Project researcher Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto has studied the experiences of Finnish people visiting the Norvajärvi German cemetery, located 18 kilometers north of Rovaniemi town center. Her article “Reminder of the Dark Heritage of Humankind – Experiences of Finnish Cemetery Tourists of Visiting the Norvajärvi German Cemetery” is published in Finnish Death Studies Association’s open access journal Thanatos.

The Norvajärvi cemetery was founded in 1963 and is the only official commemoration site and monument of the WWII German presence in Finnish Lapland. In her article, Koskinen-Koivisto studied blogs in which Finnish ‘cemetery tourists’ introduce and reflect on their experiences of visiting the cemetery. She has also interviewed the person responsible for the maintenance of the city, as well as Rovaniemi city guides. The analysis is based on a phenomenological framework: attention is paid to sensual experiences and reflections.

Koskinen-Koivisto’s analysis shows that the Finnish cemetery tourists who visit Norvajärvi German cemetery are aware of the difficult history and the dark heritage of the Lapland War. The visit to the site deepens the visitor’s understanding of WWII and results in reflections over the consequences and irrationality of war. The cemetery thus acts as many other war memorials: reminding us of the contradictory history of the humankind.

Kaikki paikat yleisökaivauksille ovat täyttyneet ja ilmoittautuminen on suljettu. Kiitos kiinnostuksesta.

The registration is full and closed. Thank you for your interest.

Oula Seitsonen, Suzie Thomas, Anu and Vesa-Pekka Herva tutkimassa vankileiriä Inarin Kankiniemessä 2015. Kuva: Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto.

Lapin synkkä kulttuuriperintö -projekti (Helsingin ja Oulun yliopistot) ja saamelaismuseo Siida järjestävät yhdessä yleisökaivaukset toisen maailmansodan aikaisella saksalaisten sairaala-alueella Inarissa 1.–5.8.2016. Toivotamme vapaaehtoiset tervetulleiksi ottamaan osaa kaivauksiimme, joko yhdeksi päiväksi tai vaikka koko viikon ajaksi (päivittäinen kaivausaika klo 10–12 ja 13–15).

Kaikkien vapaaehtoisten tulee rekisteröityä ilmoittautumislomakkeella (alle 16-vuotiaat voivat osallistua kaivaukseen vain huoltajan seurassa; huoltaja rekisteröi myös heidät kaivaukselle, kts. ilmoittautumislomake). Kaivaukseen pystyy osallistumaan 10 vapaaehtoista päivässä, ja paikat täyttyvät ilmoittautumisjärjestyksessä. Kaivamisen lisäksi tarjolla on päivittäin asiantuntijoiden pitämiä yleisöluentoja, opastuksia ja muuta ohjelmaa.

Vapaaehtoiset tulevat ottamaan aktiivisesti osaa Lapin sodan aikana vuonna 1944 poltetun saksalaisten sotilassairaala-alueen raunioiden kaivamiseen ja dokumentoimiseen yhdessä Helsingin ja Oulun yliopistojen sekä Siida-museon kokeneiden ammattiarkeologien kanssa. Projektin johtaja Vesa-Pekka Herva ja tutkija Oula Seitsonen ovat työskennelleet Lapin toisen maailmansodan aikaisen kulttuuriperinnön parissa vuodesta 2007 lähtien. Vapaaehtoisten tulee järjestää oma asumisensa (Inarissa on useita majoitusvaihtoehtoja, voimme tarvittaessa auttaa tässä) sekä päivittäinen kulkemisensa kaivauspaikalle.

Auton raato saksalaisella sairaala-alueella Inarissa. Kuva: Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto.

Projektimme tutkii Lapin toisen maailmansodan kulttuuriperintöä monitieteisesti arkeologian, historian ja kansatieteen näkökulmista. Toisen maailmansodan aikaisia sairaala-alueita ei ole aiemmin tutkittu arkeologisesti Suomessa tai muuallakaan Euroopassa: konfliktiarkeologiset tutkimukset ovat yleisimmin keskittyneet sotilaallisempiin kohteisiin, kuten puolustusasemiin ja sotilas- sekä vankileireihin. Tiedämme haastatteluista, että saksalaisten sotilaiden lisäksi kohteella hoidettiin myös inarilaisia ja kohde on tärkeä osa paikallista kulttuuriperintöä: paikkakuntalaiset ovat tunteneet kohteen aina, mutta kulttuuriperintöviranomaisilla ei ollut mitään tietoa kohteesta ennen vuotta 2015.

Kesän 2016 tutkimusten päätavoitteina on dokumentoida ja analysoida kohteen rakenteita ja tilanjakoa sekä tutkia millaista esineellistä materiaalia kaivauksissa löytyy. Tutkimusprojekti pyrkii selvittämään moninaisia kulttuurisia merkityksiä ja arvoja, joita saksalaisten toisen maailmansodan aikaiseen kulttuuriperintöön on liitetty ja liitetään. Pohjois-Suomen toisen maailmansodan kulttuuriperinnön merkittävyyttä arvioidaan osana Lapin alueen laajempaa historiallista, kulttuurista ja ympäristöllistä vuorovaikutusta.

On tärkeää, että vapaaehtoiset ilmoittavat rekisteröityessään mahdollisista sairauksista tai lääkityksistä, jotka voivat vaikuttaa hyvinvointiin kaivauksilla, sillä kaivaminen on fyysisesti kohtalaisen vaativaa. Osallistujilla tulee olla voimassaoleva vapaa-ajan tapaturmavakuutus, joka kattaa mahdolliset henkilökohtaiset vahingot, sekä viimeisen 10 vuoden kuluessa annettu jäykkäkouristusrokote. Kaikkia osallistujia pyydetään myös allekirjoittamaan suostumuslomake osallistumisesta tieteelliseen tutkimukseen. Kaivauksiin osallistuminen maksaa 5 € / päivä tai 20 € koko viikko. Osallistumismaksu kattaa kaivauskulut, välineet ja päiväkahvit.

Lisätietoa sähköpostilla DarkHeritageLapland[at]gmail.com tai puhelimitse Oula Seitsonen: +35850 448 7778 / oula.seitsonen(at)helsinki.fi

Kenttäkeittimen jäänteitä maastossa.  Kuva: Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto.

Public excavations at a Second World War German military hospital site in Inari 1.-5.8.2016

Lapland’s Dark Heritage research project (Universities of Helsinki and Oulu) is organizing, together with the Siida Sámi Museum, a public excavation at a Second World War (WWII) German hospital site in Inari, Lapland, on 1.–5.8.2016. We welcome volunteers to take part in the excavations, either on one or more of the days or all week (excavation daily 10–12 am and 1–3 pm).

All volunteers need to pre-register (volunteers under the age of 16 have to be accompanied by a responsible adult who also registers them, see the registration form). We can accommodate up 10 participants per day at the excavations, and places will be filled on a first come, first served basis. Besides excavation, there is a daily programme of other events, such as public presentations by specialists and special guided tours (TBC).

We invite volunteers to participate in uncovering and documenting the remains of a German military hospital site which was destroyed and burned in 1944, during the Lapland War. They will excavate alongside, and be guided by, professional archaeologists from the Universities of Oulu and Helsinki and Siida Museum, who have been working with WWII sites in Lapland since 2007. Volunteers need to arrange their own accommodation (there are several choices in Inari, if needed, we can help with that) and organize their daily transport to and from the site.

The research project draws from multidisciplinary study of Lapland’s WWII heritage, including archaeological, historical and ethnographical aspects. WWII hospital sites have never been archaeologically explored before in Finland, or elsewhere in Europe for that matter: earlier ‘conflict archaeology’ studies have typically concentrated on more martial sites, such as fortifications and military and prisoner-of-war camps. We know from interviews that, besides German soldiers, Inari villagers were also treated at the hospital by German doctors and nurses, and the site forms a pertinent part of the local heritage. The site has always been known to the locals, but it was not known to the heritage authorities before 2015.

The main aims of the excavation in Inari are to document and analyze the spatial layout of the site, and to explore the kinds of material culture that will show up. The project also seeks to understand the diverse cultural values and meanings associated with the material heritage from the German military presence in Lapland. As part of this we will be talking to the volunteers about their thoughts and impressions while they are on site. The significance of northern Finland’s WWII heritage will be considered broadly against Lapland’s wider historical, cultural and environmental context.

It is important that, when registering, you mention any medical requirements and conditions that might affect your well-being at the site: excavation work is physically moderately demanding. Participants need to have valid insurance covering any personal accidents on site, and have to confirm that they have been vaccinated against tetanus within the past 10 years. All participants are also asked to sign a consent form at the site. The participation fee is 5 € / day or 20 € for whole week. The fee covers excavation gear, tools and coffee.

For more information, contact  DarkHeritageLapland[at]gmail.com or  Oula Seitsonen: +35850 448 7778 / oula.seitsonen(at)helsinki.fi.

Suzie Thomas is participating in the third Association of Critical Heritage Studies, which is taking place in Montreal, Canada. She speaks on 6th June, with a presentation entitled “Locals, Incomers, Tourists and Gold Diggers: Space, Politics, and the “Dark Heritage” Legacy of the Second World War in Finnish Lapland”, in the session “Flexible Scales and Relational Territoriality in the Meaning-Making of Cultural Heritage”. The abstract is as follows:

In different circumstances and at different times, the actions of countries, communities, and even individuals may be prioritized and celebrated, forgotten or silenced, or even re-packaged for different audiences. This can happen in order to conform to state-approved historical narratives, to privilege one group’s experience over another’s, to create distance from more shameful or painful events, to reconcile with past traumas, or simply to find a way to coexist in the present. Contested heritage in this sense has been readily discussed within cultural heritage studies for some time. This paper will focus on one such region in which the material legacy of twentieth-century conflict has had significant impact on the landscape and on how it can be regarded as a space with competing meanings, and levels of significance, for different actors. 

Finland’s experience in the Second World War has been regarded variously as heroic—through the telling and re-telling of the exploits against the Soviet Union in the Winter and Continuation Wars; embarrassing—through the alliance with Nazi Germany for much of the war; shameful—through the often brutal treatment of prisoners of war on Finnish soil; and painful—through the lost territory in the East that resulted in forced migration, and the evacuations of Lapland during the 1944-1945 Lapland War. 

Finnish Lapland in particular had conflicting experiences of the Second World War. From 1940 to 1944 some 200,000 German soldiers were based in Finland, mostly in Lapland. Local recollections from that time often focus on the friendliness of interactions between Finnish and Sámi people, and the German military. Also present were numerous prisoner of war camps, run by both Finns and Germans, and populated mostly by Eastern European and Soviet prisoners. 

The 1944-1945 retreat of the German military from Finland into Norway included “scorched earth” tactics, destroying almost all infrastructure and buildings in Lapland; deleting much of the historic environment in the process and requiring the mass evacuation of almost all residents. This meant that those returning after the mass evacuations were confronted with a landscape that was at once familiar and irrevocably different, with profound implications, for example, for cultural memory.

The legacy of the Second World War in Lapland, and in particular of the mass destruction, is currently at times both omnipresent and hidden. The material culture left by now-departed Germans is noticeable for its abundance in the landscape, with different local, national, and even international actors taking ownership and agency over the material remains in different and often-conflicting ways. Meanwhile, in the context of the national narrative, some Lapland locals feel that their experiences are diminished, even silenced, relative to the celebrated experiences in the south of Finland. Coupled with this is the continued view of Lapland as a somehow liminal, exotic, and “other” space compared to other places, even within Finland, and the “dark” lens through which cultural heritage connected to war is often viewed. This is inspired by the concept of “dark tourism”: the touristic experience and consumption of sites connected to conflict, murder, execution, and other atrocities. 

In this paper I will explore how the “dark heritage” connected to Lapland’s experience of the Second World War is perceived, exploited, enjoyed, forgotten, or avoided by different parties and on different spatial levels. This includes those residents who returned from evacuation after the war, “incomers” who have been drawn to Lapland through fascination with this period for various reasons, and those responsible for official and “authorized” narratives of Finland and Lapland. Common throughout my discussion are the tensions and power struggles as different perspectives and values are privileged or marginalized over or in favour of others.

Part of Montreal’s skyline.

There are plans to publish the session in some format after the conference. We will update with more information in due course.

Vapaaehtoiset ovat tervetulleita osallistumaan saksalaisten toisen maailmansodan aikaisen sairaala-alueen kaivauksiin Inarissa elokuun ensimmäisellä viikolla (maanantai 1.8.-perjantai 5.8.). Kaivaustutkimukset järjestää yhteistyössä projektimme ja saamelaismuseo Siida.

Ilmoittautuminen kaivauksille alkaa ensi viikolla! Toimi nopeasti, sillä pystymme ottamaan kaivaukselle mukaan päivittäin vain 10 vapaaehtoista varmistaaksemme, että kaikki saavat mahdollisimman hyvän kokemuksen ja huolellisen perehdytyksen! Paikat täyttyvät ilmoittautumisjärjestyksessä.

Lisätietoa kaivauksesta ja ilmoittaumisesta tulee ensi viikolla, eli kannattaa seurata tätä sivua! Ilmoitamme asiasta myös Twitterissä.

Innokas tutkijanalku auttaa metallinpaljastimen käytössä toisen maailmansodan saksalaisleirin kaivauksilla: kaikenikäiset vapaaehtoiset ovat tervetulleita osallistumaan tutkimuksiin (Valokuva: Oula Seitsonen). / Little future scientist helps with a metal detecting survey at the excavations of a Second World War German camp: volunteers of all ages are invited to participate in research (Photograph: Oula Seitsonen).

Coming up soon: Lapland’s Dark Heritage project and Sámi Museum Siida arrange public excavations in Inari, Finnish Lapland

Volunteers are invited to join in the investigations of a German Second World War military hospital site in Inari, Lapland, in the first week of August (Monday 1^st-Friday 5^th). Research is organized by our project in co-operation with the Sámi Museum Siida.

Registration for the excavations opens next week! it’s important to register as soon as possible if you want to take part, since only 10 volunteers per day can take part, to make sure that the volunteers receive the right supervision and training! Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.

More info about the excavations and registration will be available next week, follow this page! We will also share the information in Twitter.