I Was a War Child in Finland

Children from Helsinki are being evacuated to Sweden. In the yard of the post office, children are placed in buses to be taken to the station. February 1944 Image by Aavikko, Images from Krigsmuseet CC BY 4.0

I Was a War Child in Sweden

by Bodil Soderberg The Winter War broke out in November of 1939 and at the time I was only seven months old. A lot has been written about this fierce conflict with Finland’s arch enemy, Russia. There are books and movies about the war, which lasted until March 1940. The conditions of the peace treaty were harsh—Finland lost 8% of her territory. Following the Winter War there was a brief period of peace and then the so-called Continuation War broke out in June 1941. This is the war I remember.

Finland and Sweden have always had a good relationship and when the Winter War started Finland appealed to Sweden for help. Because of Sweden’s status as a neutral country, they could not contribute military help, which was what Finland needed desperately. Instead, they offered to have Finnish children transported to Sweden away from the dangers of war. There was a severe shortage of everything, not just food and in Sweden the children would be safe and well taken care of. A relief organization was formed and in conjunction with the Save the Children organization the transports were planned. At first many Finnish parents were reluctant to let their children leave, but about 10,000 children were sent to Sweden during the Winter War. During the Continuation War a total of about 60,000 Finnish children were transported to Sweden.

When the Continuation War started it was believed that it would be over in a few months. By then Finland had appealed to other nations for help fighting the Soviet Union, but only one nation agreed to help—Germany. They had their own reason for fighting the Soviets. Finland’s main objective was to regain the Karelian province, lost in the Winter War. Unfortunately, the war lasted much longer and by June 1944 the situation was critical for Finland.

I was born in Helsingfors (Helsinki) where my family lived right in the center of town in an old apartment building. My father was hard of hearing and did not qualify for military duty but was very active in the civil defense. My mother was at home. My brother was drafted right out of high school when he turned 19 in January 1944. My older sister was 16 and a high school stu-

dent. My home language was Swedish, my family being part of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland. In January 1944 my younger sister was born.

There were frequent bombardments of the city, often at night. I remember many nights going to the bomb shelter (the cellar of our building). Somehow, I don’t remember ever being afraid—it seems the adults were able to downplay the danger in front of the children. It wasn’t safe to stay in the city—almost every block around ours was hit by bombs and most of our windows had broken from the pressure. I remember exactly how it felt to walk on the sidewalk after a bombardment—layers of glass made it very slippery. My mother, baby sister and I eventually moved out to the country. My older sister’s high school classes were also moved to the safety of the countryside.

As the situation worsened in the spring of 1944, my parents started making plans for me and my baby sister to go to Sweden. Thanks to friends, who had contacts in Sweden, they found someone who was willing to take me in. it was harder to find a place for Carin, my baby sister. She would have to have her own “nurse” along. Inger, my older sister, at 16 was assigned to work on a farm as most men were at the front. She was not allowed to leave to be a caretaker of a baby. Finally, again through friends, a place was found for her at an orphanage in Uppsala.

My brother was with the army at the Karelian front and in June 1944 he sent an urgent message home to “send the little ones”, to Sweden. My mother had kept us at home for as long as she possibly could, but now we had to prepare to leave. She made me a cardboard nametag to hang around my neck and I had one for my rag doll, too. My mother was coming with us since my sister was only six months old and I had just turned five. Many of the children were sent in large groups with some accompanying adults as helpers on the trip. Many did not know where in Sweden they were going. Often, they travelled by train through Sweden and at the stations the children would get off the train. There they would line up and people who had offered to take care of a child came to “choose” a child. I have read some sad stories about children finding themselves the last child left. In some cases, the mother had asked an older child to make sure to stay with a younger sibling, but unfortunately some siblings were split up. Imagine the guilt and anxiety this caused the child who had promised to take care of the younger sibling! Another problem was the language. These young children knew only Finnish and most Swedes knew only Swedish and the two languages are very different from each other.

We went by boat from Åbo (Turku) to Stockholm. The passenger ship was outfitted with bunks in the public spaces to accommodate the large numbers of children and the accompanying adults. The one thing I remember clearly is the sudden hush when the P.A. system announced that the news would be on the radio. The situation at the front was extremely critical and the Finnish army was in retreat. And this is where our brother was—I can in retrospect imagine my mother’s anxiety. But of course, I had no idea about how serious it was.

From Stockholm we travelled by train to Uddevalla, the town on Sweden’s west coast where I was going. I have no recollection of arriving there, but we were met by the lady I was going to stay with. I was to call her “Tant Greta”. We then went by steamer to Grönnäs, the country home she and her sister owned. It was a beautiful place right on the coast. It was possibly on the next day that my mother and sister left to go to Uppsala. We went to the steamer to see them off and I have no clear recollection of how it went. I was very close to my mother, having been al-

Left: Grönnäs, the country home that Tant Greta owned. Right: Bodil as a young girl. Photos provided by author.

most an “only child” before my sister was born. But I remember my mother standing at the deck railing and it looked to me like she was crying—and I wondered why - she had said she would come for me as soon as she could! That was when it really hit me and I remember going up to the attic to cry by myself. I was homesick in the beginning and the attic was a nice place to go. It just so happened that the neighbors had welcomed a Finnish boy and they asked me to help translate some words. His name was Matti and it was wonderful to have a playmate. I could speak some Finnish and we spent a lot of time playing on the beach. Unfortunately, I don’t know what became of Matti. A few weeks later Tant Greta told me we were going to town. I knew she lived in town in the winter. I packed my suitcase, and we went by steamer to town. In the harbor we were met by a lady and a little girl about my age. Tant Greta told me: “Now you will go and live with this lady. And you’ll have a playmate, too.” I was totally unprepared for this—no one had mentioned my moving to another family! Apparently, I got hysterical and cried so loudly that Tant Greta said: “Well, you can stay with me if you’d rather”. I vaguely remember noticing the little girl looking at me strangely. I think Tant Greta may have been flattered, thinking I liked living with her so much! was just terrified—barely having adjusted to the situation to begin with. Anyway, we “celebrated” by buying an ice cream cone! And everyone at Grönnäs seemed happy to see us come back, especially Matti!

In the fall we moved to Uddevalla, where Tant Greta lived in an apartment building in the center of town. I spent a lot of time with her wonderful young kitchen helper, Gladys. Tant Greta noticed early on that I loved cheese! She would take me along on errands and we would go to the delicatessen to buy cheese. The clerk, an older gentleman, would let me taste the different cheeses and decide which one to buy.

That fall I got a cold, and the family doctor detected a heart murmur and recommended admitting me to the hospital for tests. I was in a large ward with several women—I was the only child there. I was only there for a couple of days, and I spent most of the time drawing pictures and stuffing them into the nightstand drawer. Soon the drawer was overflowing, and the nurse grumbled about all this paper all over, but I explained that they were pictures of my mother. Eventually they were all sent home with me—even back to Finland.

Gladys introduced me to the St. Lucia tradition. I was her “attendant” when she was St. Lucia for Tant Greta. After the war my mother started the tradition in our family, getting the instructions from Gladys. Christmas was celebrated at Tant Greta’s sister’s home. Her children were home from college. I had been asked what I would like for a Christmas gift, and I really wanted a doll that could open and close her eyes. And I did indeed receive a beautiful doll.

Shortly after New Year 1945 the phone rang, and I heard Tant Greta speaking for a while. Then she called me to come –it was my mother on the phone! In those days it was very difficult to place a long-distance call, the connection was usually bad, and it took time to get connected. I got so emotional that I could not say a word. I was on the verge of crying and my mother kept saying “say something, say something”—she wanted to hear my voice. The reason for the phone call was that now my mother would finally be able to come and get me! I was really happy! Sometime later Tant Greta and I went by train to Stockholm where we met my mother. The next day she and I flew to Helsingfors. My first flight and it was extremely bumpy, and I was airsick. Later in the spring she would go pack to pick up my sister at the orphanage.

My family thought it was so funny that I now spoke with a typical “Swedish” accent. My mother took me with her to the grocery store where she knew all the clerks and wanted me to show them

Bodil and her baby sister. Photo provided by author.

how I spoke “riks svenska” (Finlandssvenska does sound different), but being shy I have never liked public speaking, so I don’t remember if she succeeded!

Some children could not return home as soon as I did, for different reasons. Some stayed for years in Sweden and had forgotten their Finnish when they came back. Some had a very hard time adjusting at home. The shortages of food and almost everything else lasted for a long time after the war. In Uddevalla I used to have oatmeal with both butter and honey in it. I told my mother about that when she gave me the plain oatmeal. Also, the bread was sliced thin with lots of butter on it in Uddevalla. In Finland the slices were thick with a thin layer of butter. It became an expression in our family “Uddevalla-tunn” (Uddevalla –thin bread slices).

My “war child” story had a happy ending. My brother survived the war, although he was injured during the retreat. No bomb had hit the apartment building where we lived. My older sister didn’t have to do farm labor as men returned from the front. My little sister came back from the orphanage, and we were all together back home again.

About the author

Following graduation from Svenska Flicklyce’et in Helsingfors, I spent a year in Copenhagen at a “folkhögskola”. I then studied nursing in Helsingfors. My brother had gone to the USA on a scholarship in 1949 and decided to stay. He suggested I come to Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1961 for a year to work as an RN at the University Hospital. He was then an American citizen and could “sponsor” me. One year turned into four years and then I was asked to come back to my nursing school and teach Fundamentals of Nursing. I had met my future husband in Ann Arbor, where he was a medical student. He is 100% Swedish, born in the US. When he started his residency, following military service, we were married in Helsingfors right after Christmas 1966.

We first lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and have lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in Marquette, ever since. My husband still practices dermatology three days a week. We have three grown children, Christina, Elizabeth and John. Our youngest, Robert, died of leukemia shortly before his eighth birthday. We have six grandchildren, three of whom live in southern Michigan, the others in North Carolina. I have spoken Swedish to our children, so they are fluent and even our grandchildren have shown an interest in learning Swedish. They have all visited Finland and love our stuga in Tenala.—Bodil Nordman Soderberg

Parents waiting at the train station in Uleåborg on August 16, 1945 for their children returning from Sweden. Image from JOKA Journalism Collection, The National Board of Antiquities. CC BY 4.0