Sotavankien ja siviili-internoitujen sodanaikainen kuolleisuus Suomessa

The relationship between Finnish military authorities and prisoners of war and civil internees is tackled by Lars Westerlund in this dense and detailed monograph. In the context of the ‘heroic’ national narrative of the Winter War against the Soviet Union (1939–40), the issue of what happened to prisoners of war in Finland during this and the subsequent Continuation War (1941–4), and Lapland War (1944), has not impinged greatly on the collective national consciousness. And yet, based on voluminous material from the Finnish National Archives, Westerlund argues that, under Finnish military authority, almost 24,000 deaths occurred during this period: 135 during the Winter War; 19,085 during the Continuation War (just over 30 per cent of the total number of prisoners held at this time); 44 in the Lapland War and associated German attempt to reconquer the Baltic island of Gogland/Suursaari during Operation Tanne Ost; 4,279 died in the concentration- and relocation-camps in Eastern Karelia; and 138 at Miehikkälä Civilian Camp in Kymenlaakso. In exploring these statistics, and overcoming obstacles such as the intentional destruction of some of the relevant papers (see, for example, p. 116, which describes the deliberate burning in Mikkeli, in 1944, of papers relating to shootings by General Lieutenant Karl Lennart Oesch and Lieutenant Eero Nero), Westerlund seeks to discover the extent to which the Finnish military authorities could be held culpable. As is implied by the subtitle of the book, the spotlight falls on three main areas: the supply of food, disease, and the inactivity of the Red Cross

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Economic history · German · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Prisoners of war · Relocation · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · World War II · History · Law · Research in Social Sciences