Who is responsible for the fate of Ervasti and Saarenpuu, shot in the Olonets Karelia?

The shocking incident that took place in Olonets Karelia and which was described in detail in the press, including our newspaper, namely the fact that two volunteers from Ostrobothnia fell as victims of unprecedented arbitrariness there, have raised legitimate bitterness and indignation not only among the relatives of the executed, but also among all those who wants to look at things differently than through the rifle scope.

According to the information given from the Olonets Karelia, these executed young men, together with other soldiers, broke into a Ruskies church and took away, in their hunger, grain and wine, reserved for “the images of the Lord“. According to the verdict passed by a certain “young officer“ after the deed, the aforementioned Ervasti and Saarenpuu were allowed to pay with their lives, not only for their own deeds, but for the crimes of everyone else.

According to their own letters, sent by the executed to their relatives before their deaths as well as the accounts of volunteers, returning from the Olonets Karelia, neither of these young men had taken part in this hacking, but was led a certain volunteer from Vaasa, an adult man, acting as commander of the group, who, however, got grace – through the acquaintance of commander?

Whatever the relationship of the executed to the robbery, it has not required the command to do what they have twisted in their arrogance. Even on the basis of the Law on Custody Law alone, they themselves are responsible for the thoughtless deeds of young men, because they have caught them there.

As we remember, in the spring Lieutenant Kallio was recruiting a platoon of volunteers for the Olonets Karelia, which the aforementioned young men joined despite the prohibitions of his parents. Although the parents of the young men did not give any consent to take part in the expedition, Lieutenant Kallio took them both to his platoon and then transported them to the Olonets Karelia, where they first fighting together with other volunteers for the freedom of Olonets Karelia, then they were killed for deed that has not been proven that it was committed by them; and does the crime to deserve the such sentence? Some members of the Kallio platoon have said that nothing has been taken from the church except the grain supposedly for eating by the images of the Lord, which was eaten by hungry soldiers. Also the Bolsheviks got the church at the next day.

When the case is complicated in so many respects, it would be worthwhile to thoroughly investigate the whole terrible incident and impartially, regardless of the ranks of the officers involved in it, determine the responsibility of those who made themselves guilty of it.

E.T-la
Liitto -newspaper, no. 185
August 15, 1919