Evacuation of Finnish War Children
In 1939 Finland was attacked by the Soviet Union with Helsinki and a number of other Finnish towns struck by aerial bombing. The Finnish Government turned to Sweden for military support.
This request was denied by the Swedish Government, with reference to its politics of neutrality. Immediately after the official request had been turned down, a newly established Swedish humanitarian aid movement - “for the sake of Finland” - approached the Finnish Social Democratic Minister for Social Affairs K.A. Fagerholm, with an offer to evacuate Finnish children to Sweden. After some considerations the minister accepted this offer, and a Finnish commission was established to organize and monitor the evacuation scheme (Carlquist 1971).In December 1939, the transportation of children from Finland to Sweden by train, boat, or airplane began, and by 1945 approximately 70,000 children had been evacuated. Arriving in Sweden, most of the children were placed in foster families, whereas institutional placement was less common. The majority of children returned to Finland, both during and after the war, except for approximately 10,000 who remained in Sweden permanently (Kaven 1994/2003; 2012; Parsons 2010).
The children’s experiences of the evacuations have been documented in both research and biographies, for example, by Kaven (1994/2003), Korppi-Tommola (2008), Kuusisto-Arponen (2015), Nehlin and Sdderlind (2014), Ortmark Almgren (2003), and Vastamaki (2009). A great number of children endured considerable hardships of not only long journeys, but also having to adjust to a new culture and language. Many war children suffered as a result of these evacuations. Nevertheless, others adjusted quickly to everyday life in Sweden and created important bonds with their foster families.
Finland was involved in three different wars between 1930 and 1945: the Winter War against the Soviet Union, 1939-1940; the Continuation War, also against the Soviet Union but now in a military pact with Germany, 1941-1944; and finally the Lapland War against former military partner, Germany, 1944-1945.
During the different phases of Finland’s wars, the conditions for how the evacuations were carried out changed. It was not a smooth flow of Finnish children being evacuated, it was rather evacuations of a larger scale that were carried out at certain critical points, such as for instance in 1944 when the war with the Soviet intensified.Swedish nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were the driving force and they were heavily involved in the administration and implementation of the evacuations, with the support of public donations including the unpaid work of the families who volunteered to take care of a Finnish war child. The Swedish Government was involved indirectly, providing financial support to the NGOs. Generally, during the whole period and through the different phases of the three wars Finland was involved in, the transportation of children oscillated between being a state and private commitment. This ambiguity affected the organization and issues of responsibility regarding the Finnish war children’s stay in Sweden (Nehlin and Sdderlind 2014). However, for the care and treatment of sick Finnish war children, the Swedish Government was clearly involved, and a financial support was guaranteed. The Swedish national health services were mobilized for the care of roughly 12,000 sick Finnish war children of all ages and doctors and nurses at Swedish hospitals and sanatoria were engaged in the treatment of the evacuated sick children (Kaven 2012; Rossi 2008).
The state authorities in both countries and the involved NGOs motivated the evacuation of Finnish war children as a humanitarian act. Finnish children were saved from the terror of war, it was argued, and the Finnish authorities requested the parents' consent to the evacuation, even though a number of factors limited their possibilities to reject the offer. The Finnish parents' role in the evacuation was complicated for a number of reasons. When Finnish men were drafted and sent to the war front, women were left with the sole responsibility for their families.
Finnish women were also called to contribute on the home front (Junila 2012). In such socially and economically stressful situations, many parents had no choice but to allow the evacuation of their children.The evacuation of Finnish war children drew on humanitarian rhetoric based on ideas that children were vulnerable and victims of their environments, and that they needed special protection. In this period, such ideas were prevalent in philanthropic child-saving organizations, with the Swedish Save the Children (Nehlin 2009) as a clear example. These ideas also influenced governmental efforts to develop social welfare and health services for all children (Andresen et al. 2011; Hendrick 1994).
The role of the Finnish Government was clear: it approved of the evacuation scheme and commissioned a special committee to oversee and administer the evacuation from the Finnish side. The role of the Swedish state was less explicit. With reference to political issues (neutrality politics), the Swedish state chose to assume a more subtle role. The NGO was the driving force behind the Swedish organization and administration of the evacuation schemes (Carlquist 1971). However, as noted above, in the case of sick Finnish war children, the role of the Swedish state was very clear: it guaranteed financial support to both the current health care services and temporary solutions specifically formed for sick Finnish war children. From this perspective, the evacuation of these children was a state matter. Before a more in-depth analysis of a local case of such state-supported medical care of evacuated sick children is presented, the Nordic experience will be situated in a broader European context. In Europe during WWII, a large number of evacuation schemes were carried out. The involvement of government and state authorities varied and a range of factors influenced how the evacuations were carried out.
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