"This is what really happened." "The 1st battalion had had no food for a couple of days." "The only road leading to their positions - led under the very noses of the 2nd battalion." "The crossing was also under the sights of the Russians." "We didn't have the courage to charge over open fields - without the support of artillery and tanks." "Then she appeared - the woman from the volunteer services, with a horse cart." "She said she was taking soup to the men." "We told her she was crazy to even think about it." "But she took the reins, - threw the driver from the cart and lashed the horse." "And so she drove on alone, in a crouch, hair streaming." "First she drove to the crossing - then along the ridge under the eyes of the Russians - until we could see her no more." "Two armies stared flabbergasted after her." "Not a shot was fired." "We just cheered her on, the 1st battalion got their soup - and the war could go on again." "This happened on 6 Sept. 1941, - she was decorated on the 18th." "Why has no one written about this?" "It has bothered me for 40 years." "Signed:" "MU, Tampere." "WOMEN IN WAR" "I think there were 3 or 4 of us in the tent." "One day a soldier came over to us." "He said I'd been ordered - to take food to the front." "Major Viiininen had assigned the job to me." "I couldn't say no, of course." "I was the youngest one there." "Maybe the major thought I was the bravest." "The soldier got a horse and cart, and so we went." "I remember there were cans and foodstuffs on the cart." "It was a two-wheel cart." "Whose turn is it to take the food?" "It's your turn today." "Sure!" "Why don't you go for once and see what it's like?" "Get the hell down from there!" "No." "I'll do it this time." "When we got to the edge of the fields, a soldier stopped us." "He said..." "I can't remember his exact words." "He told us not to go on, - the Russians were right on the other side of the ridge." "Then I heard a bullet whistle by my ear." "But I had been charged with taking the food to the men - so I must've done like they wrote in the magazine:" "lashed the horse and pushed the driver away, - because he wouldn't have come, and drove to the command post." "Don't be scared!" "It's not up to us, we're in His hands now." "It wasn't my decision to go so near the enemy lines." "Maybe the Russians saw that I was a woman " "because they didn't shoot once." "When we arrived there was shooting, but then there was nothing." "I was allowed to drive up to the hill in peace." "Then a grenade was fired at the house that I entered - and then the artillery started firing." "Weren't you afraid?" "At least I can't remember to have been." "I had a duty to do and I just performed it." "Offices of the Women's Auxiliary Services are like a military HQ." "They administrate the women's extensive provisioning activities - and co-ordinate their liaison work in the theatre of operations." "Women arriving here are assigned field duty, - they are directed to their posts around the area." "Where are you going?" "Carelian Isthmus?" "Karhumiki?" "Your orders can take you anywhere." "There are many places and many duties for women to perform." "I was a farmer's daughter." "Our house was on the opposite side of the lake from Suistamo village." "When the Winter War broke out I was 17, living at home." "We didn't know how to take cover." "When you're afraid you don't really know..." "Someone hid his head in a cupboard." "When the raid was over - one crawled out from the corner, another from under the bed." "The important thing was to get your head in cover." "Afterwards we laughed:" "is this what it's like?" "The bombs fell quite near, - but luckily none hit the house." "It was a comic situation." "When the situation was critical, we just hid our heads." "When it was over we laughed - was that it?" "We were scared afterwards, but not so much." "You couldn't be afraid all the time." "It was then that I joined the women's services, I was 17." "I worked in the canteen in the village." "We supplied provisions to the home guard." "Recipe for cabbage soup:" "155 heads of cabbage are cleaned and sliced." "They are cooked in 595 litres of water with 5 kg of salt." "2V: whole carcasses of calf are cleaned, cut and added to the soup." "The soup is skimmed and 400 gr of pepper is added." "The soup is covered and left to simmer." "This will feed 850 men." "When I came home on a visit - the mood was dejected because the men were on the front." "I felt I was privileged that I could be where the action was." "On the front nobody was depressed." "The boys were young and cheerful." "They just charged ahead." "They weren't scared by death, that's how it seemed at least." "All over Finland, front lines and at home - the women's auxiliary services watch over our air space." "Night and day, winter and summer, in rain and in sunshine." "Observation posts like this can be found everywhere:" "near cities, in the islands, far away in the wilderness." "When planes are spotted, - a report is calmly sent to the air defence centre." "The type, number, altitude and direction of the planes - is quickly sent everywhere, and alarm sounded whenever necessary." "I remember one case..." "They had made dugouts for us " "I re-learned that word the other day, - deep holes dug in snow." "I had to stay there for 12 hours at a stretch." "I was given some food and a greenish rucksack." "I still remember what was in it:" "something to read, a book." "Pulp magazines, they used to cost 5 marks apiece." "We gave them all to hospitals after the war." "Stories about the Wild West, stuff like that, for reading." "Of course there wasn't planes all the time." "One day someone said:" ""It's such a beautiful day, let's go skiing."" "So we put on white clothes and started off." "Right then they started bombing the A.A. centre - and our dugouts." "They monitored our movements very closely, you see." "We were counting all the time." "We had to count the planes as they flew over us." "We were stationed near Lieksa and we could hear - them warming up their planes on the other side of Lake Lieksa." "Our enemies, the Russians!" "Preparing to fly to western Finland, for example." "Very often they just flew over us." "Were you ever afraid?" "It's funny, I don't think you have fear when you're young." "When my first child was born I began to fear for him." "A woman changes when she gives birth." "We have a book about it, too." "Yes, I know." "Our grandchildren have asked - from some younger person, a mother about your age:" ""Were you in the war?"" ""Our Grandma was in the war, she was decorated for bravery.'" "Women in air defence and in communication duties, - we couldn't just leave when it started crashing." "You know what I mean?" "Bombs exploding and planes shooting people." "We couldn't leave, we had to stay put." "I think it should be remembered." "Women in other branches were also important - but they could just leave while we had to stay." "Communications are the nerves of military operation." "Without rapid communications the command would be blind and deaf." "A rapid signal, a quick message - is as important as any other well performed operation." "In many telephone switchboards women fulfill an important duty - day and night." "Before the training course - they wanted me to give a pledge that I would go." "And I did it after thinking about it for 3 days." "I didn't have a family, I was free to go." "I could take the risk that I would not return." "There was no one to miss me." "Because we believed in our cause we weren't discouraged - by people's attitudes after the war." "I haven't heard of anyone being discouraged - by the scorn and all the talk..." "Have you read Linna's novel about the war?" "In it he portrayed us as whores that men just used." "Such women would never have been accepted there." "The organization had instilled in us a Christian patriotism." "Most of us had a kind of nostalgic feeling about it." "...and shall fulfill those defence duties entrusted in me - in accordance with the rules of the Lotta-Svéird organization and shall fulfill those defence duties entrusted in me..." "We were so young and innocent." "It was a shock what we saw there." "We just had to learn to accept it gradually." "We did it by growing tougher, - with a kind of brutality." "You needed it to be able to face reality there." "I'm so tired." "My boots are killing me." "Let me on the cart, will you?" "We've never carted shit on a Sunday and we won't now." "The first week we just cried and wanted to go home." "But they told us that we had pledged to come there - and that we had a duty to perform." "Then one of us said:" ""Damn, no more crying!"" "She even raised her fist!" "We had been living at the hut for some months." "There was other communications staff billeted there too." "Sometimes there was drinking of course." "Once a corporal was very drunk." "He came to knock on our door." "We refused to let him in because he was so drunk." "He fetched his rifle and started shooting in the room." "The floor of the hut was raised and he was standing on ground level- so we lay down on the floor." "He was taken away quite soon by the other men." "When you have thousands of men living and eating in a small area - things are bound to happen." "Our own technician almost shot us once." "He knocked on our door, it was almost midnight." "We told him we didn't have to let him in." "But he said he had orders to inspect the switchboard." "When we let him in he had a pistol in his hand." "He pointed at us each in turn and said, - that he didn't care if he shot four women, " "because the day before had been so awful for him." "I think he was in a shock." "His wife had fallen from a 3rd floor window, you see." "When the CO hadn't given him leave - he'd become unhinged and blamed us for what had happened." "Then he went to the operator on duty." "He pointed the gun at her - and said that he would shoot if she tried to make a call." "While he was in there I managed to unlatch the door." "I alerted the entire barracks." "I think I screamed like an animal." "We usually knew the whole situation." "But the men on the front didn't know what it was." "To those who came to warn us I just told - we would stay as long as the boys were fighting." "Did they fight?" "Some of them did desert." "The deserters came to us and warned us to flee, too." "We thought them as saboteurs." "But they were just in a panic." "How did they behave?" "They said it was bad, they told us to leave." "But we didn't even think about leaving." "Were there saboteurs on the telephone lines?" "Yes there were, they told us to abandon our stations." "But we couldn't be sure that it wasn't the enemy." "How did the confusion affect your work?" "It didn't!" "We were determined to stay there until we got permission to leave." "I wondered why the CO was in such a panic." "That night when we called the depot at the crossroads..." "At first they vented their anger on me - because they couldn't get any ammo for the guns." "What did they say to you?" "Of course at first they cursed as strongly as they could." ""Why can't we get any ammo?" they asked." "I said I couldn't help them." "I offered to put them through to the ammunition depot - so they could ask themselves." "I listened to that call." "The request was denied." "They didn't have the necessary order." "I was on night shift when they bombed us." "The squadrons flew right over us." "That night Lieutenant Honkanen called - to see if the switchboard was still working." "The bombs were falling very close to us." "They thought that station 801 had been destroyed." "But I answered the phone and he asked if I was afraid." "I told him I was but that I would do my job." "We had lots of time, because there were just a few lines left " "and I prayed that if a bomb hit us, it would be a direct hit - so that we wouldn't have to suffer." "Praying also dispelled fear." "We all had our own way of coping with the situation." "The ammunition train was in the station when it blew up." "The explosion threw me against the back wall." "The way I remember it..." "I was carried to a lorry, there was a ladder." "At the back of the lorry there was a pile of rags." "I sat on them and slept." "I woke up in Imatra station, still on the pile of rags." "The next time I came to was in Lappeenranta - walking on the railway platform." "You block it from your mind - and don't realize anything has happened." "Was it difficult to talk about being wounded?" "I couldn't!" "I was in shock, trembling and shaking." "I was afraid." "I was in a bad shape after the explosion." "But when I complained they just retorted:" "Why did you go there?" "Others, who had opposite ideological views, - they even intimidated me..." "Saying I had been there, - saying I was a fascist..." "After the war, with the Control Commission and all, - there was a hunt for war criminals." "When the home guard and the women's organization were abolished - we were branded criminals." "That's the reason why the uniforms were destroyed." "On the other hand, there was shortage of cloth - and you could use the material to make a skirt." "Although no one could have known if we'd just hid them." "I used the grey cotton dresses as a threshing garment." "When I joined the women's volunteer services in 1938 " "I was first sent on a medical course." "There we were taught some basic skills." "It was from there that I was picked for the centre." "My first post was at the centre for fallen soldiers." "All I knew was that the slain soldiers were brought there." "But I hadn't the faintest idea what the work involved." "I would much rather have served in a hospital." "But they just ordered us there, we weren't given a choice." "They needed one of us there, - so I had to go, and in a hurry." "The centre was in Lieksa." "A lorry took us to the school- that served as the centre." "On arrival we were met by the CO, a priest and the sergeant-major." "First we were just shown around the house." "Then we were taken to the place where we would be working." "And there it was..." "There were two barns - joined by an open, roofed-over space." "There they took us." "I remember thinking:" "Is it here it's going to be done?" "There was a huge mound of bodies." "They had just been piled on top of each other." "The pile was very, very high." "It was an enormous shock, looking at them." "It was an inconceivable sight!" "You would never have thought you'd see so many young, dead men." "Some had lost an arm, others had lost their legs." "Some had had their face torn by an exploding shell." "They were all damaged, with blood on their clothes." "My thoughts refused to work." "I just stared:" "can this be true?" "It took some time for me - to realize that this would now be my work." "Our task was to lay the boys in their coffins." "We did it so that... they would look a bit neater." "There was a bench." "The boys were lifted on the bench, - undressed and washed." "Of course this didn't yet happen on the first day." "But we were given clear instructions for tomorrow." "The first night I couldn't sleep, wondering how I would manage..." "So the second day dawned and the work started right away." "We put on protective clothing, a scarf around the head, boots." "We were given water and washing gear." "That's how it started." "I kept thinking that I'd just have to get used to it, - that this was now my job and I'd do it to the best of my ability." "In the beginning I watched how the more experienced women did it." "Slowly I started doing it myself." "There were three of us volunteers - putting the boys in coffins." "One day they brought in the husband of one of us." "She had used to say that he would never be brought there, - she just didn't believe it could happen." "One day it happened." "She had had some advance warning from people returning from leave." "But she didn't believe them." "But bravely she lay her own husband in the coffin." "It must've been very difficult." "She was in need of a long leave after that." "But she returned?" "Yes." "She worked there throughout the war." "She must have been one of the few women - who served in just one post." "When I received my orders I had just turned 21." "At that age you don't have very much experience of death." "So it was something completely new to me." "But one must get used to everything that one encounters." "I don't think I'd have done it in peacetime." "We just saw slain soldiers." "All we knew was that there was fighting somewhere." "I used to wonder: did they send all the bodies to us?" "There was no end to them." "I used to wonder if we wouldn't run out of men." "The peaks were during battles." "Then whole days could go by without a single body arriving." "I wrote in a thick ledger, we called it the Book of the Dead, " "I wrote down their names and other particulars about them." "All facts were registered and possessions sorted out." "There was usually quite a lot of information about the deceased." "Sometimes it felt good working in the register office." "It was a different job for a change." "Girl volunteers' work is very important, too." "Employed in many tasks, they work near their homes - hoping some day to join the grown-up women's services." "They are the next generation of the volunteer organization." "I was an active girl scout." "When the war came, I felt that the volunteer services - was the right place where you could help in the war effort." "Easier than through the scouting organization." "We knitted an awful lot:" "helmet covers, anything." "My mother got yarn from Denmark, so we had the necessary materials." "Mother took us children along to Denmark to see grandfather." "He was old and living alone." "Both our uncles were in England, because of the German occupation." "Grandfather had no contact with them." "Then the war broke out in Finland." "We three oldest children wanted to go back at once." "My sister was 16, she could leave right away." "But Mother didn't want my brother and me to go." "I was 13, my brother 14." "But we rebelled so fiercely - that two days later we left for Finland too." "How did you rebel?" "You could say that we lost our appetite." "There was a group of Finns at the Copenhagen station." "Mother asked them to keep an eye on us." "The train took us to Stockholm where we boarded the Arkturus." "The ship had come under fire on its way to Stockholm." "There were partitions missing in the cabins." "They said we would sail a different, safer route back." "We arrived in Finland without mishap." "Mother later told me - it was one of the most difficult decisions in her life." "But she was afraid we'd never forgive her if she didn't let us go." "The reception in Kotka was chilly, the town was being bombed." "They said they couldn't take any girl volunteers." "I told them I had come from Denmark and I wanted to work." "At first I worked in the canteen." "Then one night the town was bombarded very heavily." "Some old people and children had to be evacuated." "I assisted a woman volunteer - to help wounded people on a coach." "There was also a mother who gave birth during the trip." "On arrival in Lapinjirvi the locals took over from us." "I was sent to a military hospital in Kuusankoski." "My father was surgeon there and my sister Sirkka a nurse, at 16." "I was still 13 at the time." "I was told they couldn't allow me to work in medical duties." "But I persisted, - and when father gave his permission " "I was finally allowed to work in nursing duties." "I was assigned to the ward where father was working." "It was a ward for the seriously wounded." "It was a taxing experience." "The first day I was there two patients died." "The first time I had to change dressings - the patient was a young man whose back was burned, - and I just fainted." "Everyone doubted whether I would be able to continue." "Then I fainted again, at an amputation." "But then Father sent for me." "There was a soldier whose leg he had to operate." "He said it would hurt less if I would hold his leg." "So I went and decided I would never again faint." "And I didn't." "Although I did feel queasy many times." "They were so badly wounded." "But I was able to help." "And I felt that I was liked." "They called me 'Little Sister..." "I ran around with bedpans, doing chores for the patients." "I fed them, rolled bandages, tried to help whenever I could." "It was real work and often made me very sad." "Later I read a letter Father wrote to Mother:" ""Sometimes I see Eeva in the corridor, smiling a sad smile."" "It was not easy." ""My dearest, I am slightly wounded and a nurse is writing this for me."" ""Don't worry, it's not serious."" ""I got help immediately."" "Usually they wrote home briefly, just saying they were well." "They hardly ever complained, that's what I noticed above all." "The letters were short." "They just thanked for the letters and packages they'd received, - mentioned a thing or two that had to do with their home." "They said very little about themselves." "Much more than that they worried over the folks at home." "It was simply love." "The doctors worked around the clock." "The number of wounded fluctuated." "Sometimes Father had to take his rest on the operating table." "That was all he had time for." "It was an evacuation hospital- but the worst cases could not be moved from there." "And it did hurt when they died." "Somehow you got used to it." "You just..." "Had to suffer it." "Reaction set in afterwards, when it was all over." "School began after Christmas." "It was then that I started to have nightmares." "I was reliving it, I slept badly." "It still happens sometimes." "But I couldn't have helped if I'd cried." "So I smiled." "It felt strange, after all I had seen, - to go back to school." "The others didn't have the same experiences." "There's no doubt about it, my childhood ended with the war." "I had responsibilities, I saw many awful things." "The child's thoughts - became adult thoughts."