christerd

A picture of Lotta Svärd members , at least one in the front row has the scarce Merit medal , and all has the bade on the neck collar some othe small badges are for different duties and merits. They look rather tough don´t they ?

This card was membership No 355 to Marjatta Topivaara in village Lohja ,

Here is a membership card for Lotta Svärd in the orginal cover

And the inside of the card

Here is a empty memebership card for the badge , it´s printed in October 1941 and would probably been used with a photo, I have never seen a used one.

And the back , the 10 years badge is numbered 29 962 but no silver year marking so I cant say how old it is more than it should be between 1930 , earliest awarded and 1944

There was also a smaller badge for 10 years of membership and another one for 20 years . Both made in silver and numbered , here is the 10 year compared with the ordinary badge

And the back with number and silver marks ( behind the needle)

This is a membership badge for Lotta Svärd, these where made in Silver and are numbered, I don´t know if there is any exicisting archive in Finalnd covering these badges but at least you can see by the silver marks from what year it is . this badge is marked E6 wich means 1934 .and number 62768 about 200 000 woman was member at the Lotta Svärd in 1944, 287 died during service among them 113 KIA.

And the backside

I showed earlier in this thread a winter war medal awarded to a Lotta , a female organisation 1920-1944 Here is one of the two special made awards for Lotta Svärd members : The Lotta Svärd medal of merit it was awarded about 2600 times so its quite rare to find, the Cross of merit wich is the higher grade is even rarer only about 400 was ever awarded...

and the backside of the medal

After the war in January 1945 come a new medal from Finland for outstanding service in charitable activities. it is a quite simple one with a woman and a child on the front and the words Pro Benignitate Humana on the back- worn on a blue ribbon with white stripe in the middle , you can sometimes see this medal in Swedish medal bars ,

And just to proof that David is not alone in thinking about Eisenbahn Regiments Here is a photo of a member in Eisenbahn Rgt 2 Christer

And here is the other version of the plaque , this is more rare then the first one. These was probably awarded in numbers like 1000-2000. The front is the same as the former but the on the backside the text reads : Work for Swedish Voluntary Force 1939-1940

And the backside with the text : Swedish Voluntary Force , War Service Finnland 1940

This plaque was given to the volunteers from Sweden , the text on the fron is in Swedish and says approx For Nordic Freedom and Swedens Glory . These plaque was awarded about 8000 times

And the backside of this medal , lettering in Latin ! Anyone skilled in Latin ? .... I think it means something like together humanity in memory for Finnland ? ahh

Since about 8000 Swedish fought along their Finnish comrades in the winter war , there is natural that some medals was made in Sweden to remember the war and maybe more to honor the almost forgotten ones , the civilians and the children. Here is a Heavy Bronce table medal made in Sweden and given to those who among other things helped children from Finnland during the conflict . Although is not Finnish I think it is connected to a collection of Finnish awards during the war years

And Cross itself with the Oakleaf on the ribbon

A new award wasinstituted during th 1941-44 war , The Liberty Cross with Oakleaves A Oakleave on the ribbon shows that the the wearer have two Cross of the same class These oakleves comes in every class from 4th up to 1st class , 4th class was awarded 8359 times and about 50 went to Swedish soldiers fighting in the war. This document is to Jalmar Alfons Ekman and is written in Swedish , showing that Jalmar was born in a Swedish speaking part of Finnland the award was given 22 september 1944.

Backside of Cross

And just like 1939 there was a Mourning Cross in 1941 given to realtives to KIA . Here is the 1941 version

Second class medal Liberty Cross , looks just like the 1918 and 1939 . Awarded almost 240 000 times these are the most common of the Finnish awards from the 1918-1945 time. The medal on the left is the 2nd Class Bravery for Nurses and Medics much harder to find and awarded 6849 times in 1941 The third medal is almost the same but look at the front ! Instead of For Bravery it says in Finnish and Swedish " For Country " It is the medal for merits on the homefront and app 38 000 was awarded.

The backside of the 3rd class cross , this cross was made by a different maker than the 4th cross shown earlier. notice the slightly changed punching of the year and rivets .