A new letter that was recently unearthed by Finnish historian André Swanstrom calls into question the overarching narrative Finland has adopted over the way it treated its Jews during World War II.
The letter from the front, dated July 24, 1941, suggests Finnish troops who fought with the Nazis against the Soviets took an active role in the killing of Jews.
The letter is signed by six Finnish recruits who joined some 1, 500 of their countrymen in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen SS. One of the signatories, 24-year-old Olavi Karpalo, complained in the letter that he his comrades were being taken advantage of for executing Jews and repairing vehicles.
"We embarked on this campaign as soldiers, not as craftsmen," he writes.
"Our spirits are down because unlike the other Finnish soldiers, who can shoot freely at the Russians, we were taken here, to this factory. What have we done wrong to be denied the pleasure of shooting Russians when they appear in our crosshairs? You can use those less skilled to kill Jews."
Swanstrom told Israel Hayom that the sentiment expressed in this letter "does not suggest any conscientious remorse over the killing of Jews." Rather, he explained, "it shows that what bothered the fact that their full potential was not be tapped for combat purposes [but for killing Jews]."
Hostilities between Finland and the Soviet Union ended in March 1940, but only a year later, when Germany unilaterally ended the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1941, they resumed. As part of this collaboration. German forces were stationed in Finland and Helsinki agreed to send "volunteers" to the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.
This resulted in the surreal situation in which Jewish soldiers, serving in the Finnish armed forces, found themselves fighting alongside Nazis fighting against a joint enemy.
Boris Robanovich, 91, is one of the two surviving Jewish-Finnish soldiers who served in those units. "Those who volunteered in the SS were young people looking for adventures," he said. "They didn't do this because they were Nazis. I never heard of any of them being involved in crimes against Jews, but that doesn't mean this did not happen. I had a friend, a bank manager, who had many Jewish clients, who joined the SS. He told me he and his colleagues didn't harm the Jews when they fought in the front."
Finland has long prided itself on saving its Jewish population in its entirety during the war – except those who were killed in the battlefront – unlike other European countries that collaborated with the Nazis.
The Finnish narrative is that the volunteers in the Waffen SS were not involved in war crimes and that is why a memorial has been erected at Helsinki's main cemetery. They also point to the fact that the central synagogue in Helsinki did not cease operating during the war as proof of its positive treatment toward the Jews. But the new letter seems to turn that narrative on its head.
"Those who want to hold on to this narrative now claim that the letter was written in a sarcastic tone and should not be considered as evidence of Finnish people taking part in war crimes," Swanstrom told Israel Hayom. "I don't think that Karpalo would have written this had he not shot Jews. He thought that it would be shameful to return home without being able to tell about his heroic fighting against the Russians."
Swanstrom further says that Karpalo's decision to leave to Venezuela after the war, where he ultimately died in 1988, shows that he had something to hide. "The conventional wisdom has long been that while Finland may have been a loyal ally of Nazi Germany, it did not share its Nazi ideology," Finnish historian Simo Muir told Israel Hayom. "But this needs further scrutiny.
"Today we see the results of this forgetfulness, and now anyone who tries to doubt this narrative is seen as critical of the very essence of Finnish identity. There was also a study showing that Russian prisoners were handed over to the Nazis, but the findings were largely suppressed and the general public has not been aware of them. Swanstrom's research shows that much more needs to be discovered."
The letter Swanstrom uncovered was sent to a Finnish SS officer and pastor 2nd Lt. Ensio Pihkala, who served as the liaison for the Finnish volunteers under Nazi command. Swanstrom also obtained access to the pastor's diary, which includes many depictions of the atrocities carried out against the Jews in the areas that were occupied by the Nazi and Finnish troops. The priest, however, refers to the perpetrators of those crimes as Germans, Poles and Ukrainians, not Finnish.
"Skulls were shatters, women were slaughtered, and 200 were people were killed," read his a portion of his diary describing the killings carried out in Lemberg (Lviv). "The Poles shouted 'Heil Hitler.' This was the atmosphere in the areas under occupation during the first few weeks of the Nazi invasion."
Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, who is the head of the Jerusalem office of the Simon Weisenthal Center, has demanded that Finnish President Sauli Niinisto appoint a commission of inquiry to obtain a full account of the Finnish culpability in the Holocaust. Niinisto, who is currently running for reelection, has yet to commit to such a request and his office has not responded to inquiries made by Israel Hayom on the matter.
Some 15 years ago, it was discovered that the Finnish secret police handed over hundreds of Russian prisoners to the Germans – including many Jews – essentially ensuring they would die. Then-Finnish President Tarja Halonen agreed to launch an inquiry into the matter after Zuroff wrote a similar letter.
According to Swanstrom, in 1989 a Finnish paper published an article that referred to "a rumor that a Finnish SS officer was responsible for the killing of 600 Jews. While this man had already died in Sweden in the late 1960s, this matter could have been investigated much more thoroughly 30 years ago because more witnesses were alive back then."
This year the Jewish community in Finland marks 100 years since obtaining full rights. The head of the community, Yaron Nadbornik, called on the authorities in the country to investigate the culpability of Finnish soldiers in the Holocaust. "There are probably about 50 volunteers who are still alive, and they must be held accountable," he told Israel Hayom.
