World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseIn Oct 1941, Finland took control of Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a region within the borders of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union. Karelians were a Finnic people, and Finnish President Risto Ryti and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim viewed Finland's control of all of Karelia (Finnish: Karjala; Russian: Kareliya) as legitimate. At the time of the Finnish takeover, East Karelia's pre-war population had decreased from 470,000 to about 150,000, with a large portion of population having fled eastward. About half of the remaining population were ethnic Karelians and the other half ethnic Russians. Most of the ethnic Rusisans were elderly, women, and children. In an effort to remove Russian influence from the region, as well as to create a group of hostages in exchange for Finnic populations in Soviet-controlled regions who might be oppressed due to the Russo-Finnish Continuation War, Mannerheim ordered the creation of a series of concentration camps to imprison ethnic Russians. The first of such camps was in the city of Petrozavodsk; the city was traditionally Petroskoi in Finnish, but during the 1941-1944 occupation, it was referred to as Äänislinna by the Finns. Eventually, the concentration camp system at Petrozavodsk grew to six camps separate camps, and there were additional camps for ethnic Russians elsewhere in East Karelia. By the end of 1941, the camps in Petrozavodsk held 13,400 prisoners. Mid-1942 saw the system's largest prisoner population, 21,984, and the over-crowding created food shortages and unsanitary conditions, leading to the death of about 3,800 from extremely poor living conditions. To alleviate the situation, beginning in the latter part of 1942, detainees deemed safe (in regards to possible anti-Finnish partisan activities) were regularly relocated to monitored villages in the countryside in order to make room for new incoming prisoners. Population of the Petrozavodsk Concentration Camp system would remain about 14,000 for the remainder of the war. From late 1942 on, about 500 died in the camps, bringing the total deaths to an estimated 4,300.

ww2dbaseThe area where Petrozavodsk Concentration Camp No. 1 once stood is now a residential neighborhood.

Petrozavodsk Concentration Camp Interactive Map

Photographs

Petrozavodsk Concentration Camp Timeline