequently circulated about his stay in Germany. According to one of them, in the spring of 1943, in the Berlin Hotel Bristol, he was given a meeting with General Andrei Vlasov, who persuaded him to cooperate with the Germans. According to another, one day Lisin was taken directly to Hitler for a conversation. There is not a single documentary or witness evidence of this.
It is reliably known that the interrogations in the Reich naval intelligence were conducted by Werner Baubach, a former German naval attaché in the USSR. And then Lisin continued to act according to the Finnish scheme - he answered confusedly and verbosely, overwhelming the Germans obvious facts. Within a few days, German naval intelligence did not know how to get rid of him.
Senior Lieutenant Jukka Mäkelä fell into tetanus when one day the captain of the port of Turku called his office and said that a Russian officer had just arrived from Germany on the ship Gotenland (!). He allegedly showed up at the administration and persistently asked to contact the prison in Helsinki.
“He insisted that he knew me and that he had important business with me. This seemed like a complete fabrication to me. “What is the prisoner’s name?” - I was curious. "Yes! Wait a minute! He is standing next to me. His last name is Lisin."
A few hours later, the “returnee” was already sitting in his room in Katajanokka and telling how he had been “conning the Germans” for two months.
“Talking, Kettunen could not hide his mocking smile and mischief brown eyes. He carefully thought through the position, which was formed from the fear of torture. And he applied it to the Germans: he is a prisoner of the Finns and belongs to the Finns. First, you need to treat him in a businesslike manner. Secondly, he does not have time to stay in Germany. Finnish maritime intelligence has questions for him every day - technical and related to terminology. How will they cope without him if he is away in Germany?
Lisin's personal propaganda had results. The attitude towards him was impeccable, and since Kettunen endlessly talked about his belonging to the Finns, the Germans quickly got tired of him and they sent him to Turku on the next merchant ship. Even without an escort.”
Liberation
The cunning Russian submariner was soon transferred to officer camp No. 1 in Köuliö. After some time, there was unrest there, and Sergei Lisin was recognized as one of the instigators. Now it's really come Hard times- hunger, beatings, punishment cell for any offense. Lisin-Kettunen, however, did not change his principles - he behaved independently, demanded respect and, disdaining all “degrees of intimidation,” categorically refused to go to any work.
Despite the ostentatious disobedience of the camp administration, the Finns never handed over the obstinate prisoner to the Germans. Although they repeatedly demanded him for interrogation again. Before last day war, Finnish naval intelligence was proud of its unusual ward, and investigator Jukka Mäkelä wrote quite friendly words about him.
“I have memories of Lisin as a good officer and a competent ship commander. Although he talked about both during interrogations, it was clear that he did not give out all the information.”
Box with pillow
Finland left the war on September 19, 1944, when an armistice with the USSR was signed in Moscow. Sergei Lisin was released from the camp on October 21, 1944. He was in captivity for exactly two years. Day after day. After his release from the Finnish camp, he was placed for three months in a domestic one - in a special NKVD camp in Podolsk, for special testing.
By and large, nothing good was in store for him - the attitude towards those who were captured was then simple: right, wrong - welcome to the Gulag. But Lisin was lucky again.
Firstly, the special officers found the protocols of his Finnish interrogations, from which it became clear that he did not betray his homeland. Secondly, influential acquaintances stood up for the S-7 commander. When Lisin's wife, Antonina Grigorievna, was informed that her husband was alive and was being checked by the NKVD, she turned to an old family friend, a high-ranking officer of the People's Commissariat Navy. He helped the submariner get out of the camp.
The case ended with complete rehabilitation and restoration of rank with the return of all awards.
Captain 3rd Rank Olavi Aittola also went through verification - from 1944 to 1947, a control commission under the leadership of Zhdanov worked in Finland. He managed to avoid arrest and repression. In the late 40s, Aittola retired and went to work in the film industry. I have been on business trips to the USSR many times. I kept a photograph of Sergei Lisin at home, but never talked about my victory over S-7, or about the war in general. With orders and regalia after the Second World War, he appeared in public only once - when in 1973 his first boat, Vesikko, was raised on eternal parking in Helsinki.
Sergei Prokofievich Lisin had almost nothing left in memory of his military adventures. Only the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, a couple of orders and a receipt and a box with a cream pillow from the Longines store in Paris. The Finns never returned his gold watch.
How the Soviet-Finnish war began and when it ended
After secession from the Russian Empire in 1917, Finland could not find mutual language with his revolutionary neighbor. Periodically, the problem of disputed territories arose; Finland was pulled over to their side by both the USSR and Germany. As a result, this resulted in the so-called Winter War. It lasted from November 30, 1939 to March 13, 1940. and ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. The Finns lost part of their territory along with the city of Vyborg.
A year later, in 1941, the armed forces of Suomi, which became an ally Nazi Germany, set off to conquer their native and not so lands. The “continuation war,” as it was called in Finland, began. On September 19, 1944, Finland withdrew from the war with the USSR and began military operations against Germany.
Reference
USSR submarine fleet in the Baltic during the war
Baltic submariners destroyed 144 enemy transports and warships (torpedo and artillery attacks, as well as explosions on exposed mines, are taken into account). Soviet losses submarine fleet for the period from 1940 to 1945 there were 49 submarines (exploded by mines, sunk by the enemy, blown up by crews, missing in action) .
Igor MAKSIMENKO