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Finland and the Holocaust: The Rescue of Finland's Jews
Book by Hannu Rautkallio
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 10, 2013
I am so glad to be finished with this. I only finished it because, as far as I know, it's the only book-length study in English of Finnish Jews during the Holocaust. The writing was incredibly dry and the author spent way too much time in the beginning talking about the pre-Hitler Jewish population of Finland.
Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany, hoping to gain back territory lost to Russia. They had a small Jewish population to begin with, less than 1,000 people, most of them of Russian descent. Refugees began coming from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but even so the Jewish population didn't get that much bigger because many of the refugees were just passing through Finland en route to neutral Sweden.
Twice Germany asked Finland to hand over their Jews, and twice the Finns refused. In fact, 300 Finnish Jewish soldiers fought on the front alongside the Germans, and no one saw this as a problem. Only eight Jews were ever surrendered to the Nazis, and those eight were seen as "undesirables" -- refugees who had worn out their welcome in Finland for whatever reason -- and sent along with a larger group of Latvian and Russian "undesirables." In other words, they were not deported because of their Jewishness. Of course, eight is still eight too many -- especially considering that only one survived the war -- but all told, Finland has a remarkable record.
I only wish it could have been told in a better way than this. The writing was like mud, so difficult to get through. Since it was written for an English-speaking audience (after all, it was translated into English) it should have had a glossary of Finnish terms, but it didn't. That way it wouldn't have taken so long for me to figure out what "Valpo" meant.
3 stars for its rarity, for that alone.
Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany, hoping to gain back territory lost to Russia. They had a small Jewish population to begin with, less than 1,000 people, most of them of Russian descent. Refugees began coming from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but even so the Jewish population didn't get that much bigger because many of the refugees were just passing through Finland en route to neutral Sweden.
Twice Germany asked Finland to hand over their Jews, and twice the Finns refused. In fact, 300 Finnish Jewish soldiers fought on the front alongside the Germans, and no one saw this as a problem. Only eight Jews were ever surrendered to the Nazis, and those eight were seen as "undesirables" -- refugees who had worn out their welcome in Finland for whatever reason -- and sent along with a larger group of Latvian and Russian "undesirables." In other words, they were not deported because of their Jewishness. Of course, eight is still eight too many -- especially considering that only one survived the war -- but all told, Finland has a remarkable record.
I only wish it could have been told in a better way than this. The writing was like mud, so difficult to get through. Since it was written for an English-speaking audience (after all, it was translated into English) it should have had a glossary of Finnish terms, but it didn't. That way it wouldn't have taken so long for me to figure out what "Valpo" meant.
3 stars for its rarity, for that alone.
December 3, 2023
Wow, was this book hard to read! The title intrigued me because I am half Finnish. My mom is 100% Finnish. So I wanted to read some about my heritage. If only it hadn't been so dry! It was written in Finnish and then translated to English, so perhaps some of the stiffness can be attributed to that. But still...
A good portion of the beginning of the book was spent giving the history of Jews in Finland, which was fascinating. All of the Jewish people in Finland came from Russia. The history between those two countries is long and convoluted.
Something I did not know is that during WWII, Finland and Germany were considered co-belligerents, because they fought together against their common enemy, the Soviet Union. Germany never tried to conquer Finland, which was astonishing to me.
Anyway, I gave it 3 stars because I did learn a lot, but it was not easy.
A good portion of the beginning of the book was spent giving the history of Jews in Finland, which was fascinating. All of the Jewish people in Finland came from Russia. The history between those two countries is long and convoluted.
Something I did not know is that during WWII, Finland and Germany were considered co-belligerents, because they fought together against their common enemy, the Soviet Union. Germany never tried to conquer Finland, which was astonishing to me.
Anyway, I gave it 3 stars because I did learn a lot, but it was not easy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews