Post by Eero Lahtinen on May 9, 2009 20:31:28 GMT
Great App! =]
Name: Eero Lahtinen
Account e-mail: gio@rikos.net (this is Dieter)
Nationality:
- Finnish
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath?
He is a civilian
Character History:
When thinking back on how things had been, the young Finnish boy Eero Lahtinen felt as if he was trying to remember a distant dream. He had been a normal, happy boy living on a farm in Finland's southern Karelia with his parents. Eero's father, Pentti, worked hard each day to make sure that the family always had food on the table. He also earned some much-needed extra income by shoeing horses, a trade that had been passed on to him by his own father.
Eero's mother, Aino, had her hands full with helping her husband with the farm and also looking after their firecracker of a son. Eero was their only child and therefore very much cherished by his parents and well cared for. Pentti wanted Eero to continue his work at the farm after he was gone and Eero became accustomed with doing various kinds of work and also tending to animals, especially the sturdy Finnish horses that were important in plowing the fields and bringing timber home from the forest. Making a living required some hard work, but the family had a hired farmhand for help and with his help Pentti could get all of the necessary things at the farm done.
Eero was too young to be of help in all of the chores, so he went to school and his spare time was spent running in the forest with his friends. During the lazy and long summer days they would go swimming in the glistening lake nearby, search for legendary treasures in the forest and climb into trees - things that kids of their age were supposed to be doing.
Then things seemed to change very rapidly. The war was coming and one day Pentti took his rifle from the wall, hugged his family goodbye and rode away on a chestnut mare called Tuulikki. Eero did his best to help his mother, but all the men had been called off to war, even their farmhand Kaarlo. The remaining two horses were soon taken to the front by the Finnish soldiers and without them it was impossible to keep the farm up in the same way as before. As the war got closer to Eero's home, his mother had to make a difficult decision. She sold their remaining livestock and took Eero with her to a big city called Helsinki. Aino's sister lived there with her family and they were promised a place to stay there, at least for a while. With three other children and all the adults living in the same place the apartment felt very cramped. Eero and his mother were forced to sleep on the floor, but it was better than nothing. Eero tried to adjust to new friends and to a school that seemed much different from the one he had been to in Karelia.
As Eero arrived home from school one day, he found his mother crying. She was holding a letter in her hand and Eero's aunt came to usher the boy to another room. Eero might have been only a child, but he could already guess what the letter had been about. Eero's father had perished in the war, shot by the Russians. It was a hard blow to Eero and his mother, but common news to many wives and children during wartime.
Other troubles were soon abound. War made things difficult in Finland and it was clear that Eero and his mother could not count on their relatives to help them for much longer. Aino frantically tried to find work and finally found a job as a military secretary. She had been working for only a month when one day Eero found her waiting for him as he came home from school. With her was a tall and slightly imposing man in a military uniform. He smiled at Eero in a friendly manner but the smile didn't seem to reach his eyes. Eero immediately disliked the strange man, he was scary and he wasn't funny and relaxed like Eero's father had been. His mother told him that she had met this nice man some time ago and that they had become friends. The man didn't speak any Finnish as he was a soldier from Germany and only visiting Finland for a brief time. After that Eero saw the man many times, always smiling at his mother in a way that made Eero feel nauseous.
Eero feared that things would only get worse and soon they did. Aino told his son that the German man, Herr Thomas, would take both her and Eero with him to Germany. Things would be much better there, Aino promised, they would have all the food they could eat, their own beds and Eero would get to live in a beautiful city called Berlin. But Eero didn't want to go to Berlin, not even if it had the softest beds or tastiest foods you could ever eat. But he also realized that they could not stay with his aunt either and he didn't want to make his mother unhappy. He swallowed his complaints and soon Eero was off to Berlin with his mother and Herr Thomas.
The boy had to admit that Berlin was much bigger than any place he had ever seen and it was filled with people and huge buildings. Herr Thomas had a very nice apartment and Eero got a whole room for himself. It was obvious that Herr Thomas was a very important military man, as many soldiers visited the house daily, bringing official looking papers and saluting Herr Thomas all the time. Eero's mother tried teaching his son how to speak German but the boy didn't want to learn that silly language, he hated it. When Herr Thomas heard about this, he became awfully angry and started scolding the boy harshly, making Eero run away to hide under his bed. After that he at least tried learning the language and Herr Thomas seemed slightly happier when Eero made progress. Eero didn't want to make Herr Thomas angry over anything, he was scared that the man would kick him and his mother out on the street if he did.
One night when Eero was slumbering in his bed, he woke up to loud commotion. Eero slipped on his trousers and a shirt, sneaking out of his room to see what the noises were about. In the hallway he could see four men in black uniforms, just about to drag Herr Thomas outside with them. Eero's mother was there also, trying frantically to make the men stop, but soon one of the soldiers grabbed hold of her also. It was clear they were going to take both Herr Thomas and Eero's mother somewhere and Eero was already storming in to stop the soldiers. Aino was horrified when she saw his son coming to her rescue and she told him to run away. The soldiers clearly were at a loss of what to do when they noticed the small boy, but quickly decided to take Eero with them also. They didn't consider the fact that a boy of Eero's age was quite agile and hard to catch if he so decided. He evaded the men just barely and ran out on the street, too scared to look back. There was a wooden fence next to the house and Eero used a small gap between the planks to make his escape, leaving the dark-clad soldiers standing on the street, shouting for him to come back.
Eero ran and ran, too scared to stop even for a second. Buildings and street signs were left behind as he made his way though the nightly streets, his grey eyes filled with fear and worry. Finally he had to stop and Eero was left standing on a small street, gasping for breath and feeling as if his lungs would burst from exhaustion. The 13-year old boy was now hopelessly lost in a huge city he hardly knew, surrounded by people foreign to him.
Writing sample:
The sandy-haired boy hurried through the dark streets of Berlin. He wasn't wearing any shoes and the only clothes he had on were a brown shirt and a pair black trousers that did not really go well with the chilly weather outside. Eero Lahtinen had found himself in the midst of strange people in a city that was bigger than any place he had ever seen. In fact, Eero had often thought that at least half of the people of the entire world must have been living in Berlin.
However, right now he was only thinking about one particular person in Berlin and that person was his mother. Eero came to a slow stop and leaned against a stony wall of an old building, panting heavily. Those soldiers in black uniforms, they had come to get Herr Thomas in the middle of the night, but what did they want with Eero's mother? That Herr Thomas might have been a bad man for all Eero knew, but his mother had certainly done nothing wrong! Eero frowned and wiped a tear angrily away from the corner of his eye. He couldn't cry now, he knew that his parents would have told him to stay strong and act like an adult.
The young boy tried to calm himself down and he took time to look around him. These buildings and streets did not look familiar at all. He hadn't been around Berlin much anyway, mostly he had just been to the area near home and only walked the way that took him from Herr Thomas' house to that building where the "Hitlerjunge" met. It was a group Herr Thomas had made him join and Eero hadn't understood much of it. His skills in German were not that good and he disliked most of the children there, anyway. Something about them was just not quite right and they all were very excited about something that had to do with politics, people called the Aryans and a man called Hitler. Eero thought that this Hitler looked pretty funny, but he didn't dare to say it out loud. He had liked his old school in Finland better, but apparently schools in Germany were just really different.
Eero knew it would be very difficult to find his way back home now. He had been so afraid of getting caught by the soldiers, he had not really been paying any attention to where he was going. And even if he could find his way there, would his mother be waiting for him? Eero felt a lump in his throat as he guessed that she most likely wouldn't be there anymore. The men that had invaded the apartment had acted like as if they were the police as they were taking Herr Thomas away. Maybe Eero's mother had also done something wrong and Eero just didn't know about it? If she had, it must have had something to do with that stupid Herr Thomas.
The boy scolded himself immediately after coming up with such a thought. Those soldiers were bad, he knew it! He would find some way to rescue her mother, but he just couldn't do it right away. He had to make plans and hide somewhere, find out where his mother was. If he hid long enough, maybe they would forget about him and not look for him anymore. After all, he was just a boy, he wasn't anyone important. There must have been somewhere to hide in a city as big as this. Now that Eero had stopped, he noticed how his toes were starting to feel almost numb and he shuffled his feet around, sighing.
The headlights of a car made Eero freeze in his spot and he held his breath. The car had stopped very near to where Eero was standing and immediately he thought of the men he had evaded just earlier. Maybe they had found him? They would have guns and a car and they would catch him! Eero had to stop himself from running away, he knew he would not be that easy to notice if he just stayed still against the wall.
Someone shut down the engine of the car and thedoor opened, military boots clacked on the pavement. "Hallo!", a man yelled and Eero was sure that the shout was aimed at him. He bolted off, his bare feet hitting the street at a frantic pace as he ran. The boy couldn't actually hear anyone following him, but it was most likely just a matter of time. The dark streets seemed to engulf the figure of the small boy as he kept on running silently, unsure of where he was headed and what awaited him there.
Name: Eero Lahtinen
Account e-mail: gio@rikos.net (this is Dieter)
Nationality:
- Finnish
What Army will Your Character Serve Beneath?
He is a civilian
Character History:
When thinking back on how things had been, the young Finnish boy Eero Lahtinen felt as if he was trying to remember a distant dream. He had been a normal, happy boy living on a farm in Finland's southern Karelia with his parents. Eero's father, Pentti, worked hard each day to make sure that the family always had food on the table. He also earned some much-needed extra income by shoeing horses, a trade that had been passed on to him by his own father.
Eero's mother, Aino, had her hands full with helping her husband with the farm and also looking after their firecracker of a son. Eero was their only child and therefore very much cherished by his parents and well cared for. Pentti wanted Eero to continue his work at the farm after he was gone and Eero became accustomed with doing various kinds of work and also tending to animals, especially the sturdy Finnish horses that were important in plowing the fields and bringing timber home from the forest. Making a living required some hard work, but the family had a hired farmhand for help and with his help Pentti could get all of the necessary things at the farm done.
Eero was too young to be of help in all of the chores, so he went to school and his spare time was spent running in the forest with his friends. During the lazy and long summer days they would go swimming in the glistening lake nearby, search for legendary treasures in the forest and climb into trees - things that kids of their age were supposed to be doing.
Then things seemed to change very rapidly. The war was coming and one day Pentti took his rifle from the wall, hugged his family goodbye and rode away on a chestnut mare called Tuulikki. Eero did his best to help his mother, but all the men had been called off to war, even their farmhand Kaarlo. The remaining two horses were soon taken to the front by the Finnish soldiers and without them it was impossible to keep the farm up in the same way as before. As the war got closer to Eero's home, his mother had to make a difficult decision. She sold their remaining livestock and took Eero with her to a big city called Helsinki. Aino's sister lived there with her family and they were promised a place to stay there, at least for a while. With three other children and all the adults living in the same place the apartment felt very cramped. Eero and his mother were forced to sleep on the floor, but it was better than nothing. Eero tried to adjust to new friends and to a school that seemed much different from the one he had been to in Karelia.
As Eero arrived home from school one day, he found his mother crying. She was holding a letter in her hand and Eero's aunt came to usher the boy to another room. Eero might have been only a child, but he could already guess what the letter had been about. Eero's father had perished in the war, shot by the Russians. It was a hard blow to Eero and his mother, but common news to many wives and children during wartime.
Other troubles were soon abound. War made things difficult in Finland and it was clear that Eero and his mother could not count on their relatives to help them for much longer. Aino frantically tried to find work and finally found a job as a military secretary. She had been working for only a month when one day Eero found her waiting for him as he came home from school. With her was a tall and slightly imposing man in a military uniform. He smiled at Eero in a friendly manner but the smile didn't seem to reach his eyes. Eero immediately disliked the strange man, he was scary and he wasn't funny and relaxed like Eero's father had been. His mother told him that she had met this nice man some time ago and that they had become friends. The man didn't speak any Finnish as he was a soldier from Germany and only visiting Finland for a brief time. After that Eero saw the man many times, always smiling at his mother in a way that made Eero feel nauseous.
Eero feared that things would only get worse and soon they did. Aino told his son that the German man, Herr Thomas, would take both her and Eero with him to Germany. Things would be much better there, Aino promised, they would have all the food they could eat, their own beds and Eero would get to live in a beautiful city called Berlin. But Eero didn't want to go to Berlin, not even if it had the softest beds or tastiest foods you could ever eat. But he also realized that they could not stay with his aunt either and he didn't want to make his mother unhappy. He swallowed his complaints and soon Eero was off to Berlin with his mother and Herr Thomas.
The boy had to admit that Berlin was much bigger than any place he had ever seen and it was filled with people and huge buildings. Herr Thomas had a very nice apartment and Eero got a whole room for himself. It was obvious that Herr Thomas was a very important military man, as many soldiers visited the house daily, bringing official looking papers and saluting Herr Thomas all the time. Eero's mother tried teaching his son how to speak German but the boy didn't want to learn that silly language, he hated it. When Herr Thomas heard about this, he became awfully angry and started scolding the boy harshly, making Eero run away to hide under his bed. After that he at least tried learning the language and Herr Thomas seemed slightly happier when Eero made progress. Eero didn't want to make Herr Thomas angry over anything, he was scared that the man would kick him and his mother out on the street if he did.
One night when Eero was slumbering in his bed, he woke up to loud commotion. Eero slipped on his trousers and a shirt, sneaking out of his room to see what the noises were about. In the hallway he could see four men in black uniforms, just about to drag Herr Thomas outside with them. Eero's mother was there also, trying frantically to make the men stop, but soon one of the soldiers grabbed hold of her also. It was clear they were going to take both Herr Thomas and Eero's mother somewhere and Eero was already storming in to stop the soldiers. Aino was horrified when she saw his son coming to her rescue and she told him to run away. The soldiers clearly were at a loss of what to do when they noticed the small boy, but quickly decided to take Eero with them also. They didn't consider the fact that a boy of Eero's age was quite agile and hard to catch if he so decided. He evaded the men just barely and ran out on the street, too scared to look back. There was a wooden fence next to the house and Eero used a small gap between the planks to make his escape, leaving the dark-clad soldiers standing on the street, shouting for him to come back.
Eero ran and ran, too scared to stop even for a second. Buildings and street signs were left behind as he made his way though the nightly streets, his grey eyes filled with fear and worry. Finally he had to stop and Eero was left standing on a small street, gasping for breath and feeling as if his lungs would burst from exhaustion. The 13-year old boy was now hopelessly lost in a huge city he hardly knew, surrounded by people foreign to him.
Writing sample:
The sandy-haired boy hurried through the dark streets of Berlin. He wasn't wearing any shoes and the only clothes he had on were a brown shirt and a pair black trousers that did not really go well with the chilly weather outside. Eero Lahtinen had found himself in the midst of strange people in a city that was bigger than any place he had ever seen. In fact, Eero had often thought that at least half of the people of the entire world must have been living in Berlin.
However, right now he was only thinking about one particular person in Berlin and that person was his mother. Eero came to a slow stop and leaned against a stony wall of an old building, panting heavily. Those soldiers in black uniforms, they had come to get Herr Thomas in the middle of the night, but what did they want with Eero's mother? That Herr Thomas might have been a bad man for all Eero knew, but his mother had certainly done nothing wrong! Eero frowned and wiped a tear angrily away from the corner of his eye. He couldn't cry now, he knew that his parents would have told him to stay strong and act like an adult.
The young boy tried to calm himself down and he took time to look around him. These buildings and streets did not look familiar at all. He hadn't been around Berlin much anyway, mostly he had just been to the area near home and only walked the way that took him from Herr Thomas' house to that building where the "Hitlerjunge" met. It was a group Herr Thomas had made him join and Eero hadn't understood much of it. His skills in German were not that good and he disliked most of the children there, anyway. Something about them was just not quite right and they all were very excited about something that had to do with politics, people called the Aryans and a man called Hitler. Eero thought that this Hitler looked pretty funny, but he didn't dare to say it out loud. He had liked his old school in Finland better, but apparently schools in Germany were just really different.
Eero knew it would be very difficult to find his way back home now. He had been so afraid of getting caught by the soldiers, he had not really been paying any attention to where he was going. And even if he could find his way there, would his mother be waiting for him? Eero felt a lump in his throat as he guessed that she most likely wouldn't be there anymore. The men that had invaded the apartment had acted like as if they were the police as they were taking Herr Thomas away. Maybe Eero's mother had also done something wrong and Eero just didn't know about it? If she had, it must have had something to do with that stupid Herr Thomas.
The boy scolded himself immediately after coming up with such a thought. Those soldiers were bad, he knew it! He would find some way to rescue her mother, but he just couldn't do it right away. He had to make plans and hide somewhere, find out where his mother was. If he hid long enough, maybe they would forget about him and not look for him anymore. After all, he was just a boy, he wasn't anyone important. There must have been somewhere to hide in a city as big as this. Now that Eero had stopped, he noticed how his toes were starting to feel almost numb and he shuffled his feet around, sighing.
The headlights of a car made Eero freeze in his spot and he held his breath. The car had stopped very near to where Eero was standing and immediately he thought of the men he had evaded just earlier. Maybe they had found him? They would have guns and a car and they would catch him! Eero had to stop himself from running away, he knew he would not be that easy to notice if he just stayed still against the wall.
Someone shut down the engine of the car and thedoor opened, military boots clacked on the pavement. "Hallo!", a man yelled and Eero was sure that the shout was aimed at him. He bolted off, his bare feet hitting the street at a frantic pace as he ran. The boy couldn't actually hear anyone following him, but it was most likely just a matter of time. The dark streets seemed to engulf the figure of the small boy as he kept on running silently, unsure of where he was headed and what awaited him there.