Finland, A Miracle Among Jewish Communities in Central and Eastern Europe
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2023
- Joseph Gideon Bolotowsky, president of Jewish community in Helsinki 1988-2007, explains how Finland is unique among all of the Jewish communities in central and eastern Europe in that it survived World War Two intact. Unlike most any of his peers in his generation, he grew up with an intergenerational extended Jewish family.
To see the full oral history and learn more about the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project: www.yiddishbookcenter.org/col...
I wish a happy and safe life for the Jewish Friends in Finland! Toivotan juutalaisille Ystäville onnellista ja turvallista elämää Suomessa!
It really is a interesting part of history where the jews of Finland kept their pride and more importantly their lives during the continuation war where Finns alongside Germans fought the communists.
finns fought against soviets, not against the own population (with exception of the civil war prior which also had nothing to do with ethnicities)
and not because of nazi ideology.
I seen few videos on the topic, there are those, but they are really deep buried on Tube. Anyhow. It appears that at first Finns had a hick up because some Jewish in the country had not renewed their paperwork to stay in the country and one refuge ship got turned away as the war started to really take affect - and there was some police chief who got really stuck on which ever laws he was using to send those people away. But when that happen the government tried to stop it - and then right after, they even offered the refugees already withing the country citizen ship. So when the Germans came in asking about 'Jewish question' -as they called it (sighs) - the Finnish leader answer stated that there is nothing of the kind in Finland and there are only Finns in the country. Then some few Jews were located into smaller areas, communities outside of bigger towns - thus being more out of sight. And at the same time as Finns had to and ended up fighting Russians - the Jewish community sent men on the front lines, thinking to do the duty for the country. That's something any a Finn would value, period. So strangely there were synagog (sry don't know how to spell that in English) tent on front line, not even that far from some Germans stationed in northern Finland at the time. And yea - they just had to accept it for the fact - no 'question about Jews' - just citizens. The odd thing is that it happen few time that some of those Jewish soldiers would have earned a medal from the Germans in Finland - and they went to see if they really would give those to them - and then simply declined accepting them.
War is at times a situation where things become odd, or seem almost impossible the way they turn out. Enemy of your enemy being a 'friend', that sort of a thing. Those odd medals, which they refused to accept for understandable reasons. And yet, finding more security than may have been assumed. My point is that war is never really black and white, even when most horrific things do happen in the world, around the same era. The thing is, that Finland wasn't that interested in political agendas. Finland was on Finland's side - also refusing to cross old border towards St. Parkersburg to fully enclose the encirclement of the city during Continuation. Why? Because Mannerheim knew that the war will eventually end and Finland would have to gain 'decent agreement for peace' even after it, so we stopped on the old border where from even our largest cannons could NOT reach the city. (The only reason Russia could keep on trying to supply the city, even though that was very difficult and they suffered really badly there, even without full encirclement - which the Germans tried to demand over out again. So having been in Russian Empires army Mannerheim also knew the way Russia can use winter to break the enemy - realizing that loosing is very possible, even if one would wish to have lost again the lands taken back. And it is indeed true that Finland was in need of food, weapons and supplies, for which there was no other source, except Germany - just try and imagine trying to get any of such things from other parts of the world at that time.
WWII had literally isolated Finland, so indeed food was rationed, but even greater reason to accept attacking at the same time when Germany did - was mostly due fear of Russia attacking us again - and having no weapons enough to do again what we did during Winter War. After all, there was clear evidence from what we found amidst the war loot from Winter War - evidence to show that Russia intended to annex us. Literal soviet propaganda films pre-made and directed for Finnish audience - parade uniforms - and all sorts of plans. So yea, that was a honest fear at that time. Publicly speaking 'taking lost lands back' or even 'generating buffer zones' by acquiring a bit more land was by no means a hard idea to sell, when those lands were lost in the first place. But as the things later turned out, we didn't loose much more, once Russia started to really push back, before the peace was created - that what had already been lost once after Winter War. There is no use playing 'what if's - but that does not mean, that the fear of them attacking us again wasn't very real at that time. However, what also is a bit lost in history, is that - well, actually the first shots shot and attack done during the Continuation War, wasn't by Finns. While Germans had already started Operation Barbarossa - and while we were supposed to attack too - we did not engage instantly. It was actually the Russians who attacked us, before we even started.
Anyhow, the way Jews gained rights to move into Finland right along with other people once we gained independence, while their position, left without a place to go and hardly any rights prior to that, when the Russian Empires army just got rid of it's older soldiers - and the way they at least managed to gain citizen ship and find themselves relatively safe from Germans during WWII in Finland is curious even for me, who isn't a Jew, but a regular Finn. I think it also shows that the only way to add people of different cultures into one community is to assimilate them into being citizens the same as anyone else and somewhat avoid seeing huge areas isolated with only people from one group forming, within set a nation. I don't say that to tell people should not have their culture, language and volunteer groups - my point is that having folk live in regular local neighborhoods is, what unites us with those who may come from elsewhere or have different cultural background. The only way that will not end up with a ton of issues later is - to avoid seeing cultures turning only inwards - within neighborhoods they alone live in. That stated, I know this hasn't been allowed for Jews in many places and even we didn't have originally suitable laws for it, simply because our laws were originally somewhat 'medieval' and from Sweden with some stuff added by Russia - and it was limited what we could do about those, even with having 'autonomy' which later Russian emperor started to try and remove, cause it was making Russians jealous. So, the very first Jewish people in Finland, well they were forgotten and out booted soldiers from Russian army, before we had our independence. At that time we could not even give them rights, but then again, there weren't that many rights to any foreigner at the time simply because Finland had not been it's own country yet.
About those Jewish soldiers in Russian empires army - it is even more a miracle that those people had their religion and culture still with them - you see, if I am not wrong, they were literally stolen as children from their families and then put to camps to be trained as soldiers. And this had been an attempt to make them forget who they are, religion, culture - language - so forth. And once the Tsar aka emperor realized that it wasn't good idea to have too old soldiers in his army, because apparently that had caused issues - he just ordered to get rid of all people of certain age, and so some Jews landed in Finland, where they had been sent to serve among others. All that isn't very different to how Russia then treated it's various other populations, even later, during USSR - because for example Finno-Ugric people were forcefully moved from their own areas. Not all of them, while other people were equally forcefully moved to replace them, trying to mix the population.
Then again, Russia was in a way very backwards nation, especially before 1900s. For example, slavery ended in Russia in early 1860's officially, and prior to that - during the Great Wrath in early 1700s, they performed rather systematic murder of many Finns also taking about 30K women and children as slaves. (The last time that was done and recorded to have happen - the Russian emperor at the time had gotten really insulted and upset over the fact that regular Finnish farmers would rise up an army of shorts to try to defend their own after Swedish army had lost. So yea, they went really 'ape-shit' in that moment of time.) A part of history, which isn't really made a point of these days. In part such things weren't very good things to teach about or speak about during the cold war, when Finns needed to 'limit on our own' what short of things were said publicly or even written in school books. Besides it is an old thing, that they kinda inherited from viking and medieval ages - because in Russia, what were serfs in western Europe, was something harsher for conditions aka slavery. Something we would call 'land slavery' and as said - that is on the back ground again, for the communist revolution in Russia later. The emperor had removed it - but that didn't mean much had became better for common people. So well - that goes rather far into other topics. But even today it apparently is easier in Russia to obtain a flat to live in for example, if you have Slavic roots, rather than say Finno-Ugric and if that's the case, so it may be for other groups there in too. Many a Russian person in our modern world is likely just decent enough a person - but their leadership has always been authoritative and that comes with issues - and thus it seems they can't escape it, even when the 'system changes' per say. And it spills into neighboring countries simply because ever since the time of Russian empire and during it's time - one way to control Russia's own population, has been to ever so often wage 'small border war's - to make the ruler or leader look good, necessary and powerful. Related propaganda included.
"fought the communists" No, That point Finns did not care what the invading Russians were. Finns were fighting for freedom and independence against the Moscow imperialism.
People think Moscow imperialism was only communism. Well, look at Putinism now. There is no Communism, but the Moscow imperialism and expansionism is the same. It's basically Russian nationalism.
This narrative of those times might interest many.
Strangers in a Stranger Land: Finland's Jewish Soldiers in WWII
czcams.com/video/emgOzd0ng1A/video.html
It’s interesting to listen to yiddish when you know german. Some parts are pretty much identical to german and some parts one can’t understand.
Yes, a safe place where nobody shall bother any jews, its totally okay to be here and live a normal happy life :)
Finland 🇫🇮 is a Nordic and western country with Sweden 🇸🇪 Norway 🇸🇯 Denmark 🇩🇰 and Iceland 🇮🇸. Politically , economically, religiously, culturally and geographically. They are all prosperous countries with high standard of living. Also they all are members of Nordic council.
WOW
We had a lot in common with the Jewish culture. God, community, peace.
Why was this the case?...How were they exempt?...
whats the full story?...tell me more
Not much to it. Jews arrived quite late in history to Finland so much of the historical hatred and prejudice wasn't present to begin with. During WW2 Finland wasn't occupied by either the Soviets or the Germans, so their extermination policies didn't touch the country. Nobody cared whether they were Jewish or not, they were Finns like any others and performed their duties in the military defending the nation.
One main reason is probably that despite being allied with Germany, Finland retained democratically elected coalition government, made up of pretty much same parties as today (Social democrats, Center party, national coalition etc.). With the remnants of fascist (Fascist "Lapuan liike" had been banned in 1932 after failed rebellion) called IKL making up only 8 of 200 seats in the parliament. When Himmler inquired about "jewish question" in 1942, the prime minister Rangel simply answered "we don't have a jewish question in FInland." But even here some 8 refugees were handed out to Germans by police (without permission by the state) as well as some 20-30 soviet pows, who were also jewish.
There is a interesting lecture In youtube called "strangers In strangers land." It is about Finnish jewish soldiers and their community In WW2. It tells the whole story from jewish perspective
The story can be found for example in: Strangers in a Stranger Land: Finland's Jewish Soldiers in WWII. It's a talk given by John B. Simon for National Museum of American Jewish Military History.
Maybe this has answers for you czcams.com/video/emgOzd0ng1A/video.html&pp=ygUac3RyYW5nZXJzIGluIHN0cmFuZ2VyIGxhbmQ%3D
Thruth is there were such a small amount of jews in Finland so antisemitism never really even had any ground to stand on. most of the jews lived in helsinki or the southern area around it. if you were outside of that it was very probable that you had never even seen a jew unless you traveled.
I do admit that the Jewish population in Finland didn't get exterminated or deported to concentration camps like the rest of the Jewish population in Europe
You aren't wrong
A Benschen af Finlandzhen.
Sounds like what they did in Ukraine...
Except that Finland is not in central or eastern Europe...
It's definitely closer to the east than the west, but I guess you mean that it should be called northern. A lot of people, especially at the time, have considered and still do consider Finland to be more eastern, similiar to russia. I'm not really sure when the concept of northern europe came to be, since obviously in some part these distinctions are made because of politics, not just geography (geographically Finland would be considered a part of the east, but also north is correct).
Basically he is not totally wrong, because it's always been kinda vague and changing. There are many opinions on how to label, is it political or purely geographical, and do we only label horizontally (west, central and east) or also vertically. Also depends on the time period, if you label in a political way and even then there are many mindsets.
@@ellem8990Finland 🇫🇮is a Nordic and western country with Sweden 🇸🇪 Norway 🇸🇯 Denmark 🇩🇰 and Iceland 🇮🇸 politically, economically, religiously and culturally.They are all prosperous countries with high standard of living. Also they all are members of Nordic council.
Finland has been ranked the best country 2019 by World economic Forum conference in Switzerland Davos and the happiest country six times in a row by World happiness index report and UN. Also other Nordic countries are in ten best countries. Eastern Europian countries never achieved that status.
You visit Russia you are on a different planet. Finland was never a part of Soviet union. Never under communism and never an eastern bloc country.
Finland is similar with other Nordic countries. Welcome to see.
helsinki is more east than lviv
@@suvi7641 Helsinki is a Nordic and western City in Finland.