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Finland and Nazi Germany[edit]

During the Continuation War (1941–1944) Finland was co-belligerent with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, and dependent on food, fuel and armament shipments from Germany. In spite of this, Finland retained an independent, democratic form of government. Moreover, during the war, Finland kept its army outside the German command structure despite numerous attempts by the Germans to tie them more tightly together.

About 19,000 Soviet prisoners of war died in Finnish prison camps during the Continuation War, which means that about 30% of Soviet POWs taken by the Finns did not survive. The high number of fatalities was mainly due to malnutrition and diseases. However, about 1000 POWs are believed to have been executed.

Finnish Jews were not persecuted, and even among extremists of the Finnish Right they were highly tolerated, as many leaders of the movement came from the clergy. Of approximately 500 Jewish refugees, eight were handed over to the Germans, a fact for which Finnish prime minister Paavo Lipponen issued an official apology in 2000. The field synagogue operated by the Finnish army was probably a unique phenomenon in the Eastern Front of the war.[21] Finnish Jews fought alongside other Finns for their country's freedom.[22]

Approximately 2600 to 2800 Soviet prisoners of war were exchanged for 2100 Fennic prisoners of war from Germany. In November 2003, the Simon Wiesenthal Center submitted an official request to Finnish President Tarja Halonen for a full-scale investigation by the Finnish authorities of the prisoner exchange.[23] In the subsequent study by Professor Heikki Ylikangas it turned out that about 2000 of the exchanged prisoners joined the Wehrmacht, but among the rest there were about 500 political officers or politically dangerous persons, who most likely perished in concentration camps. Based on a list of names, there were about seventy Jews among the extradited, although they were apparently not extradited based on ethnic grouping.[24]

When the Finnish Army controlled East Karelia between 1941 and 1944, several concentration camps were set up for Russian civilians. The first camp was set up on 24 October 1941, in Petrozavodsk. About 4000 of the prisoners perished due to malnourishment, 90% of them during the spring and summer of 1942.[25]