From Silence to Historical Consciousness: The Holocaust and WWII in Finnish History Politics

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Despite the fact that there are similar trajectories and turning points between Finland’s and other European countries’ responses to the Holocaust, it is still the case that trends in Holocaust studies and key debates within the field have had less impact on Finnish understanding of the Holocaust than one might suspect. Instead, as this article examines, the way in which Finland’s Holocaust awareness has been developing since the end of the war in general, and in the 2000s in particular, has been intimately linked with the Finnish understanding of its own role in WWII. This tendency was most clearly illustrated in the controversy that took place during 2003 and 2004 with the publication of Elina Sana’s book Luovutetut [The Extradited].