Sandarmokh

Mar

By Semenov.m7 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28444346

My granduncle 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, a cousin of grandmother Amanda Kaskinen
  
• Antti Mooseksenpoika Timonen, a cousin of grandmother Amanda Kaskinen
• Erkki Antoninpoika Herrala, husband of a cousin of Uuno Wallace Filpus
• Matti and Martta Kaurala, a cousin of Uuno Wallace Filpus
• Osmo Pikkuvirta, a distant cousin in the Rajanen/Filpus line
• Iisakki Alpi Aatunpoika Tuutijärvi, a distant cousin in the Rajanen/Filpus line