| By the early 1990's a small group of Finnish Americans survived. Most had made their way back to Petrozavodsk after World War II. The city had been evacuated with the approach of a Finnish occupying army in 1941. By the early 1990's they had resided in the Soviet Union for nearly 60 years and had families who knew no other world than that of the Soviet Union. But the survivors of Karelian fever remained, for the most part fluent in English and retained vivid memories of childhoods spent in Canada, the upper Midwest, or other areas where Finnish American communities could be found such as Fitchburg, Massachusetts or Astoria, Oregon. Because of their years of isolation, their language probably constitutes a pure form of American English from the 1930's. As a group they remained active, contributing members of their community. Ruth Niskanen, for example, still worked as a translator in Petrozavodsk for Russians needing translations of English or Finnish texts. As a group they also rarely exhibited bitterness at the hardships they had endured or the betrayal of their parents' ideals. Such vigor and good spirits may well be a key to their longevity. The interviews you will observe below were conducted in the summer of 1993 in Petrozavodsk. Some of the interviews with Ruth Niskanen and Ernest Hoppaniemi were also conducted on Joensuu, Finland in 1996 |
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Allan Sihvola, originally from Warren, Ohio, came with his family to Karelia in 1931. His father had been a radical labor union activist after immigrating to the U.S. from Finland in 1920. Before that he had been a Red Guard in the Finnish civil war and had sought sanctuary in the U.S. In Ohio he joined the the Finnish Worker' Party, a branch of the American Communist Party. He brought his family to Karelia in 1933. Allen was drafted into the so-called Kuusinen Army, formed to occupy Finland during the Winter War. Allen was arrested while serving with the army and sent to a labor camp whose inmates had been sent to the front. He survived only because he brought his trumpet with him and played in the camp orchestra.. He now resides in Finland.
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Tony Rauhala came as a boy from the U.S. with his family to Karelia in 1931. He was arrested in 1937 in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia. In the police station he encountered numerous other Finnish Americans, who had been arrested in the past several days. Members of the city orchestra, nearly all of whom were Finns, advised him to confess to participation in a conspiracy. Tony then revealed to his interrogators that he had engaged in sabotage in the electrical plant where he worked. He was not released until 1946. He spent 33 years as a driver for geological expeditions in Karelia. He now resides with his wife Florence in Petrozavodsk. |
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Impi Vaukhonen came with her family to Karelia from Sudbury, Canada in the early 1930's. She married a Finnish American named Speck Rintala, who had been a tenor sax player in New York in the 1920's. He had likewise been recruited to come to Karelia. He became a Soviet citizen. As his wife she automatically acquired Soviet citizenship. Her family was able to receive permission to return to Canada. Because she was a Soviet citizen, she could not. In 1997 she was finally able to join her sister in Sudbury. |
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Ruth Niskanen from Bemidji, Minnesota, came with her family to Karelia in 1931. Her parents had been Communist activists. Ruth had attended Young Pioneer camp in northern Minnesota. Karelian fever gave her parents a chance, so they thought, to provide their children with a free education in the Soviet Union. Ruth's step-father survived incarceration, arrested for his Finnish nationality, only to commit suicide in 1945 disillusioned with the Soviet Union. Her mother died of starvation in the war. Her brother, Raymond, died at the front fighting in the Soviet army. Shortly after the family arrived in Karelia, Raymond, a gifted student of mathematics, had constructed a telescope and entertained the neighborhood children with it on starry nights. The barracks janitor, an informer for the secret police, had solemnly told the family, "Your children are smart. You will not be touched." No one in Ruth's family was arrested in the Terror. Ruth, like her brother, served in the Soviet army. She may be the most highly decorated Minnesota veteran from World War II, although having seen service in the Red army. She lives with her husband Ernest Haapaniemi in Joensuu, Finland, having left Karelia in 1996.
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Kaisa Siimis came from Finland to the U.S. in the 1920s where she worked as a laundress in Detroit. She never learned to speak English. She married a Finnish American communist and Karelian fever brought them to Karelia. After her husband was arrested she began a relationship with a member of the NKVD or secret police. He too was arrested. In 1938 in the midst of waves of arrests in the Soviet Union known as the Great Terror, which in Karelia targeted Finnish Americans, the Finnish language was outlawed. Kaisa and her daughter along with other women and children of the Finnish American community were exiled to Lyme Island north of Petrozavodsk. Kaisa made her way back to Petrozavodsk. When she tried to obtain a residence permit for Petrozavodsk she was told to live in the forest because as Finn "she was an animal." She was able to find a Russian woman who was willing to rent her a room.. Her daughter became a doctor, but the early hardships of her childhood took their toll and she committed suicide. Kaisa now resides in Finland. |
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Ledger book purchased in a Duluth, Minnesota
stationery store. It contains the minutes of meetings and financial
records of the Finnish Working Men's Association which met weekly
on East Sixth Street in Duluth through the 1920's. The members
would have been Finnish speaking, and probably communists or
sympathetic to the communist cause. More particularly Karelia,
rather than the Soviet Union, would have been the focus of their
attention as the |
Ernest came as a boy with his family to Karelia in 1931, having
been raised before that in the copper country of Michigan. Ernest
helped to establish the first radio and then the first television
station in Karelia. Ernest's contributions were typical for Finnish
Americans in Karelia. The North American Finns brought to the
region new technology for harvesting timber, crop production,
construction, and paper production. North American Finns built
the first sewage system in Petrozavodsk and constructed the town's
first sidewalk, the children joining to nail down the boards.
Ernest, along with his wife Ruth, was instrumental in organizing
an 
place
where the socialist experiment was succeeding. In the course
of the 1920's, they would have made contributions to Karelia
through Gylling's Finnish American representatives in the U.S.
It was these people whom Gylling's recruiters sought to bring
to Karelia starting in the early 1930's. The Finnish Working
Men's Assoc. brought their ledgers with them to Karelia. They
can be found in the Karelian State Archive in Petrozavodsk.