Finland and the Holocaust: A Reassessment

A reconsideration of Finland’s relationship with the Holocaust is needed for two reasons. First, the country has recently witnessed a debate over its role in the Holocaust, stimulating new academic research. Second, the standard reference work on the subject, an article published in this journal in 1995 and subsequently condensed in Walter Laqueur and Judith Baumel’s Holocaust Encyclopedia, is outdated. By shedding light on a well-known episode in which Finland transferred eight foreign Jews to German control, the following article reframes the question of whether Finland was victim, bystander, or perpetrator during the Nazis’ genocide.