Leo Skurnik

Finnish army Major Leo Skurnik was a medical officer who performed surgery under difficult field conditions.

Leo Skurnik was certainly aware of the dangers. A talented scientist whose career had been blocked by anti-Semitism in Finland, he had travelling salesmen in his family who had written to him about the gathering clouds over Europe. “He knew enough to be afraid,” says his son, Samuli. Nevertheless, as a doctor responsible for both German and Finnish soldiers, he refused to discriminate.

In accordance with accepted medical ethics, he also saved many wounded Germans.

“If you want to describe my father, the one feature that came across very strongly was his humanity. He had taken the Hippocratic oath and, because of that, he wouldn’t turn away an injured man, whatever his nationality.”

And there were many injured Germans who needed his help. The sector where Skurnik was stationed saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war and both his regiment, the 53rd infantry, and the German SS division with whom they were fighting, suffered heavy losses.

Skurnik never gave up. At one point he even ventured into no-man’s land to rescue wounded German soldiers when no other officers dared. 

Finally, with no sign of a let up in the Russian shelling, he took the decision that the field hospital had to be evacuated. That operation, across five-and-a-half miles of bogland, won him the Iron Cross

"I'll wipe your asses with your medal,"

Skurnik is said to have told the Germans.