Coping with Separation in Childhood - Finnish War Children's Recollections about Swedish Foster Families

Abstract

This paper reports findings from a study on the recollections of two Finnish siblings who were children during the Second World War; they were separated from their families and were transported to live with Swedish families. The data were collected in the form of open autobiographical interviews with these two participants. They offer an oral history that provides insight into a traumatic historical era of Finnish history. Special attention is paid to these siblings’ individual experiences of multiple separations and living in a foreign country with a new family. The results indicate that the participants’ childhood recollections differed from each other, despite their similar situations during childhood. This highlights the fact that during traumatic events, personal experiences need to be identified rather than stereotyped.