Partisan attack at Viiksimo

The village of Viiksimo was attacked by Soviet partisans on 24 September 1942. Immediately after the attack a Finnish military detachment arrived in the village, but they were too late to prevent the devastation. Eight innocent civilians died in the attack. In addition, one adult and one child were wounded.

Partisan attack at Viiksimo

The Viiksimo peninsula had three farms: Uutela, Välitalo and Tyvelä. On 24 September 1942, the people of the village were harvesting potatoes. At around 2 p.m., a group of ten partisans entered the village of Viiksimo. The partisans were armed with submachine guns and ordered the residents to come with them.

The partisans took the residents to a nearby forest, where they were guarded by Finnish-speaking partisans for about two hours. Meanwhile, the other partisans looted all the most valuable goods, foodstuffs, clothes and footwear as well as five cows from the houses. The partisans carried the goods into the forest and commanded the people in the forest to go the Uutela farm. The women and children were told to go to the house, the men to the nearby sauna. A few partisans with submachine guns stayed outside.

The eleven people ordered into the Uutela house were told to sit closely together on a bench in the back. One of the young women noticed the partisans’ intentions and jumped on the other. During the ensuing scuffle, the burst from the partisan’s submachine gun hit the ceiling and the magazine emptied. The second partisan, who also had a submachine gun, became overwhelmed and did not react quickly enough. This gave the Finns a chance to start fleeing through a window opening which was covered with boards.

The partisans outside spotted the escapees and started firing at them. One of the escaping villagers died instantly under the window and another was shot in the head while running in a field, falling unconscious to the ground. Inside the Uutela house, enemy bullets had hit fatally one adult and one child. In addition, one small child was wounded.

Four adults, three older and one young, had been taken to the sauna at Uutela. There two partisans started shooting with submachine guns. The three older men died, and the young man lay under his dead father, pretending to be dead after suffering three shots to his body.

Roughly at the same time as the above events, at around 4 p.m., an army car coming from the Kuhmo Church arrived in Viiksimo. There were four officers and the driver in the car. The men in the car had no knowledge of what had happened in Viiksimo and proceeded straight towards the village. The partisans opened fire at close range, with bullets hitting the roof of the car. The car was later found to have been hit by 60 bullets. The driver steered the car into a ditch, and the men jumped out of the tilted car and took cover behind it. One officer was slightly wounded by the partisans’ gunfire, but the others were

unharmed. A lorry that had been driving behind the car turned around quickly and set off to pick up the men who had been left at Kalliojoki, about 16 kilometres (10 miles) away.

When the soldiers’ truck returned about one hour later, it stopped about 400 metres (437 yards) from the positions where the partisans had been previously observed. There were now 22 men on the bed of the lorry. The group of villagers that had escaped from the Uutela house was present and giving warning signs. By the time the troops in the lorry arrived, the enemy had already fled, having set fire to the sauna of the Tyvelä farm.

Eight innocent civilians died in the attack. In addition, one adult and one child were wounded.

Viiksimo memorial

A memorial to the victims of the partisan attack was erected on the site by LC Kuhmo/Kuhmoniemi. It was unveiled on 2 July 1995. The memorial was designed by Kauko Haverinen.
The site is easily accessible. There is no actual car park in Viiksimo, but there are stopping areas on the side of the road. The yard areas are private property.
Address: Viiksimontie 3065, 88900 Kuhmo, Finland.