The Journal of Field Archaeology published a new article by Suzie Thomas, Oula Seitsonen and Vesa-Pekka Herva.

‘Nazi memorabilia, dark heritage and treasure hunting as  “alternative” tourism: understanding the fascination with the material remains of World War II in Northern Finland’ is currently available online, and will appear in print later in the year. Following this link leads to 50 free downloads (first come, first served!)

The article’s abstract is as follows:

Sites connected to the Second World War (WWII) are increasingly recognized as worthy of archaeological investigation. Researchers are also becoming aware that that the collectors market in objects connected to WWII, particularly those connected to Germany, is encouraging the stripping of conflict landscapes in the search for “collectors items.” Finnish Lapland is sometimes regarded as peripheral compared to more centrally located regions of Europe. Archaeologists working here nonetheless find themselves in direct competition with enthusiastic treasure hunters. This is complicated even further by the myriad ontologies employed by different individuals in the construction of their relationship with the material culture connected to recent conflict periods, and on specific “other” or “exotic” landscapes, such as Lapland. This paper examines what might be learnt about the nature of treasure hunting for and trading in WWII material from Lapland, and its position within the emerging research on broader trends in “dark” approaches to and encounters with heritage.

You can also contact us directly for more information about this article.

This Tuesday, project PI Professor Vesa-Pekka Herva will give a guest lecture at the University of Tromsø.

View of Tromsø, image by Lars Tiede available under CC-BY-SA-2.5 license.

His presentation is titled “Why the attraction to the heritage of the WWII German military presence in Finnish Lapland?”

“This talk discusses the diverse interests in the material heritage of the German military presence in Finnish Lapland during the Second World War, with a particular emphasis on non-professional or ‘alternative’ engagements with German sites and artefacts. Finland cooperated with Germany during the war and over 200,000 German troops were based in northern Finland. The German military presence in Finland had significant impacts on northern Finnish mindscapes and landscapes and left behind a rich, yet largely overlooked heritage. People have nonetheless engaged with this ‘dark heritage’ in various ways after the war and up to the present. This talk considers the motivations and meanings of treasure hunting, militaria collecting, and other such forms of engaging with German materialities in northern Finland.”

Project Researcher Suzie Thomas is going to Belgium this week for a week of research mobility with our colleagues at Vrije Universiteit  Brussel (VUB).  She will also be spending time in Ieper (Ypres), Ghent and various other parts of Flanders interviewing people about the material legacy of the First and Second World Wars, in order to gather comparative data to our research in Lapland.

On Wednesday 20th April she will give a public lecture at VUB entitled “Lapland’s Dark Heritage: Understanding Encounters with the Material Legacy of the Second World War in Northern Finland”

The abstract for her lecture, which starts at 18:30 at Room E.011 at the VUB Campus, is as follows:

In this presentation I will discuss the growth of research into the concept of ”dark heritage”, which draws from related ideas such as dark tourism, contested heritage and difficult histories. In particular, I will focus on the research project with which I currently work, entitled “Lapland’s Dark Heritage”. This is a collaborative study involving scholars from the Universities of Helsinki and Oulu, and is funded by the Academy of Finland.

“Lapland’s Dark Heritage” seeks to understand, through interdisciplinary approaches, the diverse and sometimes surprising engagements and interactions between people in the present day, and the material culture left by the Second World War in Finnish Lapland. As will be seen, this is arguably a difficult history (a “dark” heritage) – dealing as it does with Finland’s and Nazi Germany’s military cooperation, prisoner of war encampments, mass evacuations, and the destruction of many of Lapland’s settlements and infrastructure during the 1944-45 Lapland War. Yet at the same time, the early 1940s also represented something of an economic boon for the region, and many new people (mostly German soldiers) arrived in the area and formed friendships and relationships with the local population. Consequently, not all perceptions of the era are negative. This leads us to consider the extent to which this is indeed a “dark” heritage, after all.

Shrapnel from WWI, at Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres. Image by Sandra Fauconnier, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

In early 2016 , Museoliitto – the Museums Association of Finland, published Museoetiikka 2.0, the proceedings of the Museum Ethics conference held in 2015 at the University of Jyväskylä, and organised by the Museology students of Jyväskylä in partnership with ICOM Finland.

The conference, which featured presentations in both Finnish and English, covered various ethical issues for that museum professionals may face. Lapland’s Dark Heritage Researcher Suzie Thomas gave a keynote presentation on international trafficking of cultural objects.

The resulting publication includes Thomas’ paper, entitled “International Trafficking of Cultural Property: Global and Local Perspectives“. The article draws on some of the data from the Lapland’s Dark Hertiage project.

The publication is open access and available via Museoliitto’s website.

Project Researchers Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, Oula Seitsonen and Suzie Thomas are returning to Rovaniemi for a few days in which they will carry out further interviews with various individuals.

Inside Arktikum – the home of the Provincial Museum of Lapland. Photo by: Suzie Thomas.

Among other things, they will talk with the staff of the Provincial Museum of Lapland as they reflect on their recent temporary exhibition “Wir waren Freunde / Olimme ystäviä / We were friends”.

On 10 and 11 March 2016 there will be conference, organized by Associate Professor Laura McAtackney and Århus University, and hosted by the Moesgård Museum, Denmark.

The conference is entitled “Dark Heritage: Public Interest and Scholarly Engagement with Difficult, Recent Pasts”.  Among the international speakers is Lapland’s Dark Heritage Researcher Suzie Thomas, who will present a paper titled ‘“Wir sind noch Freunde”: Exhibiting the dark heritage of Finnish-German collaboration in the Second World War’. There is also a keynote presentation from Dr Philip Stone, Executive Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research at the University of Central Lancashire, UK.

The conference is free to attend, but advance registration is required. To register, and to view further details about the conference including list of confirmed speakers, visit the conference web page.

Published on 30th December, the fourth issue of 2015 from the art history e-journal TAHITI features a column by project researcher Suzie Thomas. The column, titled “Cultural Environments, Art History, and dark heritage“, reflected upon the TAHITI-6 -the National Conference of Art History in Finland which took place at the University of Jyväskylä in February 2015. At that event Suzie gave a keynote lecture on the conference’s theme of cultural environments, drawing on our project research in Lapland.

Suzie Thomas in Dresden, Germany, in May 2015.

In the column, she further discusses the interdisciplinary nature of researching cultural environments generally, and especially the value of multiple approaches and perspectives to Lapland’s Dark Heritage. The column and the rest of the TAHITI journal are open access. Most articles are in Finnish with a smaller selection in English. Other issues also feature articles in Swedish.

Project researchers Suzie Thomas and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto  have visited Siida, the Sámi Museum and Nature Centre in Inari, the Gold Prospector Museum in Tankavaara, and the Military Museum in Helsinki.

We were interested to see how the Lapland War and the period of German presence before it were interpreted and treated in these three different museums. Obviously the Lapland War and the German presence are not central themes to all museums in Finland or indeed Lapland specifically, but given the significant impact of the events of the Second World War on communities and landscapes (for example through evacuation and the ‘scorched earth’ tactics of the retreating German military), it is reasonable to imagine that there would be some acknowledgement of this tumultuous period.
In Siida, we spent time getting to know the whole museum – which has indoor permanent and temporary exhibition spaces as well as an open air museum section – and noting in particular the places in which the Second World War was mentioned. In the outdoor museum section, alongside the traditional Sámi buildings, there is also a trench from the Second World War. Although there is little information on the ground about this particular feature, there is a mobile app available – and the text is reproduced online for those unable to access the app while visiting.

Sign with app for Second World War information at the outdoors section of Siida. Photo: Suzie Thomas, August 2015.

Within the permanent indoor exhibition spaces, the War, and the experiences in Lapland especially concerning the Sámi communities (such as the evacuation of the Skolt Sámi as a result of territories gained by the USSR), are mentioned, but are clearly not a central theme to the overall interpretation offered.

Part of the permanent exhibition in Siida. Photo: Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto, August 2015.

Similarly in Tankavaara at the Gold Prospector Museum, there is only very brief mention of the Second World War within the main exhibition. The museum has not chosen its impact on the various communities in Lapland (including gold prospectors), notably through the mass destruction of the Lapland War, as a central theme to discuss.

The first main exhibition area of the Gold Prospector Museum focuses on the story of gold prospection in Lapland, and in particular provides biographies of notable individual gold prospectors. One individual mentioned is German national Werner Thiede, who came to Finland in 1936, but as the exhibition panel explains, was expelled in 1939, with (according to the interpretation panel) “the threat of war and German state policy” as “the ghosts in the background” to his expulsion. Even more interestingly, it turns out that a gold prospector’s hut close to the museum building – and a rare survivor of the Lapland War devastation – belonged to none other than Thiede, and there were apparently rumours that he had used personal contacts within the German military to ensure that it was not burned down.

Thiede’s gold prospector hut, situated next to the Gold Prospector Museum. A rare survivor of the Lapland War. Photo: Suzie Thomas, August 2015.

Close to the Gold Museum are various hiking paths, including the War Trail for 2 km, which highlights some of the features left from that period. The trail is organised by Metsähallitus in partnership with the Gold Museum, the Sodankylä Municipality and the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment.

One of the signs along the War Trail at Tankavaara. Photo: Suzie Thomas, August 2015.

Most recently we have been to the Military Museum in Helsinki – the largest military museum in Finland and a part of the National Defense University. This museum, founded in 1929, covers military and war history for the entire country, and as might be expected features large exhibition spaces for both the Winter and Continuation Wars (1939-40 and 1941-44 respectively). The Lapland War is acknowledged as one of three wars affecting Finland during the Second World War, and there are notable exhibits within the museum, such as the uniform of Colonel General Eduard Dietl (commander of the German Army in Lapland). However, the Lapland War does not get the same amount of coverage as the other two wars, and there is almost no mention of the destruction caused by the retreating German soldiers (although mine clearing in the years after the war is mentioned).

Interpretation panel on the Lapland War, Military Museum, Helsinki. Photo: Suzie Thomas, October 2015.

Uniform of Eduard Dietl, commander of the German troops in Finland during the Second World War. Photo: Suzie Thomas, October 2015.

We plan to make a detailed study and discussion of the extent to which the Lapland War and the experience of northern Finland in the Second World War are featured in a selection of permanent museum exhibitions in a forthcoming journal article.

On Wednesday 2nd September, the 21st Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists gets underway, hosted by the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

Researchers from the Lapland’s Dark Heritage project are active on Saturday 5th September in a session titled ‘Dark Heritage: The Archaeology of Internment and Forced Wartime Migration’.  Suzie Thomas is co-chairing the session, and Oula Seitsonen is presentinga paper entitled ‘World War 2 forced migrations in the Arctic: Cultural heritage and the evacuation and destruction of Finnish Lapland in 1944’.

The session abstract is:

Last year’s EAA conference session ‘Archaeologies of War(s)’ considered a century of conflict from a perspective focused
mainly, though not exclusively, on battlefield archaeology. The last one hundred years has also seen the making of war on
civilians developed to an unprecedented level and it is perhaps timely to contemplate the cultural legacy of civilian detention,
internment and forced migration which has become a significant aspect of industrialised and sometimes global war. Systematised restriction of civilian populations, sometimes involving privation and even mistreatment, was by no means a new departure at the onset of WWI, and was pursued with still greater purpose during WWII. Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has not entirely prevented 21st century iterations of such behaviours, particularly where political and terrorist issues are involved.The deliberate displacement, concentration and incarceration of mass populations had many side-effects which have left varied physical and cultural legacies among both victims and perpetrators. For most it was a shocking or sometimes even fatal experience; for others an opportunity to seek diversions which resulted in extraordinary cultural and
artistic achievement. For those responsible it has led variously to guilt, redemption, cover-up and acknowledgement. In many
cases there is a distinctive residue of sudden mixing or removal of peoples and their material and ephemeral cultures. We consider the archaeological, museological and interpretative consequences of this dark heritage through contributions focused mainly, though not exclusively, on internment and forced displacement during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Oula’s paper’s abstract reads:

In the later part of World War 2 Finland and Nazi Germany were co-belligerents, with over 200 000 German soldiers holding the frontal responsibility in the northern half of Finnish eastern front. As a consequence of a major Russian offensive in 1944, Finland made a cease fire treaty with the Soviet Union: this treaty demanded Finns to drive out the German troops which resulted in a Finno-German “Lapland War” in 1944-45. Practically the whole civilian population of Lapland was evacuated to the southern parts of Finland and to Sweden before the outbreak of hostilities, excluding some reindeer herders who stayed behind in the fjells to look after the animal herds. Germans used the scorched earth tactics during their retreat to Norway, and destroyed the infrastructure within their reach and littered the landscape with explosives. In 1940-44, before the Lapland War, the relations between German troops and civilians in Lapland were generally cordial, but the post-war memories have been taken over by the powerful images of a homeland destroyed by fire and explosion, in both the official and private accounts. This appears to also colour the views of and engagement with the cultural heritage of the era. In this paper I review the experiences of Lapland’s evacuees, and assess the effects these incidents might have had on the way different communities signify the material remains of German presence. Also the material heritage of the evacuation itself is considered, for instance the refugee camps established in Sweden.

University of Glasgow Main Building, creative commons licence image by Deshi’

Oula and Suzie will be live-Tweeting from the conference on their accounts @oulaseitsonen and @SuzieElizabethT, as well as the project’s Twitter account @DarkLapland.

Project Researcher Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto will attend the 33rd Nordic Ethnology and Folklore conference: “CO” – Co-productions, collaborations, contestations coming together in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her paper appears in panel 22: Collectors and collections. The panel conveners are Tove Fjell, Bergen University, Charlotte Hagström, Lund University, Lena Marander-Eklund, Åbo Academy, and Susanne Nylund Skog, Uppsala University.

Panel description:

In this panel we invite papers on collectors and collections, including both material and immaterial collections. We welcome discussions ranging from collections of glassware and rare books to the practices of bird watching and train spotting. The intention is to touch on issues such as the relationships between compilation and collection, private collections and museums, the process of acquiring things and the knowledge needed and attained in this process, as well as the aims of collections and where and how they are stored/listed, kept and displayed. The main question of interest concerns systemizing and normalizing aspects of the practices of collecting.

How do collectors motivate and make their collecting practices meaningful? When and how does collecting and collections cross the borders of normality? What is accepted and what is deemed inappropriate when, why and for whom?

We welcome papers in the Scandinavian languages as well as in English addressing issues of gender, age, ethnicity, economy, cultural capital and so forth, focusing on any or all of the following: the process (the collecting), the individuals (the collectors) and the outcome (the collections).

 Eerika’s title abstract for the panel is as follows:

Collectors of Dark Heritage: WWII memorabilia in Finnish Lapland

In my current research project I study local people’s understanding of the material heritage associated with the German military presence in northern Finland (Lapland) during WWII. This heritage of a difficult and traumatic period is largely unvalued, ignored and intentionally forgotten. Nonetheless, the remains of German sites and material do constitute an element of northern landscapes that locals and tourists have come across and lived with since the war.

My project is part of larger interdisciplinary project entitled Lapland’s Dark Heritage in which scholars from the fields of archaeology, museology and ethnology explore the values and meanings of difficult or dark heritage and address the relationships between the modern war, material culture and memory. We are interested in the activities like ‘dark tourism’ or the looting and collecting of war memorabilia, but also to broader fascination with, for instance, the Nazis in popular culture. In this presentation I ask how should we understand and approach the collections and collectors of dark heritage and how does these collections and activities shape our understanding of the past and the present.

Eerika will also live-tweet from the conference, you can follow her on @EerikaKK and also follow our project account on @DarkLapland.

Copenhagen’s skyline. By Ibrahim50, available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.