HALLOWEEN
CONCURSO LITERARIO
3º ESO
By Paula Mª Pastor Barba
The Beast of Finland
Year 1939, Finland, just a couple of months before the greatest war in our history started (The WWII). In that period of time another war developed that had a lot to do with this one, and that event gave a lot to talk about too, maybe even more than the World War itself. This was the Winter war, November 30th, 1939 – March 13th, 1940. A war between Finland and the Soviet Union lasted three months and, as can be expected, the USSR ended up having the victory. It was not easy for them, even taking into account the size of each country. The Soviets were trying to invade the country and Finland was not an easy place, rather it was extremely difficult, as it was a mostly snowy desert, full of trees and mountains. Actually, it is not that difficult to understand why it took so long for the Soviets to win. The Soviet soldiers were recruited by very cruel means, they were peasants and even sometimes they were young people of no more than 17 years of age, apart from the fact that the Finns were exceptional fighters as far as guerrillas are concerned. The Soviet generals were desperate to win and, therefore, a Soviet commander, in a desperate attempt to advance into enemy territory completely ignored the warnings of the Finnish villagers about a horrible and inhuman monster that inhabited the forests of the area. The Soviets took this as a simple Finnish government’s strategy of intimidation. It is at this time that a Soviet colonel decided to attack an important enemy city. However, he could not go head-on because it was suicidal, so he had to go into the woods.
Here the story changes and is positioned in the Finnish perspective. The Finnish army learned that the Soviets were approaching with an army to attack the city with the help of another Soviet army that came from the south. How did they find out about this? By spies? By some sign that the Soviets left on their way there? No, they found out because they found the entire enemy battalion dead in the forest. But what worried the Finns was not what might have happened if that army had arrived in the city, what worried them was the state of the corpses. To say that they were only corpses is very, very short. They had been completely massacred. The explanation given to this event was that being short of food, the Soviets ended up devouring each other until they all died, but that was a very poorly constructed lie, not only because in the camp that the Soviets had set up many provisions remained, but also because they simply refused to believe that a human being had not only the knack, not only the strength, but the evil to do that to another.
What you see here is a photo of what happened, taken by the Finnish army, and yes, what you see there is the mutilated and skinned body of a Soviet soldier on a stake.
Daniel Asensio Pérez, 3º ESO A