Kirves: Toivo Koljonen and Finland’s Last Civilian Execution
In March 1943, while Finland was fighting the Continuation War, an escaped prisoner named Toivo Harald Koljonen walked back to a farmhouse in Karhiniemi with a stolen axe. By morning, six people were dead — including two children, aged eleven and six. The country would remember him as Kirves-Koljonen: Axe Koljonen.
Alexander Lawson tells the story of the Huittinen massacre, the manhunt that followed, the twelve-hour wartime trial, and the firing squad at Kärsämäki quarry on 21 October 1943. Koljonen was the last person Finland ever executed for a civilian crime.
A story of hunger, a closed…
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