Finland deported more than 2.8k POWs (incl. many Jews) to the Third Reich
Finland deported more than 2.8k POWs (incl. many Jews) to the Third Reich
Quoting Jouni Tilli in Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History, pages 156–7:
Elina Sana’s “documentary book” proposed two different lines of contact between the Finnish and [Third Reich’s] authorities, especially between the secret state police and the military. The secret police [deported] as many as 129 people to the [Third Reich’s] authorities on a total of 13 occasions; the largest group comprised 99 individuals, all citizens of the Soviet Union. According to Sana, the number [deported] might be between 78 and 129, a range highlighting the impossible task of giving both an exact number of those [deported] and an exact account of the State Police (Valpo) and its collaborative operations, since essential documents from the Valpo archives were deliberately destroyed in the aftermath of the Soviet offensive in the summer of 1944. After combining and cross-checking preserved documents from different archives, Sana concluded that between 1941 and 1944 the Finnish military [deported] at least 2,829 POWs to [the Third Reich] on 49 occasions; among the military [deportations] were over 500 individuals who were defined as “Jewish” or “political” (Communist), or both.
Sana’s conclusion that Finland had [expelled] some 3,000 persons to [the Third Reich] during the Continuation War enlarged the earlier known number of eight civilian Jewish refugees deported from Finland (via Tallinn) to [the Third Reich] on the S/S Hohenhörn in 1942, a figure based on her earlier studies. Sana’s central claim was that while Finland was waging a war against [the U.S.S.R.] on the same front as the Axis powers, Jewish and Communist prisoners could be used to secure valuable resources from [the Axis], such as grain and oil. According to Sana, Finnish authorities knew that [the Axis] was particularly interested in Jews and Communists. Given this awareness, the pragmatic reasons for securing resources for the Finns are inseparable from ideological compliance, because racially and ideologically conditioned groups of people were instruments of exchange.
(Emphasis added.)