“Boiled alive”: new documents about the atrocities of the White Finns during the war have been declassified

A new historical and documentary exhibition, which opened in the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Archives, is dedicated to the Great Patriotic War – the variety of events of 1942-1944. at the front, in the rear, in relations between the allies… Among others, documents are presented that tell about the chaos that the occupiers committed in the occupied territories. Moreover, not only the Nazis distinguished themselves here, but also their most zealous assistants. Among them were soldiers of Mannerheim’s Finland.

At the stands of the just opened exhibition “The Great Patriotic War. November 19, 1942 – November 7, 1944” you can see a now declassified document – a memo dated July 28, 1944 from the Deputy Chief of the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army I.V. Shishkin, who headed GlavPURKKA A.S. Shcherbakov about the atrocities of the Finns in the occupied territory of the Karelo-Finnish SSR and part of the Leningrad region.

“GlavPURKKA, on your order, has collected extensive material about the atrocities of the White Finns in temporarily occupied Soviet territory.

…Numerous material has been collected regarding the brutal reprisals of Finnish white bandits against prisoners, especially wounded Soviet soldiers and officers. It testifies to the wild, barbaric tortures that Finnish sadists subjected their victims to before killing them.

Many of the found corpses of tortured Soviet officers and soldiers had knife wounds, many had their ears and noses cut off, their eyes gouged out, limbs twisted out of their joints, strips of skin and five-pointed stars cut out on their bodies. Finnish monsters practiced burning people alive at the stake.

Here is an excerpt from the report describing the corpse of an unknown Red Navy man:

“The corpse is lying on its back, naked. The left forearm was broken out of the elbow joint… The first and second phalanges of all the fingers of the left hand were cut out and lay side by side, the soft tissues were cut off. There is a deep wound on the right shoulder in the middle of the collarbone. The right hand is burned, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th fingers are cut out, the 5th finger is broken off and hangs on a thin skin… The eyes are gouged out, the stomach is ripped open… Face, head, neck, front surface of the chest, stomach, …lower back, hips, genitals significantly burned. From the above it is clear that the Red Navy man was captured wounded and subjected to cruel and painful torture, doused with a flammable mixture and set on fire…”

The extent to which Finnish sadists go to vile, sophisticated torture is evidenced by the act and resolution of the military investigator about the corpse of an unknown Red Army soldier found on the shores of Lake Ladoga on June 25, 1944, boiled alive at the stake in a large iron barrel…

…In “experiments” on Russian prisoners, they tried to establish how much air could be introduced into a person’s blood. This causes terrible suffering to the victims of the “research”, after which death occurs… They are also trying to find out how much narcotic drugs the human body can withstand.

…Soon after the White Finnish invaders occupied the Karelo-Finnish SSR and part of the Leningrad region, they drove most of the Soviet civilian population, mainly Russians, into concentration camps… Soviet citizens of all ages were kept in the camps – from infants to the elderly. The regime was essentially no different from the regime in concentration camps for Soviet prisoners of war: starvation rations, illness, dirt, beatings, abuse, executions. The regime in Olonets camp No. 8 and Kutizhy death camp was particularly cruel. Exhausted by constant hunger, people were forced to work 12-14 hours a day. No exceptions were made for patients or children.

Those who were unable to move were dragged to the place of work, and at the end of the working day they were again dragged to the camp. Beatings were common.

In the camps there was a whole range of different instruments for torture: whips, rubber clubs, gas mask tubes filled with sand. Torture was carried out alone and in groups. For failure to comply with excessive work standards, women and girls had their heads shaved…”

From a memo addressed to the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs of the KFSSR, State Security Colonel Nikitin, 7/26/1944 (spelling preserved).

“During the occupation, the German-Finnish invaders caused great material damage, … they treated the population brutally, and abused prisoners of war.

Der Yalguba. During their tenure, the Finns burned 15 residential wooden houses, burned two houses (used – A.D.) for firewood… From the houses of the evacuated population, all household utensils were taken to Finland…

Finnish authorities treated prisoners of war brutally. For example, … in the Zaozersky camp, eyewitness Mr. Gorbunov said: “In the winter, the Finns stripped prisoners of war naked for the slightest offense, beat them with whips, … set guard dogs on them and subsequently killed them … Art. State Security Lieutenant Kireenkov.”

Some of the sadistic occupiers were captured during the Soviet offensive. The well-deserved retribution to these “lawless men” in military uniform was provided for in a document originally marked “not for publication.” However, now the previous classification of secrecy has already been removed.

This is the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On punitive measures for Nazi villains guilty of murder and torture of the Soviet civilian population and captured Red Army soldiers…”, adopted on April 19, 1943

“In the cities and villages liberated by the Red Army from the Nazi invaders, many facts of unheard-of atrocities and monstrous violence were discovered, committed by German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish fascist monsters… against the civilian Soviet population and captured Red Army soldiers… Many tens of thousands were innocent guilty women, children and old people, as well as captured Red Army soldiers, were brutally tortured, hanged, shot, burned alive…

… Bearing in mind that reprisals and violence against defenseless Soviet citizens and captured Red Army soldiers … are the most shameful and serious crimes, the most heinous atrocities, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR decides:

To establish that German, Italian, Romanian, Hungarian, Finnish fascist villains convicted of committing murders and torturing civilians and captured Red Army soldiers … are punishable by death by hanging … “