Conditions in the camp were horrible, general hygiene was bad and there was a lack of food supplies.

Inmates died of malnutrition and various disease, including the Spanish influenza that caught Finland in July.

[3] According to the War Victims of Finland 1914–1922 internet database, a total number of 2,997 prisoners died in Tammisaari between May and December 1918.

[5] After the mass amnesties of the Civil War prisoners Tammisaari penitentiary was turned into a labor camp for political prisoners, meaning the activists of the banned Communist Party of Finland and Socialist Workers' Party of Finland.

As the communists spent a lot of time in reading and studying smuggled Marxist literature, the camp was nicknamed the "University of Tammisaari".