The shame nations of WWII.

[David Floyd]

A number of former allied countries actually supplied more troops for the axis cause than for the allies. Included among these were France,

Hmmm. Do you have a source for that claim? I could be wrong, but it seems rather doubtful (when applied to France, the others are undoubtedly correct).

[Hurricane]

While Finland indeed did fight alongside Germany against Soviet, it did not share Nazi Germany's antisemitic values. Still, one atrocity occured. This is a post I posted earlier on another forum:

There were about 2500 jews living in Finland at the outbreak of WW2. There were some antisemitical trends during the 30s, but mostly people feared the Russians, and since many of the jews had moved to Finland from Soviet, they too got a share of this "russia-hate". I don´t know of any actual damage made to either jews of their property, however. Some right-wing papers had antisemitical articles, but that was about it.

When the Jews started to flee from Germany during the mid 30s, very few were allowed to come to Finland. Only about 500 came before 1941, and of these, 350 shortly continued to neutral or Allied countries.

Finland entered the war as a German ally in 1941. There were abour 300 jews in the Finnish army, who now paradoxically were fighting alongside the Germans.

In 1942, there were about 150 Jew refugees, who had fled to Finland from Germany or other countries occupied by Germany. They were held in refugee camps. During about the same time as the Norwegian jews were taken care of, Germany demanded that those refugees were returned to Germany. After a very heated debate in the government, 8 Jews were eventually shipped over to Germany, where they promptly ended up in concentration camps.

Of these, only 1 survived, seven died.

Not long ago, the Finnish prime minister, Mr. Paavo Lipponen, apologised to the Jewish community for this cowardly act.

[Stefu]

I hope you folks are aware paiktis -the troll megamachine- produced this thread with only one purpose - trolling WWII Croatia.

That's odd. My view was that the sole purpose of this thread was trolling WWII Finland.

Here's an article about Finland's Jews in WWII.

http://www.finemb.org.il/Historia.htm

World War II (11.)

In the years 1939-1944 two different wars against the Soviet Union were imposed upon Finland. During the Winter War of 1939-1940 Germany remained strictly neutral on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; Great Britain and France planned intervention in favour of Finland.

When the second, so-called Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1941, Finland was a co-belligerent of Germany, and Great Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941. De jure, however, Finland was never an ally of Germany, and at the end of the War, in the winter 1944-45, the Finnish armed forces expelled the German troops from Lapland, which was devastated by the Germans during their retreat to Norway.

Military service was compulsory for each male citizen of Finland. In 1939 the Jewish population of Finland numbered 1,700. Of these, 260 men were called up and approximately 200 were sent to serve at the front during the Winter War. Fifteen men lost their lives. In comparison with other communities in the country, the Jewish losses (8 %) were conspicuously heavy. However, it is obvious that the Winter War did not involve ideological problems - neither for the Jews nor for other citizens of Finland. In this respect a statement made by a Jewish veteran seems to be characteristic: "The Winter War gave us a deeper consciousness of being Finnish and of belonging to Finland more than any earlier period in our history."

As I mentioned earlier, the Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1941. Now Finland was a co-belligerent of Germany, and there were Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS troops in the country. However, no Einsatzgruppe was sent to Finland.

The comradeship-in-arms with Germany during the Continuation War did not alter the status of Jews in Finland or in its army. Jewish citizens served in the Finnish army, in women's voluntary defence services and in other duties alongside other Finns. The same was true with regard to all the ethnic minorities, Tatars, Russians, Gipsies, Lapps, without differentiation.

In a quite unique photo, in a snowy forest there is a millboard tent with an iron heating stove, the chimney on the left-hand side - and a number of soldiers are posing outside the tent. The tent is a field synagogue, "Scholka's shul", set up for the Jewish soldiers at the front beside the River Svir in Eastern Karelia. A field synagogue with a Torah Scroll was, no doubt, a very exceptional event in an Army fighting on the German side during the War.

Several Jewish soldiers were cited for bravery in action; a number of them served as company commanders and one as a captain and battalion commander; Jewish army doctors were promoted to the same officer ranks as their colleagues, inclusive of ranks of major.

During the two wars, 23 Finnish Jews were killed in action. As a tribute to their memory, their names are published annually in the Jewish Calendar of the Bicur Cholim Society in Helsinki.

It has been supposed that the Germans demanded the liquidation of the Jewish communities in Finland too. However, there is no evidence in favour of these claims. On the other hand, the small Jewish population of Finland was not rescued because of a "lapse of memory" among the Nazis as has sometimes been maintained. An evident confutation of this hypothesis is the case of a handful of Jewish citizens from Finland who were living in the German-occupied countries: their successful return to Finland resulted in intense diplomatic activity between Berlin and Helsinki in the spring and summer of 1943.

It was the public conviction that "we have no Jewish Question", and the Finnish prime minister J. W. Rangell expressed such an opinion to Heinrich Himmler in July 1942. Consistent messages of this kind may have warned the Germans not to endanger relations with their useful brother-in-arms over an insignificant matter of little advantage to them - after final victory there would be nowhere for the Jews to escape to.

The position of Finnish Jewish soldiers was very similar to the political reality: none of the Jewish citizens of Finland refused to enter military service on the grounds of pacifism or of being Jewish. On the other hand, no instance is known of German soldiers refusing to co-operate with Finnish Jewish officers. As a rule, the attitude of Germans to Jewish soldiers in the Finnish army has been described as an "astonished" but "correct" one. The usual answer to incredulous questions put by Germans was that "there is no difference between Jews and other soldiers in the Finnish army." A number of Jewish officers were awarded German Iron Crosses, but they refused them.

Jewish soldiers were not unaware of the general anti-Semitism of Hitler's Germany, and reports of atrocities and mass murders circulated among them and their families. However, the brutality of the Holocaust did not become evident until the end of the Continuation War in the autumn of 1944. The awareness of being Finnish soldiers gave the Jews an assurance of safety even in the vicinity of German troops. At the same time, quite a number of Jewish soldiers seem to have felt the need to display that they were at least as brave soldiers as their comrades.

The complexity of comradeship with the Germans became a serious problem only after the wars, when the extent of the Holocaust was revealed. First of all, the Norwegian Jews who had suffered most during the Nazi occupation questioned the policy of the Jews in Finland. I consider that two reactions to these questions illustrate the views of the Jews in Finland quite well. A former Jewish member of the women's voluntary defence services (lotta) told me: "We were very surprised because of these questions. We were proud that we were also accepted to join the other Finns." Another reaction was: an association called the Jewish War Veterans in Finland was founded in Helsinki in 1981 During the first year of the association's activity, 84 members, more than 10 per cent of the members present in the Community, joined the association. It is self-evident that this is a most valid piece of evidence in favour of the exceptional, independent nature of the war which Finland waged on the side of Germany.

This is a short account of the Jewish citizens of Finland during the War. Another story is that of the Jewish refugees.

The persecution of Jews, launched by the National Socialists in Germany and in other countries under their influence, also brought refugees to Finland, where, however, they were received in a rather reluctant manner. In all, about 500 refugees arrived, and of these, 350 had by the summer of 1941 continued their journey to a third country, mostly to Sweden or the United States.

In contrast to the Jewish citizens of Finland, the position of the refugees turned out to be very difficult during the Continuation War. Some of the refugees were German nationals, and others had escaped to Finland from countries allied with or conquered by Germany. When the Continuation War broke out in 1941 there were about 150 Jewish refugees in Finland. They were taken to two villages in the countryside, but 43 men were sent to work-camps first in southern Lapland (Salla) and then to the Isle of Suursaari (Gogland) in the Finnish Gulf.

In the autumn of 1942, Norwegian Jewry was annihilated; more than half of them (altogether 757 people) lost their lives. Most of the survivors were among those who succeeded in escaping to Sweden. As I have mentioned before, it has been supposed that the Germans demanded the liquidation of the Jewish communities in Finland. However, there is no documentary evidence in favour of these claims, either concerning the Jewish citizens or the refugees (12.).

Nevertheless, the State Police in Finland had agreed with the leaders of the Gestapo that Finland was allowed to deport the undesirable refugees to the areas occupied by the Germans. In October 1942 nine Jewish men were sent by the Finnish State Police from the Suursaari camp to Helsinki and ten Jews were arrested elsewhere in Finland. However, one of the men escorted from the Suursaari camp succeeded in sending a postcard to Mr. Abraham Stiller, a member of the Jewish community and brother of the famous stage-manager Mauritz Stiller. Stiller as well as his friends, both Jews and other Finns, made contact with various governmental and administrative organs including President Risto Ryti and Marshal of Finland Mannerheim. As a result the governmental and public discussions the extradition was prevented.

However, on the 6th of October 1942, the State Police had already had five Jewish men and three (or four?) members of their families deported to the Gestapo in occupied Estonia. Officially, the men were claimed to be guilty of espionage and other criminal activities; four of them had minor offences in police records. Nineteen other persons, most of them citizens of the Soviet Union, were deported on board the same boat. The Gestapo transported the Jews to Birkenau concentration camp. Only one of these people (Georg Kollman, a former citizen of Austria) survived; after the war he immigrated to Israel.

There is no need to try and wash away the shame, but it should also not be forgotten that in October 1942, Germany was at the height of its power. After Stalingrad, it was considerably easier to say no. When after the war the victor, the Soviet Union, issued the demand that the Finnish Ingrians and other refugees be handed over to the Soviet Union, it was influential enough to get what it wanted.

Of the other refugees, Finnish citizenship was granted to 110 persons in 1943-44; some of them left the country before that or later on.

On the Finnish Independence Day, the 6th of December, in 1944, President Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland, visited the synagogue in Helsinki where the memory of the Jewish soldiers killed in action was honoured. When Mannerheim died in 1951, the Jewish community raised a large sum of money which was donated to the Mannerheim Fund of Child Welfare as an expression of gratitude for the defence of the equal rights of Jews in Finland.

[Gangerolf]

Re: The shame nations of WWII.

Originally posted by paiktis22
Which were the countries which colaborated with the nazis and helped actively in the killing of peoples and the extermination of Jews?

I know 4.

Sweden, Finland, Norway and Croatia.


Were they any others?

Thanks.

paki-laki knows there are people from all these countries on this forum and just wanted to have some fun trolling them.

[Evil Knevil]

Italian Jews survived?

Primo Levi?

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Re: Re: The shame nations of WWII.

Originally posted by Gangerolf


paki-laki knows there are people from all these countries on this forum and just wanted to have some fun trolling them.

At least it gave us the chance to show the Greek participation in the Holocaust, which is forgotten all too often .

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil


Primo Levi?

By and large the Italians were not really into the Holocaust like the Germans were. It wasn't until the Germans invaded Northern Italy that mass deportations of Jews occurred.

The readings that I've done have shown that Italian commanders in conquered areas often looked the other way or simply ignored Jews under the control.


Last time I went to the Holocaust Museum here in DC the room about the countries that heavily resisted the Nazis, and especially the holocaust, was still part of the exhibit. I remember that the Danes and the Bulgarians were given large ammounts of commendation for their attempts to resist the Nazi Holocaust. The Italians were painted as sympathetic because of their general disinterest in deporting Jews until the Germans arrived...

[Az]

Actually, Mussollini had nothing against Jews, as far as I know. The only anti-jewish actions were rather forced by the nazis on the Fascist government.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Norway shouldn't be in that list, they were overrun by the Germans and put up a lot of resistance to their occupation...

This is true.

The mention of Norway in this context probably comes from the fact that several Norwegians assisted or even held positions in the nazi government that ran the country during the occupation, and that Norwegian police went out an rounded up the Jews. (!!!)

Of course, as far as we're concerned, every last one of these people was a traitor.

[TheStinger]

if the US or UK were conquered you have found a significant proportion of the population would have helped the Nazis

[Pekka]

Not reading the replies (i'm lazy) I have to wonder is paiktis trolling or serious?

First of all, I can say for our sake that there was no active killing of Jews in here. In fact, they fought with us, and helped us since they were Finns too. However, a small group of Jews was deported to the hands of Nazis and they were killed in concentration camp. It's a shame to us, there was overheated political debate about it, but it was too late, they were already sent. I like to think that as an unfortunate mistake of ours.

Sweden.. hmm? I haven't heard of active killings of Jews in Sweden. Maybe I missed something in history class? As for now, I won't believe it, but if you give me sources, I will check it out.

As for Norway, they were overrun by Germans. Some Jews were killed in there, but I haven't heard it was act by goverment, or that there were big lynching mobs of Norwegians. I don't know if they were killed by Germans, or Norwegians who were afraid of the Germans and did a foolish thing. Active killings by goverment? I don't know.. but some killings did occure.

But we weren't actively saving Jews either. I've been tought that we didn't take Jewish refugees to eagerly.
It would of pissed the Germans I guess.. but my opinion now is that we could of taken more Jewish and Germans would of said about it, but wouldn't of done anything about it. We thought them as Finns, our own people, and as for Jews from other countries.. well they were other nationalities, that's what I believe. More sticking to our own, it didn't matter what religion you were, but are you one of our own. And that's what I think 'We have no Jewish question' quote means.
If someone knows better, you can always teach me more

[Solly]

Originally posted by TheStinger
if the US or UK were conquered you have found a significant proportion of the population would have helped the Nazis

[Pekka]

TheStinger, Might be true. There are always lots of people who are too afraid of the one in power, and bend in front of violence and threat, so instead of just going with the flow, they want to please the one in power in order to avoid something bad to happen to themselves. It's not an excuse of course, but sometimes some people are weak and do stupid things when desperate.

[TheStinger]

The French who despite steryotypes are a proud and until then not often defeated nation collabarated with the germans like there was no tommorrow- why would the uK and US be any different.

I'm not saying everyone would just that more than a handfuld would

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Azazel
Actually, Mussollini had nothing against Jews, as far as I know. The only anti-jewish actions were rather forced by the nazis on the Fascist government.

Italy resisted Himmler's demands to hand over Jews. It was not until Mussolini was briefly ousted in a coup that the Germans parachuted into the country, reinstalled Mussolini and then began rounding up the Jews themselves.

Yes, there were plenty of well-known Nazi sympathizers in the US and UK. A sizable portion of the UK nobility were sympathizers, which was why Hess parachuted into the country--he was to make contact with some Duke (forget his name--begins with "H") and through him and other royals try and influence the British government to make peace with Germany. Of course, this was all done without Hitler's consent (he was furious at Hess and the man who came up with the idea, Karl Haushofer).