1940s

The entire 1940s were marked by war and its aftermath. During the battles of the Winter War, the Sisters of the Soldiers’ Home served at the risk of their own lives, often at the limit of their strength. As a result of the Winter War, 50 soldiers’ homes were lost either in the lost area or in bombing, most heavily on the coast in the coastal fortifications of Lake Ladoga and the eastern Gulf of Finland.

By the time of the Continuation War, soldiers’ home work had been reorganized. Soldiers’ homes were established in connection with the Army Corps and a central office in Helsinki to direct all operations and coordinate the procurement of goods. Uniform soldiers’ home uniforms were introduced.

The Soldiers’ Home Association took out a bank loan in order to acquire dozens of barracks in order to make the operations of soldiers’ homes in the border region permanent.

The chairman of the association, Toini Jännes, made a great personal contribution during both the Winter War and the Continuation War. In July 1942, she was on a soldiers’ home inspection trip with two other  sisters on the eastern border when an enemy Russian partisan patrol opened fire on their car. All three soldiers’ home sisters , as well as the driver and guard, were killed.

A monument was erected on the site of the partisan attack in Murtovaara a year after the incident in 1943.

The Soldiers’ Home Association continued its activities also during the Lapland War. The soldiers’ home work did not even end with the demobilisation of the troops, but when the pioneers stayed in the area to clear mines, the Soldiers’ Home Sisters of Koria kept a home for the minesweepers.