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First, what facts do I know.

  • There was no prosecution of Jews in Finland

  • Jewish POWs were separated in special POW camps for Jews. They were told that Finnish people hate them and they are to be transferred to Germany. But the intent changed and only Communists were actually transferred to Gestapo. Other Jews were allowed to contact with representatives of Finnish Jewish community.

  • Finnish authorities installed special ethnic-cleansing conentration camps for Slavic-speaking inhabitants of Karelia and other occupied territories.

I wonder whether the Jewish civilians were treated separately of Slavic population.

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    Most likely not. They were a German ally, but never under the control of Germany like most of their other "allies" that engaged in such behavior. They just happened to be fighting Russia, and Germany was the only ally avilable (and even then, only after Barbarossa. They were on their own before that).
    – T.E.D. ♦
    Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 19:34
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    What are the sources for bullets 2 and 3?
    – Felix Goldberg
    Commented Dec 11, 2012 at 15:55
  • @Anixx This Wikipedia article contains enough material for an answer. I did not write it as I have not much to add and don't want the question to receive less attention. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
    – astabada
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 21:43
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    @Andrew Grimm what's the difference?
    – Anixx
    Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 10:43
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    @Anixx the former means being unfairly targeted by the government, and the latter means being charged with criminal offences. ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/prosecution versus ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/persecution
    – Golden Cuy
    Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 22:02

2 Answers 2

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There was no restrictions on the civil liberties of Finnish Jews. Nazi Germany requested for the handing over of Finnish Jews, but Finnish leader C.G.Mannerheim refused.

350 Jews fought in the Finnish army on the German side. Several Jewish officers would have received the Iron Cross but refused. Finnish army also had a field synagogue.

Finland handed over eight Jewish refugees to Nazi Germany. Seven of these refugees were killed in concentration camps. On the other hand 500 Jewish refugees were granted asylum.

At least 500 Jewish or Communist prisoners of war were handed over to the Germans to be executed. Einsatzkommando Finnland was active in Northern Finland.

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    I already mentioned these facts in the question.
    – Anixx
    Commented Mar 22, 2014 at 16:52
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Jewish men served in the Finnish military like all the other Finnish men (and some volunteers), many Jewish women served as volunteers in the Lotta Svärd organization or as nurses etc. The civilians continued their lives as best as they could, considering the fact that the country was at war against the Soviet Union.

http://www15.uta.fi/FAST/FIN/HIST/tv-jews.html

Edit: One should first know if there were any Jews in those areas, alive. The best guess is that only a small number if any, considering Stalin's Purges in the area (and there were not that many of them in the first place). If they were Russian Jews, they would have been treated as other Russians.

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    I mean Soviet citizens.
    – Anixx
    Commented Mar 16, 2014 at 1:13
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    Sorry, this is just wild, totally unbased guess
    – Anixx
    Commented Mar 16, 2014 at 1:24
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    While this sounds plausible, it would be improved by sources/citations.
    – MCW ♦
    Commented Mar 16, 2014 at 11:30
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    Welcome to StackExchange! This seems like the beginning of a good answer but the fact that you've needed to make so many clarifications in the comments tells me that it requires editing.
    – NotVonKaiser
    Commented Mar 17, 2014 at 19:19
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    Please, provide references for statements such as " Thousands of Finns living in that area were executed in the 1930s". (I don't need convincing that Stalin was a monster, a criminal, a genocidaire, you name it - still, statements such as the one I quoted must be backed up by references, otherwise we are not really doing history).
    – Felix Goldberg
    Commented Mar 18, 2014 at 12:46

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