The Lost Childhood
I've just finished Marja-Leena Mikkola's book "Menetetty lapsuus" (The Lost Childhood), which deals with the concentration camps established by Finland in Eastern Karelia in 1941-1944 when the territories where under Finnish military occupation. The book focuses on interviews with child victims (adults being mostly dead by now), interspersed with more impersonal historical background.
For those not familiar with the Sequel War of 1941-1944 and the Finnish occupation (this would include the majority of people outside Finland, and the majority of people in Finland), a brief outline:
The Finnish government had agreed to take part in Operation Barbarossa, the German government's genocidal campaign against the Soviet Union. The Finnish aim was to recapture the territory annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War, the unprovoked assault on Finland in 1939-1940, as well as capture territory which had never been part of Finland, to build a Greater Finland. In order to ensure the racial purity of the conquered territories, the native population deemed to belong to the "Russian race", as well as some members of the "Finnish tribe" ("suomenheimoiset", "heimosukulaiset") was interned in concentration camps, to await being "transferred East"; members of the "Finnish tribe" were to be transferred in to replace them.
The camps shared many well-known features of the regular German concentration camps (the death camps are a different category altogether). Famine, disease, child slave labour, torturing children, children watching their parents tortured, such things. However, it seems that there was less of the arbitrary brutality and murders that are considered characteristic of the German camps.
The inmates had colour coding according to race: red strips for Russians, green strips for those of the "Finnish tribe". The Finnish occupiers even had blood tests, measurements of skulls and such to establish the racial purity of the population of the occupied territories - by modern standards bizarre, by the standards of the day pretty mainstream.
Apart from their obvious German and Soviet counterparts, the context into which I read the occupation and the camps are the British concentration camps in Kenya in the 1950s and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which started with a bang in 1948 and continues slowly today. The camps and the ethnic cleansing are nothing extraordinary in history, but having the torturers bear Finnish names, the planners rename local streets according to heroes of the Kalevala and the leaders implement delusional Finnish racial supremacy theories strikes a very personal chord. This is particularly true as I had not heard of the camps before, and had not known that the nationalist-racist ideology was so pervasive.
Indeed, I remember learning in school that the Sequel War was a defensive one, and that Finland only attacked the Soviet Union because it was attacked first. The observation by the French philosopher Ernest Renan that "a nation is a group of people united by their mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours" seems particularly apt about the whole business.
While the German state has recognised its responsibility for people used as slave labour in the concentration camps and paid reparations, I don't think the issue has even been discussed in Finland. Where are the Finnish movies, novels, comics? The association of the child victims of Finnish concentration camps has written to the then-president Ahtisaari and the current president Halonen about the matter. They have not even received a reply. From Ahtisaari this is to be expected, perfectly in line with his ever more appalling public pronouncements in favour of war crimes by the side he identifies with. It remains to be seen whether the victims hear from Halonen, and if so, what they will be told.
Oh, and if you go looking for "Menetetty lapsuus" in the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki, don't bother with the "Finnish History" section. It's under "Biographies".
For those not familiar with the Sequel War of 1941-1944 and the Finnish occupation (this would include the majority of people outside Finland, and the majority of people in Finland), a brief outline:
The Finnish government had agreed to take part in Operation Barbarossa, the German government's genocidal campaign against the Soviet Union. The Finnish aim was to recapture the territory annexed by the Soviet Union after the Winter War, the unprovoked assault on Finland in 1939-1940, as well as capture territory which had never been part of Finland, to build a Greater Finland. In order to ensure the racial purity of the conquered territories, the native population deemed to belong to the "Russian race", as well as some members of the "Finnish tribe" ("suomenheimoiset", "heimosukulaiset") was interned in concentration camps, to await being "transferred East"; members of the "Finnish tribe" were to be transferred in to replace them.
The camps shared many well-known features of the regular German concentration camps (the death camps are a different category altogether). Famine, disease, child slave labour, torturing children, children watching their parents tortured, such things. However, it seems that there was less of the arbitrary brutality and murders that are considered characteristic of the German camps.
The inmates had colour coding according to race: red strips for Russians, green strips for those of the "Finnish tribe". The Finnish occupiers even had blood tests, measurements of skulls and such to establish the racial purity of the population of the occupied territories - by modern standards bizarre, by the standards of the day pretty mainstream.
Apart from their obvious German and Soviet counterparts, the context into which I read the occupation and the camps are the British concentration camps in Kenya in the 1950s and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine which started with a bang in 1948 and continues slowly today. The camps and the ethnic cleansing are nothing extraordinary in history, but having the torturers bear Finnish names, the planners rename local streets according to heroes of the Kalevala and the leaders implement delusional Finnish racial supremacy theories strikes a very personal chord. This is particularly true as I had not heard of the camps before, and had not known that the nationalist-racist ideology was so pervasive.
Indeed, I remember learning in school that the Sequel War was a defensive one, and that Finland only attacked the Soviet Union because it was attacked first. The observation by the French philosopher Ernest Renan that "a nation is a group of people united by their mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours" seems particularly apt about the whole business.
While the German state has recognised its responsibility for people used as slave labour in the concentration camps and paid reparations, I don't think the issue has even been discussed in Finland. Where are the Finnish movies, novels, comics? The association of the child victims of Finnish concentration camps has written to the then-president Ahtisaari and the current president Halonen about the matter. They have not even received a reply. From Ahtisaari this is to be expected, perfectly in line with his ever more appalling public pronouncements in favour of war crimes by the side he identifies with. It remains to be seen whether the victims hear from Halonen, and if so, what they will be told.
Oh, and if you go looking for "Menetetty lapsuus" in the Academic Bookstore in Helsinki, don't bother with the "Finnish History" section. It's under "Biographies".
posted by Syksy at 02:13
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