Epilogue

During the Second World War Finnish Jewry was spared the persecution that the Jews of so many other European countries were subjected to. However, this was not the case with all foreign Jews in Finland at the time. Since it is unlikely there were any demands from the German part for the handing over of Jewish people from Finland, the policy of Finnish authorities during the war was at least partly that of voluntary extraditions with no regard to their fatal consequences.

On November 6, 2000, Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen apologised to the Jewish community on behalf of the Government and the Finnish people for the extradition of the eight Jewish refugees. In November 2003, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, an international Jewish human rights organisation, requested an account of the handing over of Jewish prisoners of war to Germany. The Finnish Government assigned Professor Heikki Ylikangas to investigate all extraditions of prisoners during the war.

Previous: Were There Demands?

Notes

1, 3-5 Quotations translated by Tuulikki Vuonokari [Back to The Continuation War, Were There Demands?]

2 What is nowadays commonly known as "a crime against humanity" is in Finnish "rikos ihmisyyttä vastaan". However, the expression originally used in the trial was not this, but "rikos inhimillisyyttä vastaan", which can be translated the same, though there is a slight difference in meaning. [Back]

Works Cited

  • Grünstein, Boris. Juutalaisena Suomessa: hirtehishumoristisia tarkasteluja. Trans. Arvo Salo. Porvoo–Helsinki–Juva: WSOY, 1988.
  • Harviainen, Tapani. Suomen juutalaiset. Suomi: Maa, kansa ja kulttuuri. Ed. Markku Löytönen and Laura Kolbe. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1999. 333–343.
  • Jakobson, Max. Väkivallan vuodet: 20. Vuosisadan tilinpäätös I. Helsinki: Otava, 1999. 145–48, 336–340, 371–379.
  • Pentikäinen, Juha and Veikko Anttonen. The Jews in Finland. Religio-Cultural Minorities. Cultural minorities in Finland: An Overview Towards Cultural Policy. Ed. Juha Pentikäinen and Marja Hiltunen. Trans. Michael Wynne-Ellis. Second revised edition. Helsinki: Ministry of Education, 1995. 163–66.
  • Rautkallio, Hannu. Ne kahdeksan ja Suomen omatunto: Suomesta 1942 luovutetut juutalaispakolaiset. Espoo: Weilin+Göös, 1985.
  • - - -. Finland and the Holocaust: The Rescue of Finland’s Jews. Trans. Paul Sjöblom. New York: Holocaust Library, 1987.
  • - - -. Suomen juutalaisten aseveljeys. Helsinki: Tammi, 1989.
  • Smolar, Rony. Setä Stiller Valpon ja Gestapon välissä. Helsinki: Tammi, 2003.
  • Suominen, Elina. Kuoleman laiva S/S Hohenhörn: Juutalaispakolaisten kohtalo Suomessa. Porvoo–Helsinki–Juva: WSOY, 1979.
  • Torvinen, Taimi. Pakolaiset Suomessa Hitlerin valtakaudella. Helsinki: Otava, 1984. 108–273.
  • - - -. Kadimah: Suomen juutalaisten historia. Helsinki: Otava, 1989. 117–167.