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| By Semenov.m7 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28444346 |
Nils and Elvira Filpus, as part of their union activities, joined
the Communist party while working in Detroit. In the early 1930's,
the Soviet Union offered incentives to ethnic Finnish Communists
to settle in Karelia SSR. The family emigrated in 1933.
In 1933, the Stalinist Secret Police become distrustful of the
non-native Finns. They were arrested en masse and convicted of
trumped up treason charges. They were taken out to the Sandermokh
forest, where they were forced to dig mass graves and then were
executed. Also executed at Sandarmokh were Antti Sakarinpoika and
Ida Loviisa Väyrynen and Antti Mooseksenpoika Timonen, cousins of
Great-grandmother Amanda Kaskinen.