WE WERE FRIENDS - OLIMME YSTÄVIÄ

The exhibition opening "WIR WAREN FREUNDE": The encounters of Germans and Finns in Lapland during 1940-1944. In autumn 1940, one started to encounter soldiers speaking foreign languages in railway stations and on the Arctic Ocean Road. Lappish people were amazed by the handsome, uniformed German soldiers that suddenly appeared in their land, taking over the buildings and fields. Thereby, the four-year coexistence of Germans and Finns began and ended dramatically with the destruction of Lapland in the autumn of 1944.

The detail I photographed is of the love story of the Finnish woman Liisa and the German soldier Sigi. They had no future together. As a whole, the period 1940-1944 and the Lapland War after it awakes contradictory feelings among us.