“Children must be separated from such monsters”
The sad harvest of the Civil War was red orphans. Including half-orphans, 25,000 is probably the right number, as there were 11,000 red widows and 80,000 prisoners in the camps at worst.
Red widows found it difficult to find work, and the woman’s salary was low. 2,000 white widows received pensions, but the red widows only received poor relief. The recipient lost the right to vote and the children could be forcibly taken into custody on the basis of lack of means. A children’s home could even be a condition for receiving help.
In the beginning, the only help offered to the Red Widows was to send the children to Ostrobothnia. The idea was born in the Homes for Homeless Children organisation, which was led by the future First Lady Ester Ståhlberg. The intention was good; There was food for the hungry in Ostrobothnia. The intention was also ideological. Children had to be taken to the care of patriotic people away from their mothers, “so that such monsters are no longer allowed to raise children and plant their gnawing hatred in them, which contaminates the child’s soul”, as the Poor Relief Journal wrote.
In the end, 1,700 children were sent to Ostrobothnia. Some returned to their homes after a few months or years, while others stayed in their foster home until adulthood. In foster homes, the treatment of children varied. Somewhere they were considered their own children, somewhere the child was mistreated free labour.
Red orphans often hid their background from their own children, so strong was the experience of rejection and hatred. The red orphans were ashamed of their fate, which they had not chosen, as they were children.
Anneli Kanto in the programme of the play Red Orphans