Ingrian Veteran From Finland
Aleksanteri Dubbelman, the Ingrian Finn born in Hatsina, was 17 years old and studying carpentry when Ingria was occupied by the Germans in 1941. “We Ingrian boys were taken to the German army and quickly trained to protect railway bridges and warehouses from Russian guerillas. We were serving between Pihkova and Novgorod . Everyone who could work was put to work. Women and children paved roads, washed clothes and dug trenches. We young men were put to guard. Nobody asked for voluntaries, it was obligatory.”
The Ingrian men’s guard duties continued until October, 1943. Even the men serving at the back lines were starting to feel that a change was coming. Rumors were started by the conversations between the Finnish army chaplains and guards. An army chaplain raised the subject of moving to Finland in the fall of 1943. The Ingrians were unanimous: to Finland . “In October we were gathered to the Battetskaja station and taken by ox carts to Tallinn . There our German belts, suspenders and weapons were taken away and the whole battalion was shipped to Hanko”
In Hanko we were put to quarantine after the welcoming ceremony and then we had to fill in the forms and decide would we join the Finnish army. “We filled the papers and got Finnish army uniforms. We jumped again on ox carts and were moved to Kiviniemi for three months of training In April 26th 1944 we sweared our oaths and got to the front in the troops of Battalion 6.
“When the Russians’ great assault began in June 9th 1944 we were at Korpikylä close to the old border. I was the 3rd company’s leader’s messenger. Just last night I had watched the proceeding of the Russian troops, which seemed endless, with him. The firing started in the morning. It was raining bullets all the time. It was hopeless. We got the order to retreat and came back over 20 kilometers of marshland. Our company’s leader, lieutenant Parola, got wounded and carried him over the marshlands. We came up to the Mannerheim-line. The whole battalion was scattered. On the line we started to get a little more organized. I became ill with dysentery and was sent to the hospital at Kuusankoski” Aleksanteri Dubbelman tells.
10 Years in Siberia
The war was already over when Aleksanteri Dubbelman, the Ingrian veteran, was sent home from the hospital at Kuusankoski. He went straight away to his mother and sister, who had moved to Nastola, Finland. Before Christmas he was arrested. ”The police came to us, and said that I’ve got business with the rural police chief. I asked why, but the police didn’t know why. So I went with him, because I knew I hadn’t broken the law.” The police chief told him, that the USSR had ordered that every Ingrian had to be handed over to the USSR. The Ingrians were seen as war criminals and traitors in the USSR, because they had fought against it and, after all, they were the Soviet Union’s citizens.
Aleksanteri was put into jail right away, and in the evening the train ant took them to the central prison at Riihimäki. ”Many Ingrians had been caught unawares the same way and we all were at Riihimäki.” An other train came and took all the 113 of them to the remand prison at Alkino in Ural plains which were in the Soviet Union. ”In the investigations and long interrogations I was asked why I joined the German army, why did I go to the Finnish army and why didn’t I jump over to the Red Army when I had a chance. I was accused of treason.
A man who had defended Finland got sentenced to ten years of penal servitude. He had to cut down trees for nearly five years in north Ural. By a chance he got moved to the ’loading department’. ”Altough the work was harder, one got better food. In the winters the temperatures were about minus 30-40 degrees Celsius. We went to work with our hands up in our sleeves, huddling up like penguins, and trying to warm our faces with our own breath. In the summer the temperatures were plus 30-40 degrees Celsius, and we were pestered by hoards of flies. During the imprisonment nobody talked about the war, we talked only about lack of food, clothing and shoes and the extreme weather.” Dubbelman recalls.
Second Class veteran
When Aleksanteri Dubbelmann was set free, he weighed only about 42 kg. He got a permission to move into Estonia . There he got married, and got his income with his carpentry skills. His mother, brother and younger sister had been living in Finland since the war, his older sister lived still in Ingria. Aleksanteri moved into Finland with his wife in 1992, his sons and their families stayed in Estonia . “I haven’t regretted moving here (into Finland ) a moment. We were living in Estonia with very little money, here we’ve got a warm house, food and comforts.”
Aleksanteri says that he has paid sorely for the independence of Finland. He bitterly recalls the actions of Finland: ”We voluntarily sweared the oath to fight for Finland. We were promised a citizenship of Finland and a job. Why didn’t Finland warn us about the handing over to USSR?”
Dubbelman wishes that the Ingrian and Karelian war veterans’ organization, founded in 1996, would start the actions required in order to guarantee the Ingrian and Karelian war veterans an equal treatment. ”We have fought in the same battles, but we lack the respect. We’re treated like second or third class veterans, we don’t even get rehabilitative treatment. The years in Siberia and Ural should be repaid in some way. Finland handed us over into a long death. Those who didn’t die during the 10 years lost their health. The Finnish soldiers that were taken as prisoners during the war get rehabilitative treatment, so do the civilians. Why shouldn’t we, who fought beside the Finns?” Aleksanteri Dubbelman wonders.