Jewish Refugees

Jewish Refugees

The Arrival of the Refugees

By the summer of 1938, more and more Central European refugees were arriving in Finland, many of them by ship from Stettin (Suominen 31–32). Most of them did not identify themselves as refugees (Rautkallio, Holocaust 67). The Finnish authorities were alarmed by the growing numbers, and tightened regulations concerning entry into the country, especially after they found out the refugees’ return visas were invalid, for they had had to sign a paper stating they would never return (Torvinen, Kadimah 121; Smolar 97). After some sixty refugees from Stettin on board the steamship Ariadne were denied entry, the number of arriving refugees decreased (Suominen 33, 36). Altogether, approximately 500 Jewish refugees arrived, some 350 of whom moved on to other countries. The remaining 150 were mostly from Germany, Austria, and Poland (Torvinen, Kadimah 124).

The main responsibility for taking care of the refugees fell on the Jewish congregations in Finland, and a refugee committee was established to deal with the matter (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 144–45). The state did not grant financial support (Torvinen, Kadimah 120; Karlsson in Suominen 44), so the congregations had to depend on themselves and aid from abroad, e.g. from Jewish organisations such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Torvinen, Kadimah 122–23). Some of the refugees stayed with Jewish families, and many found themselves work in their businesses or elsewhere. The Social Democratic Party helped political refugees, and some other communities and individuals lent a helping hand as well (Torvinen, Kadimah 124; Smolar 124).

Work Service

Leopold Basch, one of the refugees, has said, “Up to June 1941, we lived in relatively peaceful conditions, without being disturbed” (in Rautkallio, Holocaust 93). Sylvi-Kyllikki Kilpi, a member of Parliament, who had taken an interest in the refugees’ cause early on, noted that prior to 1941 the attitudes of the Government and the authorities to the refugees were still quite reasonable (in Torvinen, Pakolaiset 163). In the beginning of 1941, however, a new government was formed, and the State Police (Valpo) also appointed a new chief, Arno Anthoni.

After the Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1941, the Jewish refugees were moved from towns to the countryside, except for those few whose work in towns was considered essential and those who were taken into custody. The reason given by the State Police for the move was preventing the refugees from coming into contact with German soldiers, who had appeared in towns. The congregations did not object. Most of the refugees were taken to the parishes of Hauho and Lammi, and left there to look after themselves, for no accommodation had been organised in advance, and the arrangements made by the authorities were quite poor in other senses as well. Because of the war, foreign aid had ceased, and the Jewish community struggled to take care of the refugees. A loan was taken to be able to support them, and fundraising went on. The congregations tried to find work for them, but the State Police did not consider their proposals (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 164–65).

In March 1942, some forty Jewish refugees were summoned to work service, as were over 68,000 other people. They were taken to a work camp in Salla, Lapland, which caused great concern among their supporters, for the refugees were in the vicinity of German troops. However, Arno Anthoni insisted the arrangement was only temporary (Torvinen, Kadimah 138).

In the camp the Jews were isolated (Székely in Suominen 102), and their treatment was sometimes rough. Some refugees have reported they were told to work until their nails bled (Werber and Székely in Suominen 103, 104), and German officers sometimes amused themselves by jeering at them when passing by (Zilbergas in Suominen 102). The conditions were “military” (Rautkallio, Holocaust 115–16), and the refugees’ clothing was insufficient for the cold climate (S. Kollmann in Suominen 17). Numerous requests were made to have the refugees transferred elsewhere (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 167).

In June, the refugees were moved to another camp in Kemijärvi, but they were not much happier (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 166–67); one of them even attempted suicide (Kilpi in Suominen 109). The conditions were perhaps slightly better (Rautkallio, Holocaust 121,122) but the Jews kept appealing to their influential acquaintances. Their constant petitions for furlough and release made no favourable impression on the State Police, and they were seen as lazy and unco-operative (Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 94, 96–98). In reports they were claimed to be faking illnesses and loitering (Ojasti in Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 97–98). The State Police was never in favour of their petitions, but the Army Staff was not as strict, and some were granted furloughs and even release from work service (Suominen 107–08). In July, the refugees were moved south, to Suursaari, an island in the Gulf of Finland, where the State Police thought they would not be able to keep in touch with their friends (Valpo in Torvinen, Pakolaiset 169).

In Suursaari, however, the situation did not change. The main job of the refugees was to make barbed wire cylinders, which, according to their foreman, was one of the easiest jobs (Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 100). The Jewish refugees disagreed, complaining that their hands bled and that they were forbidden to use tools (S. Kollmann in Suominen 18). Because of low productivity, their pay was reduced (Valpo in Rautkallio, Holocaust 124).

The Deportation

The beginning of the Continuation War brought Valpo and the Gestapo closer to each other and intensified their co-operation (Rautkallio, Holocaust 125). The Gestapo offered to receive all suspicious and criminal foreigners in the country that Finland considered undesirable (Suominen 62). The Finnish refugee policy was also tightened, and the State Police began to check the backgrounds of foreigners staying in Finland (Rautkallio, Holocaust 100, 106). The suspicion was further nourished by the fact that evidence connecting a few Jewish refugees to espionage and other crimes was found, and this affected the attitude to them all (Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 75).

It has been suggested that the increased suspicion of the State Police towards the refugees was also partly due to the irritation caused by one of the refugees, Doctor Walter Cohen, who was very popular in his home town of Pietarsaari, had friends in high places, and sharply criticised the treatment of the refugees. He had been arrested for breaking travel restrictions, and he even escaped from the Suursaari work camp in September 1942. At the same time, the Cohen family’s residence permit was to be reviewed, as was the case with the permits of some others, too. Now they were looked into very carefully indeed. On September 10, extension of the Cohens' residence permit was rejected (Rautkallio, Holocaust 180–194).

On October 27, 1942, nine Jewish refugees were taken from the Suursaari work camp to the Valpo headquarters in Helsinki. They were to be handed over to the Gestapo in Estonia along with some twenty other foreigners. On the way from Suursaari they had managed to send a postcard to Abraham Stiller, a distinguished member of the Jewish congregation in Helsinki. He took action, and immediately contacted several influential people. The word spread, and eventually reached the press. On October 30, Martin Sandberger, the Chief of the Gestapo in Estonia, had already been informed that twenty-seven people were on their way to Tallinn. However, because of the intervention, the action was cancelled at the last minute, and the whole matter was postponed by Minister of Finance Väinö Tanner, acting as the most senior Cabinet Officer, for Prime Minister J. W. Rangell and Minister of Internal Affairs Toivo Horelli were out of town elk hunting. Tanner decided no action was to be taken before their return. As it happens, Arno Anthoni was in the same hunting party as the ministers, so the matter was dealt with by Tanner and the Vice-Chief of the State Police, Ville Pankko (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 190–92).

Several newspapers wrote about the right of asylum; a petition was signed by well-known intellectuals, stating that Finland’s reputation abroad might be damaged by the deportation; members of the Jewish congregation appealed to ministers; and another petition, signed by more than five hundred people, was delivered from Pietarsaari to support Walter Cohen, whose name was on the list of deportees (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 192–95).

The Government discussed the issue in an unofficial meeting on November 3, and despite the resistance of several ministers, the decision was left to Minister Horelli. Minister of Social Affairs K.-A. Fagerholm threatened to resign, but he was reassured by President Risto Ryti that the refugees would not be deported (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 195–96). Thus it came as a surprise to him, as well as the Jewish community, which already believed in a positive outcome in the matter (Torvinen, Kadimah 145; J. Jakobson in Rautkallio, Holocaust 216), when on November 6, eight Jewish refugees were sent to the Gestapo in Tallinn together with nineteen other deportees, who were mostly Estonian and Soviet citizens suspected of espionage and communism (Suominen 154–55).

Who Were They?

Despite the fact that protests had not prevented the deportation of the eight Jewish refugees, something was certainly accomplished, for among those eight were only two of the nine men brought to Helsinki from Suursaari (Suominen 148). The rest, including Walter Cohen, were taken back to the island (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 241).

The eight Jews who were sent to Tallinn on Board the S/S Hohenhörn were Elias Kopelowsky, Hans Robert Martin Korn, Hans Eduard Szübilski, Heinrich Huppert and his son Kurt, and Georg Kollmann and his wife Janka and son Franz Olof (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 197–98). According to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these were people who had lost their asylum through their own actions (in Torvinen, Pakolaiset 216). Minister Horelli insisted they were “saboteurs, spies and robbers” and that the matter had nothing to do with race (Rautkallio, Holocaust 230). Huppert and Korn had criminal records in Finland; Huppert had broken rationing regulations, and Korn, who had been a volunteer in the Winter War, had served a ten-month sentence in prison. In the State Police papers, criminal activities, such as embezzlement and forgery, are mentioned in connection with Kopelowsky and Georg Kollman as well. Szübilski had been suspected of being a spy (Rautkallio, Holocaust 231–33).

According to Anthoni, the deported were chosen by Horelli, who had consulted Minister of Foreign Affairs Rolf Witting and Erik Castrén, the legal advisor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (in Rautkallio, Holocaust 226). Indeed, Castrén’s statement concludes that “the granting of asylum to aliens in Finland depends wholly, according to both international and domestic Finnish law, on the discretion of the Finnish authorities concerned.” However, the statement is dated December 14, so it was given afterwards (Castrén in Rautkallio, Holocaust 226). It has even been suggested that the selection was random (Brusiin in Suominen 259; Torvinen, Pakolaiset 199).

From Tallinn the Jews were taken to Berlin, and then to Auschwitz-Birkenau. On their arrival, Janka and Franz Olof Kollmann, Elias Kopelowsky, and the Hupperts were taken straight to gas chambers. Apparently, Szübilski was later shot to death. The details of Hans Korn’s death are not known, but according to Georg Kollmann, who was the only survivor, Korn was sent to Warsaw (Kollmann in Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 201). Suominen suggests he might have been one of the prisoners who were sent to clear up the remains of the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto, and were killed afterwards in order to eliminate eyewitnesses (166–67).

Several sources say that Janka Kollmann and the children left Finland voluntarily (Jakobson 374; Rautkallio, Holocaust 225–26; STT in Torvinen, Pakolaiset 216). Georg Kollmann could not tell whether this was the case with his family, for they were kept apart during the journey (in Rautkallio, Kahdeksan 201). In any case, the decision about his deportation applied to his family, too (Suominen 117).

The Move to Sweden

A new government was formed in March 1943, headed by Edwin Linkomies, and the situation of the refugees improved. Some of those on Suursaari were released from work service, and the rest were moved to Jokioinen to do farm work (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 241). Horelli had not touched applications for citizenship by aliens of Jewish origin, but now they were considered, and in most cases citizenship was granted (Linkomies in Torvinen, Pakolaiset 210–11). Anthoni expressed his resistance, pointing out that people so hostile to Finland’s cobelligerent, Germany, could harm the country (Anthoni in Suominen 210–11). In the autumn, the remaining Jews in Jokioinen were released from work service.

Already after the deportation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had begun to make plans for the rest of the Jewish refugees to be moved to Sweden. This was something everyone agreed upon, including the refugees themselves, the Jewish congregations and the State Police, as well as the Social Democratic Party, which had been active in the case of the refugees from the very beginning (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 255–56; Rautkallio, Holocaust 247–48, 250). In June 1943, a new committee was established by the initiative of the Social Democratic Party to pursue the interests of the refugees.

No words were spared by the Jewish congregation, the Social Democrats, and the committee to persuade Sweden to accept the refugees. Some of the most impatient refugees wrote highly exaggerated horror stories of Nazism and bad treatment in Finland to the USA. Finally in 1944, most of the Jewish refugees moved to Sweden. In 1945 some of those who had left wanted to return, but the Jewish congregations resisted the idea owing to the difficult situation at that time: there was a shortage of accommodation, food, and clothes (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 257–61).

The Anthoni Trial

Right after the Continuation War ended in September 1944, Arno Anthoni, who had resigned from his post in February 1944, escaped to Sweden but soon returned. He was placed in custody in April 1945, and charged with misconduct. The charge concerned not only the eight Jews who had been sent to Tallinn, but also nearly seventy other people who had been handed over to German authorities during the years 1942 and 1943 (Torvinen, Pakolaiset 199–200).

In court, Anthoni claimed he had had no idea of what would happen to the Jews in Germany (Rautkallio, Holocaust 237). The prosecution presented as evidence a report of a visit to Estonia in the autumn 1941 by a State Police official, Olavi Viherluoto. On his visit Viherluoto had heard from Estonian police officers that there were few Jews left in Estonia, for all men had been killed. He also mentioned a German SS officer who had been surprised to hear the number of Jews in Finland. “So few! Are they still alive?” the officer had asked, and another had remarked, “Not for long” (Viherluoto in Rautkallio, Holocaust 134–136 and in Suominen 55–56). Anthoni denied having read the report, though his initials were on it. He explained he had seen it but not read it (Rautkallio, Holocaust 136, 139). He also referred to his “weak eyes” as having impeded his finding out about the persecution of Jews from newspapers and reports (Suominen 264).

Nevertheless, Anthoni had been in close contact with Martin Sandberger (Anthoni in Rautkallio, Holocaust 137) and visited Estonia himself (Anthoni and Sandberger in Rautkallio, Holocaust 149). However, Sandberger, who was questioned in 1948 while awaiting the execution of his death sentence for war crimes, stated that Anthoni had not been aware of the full extent of the persecution, and that Sandberger had not been allowed to discuss such matters with him (Sandberger in Rautkallio, Holocaust 145). Indeed, the fate of the Estonian Jewry had been revealed by Estonian police officers, not Gestapo men. In addition, after the deportation Anthoni had asked Sandberger about Elias Kopelowsky’s fate because of rumours about his death (Anthoni in Rautkallio, Holocaust 235).

Georg Kollmann appeared in court and surprised those present by expressing his wish that Anthoni be punished as mildly as possible, for he had no desire for revenge. Later on, he could not believe he had made such a statement (Kollmann in Suominen 263, 294–296).

The defence stated that Anthoni could only be accused of a “crime against humanity” ², and there was no such concept in the Finnish criminal law (Suominen 266–67). On May 28, 1948, Anthoni was found not guilty of misconduct, but his actions were described as inexpert and harmful to Finland’s foreign relations (Suominen 267–69). Both parties appealed (Suominen 269), and on February 14, 1949, the Supreme Court sentenced him to receive a caution for misconduct. He was paid compensation for the time spent in custody (Suominen 282–83).