Finns are also genocidal

 One of the aspects that surprised me the most about the Second World War is that apparently democratic countries helped the German Nazis and/or committed genocide together with them. Sweden and Finland are examples of this.

  We have seen that the Germans created extermination camps all over Europe, including in Trieste (Italy), but few people know about the concentration camps built and run by the Finns.

Karelia ( Russia)

These camps were organized by the armed forces supreme commander Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim , by the way former tsarist officer. The camps were intended to hold Russian  detainees for future exchange with theFinnic  population from the rest of Russia. The mortality rate  of civilians in the camps was high due to famine and disease.In 2004-2008, the Finnish National Archives conducted a special research to investigate the history  of people who died in Finnish concentration camps and during the war in 1939-1955. According to the research, 4,279 people died in the concentration camps of Eastern Karelia during the war, meaning a rough mortality rate of 17%.

Mannerheim and Hitler

After Germany attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Finns retook the territory lost after the Winter War and occupied eastern Karelia as well. This action made Finland a co-belligerent with Germany against the Soviet Union. During the war, Finland opened between 15 and 20 labor camps in occupied eastern Karelia where Soviet civilians were forced to harvest timber, build roads, and carry out other similar tasks. Children were forced to harvest willow bark, which was used to tan leather.

Russian children in Finnish concentration camp

Significant numbers of Soviet civilians were interned in the camps. These were primarily Russian children and elderly, as almost all of the working age male and female population were either drafted or evacuated by the Soviet government. Only a third of the original population of 470,000 remained in East Karelia when the Finnish army arrived, and half of them were Karelians. About 30 percent (24,000) of the remaining Russian population were confined in camps; six-thousand of them were Soviet refugees captured while they awaited transportation over Lake Onega , and 3,000 were from the southern side of the River Svir. The first of the camps were set up on 24 October 1941 in Petrozavodsk. During the spring and summer of 1942, about 3,500 detainees died of malnutrition. During the second half of 1942, the number of detainees dropped quickly to 15,000 as people were released to their homes or were resettled to the "safe" villages, and only 500 more people died during the last two years of war, as the food shortages were alleviated. During the following years, the Finnish authorities detained several thousand more civilians from areas with reported partisan activity, but as the releases continued the total number of detainees remained at 13,000–14,000. According to the records the total number of deaths among the interned civilians and POWs was 4,361 (earlier estimates varied between 4,000 and 7,000), mostly from hunger during the spring and summer of 1942

Petrozavodsk camp

An article about the camps:

https://iz.ru/1011186/vladimir-veretennikov/kholodnaia-merzost-chto-tvorili-finny-v-kontclageriakh-vo-vremia-vtoroi-mirovoi

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case for genocide in the Republic of Karelia during the occupation by Finland in 1941-1944. The Finns established 14 concentration camps, in which at least 8,000 civilians died and more than 7,000 Soviet POWs were murdered in the most barbaric ways. The Finns are trying to deny these allegations, prompting condemnation from the Moscow Human Rights Office. Izvestia is about a page in the history of the war, which our northern neighbors try hard to forget.

Russian children in concentration camp

Judging by recently released archival documents, there were at least fourteen large concentration camps in Finland and six in occupied Petrozavodsk alone. The Finns also established more than 30 labor camps and more than 40 prisoner of war camps. In total, during the occupation of Karelia from 1941 to 1944, more than 24 thousand people - prisoners of war and members of the civilian population - found themselves behind barbed wire.

The number of victims among civilians is estimated at 8 thousand people, including more than 2 thousand children. More than 7,000 prisoners of war, according to the Commission of Inquiry, "were buried alive, murdered in gas chambers, and shot." Even now, more than 2,000 former underage prisoners of Finnish concentration camps live in Karelia, direct witnesses of the atrocities committed there.

From the certificate of the People's Commissar for State Security of the Karelia-Finnish SSR, Mikhail Baskakov, dated July 3, 1943, it appears that at least 24 Finnish servicemen are responsible for organizing the massacres. Among them are the head of the East Karelian military administration (the military administration of the occupied territory), Lieutenant Colonel Kotilainen, his assistant, Lieutenant Colonel Ragnar Nordstrom, the chief of staff of the military administration, Lieutenant Colonel Kuusilu, and the district chiefs, , Vyasyanen and Paloheimo. The commandant of the Petrozavodsk concentration camp Valentin Miks, as well as the assistant to the head of the Svyatozersk concentration camp, junior sergeant Polevoy, were named direct perpetrators of the acts of genocide. As far as is known, most of them escaped punishment for their actions.

Giving food

The Finnish side is trying to dispute these accusations. The director of the National Archives of Finland, Jussi Nuorteva, called the statement of the Russian Investigative Committee "unexpected and regrettable", assuring that the Finns did not kill people in gas chambers and did not bury them alive. Furthermore, he denies the figure of 8,000 dead civilians. “In our files the exact figure is given with all the names. There were 4,060 deaths”, says Nuorteva.

Russian children in the camp

The Finnish press also published the opinion of Professor Dmitry Frolov, an employee of the National Archives of Finland. “We have free access to all the data that we share with the Russian side. Therefore, one can only wonder where they get such information from, ”Frolov said. He is referring to a database of dead Soviet prisoners of war and civilians, which is freely available on the Internet, created by the national archive.

“In 2010-2011, we handed over to the Russian side copies of the registration cards of Soviet prisoners of war who died in Finnish camps. According to Finnish data, 1998 Soviet POWs died in the Karelian camps. The total number of prisoners killed in 1941-1944 was about 20,000. In this regard, the figure of 7,000 people in Karelia alone causes some bewilderment. Information about the causes of death and burial places is in the database, ”Frolov assures.

Genocide policy

So where is the truth? Izvestia turned to the director of the Institute of History, Political and Social Sciences of Petrozavodsk State University, Doctor of Historical Sciences Sergei Gennadievich Verigin.

Killer Lieutenant Colonel Ragnar Nordstrom 
Notice the German Iron Crosses

Professor Verigin has long been involved in the issue of Finnish concentration camps in Karelia, and this is what he said: "In the entire territory of Karelia, which at that time was inhabited by only 86 thousand people, the Finns they created more than a hundred places of forced detention of the local population. These are concentration camps for the civilian population, labor camps, concentration camps for prisoners of war, prisons and other places of detention. To be honest, it is even difficult for me Name any other occupied territory where such a high density of camps was created for its inhabitants during World War II.

Killer Lieutenant Colonel
Kotilainen

The scientist emphasizes that people were forcibly placed in camps, where a half-starved existence, forced labor, intimidation, unsanitary conditions and disease awaited them. The prisoners died in large numbers. The Finns did not engage in mass executions or village burnings, as the Nazis practiced. However, the Finnish occupiers did not need mass executions. People died a natural death, due to the conditions in which they were placed. In 1942, the death rate in the Finnish concentration camps was even higher than in the German ones.

Verigin adds that he cannot agree with the position of Finnish historians on a number of issues related to the occupation of Karelia. “They claim that the documents that were transferred to the Karelia National Archives contain the names of some 4,000 people who died in the concentration camps. But, firstly, these are data from February 1942 to June 1944. - and people died in the second half of 1941. Secondly, the lists themselves were sloppy, we see a lot of names crossed out. For the Finns, dead Russians were not a major problem. We still do not know the exact figure - how many civilians died in the concentration camps in the occupied territory of Karelia. The same applies to the number of prisoners of war who died in the Karelian concentration camps.

Antti Laine points out that the Finns have created a school and a social network. But he deceives the readers: this network was created only for the Finno-Ugric population of Karelia! When “full-fledged” Karelian and Vepsian children went to school, attended kindergartens, were treated in outpatient clinics and medical centers, Russian children starved to death in concentration camps.

Exhumation of bodies, many bodies of children are observed

Long range goals

A similar point of view was expressed to Izvestiya by the historian, writer, director of the Military Museum of the Karelian Isthmus, Bair Irincheev, who specializes in the topic of the Soviet-Finnish wars. “In the interpretation of the events of 1941-1944, there are significant differences between the historians of Russia and Finland. But there are facts that neither the Finnish nor the Russian side deny. The Finns hoped that Karelia would become part of their state forever and ever, and they considered that part of its population that did not belong to the Finns as an unnecessary and harmful element. No one can deny this now.

On the other hand, as I understand it, they wanted to leave all the dirty work to the Germans. Why, in fact, did the Finns put the "wrong" population in concentration camps? Because they wanted to wait for the final crushing of the Soviet Union to send the Slavic population of Karelia to the territory of Russia occupied by the Nazis, to the Reichskommissariat "Moscow" or elsewhere. Do what you want with them, they say... In addition, the Finns practiced the exchange of Soviet prisoners of war with the Germans: they say, give us our Finno-Ugric peoples, and in return they take political officials and Jews. The Finns, in the order of such an exchange, handed over to the Germans about two thousand people, who, it seems, were immediately shot," said the specialist.

According to Irincheev, Finland blames Soviet intelligence groups for about 187 deaths of its civilians, but is silent about the "exploits" of its similar formations. "But in a Petrovsky Pit, 28 Soviet hospital medical staff were killed by Finnish saboteurs!" Irincheev emphasized.

In conclusion, it should be noted that in 2018 the Finnish National Archives began an investigation into the participation of volunteers from this country, who fought in the ranks of the SS, in the murders of the civilian population of the Soviet Union. Not everyone knows that the Finnish military unit of 1408 people operated in 1941-1943 in Ukraine and the Caucasus. It was part of the "Viking" Panzer SS Division, which included volunteers from different European countries.

Based on the results of the study of the diaries of the volunteers, a report was prepared indicating that the Finns who served on the Viking knew about the crimes of the German Nazis and participated in them themselves. Historian Jussi Nuorteva quotes an entry from the diary of SS Unterscharführer Keijo Kayariainen, made on June 23, 1941: "Today we received instructions on the conduct of hostilities: among other things, to shoot all prisoners."

SS Unterscharführer Jaakko Hintikka described in his diary a battle near the village of Toldzgun in North Ossetia: “Five spies in civilian clothes were captured and finished off. At sunset, they took him to the mountain and shot him. A couple more prisoners were added to them. It was hard work, they kept asking for mercy, but the automaton knows no mercy. The youngest was 17 years old, the next - 20 years old, the rest - bearded grandparents. The youngest was shot last, first he buried his comrades, and then he himself went to the other world. Such evidence in occupant records is abundant.

For to know more

It may be that after learning this, your opinion about the friendly, civilizated and no longer neutral Finns will change.