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Mahdoton sota – Kun suomenjuutalaiset taistelivat natsi-Saksan rinnalla
Ensimmäiset juutalaiset asettuivat Suomen Suuriruhtinaskuntaan 1800-luvun puolivälissä. He olivat tsaarin armeijasta vapautuneita miehiä, jotka oli nuorina poikina pakko-otettu sotilaskoulutukseen ja sen jälkeiseen neljännesvuosisadan mittaiseen palvelukseen.
Sata vuotta myöhemmin toisen maailmansodan aikana natsi-Saksan joukoilla on rintamavastuu Pohjois-Suomessa. Armeeoberkommando Norwegenille alistetun kenraali Siilasvuon III armeijakunnan sotilaisiin kuuluu kymmeniä suomalaisia juutalaissyntyisiä taistelijoita. Muualla Euroopassa natsit murhaavat miljoonia juutalaisia, mutta Suomessa rintamalla toimii kenttäsynagoga ja natsiaseveljet palkitsevat useita suomalaisia juutalaissotilaita Rautaristillä, korkealla saksalaisella kunniamerkillä. Miten tämä oli mahdollista?
John Simonin koukuttava teos Mahdoton sota kertoo suomenjuutalaisten merkillisen historian kolmen sukupolven fiktiivisenä tarinana. Iskevissä tietokirjajaksoissa Simon asettaa tapahtuneen laajempaan historialliseen kontekstiin ja kertoo ainutlaatuisen tarinan pienen juutalaisyhteisön vaiheista 1800- ja 1900-luvulla.
Mahdoton sota yhdistää nautittavasti tietokirjan täsmällisyyden ja fiktion elämyksellisyyden. Lukija kulkee satavuotisen historian kolmen päähenkilön matkassa. Melankolinen, 12-vuotiaana perheestään erotettu Pesach asettuu Viipuriin ja koettaa sopeutua siviilielämään. Hänen poikansa Mendel perustaa menestyvän hattutehtaan, jonka suurin asiakas on Venäjän keisarillinen armeija. Mendelin pojan Benjaminin kohtaloksi tulee joutua saksalaissotilaiden rinnalle taistelemaan Neuvostoliittoa vastaan.
Sata vuotta myöhemmin toisen maailmansodan aikana natsi-Saksan joukoilla on rintamavastuu Pohjois-Suomessa. Armeeoberkommando Norwegenille alistetun kenraali Siilasvuon III armeijakunnan sotilaisiin kuuluu kymmeniä suomalaisia juutalaissyntyisiä taistelijoita. Muualla Euroopassa natsit murhaavat miljoonia juutalaisia, mutta Suomessa rintamalla toimii kenttäsynagoga ja natsiaseveljet palkitsevat useita suomalaisia juutalaissotilaita Rautaristillä, korkealla saksalaisella kunniamerkillä. Miten tämä oli mahdollista?
John Simonin koukuttava teos Mahdoton sota kertoo suomenjuutalaisten merkillisen historian kolmen sukupolven fiktiivisenä tarinana. Iskevissä tietokirjajaksoissa Simon asettaa tapahtuneen laajempaan historialliseen kontekstiin ja kertoo ainutlaatuisen tarinan pienen juutalaisyhteisön vaiheista 1800- ja 1900-luvulla.
Mahdoton sota yhdistää nautittavasti tietokirjan täsmällisyyden ja fiktion elämyksellisyyden. Lukija kulkee satavuotisen historian kolmen päähenkilön matkassa. Melankolinen, 12-vuotiaana perheestään erotettu Pesach asettuu Viipuriin ja koettaa sopeutua siviilielämään. Hänen poikansa Mendel perustaa menestyvän hattutehtaan, jonka suurin asiakas on Venäjän keisarillinen armeija. Mendelin pojan Benjaminin kohtaloksi tulee joutua saksalaissotilaiden rinnalle taistelemaan Neuvostoliittoa vastaan.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
550 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 14, 2023
What a great book. I liked the format and the content. Very cool to learn about how Finland was able to navigate some impossible situations.
This book made me think more than once about the danger of being forced to choose between two options - false dichotomies can be so tough to side step. And I really appreciated the conversation about how when we look back on facts we can't fully understand them unless we have context and know something about the people and their emotions. As well as the danger or assuming what we know now could have been known in the past.
Favorite Quotes
• For centuries, little more than pawns between two world powers, the Finnish people manage to find ways to assert themselves despite wars, deprivation and oppression. In the process of achieving nationhood, the Finns define themselves first through linguistic, cultural and historical differences with their neighbors. By investing in education, economic development and the rule of law, they transform their young country into a modern nation. (pxii)
• I rarely leave these two rooms anymore, and hardly anyone comes to see me except the woman who comes in the morning to clean and prepare my meals. All that is left to connect me to the world are 95 years of memories. I guess that’s what happens when you live this long. (p16)
• Finland may be the only country in the world where a powerful and privileged minority fought for and eventually won the right for the downtrodden majority to participate fully in political, economic and cultural life. (p59)
• A curious contradiction of having their religion outlawed by Finnish statute but implicitly supported by Russian authorities will reappear time and again in the history of Finland’s Jews. The reactions of the two sides indicate neither a deep antisemitism on the part of the Finns nor the fondness for Jews and Judaism on the part of the Russians. Rather they represent, on the one hand, the bureaucratic, do-it-by-the-book approach that Finnish civil servants took to applying the strictures of the old Swedish legal system, and on the other, the willingness of their Russian counterparts to overrule them at every possible juncture to show the Finns who was boss. It does not take long, of course, for Finland’s Jews to learn how to manipulate this absurd game of one-upmanship to their advantage. (p75)
• Another of Mendel’s peculiarities: unlike other children, he does not spend the pennies he earns on sweets or toys. He earns money not to spend it but to possess it, a passion that will not release him from its grasp for as long as he lives. (p99)
• Rumors circulate about White victories in the West, but no one knows whether such reports are reliable or just wishful thinking on the part of those who are spreading them. (p137)
• Those who see the glass as half empty complain that Finland is the last European country to grant citizenship to its Jews. Those who see it as half full say that the emancipation of the Jews is among the first initiatives to attain the force of law once Finland declares independence and can enact its own legislation. (p141)
• Because at this point they have still never seen or talked to a Jew, most Finns are susceptible to misconceptions spread through antisemitic propaganda. According to numerous accounts from the period, those who actually have dealings with Jews are more likely to appreciate them as business men providing a valuable service than to view them as pariahs. Jewish shops are known for offering suitable quality merchandise and service at a reasonable price. (p156)
• When he searches his own childhood for clues to how a father should react to such behavior, he comes up empty-handed, realizing that Peisach had never really paid much attention to him or his sisters. Mendel does not want to be that kind of father, but good intentions cannot replace the lack of a role model. When he tries to discipline the children, he has no confidence that he is doing the right thing. (p158)
• When he tries to draw pictures of what he is imagining, though, his hands won’t follow his mind’s instructions. (p159)
• Finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel for a continent that has suffered through a bloody conflict followed by a crushing economic collapse. Few are farsighted enough, however, to recognize that the light is an onrushing train called World War II, picking up speed as radical ideologies in Berlin, Rome, Tokyo and Moscow stoke its boilers. (p167-168)
• “Marriage is about so much more than love. It’s about security, family and preserving tradition. Love is just part of it.” (p188)
• By the time the required seven days of mourning have passed, Zipora cannot wait to get out of the oppressive apartment. The familiar bustle of the Punaisenlahteentori market reassures her that life goes on. Helping the children cope with their father’s death also distracts her somewhat from her own grief, but once the younger ones are back in school and older two are at work, she realizes that the ache of loneliness stalks her every idle moment. (p202)
• When I sat in shul and tried to pray, the sounds came out all right, but the words had no meaning. I had lots of questions, but instead of answers, all I got was more questions. (p214)
• For some time now, Benjamin has been troubled by the thought that right or wrong don’t seem to have much to do with how disputes are resolved. At the individual level, maybe, but when he looks at countries, he sees only the powerful doing whatever they can get away with. He could never be a communist, but there certainly doesn’t seem to be much reason to trust any of the other parties, either. (p220)
• She could never imagine doing what Chava has done, but Rachel is not about to judge her. (p227)
• Stalin and Hitler share the Manichean view that countries are either allies or enemies, politics is a zero-sum game, and neutrality does not exist. (p245)
• Among the recruits he encounters no antisemitism beyond the usual misconceptions and curiosity. (p250)
• In the David v Goliath struggle, tiny Finland continues to defy all expectations. The Finns are clearly the sentimental favorites among spectator nations, but heartfelt admiration is not translating itself into military support. (p274)
• People thought we were brave to fight them, but what choice did we have? We knew what they were like, and we knew what would happen if we let them into our country. (p285)
• …his short-lived elation burst like a soap bubble grown too big for the surface tension to hold it together. (p336)
• It is never possible for one generation to put itself wholly inside the mindset of an earlier one, which makes it difficult for us to understand why Finland’s leadership made the decisions it did in the spring and summer of 1941. The facts on record cannot adequately convey the fears, pressures and desires that animate history. Emotions fade over time, leaving the facts behind like bleached bones in the desert. We can try to understand the who and the what of history, but unless we also pay careful attention to the emotional context in which decisions are made, we can never understand the why. (p343)
• Once again, as she had during the Winter War, Rachel wonders at the logic of trying to kill someone and the–if you only manage to wound him–attempting to heal him. As a nurse, she never questions her moral obligation to provide medical attention to anyone in need, but the absurdity of war is never more apparent than when she is tending to a wounded Russian soldier. (p368)
• Ironically, Finland’s respect for bureaucratic procedures and the rule of law actually work against arguments for the refugees’ release in this instance. Although many influential leaders–among them President Ryti, Field Marshal Mannerheim and Finance Minister Tanner–find the deportation order morally repugnant and contrary to the best interests of the republic, they are unwilling to overstep the authority of the officials whose responsibility it is to decide such matters. (p401)
• That’s the way it was. One day you were stuck in a palace for what seemed like forever, and then, without warning, you had to pack up and move. (p405)
• The Finns, as they did in 1940-41, face a choice between unacceptable alternatives– “between cholera and the plague” is the metaphor that is commonly used–in a war in which they have no desire to participate. As Foreign Minister Ramsay puts it in a letter to Finland’s Ambassador to Germany, T.M. Kivimaki, weighing the merits of accepting Russian conditions rather than committing to a hopeless German cause: “It is being said here that the first alternative is the same as suicide and the second like being murdered.” (p423-424)
• Like Abraham Lincoln–who is credited with freeing the slaves in the United States but admitted in a letter to the New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley that his interest was in preserving the Union–Mannerheim would do what was necessary to save his country. Lincoln wrote:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Substitute into this text “Jews” (or Tatars or Roma) for “slaves” and “nation” for “Union,” and the text reflects Mannerheim’s as well as Ryti’s and Tanner’s single-minded focus. The Jews were undoubtedly no more important to them than any other Finns . . . but perhaps no less so, either.
Finland’s leaders well understood that a tiny country that had been so recently and violently divided between Reds and Whites and between Finnish and Swedish-speakers would be unable to defend itself against aggression unless its people were united in a struggle. If even the tiniest minority of Finnish citizens were exposed as a group to official discrimination or outside threat, a chain reaction might occur in which other groups would wonder when their turn would come. Every individual, no matter {covered up some words} background or beliefs, had to feel safe, respected and a part of a national project. The delicate fabric of national unity could be unraveled by pulling on a single thread. (p453-454)
• Doesn’t anyone understand what kind of situation Finland was in at the start of the war?
“Actually, no,” says David. “They can only see it from their own perspective. Looking at it that way, we were simply on the wrong side, allies of the epitome of evil.”
“But we weren’t allies! You know that. We were fighting our own, separate war.”
“When Finns and Germans crossed the border together, no one but us saw it as separate armies fighting separate wars. How could they? In fact, if you ask me, that’s a pretty weak justification, like saying we were a drifting log on the rapids of history. The truth is, we were fighting to acquire Greater Finland. That’s what Marski and the AKS said, and that’s what we would have gotten if we had won the war. If Germany had won the war, that is.”
“Come on,” interjected Rachel for the first time. “What choice did we have? We were being squeezed on all sides. It might have been different if Sweden would have agreed to a full military alliance, but by ourselves we couldn’t stand up to either the Russkies or the Germans. The Russkies already had troops massing all along our border. We had to choose one side or the other, and we already knew what the Russkies wanted. Sometimes you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, and that’s what Finland did. If we had sided with the Soviet Union, Stalin would simply have swallowed us. You know that.”
“The problem,” argues David, “is more complicated than that. The Soviet Union and Germany weren’t just countries at war, they represented aggressive, radical ideologies. Of course, neither was acceptable to us, but by siding with Germany, Finland was saying to the world that we could live with Nazism but not with communism.”
“No we weren’t,” fires back Rachel. “Finland never created an opening for Nazism. We needed help in pushing the Russkies back from the border and that’s what we got. That and food to keep us from starving. It had nothing to do with Nazism.”
…
“Look,” says David, “I know all those arguments. I’m not somehow on the other side. I just don’t think sweeping uncomfortable truths under the carpet… (p464-465)
• As a Finn, he knows he did the right thing. In fact he did the only possible thing. But as a Jew? Everyone had said that Finland’s Jews finally redeemed their citizenship through their participation in the war, yet the old question that bedeviled his father’s and grandfather’s generations has not been fully answered. Is he a Jewish Finn or a Finnish Jew? When push comes to shove, is it possible to demonstrate absolute loyalty to both Finnishness and Jewishness? He loves his country and was willing to risk his life for it. He loves his people, too, and is horrified by the thought that someone could feel he has betrayed them.
Is this really what the whole Zionist struggle has been about, not just providing a safe haven for Jewish refugees but resolving the enduring conflict over loyalty for a people in perpetual diaspora? (p468)
• No one, he thinks, can be held responsible for collateral damage from his actions if they result from situations he couldn’t possibly know about at the time. Otherwise, action would be impossible. And if there can be no responsibility, there can be no guilt. (p469)
This book made me think more than once about the danger of being forced to choose between two options - false dichotomies can be so tough to side step. And I really appreciated the conversation about how when we look back on facts we can't fully understand them unless we have context and know something about the people and their emotions. As well as the danger or assuming what we know now could have been known in the past.
Favorite Quotes
• For centuries, little more than pawns between two world powers, the Finnish people manage to find ways to assert themselves despite wars, deprivation and oppression. In the process of achieving nationhood, the Finns define themselves first through linguistic, cultural and historical differences with their neighbors. By investing in education, economic development and the rule of law, they transform their young country into a modern nation. (pxii)
• I rarely leave these two rooms anymore, and hardly anyone comes to see me except the woman who comes in the morning to clean and prepare my meals. All that is left to connect me to the world are 95 years of memories. I guess that’s what happens when you live this long. (p16)
• Finland may be the only country in the world where a powerful and privileged minority fought for and eventually won the right for the downtrodden majority to participate fully in political, economic and cultural life. (p59)
• A curious contradiction of having their religion outlawed by Finnish statute but implicitly supported by Russian authorities will reappear time and again in the history of Finland’s Jews. The reactions of the two sides indicate neither a deep antisemitism on the part of the Finns nor the fondness for Jews and Judaism on the part of the Russians. Rather they represent, on the one hand, the bureaucratic, do-it-by-the-book approach that Finnish civil servants took to applying the strictures of the old Swedish legal system, and on the other, the willingness of their Russian counterparts to overrule them at every possible juncture to show the Finns who was boss. It does not take long, of course, for Finland’s Jews to learn how to manipulate this absurd game of one-upmanship to their advantage. (p75)
• Another of Mendel’s peculiarities: unlike other children, he does not spend the pennies he earns on sweets or toys. He earns money not to spend it but to possess it, a passion that will not release him from its grasp for as long as he lives. (p99)
• Rumors circulate about White victories in the West, but no one knows whether such reports are reliable or just wishful thinking on the part of those who are spreading them. (p137)
• Those who see the glass as half empty complain that Finland is the last European country to grant citizenship to its Jews. Those who see it as half full say that the emancipation of the Jews is among the first initiatives to attain the force of law once Finland declares independence and can enact its own legislation. (p141)
• Because at this point they have still never seen or talked to a Jew, most Finns are susceptible to misconceptions spread through antisemitic propaganda. According to numerous accounts from the period, those who actually have dealings with Jews are more likely to appreciate them as business men providing a valuable service than to view them as pariahs. Jewish shops are known for offering suitable quality merchandise and service at a reasonable price. (p156)
• When he searches his own childhood for clues to how a father should react to such behavior, he comes up empty-handed, realizing that Peisach had never really paid much attention to him or his sisters. Mendel does not want to be that kind of father, but good intentions cannot replace the lack of a role model. When he tries to discipline the children, he has no confidence that he is doing the right thing. (p158)
• When he tries to draw pictures of what he is imagining, though, his hands won’t follow his mind’s instructions. (p159)
• Finally, there is light at the end of the tunnel for a continent that has suffered through a bloody conflict followed by a crushing economic collapse. Few are farsighted enough, however, to recognize that the light is an onrushing train called World War II, picking up speed as radical ideologies in Berlin, Rome, Tokyo and Moscow stoke its boilers. (p167-168)
• “Marriage is about so much more than love. It’s about security, family and preserving tradition. Love is just part of it.” (p188)
• By the time the required seven days of mourning have passed, Zipora cannot wait to get out of the oppressive apartment. The familiar bustle of the Punaisenlahteentori market reassures her that life goes on. Helping the children cope with their father’s death also distracts her somewhat from her own grief, but once the younger ones are back in school and older two are at work, she realizes that the ache of loneliness stalks her every idle moment. (p202)
• When I sat in shul and tried to pray, the sounds came out all right, but the words had no meaning. I had lots of questions, but instead of answers, all I got was more questions. (p214)
• For some time now, Benjamin has been troubled by the thought that right or wrong don’t seem to have much to do with how disputes are resolved. At the individual level, maybe, but when he looks at countries, he sees only the powerful doing whatever they can get away with. He could never be a communist, but there certainly doesn’t seem to be much reason to trust any of the other parties, either. (p220)
• She could never imagine doing what Chava has done, but Rachel is not about to judge her. (p227)
• Stalin and Hitler share the Manichean view that countries are either allies or enemies, politics is a zero-sum game, and neutrality does not exist. (p245)
• Among the recruits he encounters no antisemitism beyond the usual misconceptions and curiosity. (p250)
• In the David v Goliath struggle, tiny Finland continues to defy all expectations. The Finns are clearly the sentimental favorites among spectator nations, but heartfelt admiration is not translating itself into military support. (p274)
• People thought we were brave to fight them, but what choice did we have? We knew what they were like, and we knew what would happen if we let them into our country. (p285)
• …his short-lived elation burst like a soap bubble grown too big for the surface tension to hold it together. (p336)
• It is never possible for one generation to put itself wholly inside the mindset of an earlier one, which makes it difficult for us to understand why Finland’s leadership made the decisions it did in the spring and summer of 1941. The facts on record cannot adequately convey the fears, pressures and desires that animate history. Emotions fade over time, leaving the facts behind like bleached bones in the desert. We can try to understand the who and the what of history, but unless we also pay careful attention to the emotional context in which decisions are made, we can never understand the why. (p343)
• Once again, as she had during the Winter War, Rachel wonders at the logic of trying to kill someone and the–if you only manage to wound him–attempting to heal him. As a nurse, she never questions her moral obligation to provide medical attention to anyone in need, but the absurdity of war is never more apparent than when she is tending to a wounded Russian soldier. (p368)
• Ironically, Finland’s respect for bureaucratic procedures and the rule of law actually work against arguments for the refugees’ release in this instance. Although many influential leaders–among them President Ryti, Field Marshal Mannerheim and Finance Minister Tanner–find the deportation order morally repugnant and contrary to the best interests of the republic, they are unwilling to overstep the authority of the officials whose responsibility it is to decide such matters. (p401)
• That’s the way it was. One day you were stuck in a palace for what seemed like forever, and then, without warning, you had to pack up and move. (p405)
• The Finns, as they did in 1940-41, face a choice between unacceptable alternatives– “between cholera and the plague” is the metaphor that is commonly used–in a war in which they have no desire to participate. As Foreign Minister Ramsay puts it in a letter to Finland’s Ambassador to Germany, T.M. Kivimaki, weighing the merits of accepting Russian conditions rather than committing to a hopeless German cause: “It is being said here that the first alternative is the same as suicide and the second like being murdered.” (p423-424)
• Like Abraham Lincoln–who is credited with freeing the slaves in the United States but admitted in a letter to the New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley that his interest was in preserving the Union–Mannerheim would do what was necessary to save his country. Lincoln wrote:
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
Substitute into this text “Jews” (or Tatars or Roma) for “slaves” and “nation” for “Union,” and the text reflects Mannerheim’s as well as Ryti’s and Tanner’s single-minded focus. The Jews were undoubtedly no more important to them than any other Finns . . . but perhaps no less so, either.
Finland’s leaders well understood that a tiny country that had been so recently and violently divided between Reds and Whites and between Finnish and Swedish-speakers would be unable to defend itself against aggression unless its people were united in a struggle. If even the tiniest minority of Finnish citizens were exposed as a group to official discrimination or outside threat, a chain reaction might occur in which other groups would wonder when their turn would come. Every individual, no matter {covered up some words} background or beliefs, had to feel safe, respected and a part of a national project. The delicate fabric of national unity could be unraveled by pulling on a single thread. (p453-454)
• Doesn’t anyone understand what kind of situation Finland was in at the start of the war?
“Actually, no,” says David. “They can only see it from their own perspective. Looking at it that way, we were simply on the wrong side, allies of the epitome of evil.”
“But we weren’t allies! You know that. We were fighting our own, separate war.”
“When Finns and Germans crossed the border together, no one but us saw it as separate armies fighting separate wars. How could they? In fact, if you ask me, that’s a pretty weak justification, like saying we were a drifting log on the rapids of history. The truth is, we were fighting to acquire Greater Finland. That’s what Marski and the AKS said, and that’s what we would have gotten if we had won the war. If Germany had won the war, that is.”
“Come on,” interjected Rachel for the first time. “What choice did we have? We were being squeezed on all sides. It might have been different if Sweden would have agreed to a full military alliance, but by ourselves we couldn’t stand up to either the Russkies or the Germans. The Russkies already had troops massing all along our border. We had to choose one side or the other, and we already knew what the Russkies wanted. Sometimes you have to choose between the lesser of two evils, and that’s what Finland did. If we had sided with the Soviet Union, Stalin would simply have swallowed us. You know that.”
“The problem,” argues David, “is more complicated than that. The Soviet Union and Germany weren’t just countries at war, they represented aggressive, radical ideologies. Of course, neither was acceptable to us, but by siding with Germany, Finland was saying to the world that we could live with Nazism but not with communism.”
“No we weren’t,” fires back Rachel. “Finland never created an opening for Nazism. We needed help in pushing the Russkies back from the border and that’s what we got. That and food to keep us from starving. It had nothing to do with Nazism.”
…
“Look,” says David, “I know all those arguments. I’m not somehow on the other side. I just don’t think sweeping uncomfortable truths under the carpet… (p464-465)
• As a Finn, he knows he did the right thing. In fact he did the only possible thing. But as a Jew? Everyone had said that Finland’s Jews finally redeemed their citizenship through their participation in the war, yet the old question that bedeviled his father’s and grandfather’s generations has not been fully answered. Is he a Jewish Finn or a Finnish Jew? When push comes to shove, is it possible to demonstrate absolute loyalty to both Finnishness and Jewishness? He loves his country and was willing to risk his life for it. He loves his people, too, and is horrified by the thought that someone could feel he has betrayed them.
Is this really what the whole Zionist struggle has been about, not just providing a safe haven for Jewish refugees but resolving the enduring conflict over loyalty for a people in perpetual diaspora? (p468)
• No one, he thinks, can be held responsible for collateral damage from his actions if they result from situations he couldn’t possibly know about at the time. Otherwise, action would be impossible. And if there can be no responsibility, there can be no guilt. (p469)
November 3, 2019
Impossible story of an impossible war
The Finnish title: ‘Impossible War’ says a lot.
A very good overview of Finland From the 1850s to the end of World War II. As a history book,it does the job. The writing,however, makes it a difficult read and might make it difficult for someone not interested in the topics to begin with.
The author does a nice job explaining the battles, which is always a difficult endeavor. The maps and pictures are well chosen. Also, this is a rare book about war from the soldiers’ perspective, as opposed to the generals’.
I would recommend this also to those interested in the Holocaust as a way to, perhaps, understand what is today, the incomprehensible: how could Finland ally with Nazi Germany? One trip to Eastern Finland to see the trenches or to Vipori will give the answer...
One disappointment. The author does not go into greater detail about the events that led to the award of the iron crosses or explain whether this type of award was routinely awarded to Finns.
The Finnish title: ‘Impossible War’ says a lot.
A very good overview of Finland From the 1850s to the end of World War II. As a history book,it does the job. The writing,however, makes it a difficult read and might make it difficult for someone not interested in the topics to begin with.
The author does a nice job explaining the battles, which is always a difficult endeavor. The maps and pictures are well chosen. Also, this is a rare book about war from the soldiers’ perspective, as opposed to the generals’.
I would recommend this also to those interested in the Holocaust as a way to, perhaps, understand what is today, the incomprehensible: how could Finland ally with Nazi Germany? One trip to Eastern Finland to see the trenches or to Vipori will give the answer...
One disappointment. The author does not go into greater detail about the events that led to the award of the iron crosses or explain whether this type of award was routinely awarded to Finns.
July 4, 2023
I actually rated this one 4 and 1/2 stars. Read the full review at www.cloquetriverpress.com
Peace
Mark
Peace
Mark
September 26, 2019
I am an American expatriate living in Finland. I had previously read about the Winter War and the Continuation War and the Finn's extraordinary sacrifice, courage, and brilliant stratagies to withstand Russia's efforts to devour them.
Strangers in a Stranger Land added another dimension to my readings. Finland's succesful effort to
protect the Jews in WW2, to have Jews fighting with Germans agains the Russian conquest of Finland,
and to withstand the personal efforts of Hitler, himself is an amazing story. The book is outstanding.
Strangers in a Stranger Land added another dimension to my readings. Finland's succesful effort to
protect the Jews in WW2, to have Jews fighting with Germans agains the Russian conquest of Finland,
and to withstand the personal efforts of Hitler, himself is an amazing story. The book is outstanding.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews