While Jews serve in my army I will not allow their deportation

Abstract

Despite 60 years' intensive research and thousands of publications, certain aspects of the Second World War are still little known or remain to be discovered. It is only now, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, that we can reconstruct the full story of Finland's participation in the war. Consider the paradoxes. Finland fought on the German side (although it always refused to call itself an ally and insisted that it was only a co-belligerent). Yet it refused to deport, persecute or even discriminate against its Jewish population. And the country even behaved humanely towards Jewish prisoners of war. Even stronger, Jewish soldiers fought in the Finnish ranks as equals—thereby, inevitably, helping the Germans achieve some of their war aims. Yet in doing so, I will argue, they also served Jewish interests. This article explains the background to these startling anomalies.