Finland were Nazi collaborators and aligned with the Axis. After the Soviets let them do their own thing, they have been trying to create new national myths of how actually they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths. This kind of apologia manifests as Russophobia and the various ahistorical recuperations of WWII omnipresent in Western media.
It is like asking a racist Southerner about the Confederacy. You will hear lost cause apologia. Now imagine if they were their own country writing their own history books and media putsches. Now imagine their narrative was slotted into the historical revisionism of the strongest superpower. That is how you get such racist Finns.
Another great one is “larry thorne”, aka Lauri Törni, a finnish nazi (buried with the highest honors in USA’s Arlington cemetary btw) who fought against communists and lost 3 times (twice against the USSR, then took an L in Vietnam).
Weird meme since Finland and Finns are very open about who Finland sided with and it’s very commonly talked about too. If anything it should rather be that we’re too nonchalant about it rather than trying to hide it somehow.
they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths
I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for those who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs. A pretty far cry from the “thousands” you mentioned, but as I said, I’m not sure what you are counting.
For a long time the war and stuff like this was a sore point and the heroic myth overruled everything but since at least for a decade this particular topic has got a lot of public discourse. The heroic myth still lives on though, even if it is milder than it used to be.
For a book, “Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History” by Muir and Worthen provides decent context. For more specifics, the pioneering work of Elina Sana, particularly Luovutetut, should provide the later basis. The thing to focus on is how the intentional ignorance of what her work revealed was maintained for decades by a “if nobody looks or talks about it, Nobody will know” approach to Finland, whose whitewashed participation as a Nazi ally had been fairly thorough. Subsequent critics picked at the margins but her overall thesis and work holds up.
Finland were Nazi collaborators and aligned with the Axis. After the Soviets let them do their own thing, they have been trying to create new national myths of how actually they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths. This kind of apologia manifests as Russophobia and the various ahistorical recuperations of WWII omnipresent in Western media.
It is like asking a racist Southerner about the Confederacy. You will hear lost cause apologia. Now imagine if they were their own country writing their own history books and media putsches. Now imagine their narrative was slotted into the historical revisionism of the strongest superpower. That is how you get such racist Finns.
lmao
Another great one is “larry thorne”, aka Lauri Törni, a finnish nazi (buried with the highest honors in USA’s Arlington cemetary btw) who fought against communists and lost 3 times (twice against the USSR, then took an L in Vietnam).
This wiki sidebar sure is one
Amazing!
Weird meme since Finland and Finns are very open about who Finland sided with and it’s very commonly talked about too. If anything it should rather be that we’re too nonchalant about it rather than trying to hide it somehow.
I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for those who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs. A pretty far cry from the “thousands” you mentioned, but as I said, I’m not sure what you are counting.
For a long time the war and stuff like this was a sore point and the heroic myth overruled everything but since at least for a decade this particular topic has got a lot of public discourse. The heroic myth still lives on though, even if it is milder than it used to be.
That is the official ahistorical line. Actual historical work accounts for thousands.
Can you share some of these works?
For a book, “Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History” by Muir and Worthen provides decent context. For more specifics, the pioneering work of Elina Sana, particularly Luovutetut, should provide the later basis. The thing to focus on is how the intentional ignorance of what her work revealed was maintained for decades by a “if nobody looks or talks about it, Nobody will know” approach to Finland, whose whitewashed participation as a Nazi ally had been fairly thorough. Subsequent critics picked at the margins but her overall thesis and work holds up.