Hennala camp

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Hennala camp
Concentration camp
Hennala 1918.jpg
Women inmates in Hennala.
Coordinates 60°58′05″N25°37′20″E / 60.96806°N 25.62222°E / 60.96806; 25.62222 Coordinates: 60°58′05″N25°37′20″E / 60.96806°N 25.62222°E / 60.96806; 25.62222
Location Lahti, Finland
Operated by Finnish Whites
OperationalMay 1918 – 15 September 1918
Inmates Finnish Reds
Number of inmates11,000–12,000
Killedc. 1,200
Notable inmates Ali Aaltonen †, Frans Myyryläinen, Fred Lindholm

Hennala camp was a concentration camp operating from the beginning of May 1918 to 15 September 1918 in the Hennala Garrison in Lahti, Finland. It was set up for the Reds captured by the White Army after the Finnish Civil War Battle of Lahti.

Contents

History

As the Battle of Lahti was over on 1 May, the German troops and the Finnish Whites captured about 30,000 Reds in the surroundings of the town. Most of them were fleeing Reds from the southwest part of Finland on their way to the east. The refugees included Red Guard fighters, their family members and other Red supporters. As the captured were guarded by only one hundred Germans and a couple of Whites, about one third of them managed to escape. Finally, approximately 22,000 Reds were gathered to the shortly-lived Fellman camp, located in the fields of the Fellman Manor on the outskirts of Lahti. [1]

Most of the women and children were soon released. The men and those suspected as female fighters were transferred to the Hennala Garrison, where the prison camp was established. As there was not enough space in Hennala, some of the captured Reds were moved to camps established in Helsinki, Hämeenlinna and Lappeenranta. [2] In Hennala, the total number of prisoners rose up to nearly 13,000, including 2,200 women and almost 300 children under the age of 15. [3] In the next five months, almost 1,200 prisoners died of executions, disease and malnutrition. [4]

Hennala camp was active until 15 September 1918, when most of the prisoners were released on parole. The camp was turned into a forced labour camp for convicted Reds, which was finally closed on 1 October 1919. [1]

Executions

Executed women in Hennala Executed Female Fighters.jpg
Executed women in Hennala

The number of Reds executed in Hennala was about 500, [5] at least 218 of them were women, the youngest being only 14-year-old girls. [3] A total of 13 underaged children were shot. [6] The largest single execution in Lahti was made on 9 May, when at least 100 Red women were shot. [7]

All those executed women did not belong to the armed guards, the victims included women who had only joined the fleeing refugees. Among them were pregnant women and mothers of small children.[ citation needed ] According to the diaries of the German officer Hans Tröbst, the women were shot with a machine gun in the nearby wood. [8] They were most likely raped before the execution. The executions were carried out by the battalion of the notorious Estonian colonel Hans Kalm who was interested in eugenics. For him, the Red women represented the lowest category of society. [9] One of the executed male fighters was the Red Guard commander-in-chief Ali Aaltonen who was shot by Kalm himself. [10]

Memorials

The killed Reds were buried into a mass grave in the Mustankallio Cemetery. The first memorial was erected secretly in the night before the First of May in 1929. The monument was soon vandalized and destroyed by the Whites. The present memorial was finally erected after the World War II in 1946, as the political situation in Finland had changed. Another monument was unveiled in Hennala in 1949. The third memorial is placed in the area of the Fellman camp, which today is a park in the western side of the Lahti city center. The monument is a work of the sculptor Erkki Kannosto and it was erected in 1978. [11] [12]

Importance

In the post-war decades, the Hennala camp has become the best known and most remembered prison camp together with the Tammisaari camp. Hennala has been described in several pieces of literature, plays, films and music. Even the Finnish painter Henry Ericsson, who served in Hennala as a guard, has described the languished prisoners in his etchings. [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finnish Civil War</span> 1918 civil war in Finland

The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic during the country's transition from a grand duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The war was fought between the "Reds", led by a section of the Social Democratic Party, and the "Whites", conducted by the conservative-based senate and the German Imperial Army. The paramilitary Red Guards, which were composed of industrial and agrarian workers, controlled the cities and industrial centers of southern Finland. The paramilitary White Guards, which consisted of land owners and those in the middle- and upper-classes, controlled rural central and northern Finland, and were led by General C. G. E. Mannerheim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Guards (Finland)</span> Paramilitary organization in early 20th-century Finland

The Red Guards were the paramilitary units of the Finnish labour movement in the early 1900s. The first Red Guards were established during the 1905 general strike, but disbanded a year later. After the Russian 1917 February revolution the Red Guards were re-established and in the 1918 Finnish Civil War they formed the army of Red Finland. The combined strength of the Red Guard was about 30,000 at the beginning of the Civil War, peaking at between 90,000 and 120,000 during the course of the conflict. The number included more than 2,000 members of the Women's Guards. In May 1918, up to 80,000 Reds were captured by the victorious Whites, 12,000 to 14,000 of them died in the prison camps due to execution, disease and malnutrition. A majority of the Reds were finally pardoned in late 1918.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Tampere</span> Major battle of the Finnish Civil War

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali Aaltonen</span>

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The Tammisaari camp was a concentration camp and prison in Dragsvik, Ekenäs in Finland. It was set for the Reds captured by the Whites in the 1918 Finnish Civil War. The concentration camp operated from May 1918 to 15 September 1918 when the majority of the captured Reds were released on parole. Tammisaari camp was then turned into a forced labour camp for convicted Reds and later in the early 1920s into a facility for political prisoners. Tammisaari camp was known as the most notorious of all Finnish Civil War prison camps. Between May and September 1918 nearly 3,000 of the 8,700 prisoners died of executions, disease or malnutrition.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Helsinki</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Viipuri</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Syrjäntaka</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Varkaus</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Lahti</span>

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The following events occurred in April 1918:

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Riihimäki prison camp was a prison camp operating in the area of the Riihimäki garrison after the Finnish Civil War in 1918. It held, at most, around 8 500 red guards. According to the war victims of Finland -database, a total of 981 prisoners died in camp, in result of executions, hunger and disease. The camp was closed down in October 1918, and the forced labour facility replacing it was shut down in the spring of 1921. The memorial of the prison camp is located in the Tienhaara part of Riihimäki.

The Harmoinen sick room mass murder was a significant incident in the Harmoinen village of the Kuhmoinen Parish that took place on 10 March 1918, during the Finnish Civil War, which according to the Reds met the criteria for a massacre. It took place during the Battle of Kuhmoinen, when the Whites executed 11 Red Guard patients and two male sanitaries. The Whites belonged to the 1st company and its battalion commanded by the Estonian born Hans Kalm. Kalm was not part of the incident and did not know anything about it, as he was engaged in the defense of the Kuhmoinen parish center at the time, against the Red Guards offensive in the direction of Jämsä. These claims are based on the stories by two survivors, reports by the Whites and other materials. Researcher of political history Jaakko Paavolainen thinks that "it is possible that shots were fired from the sick room, as the Whites have reported, but the claim that the snipers would have retired to the beds inside, is a rather fantastic one." There isn´t any clear evidence for the crime against any soldier of Kalm Battalion.

References

  1. 1 2 "Kevät 1918 Lahdessa" (in Finnish). Lahti City Museum. Archived from the original on 5 December 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  2. ↑ "Fellmanin pelto" (in Finnish). Finnish Labour Archive. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  3. 1 2 Lumme, Hanna (1 April 2016). "Tutkimus: Hennalan vankileirillä tapettiin mielivaltaisesti yli 200 naista – nuorimmat 14-vuotiaita" (in Finnish). Yle News. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  4. ↑ "Lahden vankileiri" (in Finnish). War Victims of Finland 1914–1922 Database. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  5. ↑ Siltala, Juha (2015). "Dissolution and Reintegration in Finland, 1914–1932: How did a Disarmed Country Become Absorbed into Brutalization?". Journal of Baltic Studies. 46: 11–33. doi:10.1080/01629778.2015.1009691. S2CID   143766323.
  6. ↑ Wall, Denise (29 March 2014). "Story of children lost in Finland's civil war". Finland Times. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  7. ↑ Lumme, Hanna (1 April 2016). "Tutkija: Totuus vankileirien kauhuista ei selviä koskaan kokonaan – 'Tilastoja kaunisteltiin'". Yle News (in Finnish). Retrieved 19 January 2017.
  8. ↑ Tröbst, Hans; Troebst, Mario (ed.) (2015). "Der Krieg im Westen" Band 6: Der Marsch nach Estland und Finnland. Der Krieg im Westen und das bittere Ende. Hamburg: Mario Troebst. p. 169. ASIN   B00SYVVEUW.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  9. ↑ Puttonen, Mikko (1 April 2016). "Tutkimus sisällissodasta: Valkoiset teloittivat yli 200 punaista naista Hennalan vankileirillä". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). Retrieved 19 January 2017.
  10. ↑ Smele, Jonathan D. (2014). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 83. ISBN   978-144-22528-0-6.
  11. ↑ "Punaisten muistomerkit: Lahti" (in Finnish). Finnish Labour Museum. 2006. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  12. ↑ "Fellman Park and the Monument to the Red Prisoners". Lahti City Museum. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  13. ↑ "Fragments of the Finnish Character – Finland's 100th Anniversary". Poikilo Museums. pp. 14–16. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  14. ↑ "Ericsson, Henry: Hennala Prison Camp I". Finnish National Gallery. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
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