Finnish-American, American born Finns, and other nationalities
Executed by the Soviet Secret Police
buried at Sandarmokh in Karelia
1937-1938

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   The remains of more than 9,500 victims of Stalin's purges have been found in a Karelian forest.  For six decades, it was believed that they disappeared into the Gulags (Forced Labor Camps) or simply vanished after midnight raids by the Stalin's secret police.

In July 1997 in the Sandarmoh woods near the town of Medvezhjegorsk (the 16th km of the Povenets road) the Memorial society expedition headed by Yuri Dmitriev found the secret burials of the victims in 1937-1938.  In all, 236 graves (shooting pits/ death trenches) were found.

According to Yuri Dmitriev, of Memorial's Karelian branch, the victims had been stripped down to their underwear, bound hand and foot, and lined up along the edge of the death trenches.  The NKVD executioners then worked their way down the line shooting the condemned, one by one, in the back of the head with revolvers.  They were victims of the Bolshoi Terror [or Great Terror] during Stalin's Purges, which were at their peak between 1937 and 1938.

According to the KGB archive data, from August 11, 1937 to December 24, 1938 more than 9,500 people of 58 nationalities were executed by shooting and buried in the death trenches.  The victims were Russians, Karelians, Finns, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Tatars, Udmurts, Jewish, Gypsies, Germans, Polish, Americans, and other nationalities.

In 1997 the Sandarmoh Memorial Cemetery was establish to remember the victims.

On August 22, 1998 the monument of the Petrozavodsk sculptor Grigory Saltup was unveiled.

The monument is a granite clod with sculptural bas-reliefs and writing:
 "People, do not kill each other"

 

Click on pictures below to enlarge viewing area.

The territory of the Memorial burial place	Memorial signs as grave posts	Photos in memory of people fallen dead	Photos in memory of people fallen dead	The Memorial Cross to the killed Poles	The Memorial Cross to the killed Samara Archbishop Peter
The Memorial sign to prisoners of the Solovetsky prison	The Memorial sign to the killed Jewish people	The Memorial sign to the killed Moslem people	The Memorial to the killed people of the Ukraine	The Orthodox chapel put up according to Voskresensky‘s project	The Orthodox Memorial Cross

    In August 1937, the NKVD ordered prison camp wardens to submit lists of prisoners they thought were still conducting anti-state agitation.  Tens of thousands of names were processed by the secret police and a three-man panel, called the Osobaya Troika or "special three," signed the death sentences and dispatched them back to thousands of Gulags across Soviet Russia.  The warrants ordered the executions of 4,500 slave laborers from the White Sea canal, 1,116 inmates of the Solovetskiye camps, and nearly 3,500 other Karelian political prisoners.  The victims were lawyers, school teachers, scholars, professors, ethnic minorities, religious leaders, university students, and common workers.

     A list of the names, biographical data, and dates of execution of 141 Finnish Americans executed and buried in a secret KGB mass grave at Sandarmokh in the Karelian Republic of the Russian Federation. Fourteen victims were American citizens by birth.  It is unknown how many of the others, who immigrated to the United States early in the twentieth century, were naturalized American citizens at the time of their move from the United States to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.

    The list of victims is based on the late Mayme Sevander’s research in archives in Petrozavodsk, Russia.  This victims of Karelia list was translated into English by Jukka Pietilainen and Carl Ross from a similar list found in the the Finnish language journal Carelia (issues 2-9, 1998) published in Petrozavodsk.

    The names in KGB archives are in Russian and follow Russian naming conventions which include patronymics. The latter, however, were not customary among North American Finns. To preserve the authenticity of KGB documents the Russian patronymics have been preserved, while the Finnish/English spelling is given in parentheses. Russian patronymics have double markers: OVA/EVA, indicating the possessive case; and ICH/vitš -- masculine, NA -- feminine. Thus, Ivanovich -- son of Ivan; Ivanovna -- daughter of Ivan.

    In addition to KGB and other archival records, Sevander made use of Yuri Dmitriev, Mesto Rasstrela Sandarmokh [Sandarmokh Is Where They Were Executed] (Petrozavodsk [Russia], 1999); Eila Lahti-Argutina, Olimme Joukko Vieras Vaan [We Were Just a Bunch of Strangers] (Turku [Finland]: Siirtolaisuusinstituutti, 2001); and Mayme Sevander, Vaeltajat [Wanderers].

Strange Journeys: The Forest of Ghosts

 by Peter Enright 

I travelled to Medvezhigorsk (Bear Hill) in Karelia, near the Finnish border to film a very moving mass funeral ceremony for the relatives of thousands of victims of one of Stalin's infamous purges in 1936.

Karelia: The Forest of Ghosts from E N R I G H T O G R A P H Y on Vimeo.

Finnish American
 Victims of Karelia List
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Victims of Karelia List (All Nationalities)