Written by Jaana M. H. Jokinen
Told by my father, Matti Samuli
30th November 1939, Helsinki, Finland

“All aboard!”

The conductor’s booming cry drew my mother to her feet.

“The train is leaving, let’s go!”

I clapped my hands in delight. I could hardly contain my excitement. Though I was barely four years old, I had already travelled quite a bit, but nothing thrilled me more than a train trip to the capital city.

“If we don’t get on board quickly, that train is going to leave without us, mum!”

“Hold your horses, Samuli darling. We will make it. They will not leave without us,” my mother reassured me with a warm smile.

She smoothed down her figure-hugging dark green cotton day dress and picked up her well-worn suitcase. I was already tugging her by the hand towards the train, trying not to bump into the other passengers. I heard the whistle and another cry of “All aboard!” as I climbed the steep steps into the carriage.

“Can we sit here, mum?” I asked, a little too loudly, pointing to a vacant wooden bench and drawing the attention of nearby travellers, who all seemed to be in cheerful spirits.

My mother let me sit by the window, though I had to kneel on my legs to see out properly.

“Tickets, please!” the grey-haired gentleman called, extending his hand to the passengers.

Mum stowed her suitcase away, removed her hat and placed it carefully in the rack above us, then sat down beside me and fumbled inside her handbag until she found the tickets. She handed them to the conductor, and I studied the uniformed man with wide round eyes, wishing that when I grew up, I too could be a train conductor.

Then mum drew me close. I rested my head against her soft side, and in her embrace I felt what every child longs to feel — loved, safe, and utterly secure.

Smoke and cinders belched from the diamond-shaped stack of the mighty engine. The whistle let out three sharp blasts, and the train began to rock gently from side to side. At first the movement was soothing, almost lulling, but as the train gathered speed, the familiar clickety-clack, slap-slap-slap of the wheels grew louder, until our carriage seemed to bounce like a ship rolling at sea.

Two men in dark suits sat directly opposite us. After a while, I noticed that one of them was watching us rather intently.

“Is this young man truly yours? Surely you are not old enough to have a son?” he asked my mother.

Even as a child, I knew my mother was beautiful and that men often noticed her, though she herself seemed to shrink from such attention. This time was no different.

“I am travelling to Helsinki with my son to meet my husband there,” she replied, politely but briefly.

After that, he left us alone.

I looked out at the passing countryside for a long while, rocked by the train’s steady lullaby. Slowly my eyelids grew heavy, and my thoughts wandered. I was looking forward to seeing my father in Helsinki. He always took such good care of mum and me. Before he left, he had explained that he had been called to a Military Refresher. I was not quite sure what that meant, except that he got to wear an army uniform, and I was immensely proud to be his son.

Mum had told me we were travelling to Helsinki to catch up with him during his short break.

“Would you like me to lift your son onto the hat-rack, where he could sleep? He may be more comfortable there,” one of the men opposite us asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

“If you would be so kind,” my mother answered.

I felt two strong arms lift me up and place me beside my mother’s hat on the rack above. I stretched out my small body, and at last the carousel in my mind slowed and came to a stop. Every thought, every image, every excitement from the day drifted away, and I could no longer resist sleep.

###

“I am quite certain you will find these rooms to your liking, Mrs Vainikka,” the young bellman said as he showed us into room 407 at the YMCA Hotel in the centre of Helsinki.

I glanced around the large sitting room. The wooden floors had been polished to perfection. Curious, I rose onto my tiptoes and held onto the windowsill so I could peer outside. The city looked so different from the small country towns I was used to. Everything felt bigger, grander, and somehow far away from the world I knew.

Then I spotted the large double bed in the corner and could not contain myself. I ran to it and jumped onto it at once. It felt wonderfully soft, far better than sleeping in the hat-rack of a train.

My mother sat beside me and patted my head, telling me to rest while she freshened herself up. I tried to keep my eyes open, but they were heavy once again. My last thought before sleep overtook me was how much I longed to walk through the city and see my father again.

###

I woke to the sound of loud sirens.

For a moment, I did not know where I was.

Then came the sound of a warplane circling overhead, followed by the terrible howl of a bomb falling and the thunderous explosion when it struck nearby. The whole building shook.

“Mum! Where are you, mum?” I cried.

But before I had even finished calling, I felt my mother’s arms scoop me up into her lap as she ran from the hotel room. We joined the stream of people hurrying down the staircase. Some were panicked, pushing to get ahead. But my mother, calm and steady even in the midst of fear, set me down when she could and held my hand tightly as we descended each flight of concrete steps.

Each new explosion made me jump. Each time, her hand held mine all the more firmly.

When we reached the ground floor, men with white bands around their arms ushered us further down into the bomb shelter. We were told to sit on rough plank benches. I sat on mum’s lap and listened to the frightened conversations around us.

An elderly gentleman shook his head and said he could not believe they would bomb civilians when war had not even been declared. I asked my mother who was bombing us, but it was the woman next to us who answered.

“The big neighbour in the East,” she said.

The planes kept circling overhead, dropping bomb after bomb, leaving destruction and death in their wake. Then at last came silence.

Soon after, we heard emergency vehicles above us. Still we were told to remain where we were until the unbroken siren sounded, signalling that the danger had passed.

Now that the dreadful noises had stopped, I was no longer afraid. I climbed down from my mother’s lap and stood in the middle of the shelter, looking at the people seated on the benches. To my young mind, it looked as if they were all on a train.

And so, wanting to play the part I loved best, I became a train conductor.

I began asking people for their tickets.

A few weary faces managed a faint smile. One elderly lady even opened her handbag, and I assumed she was about to produce her ticket. Instead, she offered me a lolly.

I glanced quickly at my mum. She nodded, reminding me without words of the manners expected of me. So I bowed my head and clicked my shoes together in thanks.

###

The next morning our hotel was evacuated.

I was only four years old, yet even I understood that war had begun.

With wide eyes I took in the destruction around us. My mother and I were ushered to a large nearby school, now filled with evacuees from the city, all waiting to be told what would happen next. We stood in one queue after another, giving our details over and over again.

It was now the first of December. Dusk came early. The days were short and the nights long. Darkness descended quickly over the city. Perhaps that was a mercy, for then we could no longer see the shattered buildings that had unsettled everyone so deeply.

Once again, we were told to sit on makeshift plank benches.

I was terribly hungry.

My mother found a piece of bread in her handbag and gave it to me. In one far corner of the hall, members of the Lotta Svärd were serving coffee, but that was of no use to us. My mother did not drink coffee, and naturally neither did I. At last she found an enamel mug, filled it with water, and that helped me swallow the dry bread.

###

Eventually, we were told to move.

My mother helped me into my jacket, mittens and hat. With one hand she carried our suitcase, and with the other she held tightly to mine. A bitter blast of winter air met us as we stepped outside.

So much had changed in the past twenty-four hours that I could scarcely remember the carefree excitement of the day before. I had travelled to Helsinki hoping to see my father during his short break, yet now, even as a child, I understood that I would not be seeing him after all.

And yet, as long as my mother was beside me, I still felt safe.

We stood obediently in a queue with the others. Several army trucks were waiting in the courtyard. When our turn came, a soldier lifted me into the back of one of them. About twenty-five people sat inside on rough plank benches, facing each other.

As the soldier moved to close the tailgate, an elderly man beside me asked, “Where are you taking us?”

“Out of the city,” the soldier replied. “I don’t know anything more than that.”

Soon the truck lurched forward into the darkness, following others ahead of us. I noticed there were no streetlights on. In fact, I saw no lights anywhere. But somehow I sensed it was better not to ask.

###

At some point I fell asleep on my mother’s lap.

I woke when the truck came to a sudden halt.

Then I heard a kind voice in the darkness.

“You can come too, lady with the little boy. You are welcome to stay at our place.”

“You have only been ordered to take four evacuees. Are you sure you want to take them too?” another voice asked.

“We have plenty of room,” the first man answered.

My mother lifted me into the arms of the man standing there. I remember the warmth and strength of his hands around me. Once she had climbed down, the driver closed the tailgate, hurried back into the cabin, and drove away. We stood watching until the truck disappeared into the night.

Only then did we realise we had arrived at a large farmhouse.

The strong man carried me in one arm and my mum’s suitcase in the other as he led us up the hill toward the house. Four other women from the truck had also been left there. Two were young like my mother, and two were old like my grandmother. The younger women carried little, but the older ladies had many bags and bundles and had to go back and forth for their belongings. Two young women in white aprons hurried out of the farmhouse to help them.

Inside, the kind man led us all into the large main room and introduced us to his family. The elderly woman in a headscarf was his mother. The smiling young man near the fireplace was his brother. The young woman in the wheelchair was his sister. To my little boy’s mind, she must have been very ill to need such a chair.

It was close to midnight by the time we arrived. The other women were shown to beds upstairs, but mum and I were given a place downstairs in the great white main room.

That night, as my mother settled me to sleep, I prayed for my father, asking God to keep him safe.

Then I closed my eyes.

###

The next morning I woke full of excitement.

The house seemed enormous and full of possibility, the kind of place where adventures might be waiting around every corner. All the guests were invited into the dining room for breakfast, and we were treated with such kindness and warmth that it felt as though we were long-lost relatives rather than strangers brought by war.

The man of the house took me out to the barn to see sheep and calves. For a little while I almost forgot the bombing, the fear, and the burning city we had left behind.

But only almost.

Over the following two weeks, I often heard the adults talking quietly among themselves or listened as the radio brought more news. Even as a child, I could understand that they were deeply worried — for the war, for our small country, and for the loved ones whose fate they did not know. My mother herself did not know where my father had been placed.

One sunny day, mum and I stood outside in the farmhouse yard and watched more than twenty aeroplanes flying overhead. I had no way of knowing whether they were ours or the enemy’s.

###

That year, Christmas seemed to arrive almost by surprise.

People’s minds had been consumed by war, and so the usual preparations had been pushed aside. Yet Christmas Eve still dawned, just as it always did, even though nothing else felt as it always had.

Finland was at war.

Deep snow covered everything outside. Then suddenly one of the young women let out a shriek of delight as she looked out the window. Everyone rushed to see what had caught her attention.

There, through the snow, I could make out the figure of a man in uniform struggling toward the farmhouse. Again and again he sank into the drifts, yet still he pressed on.

The squealing young woman beside me was convinced it was her fiancé. But the longer I looked, the more familiar that figure became.

Then came that moment of recognition.

“That’s my dad! That’s my dad!” I shouted, jumping up and down in one spot.

As soon as he came close enough, I ran to the front door, flung it open, and cried out with all the strength in my little body,

“Welcome home, dad!”

He scooped me up into his arms, kissed my cheek with cold wet lips, and whispered, “Merry Christmas, son.”

###

My father told us that he had injured his hand and developed blood poisoning. Because of that, he had not been sent to the front but had instead spent several days in hospital. With Christmas so near, the doctor had allowed him to leave and rest over the holiday.

And so there I was, sitting on my father’s lap in that great white room on Christmas Eve, while my mum and dad spoke in low voices about the war.

“I don’t know where this war will still take me,” my father said. “For now I have been working in the firearms storage warehouse. But they are sending men even my age to the front.”

“Samuli and I pray for you every day,” my mother said softly.

My father looked at me, then at her, and I saw tears gather in his eyes.

After a while, the younger of the two brothers knocked at the door and invited us to join the others in the great room for Christmas. Mum had earlier mentioned that dad could play the piano, and so he was asked to do so.

I remember looking around the room. The old lady of the house. Her two sons. Her daughter in the wheelchair. The two young women and the two elderly ladies from the truck. My mother. My father. Ten adults and one child. Many of us strangers before the war, yet gathered together now beneath one roof on Christmas Eve.

My father chose hymn number 170. He said the words would be especially meaningful to the men fighting the war. Then he began to sing in his strong voice, and my mother joined him with her beautiful vibrato.

A mighty fortress is our God,
a strong and faithful refuge.
Our sword and shield in times of danger and distress.

As the singing continued, everyone joined in. By the final verse, there was not a dry eye in the room.

Even if they take our lives,
our livelihood, our happiness —
still the Kingdom of God remains.

When the hymn ended, the Christmas meal was set before us, and we all took our places around the table. In the middle of it, one of the women suddenly burst into tears and ran from the room. I could see sorrow and worry in every face around that table. Each adult carried a burden too heavy for words, each one thinking of Finland, of war, of loved ones, of loss, of what might still come.

The kind man of the house gave me my only Christmas present that year — a small red hand-carved car he had made for me with his own hands. To each of the adults he gave a box of handkerchiefs.

It was, perhaps, the most fitting Christmas gift imaginable for that sorrowful Christmas.

And so, after the meal, while the grown-ups sat with all that fear and tenderness and uncertainty in their hearts, I sat on the floor and played quietly with my little red car.

A child still.

Even in the middle of war.

And perhaps that is what stays with me most. Not only the terror of bombs, the darkness of evacuation, or the grief that sat quietly in every corner of that Christmas room, but the strange and sacred way tenderness still found us there. A mother’s steady hand. A stranger’s kindness. A father’s return through deep snow. A hymn sung through tears. A small red toy placed into the hands of a little boy.

Even in the harshest of times, there were still moments of shelter.

Still love.

Still light.

Note from Jaana:
My dad truly was a war child. In 1939, when he was only four years old, he experienced the first Christmas he could later remember. Yet the war continued for six long years. That means the first Christmas after the war had finally ended was when he was ten. Ten years old. When I stop and think about that, it brings tears to my eyes.

I often think of myself as a bridge — between Finland and Australia, between the generations before me and the generations that come after me. What makes that bridge even more significant is not only the crossing between countries and cultures, but also between languages. I was still able to speak with my grandparents, to listen to their stories and learn something of the lives they had lived. But the generations after me face not only a cultural distance, but a linguistic one as well. How will they ever hear these stories if I do not give them words? If I do not take the time to translate them, to carry them across, to place them gently into the hands of those who come after us?

How sad it would be if my dad’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren were to sit around the same Christmas table with him, never knowing that these were his very first memories of life, never knowing that this was the story of the first Christmas he ever remembered. It is the kind of story that could easily belong in a film, and yet it is not fiction. It is my father’s life. It is my grandparents’ lived history. It is our family’s story.

As I wrote this, my heart opened toward my grandmother Elina in a whole new way. I kept thinking of her — just twenty-four years old, alone with her four-year-old little boy, caught in the terror of a dreadful bombing as war broke out around them. No mobile phone. No television. No quick way of reaching loved ones or finding out what was happening. Just uncertainty, danger, and fear. And yet, somehow, she remained calm. She carried peace within herself so steadily that even in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable, she was able to make my father feel safe.

That moves me deeply.

And then I think of something my dad used to say to us when we were children: silence is the sound of Christmas.

Perhaps that is true because silence means peace, and peace means the absence of war. Silence means no sirens, no bombs, no fear falling from the sky. Silence means safety. It means rest. It means that those we love are near, and that for one brief holy moment, all is well.

May we all make room for a little silence each Christmas — and in that silence, may we remember.