Hannu Rautkallio

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 Sweden.

Alone of all German-occupied countries and allies, they were never asked to turn over their Jews. In fact, 300 Finnish Jews 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.… (mer)