A - Ammuttu, Frank, executed 22 April 1938. My grandmother's family The Heino's consisting of her father Frank, mother Justina, her brother Walter and her sister Alice were never heard from. My grandmother passed away in 1998 and never gave up looking for them. She knew that her father had been executed, but just found out about 10 years before her death. Information provided by Cheryl Carmichael 3/11/09.

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I am the grandson of Frank & Justina Heino.  He emigrated to the Soviet Union with his children Alice & Walter as well as my father Carl Heino and Arvid & Martha Tieva and their two daughters Florence and Violet. My father had just turned 17 when they emigrated.  When he turned 18 he immediately started the procedure to return which he did prior to the start of World War II.  Martha Tieva was Frank and Justina's daughter so Arvid was their son-in-law.  Fortunately they and their daughters also returned to the US as well.  Several years ago my daughter went to Russia and did some research on the family and learned that Uncle Walter was killed fighting for the Soviet Union defending Leningrad against the Germans.  I would very much like to make contact with Cheryl Carmichael who submitted information about the Heino family to this website on 3/11/09, we must be related and we can exchange information.  We also have some letters from Justina she may be interested in knowing about.  Information provided by Frank Heino 8/31/2011.   

R - Returned, Lauri and Sylvi Hokkanen, a young, recently married second generation Finnish American couple also caught "Karelian fever." She had taught in a one-room school for a few years and he had worked in the woods, owned a little sawmill and a grain grinding mill. So in spite of the Great Depression, they were surviving rather well on Sugar Island, a small island in the St. Mary's River near Sault Ste. Marie. They were hall Finns, attending all through their childhood a variety of activities at the leftist hall, including political lectures by Communist leaders. Lauri and Sylvi left for Karelia in 1934, when "Karelian fever" had just about subsided. There was no band, no singing of the Internationale, no waving of red flags when their little band of less than a dozen boarded the ship, Smolny, for the journey across the ocean to Karelia. They really didn't have much to take with them except for a Simmons hide-a-bed and Lauri's tools, but they were young and strong. Upon arrival, they were assigned to a lumber camp in Uhtua, north of Petroskoi, There the bedbugs made sleep almost impossible. They did a variety of types of work. Sylvi, the former teacher, drove a horse around and around in a circle to turn a mixer to make brick slurry. She also served as a cook for log drivers downstream. Cooking was not a difficult task, for so few foods foods were available. They had porridge for breakfast and soup made of canned meat and dried potatoes for the other two meals. Sylvi hoped to teach in Karelia and was therefore pleased to be given an opportunity to attend a teachers' college in Petroskoi where she majored in Finnish and Finnish literature. She also had to study the Russian language and Russian literature and history, and philosophy—the philosophy of Communism. The most surprising course requirement was "War Study," which entailed a study of the rifle and rifle practice to get them ready for the final conflict with "capitalist exploiters." Lauri left the sawmill where he had been employed, accepting a transfer to a ski factory in Petroskoi. His skill in auto and marine engine repair was valued as was his ability to play the trumpet in the ski factory band. They lived in a barracks where they had their own cubicle for six years. They suffered long queues to buy whatever food might be available, and rued the lack of privacy. Sylvi had to get a Russian passport to continue with schoolwork, so almost unknowingly they gave up their U.S. citizenship. In the fall of 1936 she began teaching, earning 1,000 rubles per month, two times as much as her husband earned with all of his overtime. But her job of teaching Finnish literature and language ended abruptly just a year later when all Finnish language activities and materials were banned. So she got a job teaching in an all-Russian school. But it was an unmitigated disaster, for her Russian language was not acceptable. Late in 1937, a friend of theirs was arrested and taken away. Why? They were afraid even to speculate. In 1938 the same thing happened to many Finns and Finnish Americans whom they knew. The wives of many were transported to an island in Lake Onega and put to work in the lime quarries, and some were simply turned out of their homes and told to get out of town, e.g. Laila Korpi. The Hokkanens decided it was time to go home. They told the Soviets that their parents were ailing and needed their help. Surprisingly, they received permission to leave. They knew of only one other similar request that was granted at that time. A war was raging in Europe, so they came back to Sugar Island by way of Japan. They were permitted to take only twenty American dollars with them and their personal belongings, which consisted mainly of old clothes. After six-and-a-half years in Karelia that wasn't very much to have saved. They visited their folks on Sugar Island but then went to Detroit where Lauri got a job in a tool and die shop where he worked for twenty-nine years until his retirement, at which time they moved back to the island. They didn't talk much about their experiences in Karelia either, thinking that people might not be interested or perhaps, like Lauri's mother, simply did not believe what they said. In 1991, their daughter, Anita Middleton, helped them recall that time of their lives and publish a book, Karelia, a Finnish-American Couple in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941.
Sylvia Kinnunen, Marquette Monthly October, 2000