It is my firm belief that 99% of the population of any country ruled by a dictator are the primary victims of that dictator, don’t condone what their rulers do, have done nothing wrong and are just trying to be good people in unfavorable circumstances.
The Russians are no different and it isn’t fair to impose on Russian individuals of obvious good will the treatment governments apply to the Russian government, because the Russian government and the Russian people are two very different things.
I’m Finnish. Did you think I’d be supporting Russian aggression?
and here I’m telling you this: Linus acts like a dipshit.
I know the Finns very, VERY well, and while they’re generally great people, when it comes to Russia and Russians, they have epidermic reactions of totally unreasonable proportions.
I understand where they’re coming from and why they react like that, but Russia is to the Finnish people what peanuts are to someone with a peanut allergy: the reaction is totally disproportionate and with zero nuances.
Don’t ever try to argue with a Finn that a Russian person can be good, and that Putin is also their enemy: the Finn will shut down and stop talking to you - meaning, in their culture, that you can politely go fuck yourself.
And that’s what we’re witnessing here with Linus: however many years he’s lived in California, he still hasn’t shed that part of his upbringing, and quite frankly, shame on him.
Finland were Nazi collaborators and aligned with the Axis. After the Soviets let them do their own thing, they have been trying to create new national myths of how actually they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths. This kind of apologia manifests as Russophobia and the various ahistorical recuperations of WWII omnipresent in Western media.
It is like asking a racist Southerner about the Confederacy. You will hear lost cause apologia. Now imagine if they were their own country writing their own history books and media putsches. Now imagine their narrative was slotted into the historical revisionism of the strongest superpower. That is how you get such racist Finns.
Another great one is “larry thorne”, aka Lauri Törni, a finnish nazi (buried with the highest honors in USA’s Arlington cemetary btw) who fought against communists and lost 3 times (twice against the USSR, then took an L in Vietnam).
Weird meme since Finland and Finns are very open about who Finland sided with and it’s very commonly talked about too. If anything it should rather be that we’re too nonchalant about it rather than trying to hide it somehow.
they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths
I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for those who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs. A pretty far cry from the “thousands” you mentioned, but as I said, I’m not sure what you are counting.
For a long time the war and stuff like this was a sore point and the heroic myth overruled everything but since at least for a decade this particular topic has got a lot of public discourse. The heroic myth still lives on though, even if it is milder than it used to be.
For a book, “Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History” by Muir and Worthen provides decent context. For more specifics, the pioneering work of Elina Sana, particularly Luovutetut, should provide the later basis. The thing to focus on is how the intentional ignorance of what her work revealed was maintained for decades by a “if nobody looks or talks about it, Nobody will know” approach to Finland, whose whitewashed participation as a Nazi ally had been fairly thorough. Subsequent critics picked at the margins but her overall thesis and work holds up.
I have the book here in front of me and I think this is the part your’e thinking. From first book, talking about your second source:
Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History, page 151.
Challenging the official figure of eight Jewish refugees handed over to the German authorities, Sana claimed that during the German–Finnish alliance, the Continuation War (1941–44), Finland extradited almost 3,000 civilians and POWs, among them approximately 100 Jews.
How you could turn that to thousands of handed over Jews, I don’t know. If some other part brings it up tenfold then I didn’t see it with a quick glance. I think you might’ve misread or misremembered that part since nowadays that doesn’t challenge what I said with “I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for Jews who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs.” Some upper estimates got “up to a hundred” based on just the last names, but usually the number I’ve seen is below that since just the names can be very uncertain in Russian context.
Still horrible, no question about that, but I originally came to correct was this:
they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths
I am looking at both but I honestly think you just made a mistake and thought the total number of extraditions was all Jews when the claim is just that “approximately 100” were.
If there’s part on either that goes against the quote shown, that jumps up the number tenfold (or more), I’d be happy to see it. But neither book nor any public discourse or (academic) reviews of the books seem to talk about anything but what I’ve quoted here. If the claim was thousands of Jewish victims and not “approximately 100”, from what I could find, everyone but you have read it differently or missed that part. And that would be really significant with how big of a disconnect there has been.
I think you’ve just misread or misremembered that part…
While I agree with you and what I’m about to say is the result of decades of propaganda sadly a massive part of the Russian population fully support putin and believe the bullshit they get fed.
Like I said it makes sense and they are victims of the propaganda but it doesn’t change the fact
Mate have you interacted with many Russians since the war broke out? I happen to spend every day surrounded by quite a few, all but one think they are justified in the war.
Now there are of course tonnes of people that don’t think that way, but they are sadly not the majority
For first several months the war was extremely unpopular, but sanctions and discrimination against Russians did orders of magnitude more to make people think of the West as the enemy than the dumb state propaganda.
Don’t ever try to argue with a Finn that a Russian person can be good, and that Putin is also their enemy: the Finn will shut down and stop talking to you - meaning, in their culture, that you can politely go fuck yourself.
I cracked up reading this. It’s not like that these days. Some people are and it used to be worse but things have changed a bunch.
The Russian attack into Ukraine soured things again though. Not that that’s an excuse, rather it just happened following that.
Two comments about this:
It is my firm belief that 99% of the population of any country ruled by a dictator are the primary victims of that dictator, don’t condone what their rulers do, have done nothing wrong and are just trying to be good people in unfavorable circumstances.
The Russians are no different and it isn’t fair to impose on Russian individuals of obvious good will the treatment governments apply to the Russian government, because the Russian government and the Russian people are two very different things.
Linus said in this interview:
and here I’m telling you this: Linus acts like a dipshit.
I know the Finns very, VERY well, and while they’re generally great people, when it comes to Russia and Russians, they have epidermic reactions of totally unreasonable proportions.
I understand where they’re coming from and why they react like that, but Russia is to the Finnish people what peanuts are to someone with a peanut allergy: the reaction is totally disproportionate and with zero nuances.
Don’t ever try to argue with a Finn that a Russian person can be good, and that Putin is also their enemy: the Finn will shut down and stop talking to you - meaning, in their culture, that you can politely go fuck yourself.
And that’s what we’re witnessing here with Linus: however many years he’s lived in California, he still hasn’t shed that part of his upbringing, and quite frankly, shame on him.
Finland were Nazi collaborators and aligned with the Axis. After the Soviets let them do their own thing, they have been trying to create new national myths of how actually they were good people that didn’t send thousands of Jews to their deaths. This kind of apologia manifests as Russophobia and the various ahistorical recuperations of WWII omnipresent in Western media.
It is like asking a racist Southerner about the Confederacy. You will hear lost cause apologia. Now imagine if they were their own country writing their own history books and media putsches. Now imagine their narrative was slotted into the historical revisionism of the strongest superpower. That is how you get such racist Finns.
lmao
Another great one is “larry thorne”, aka Lauri Törni, a finnish nazi (buried with the highest honors in USA’s Arlington cemetary btw) who fought against communists and lost 3 times (twice against the USSR, then took an L in Vietnam).
This wiki sidebar sure is one
Amazing!
Weird meme since Finland and Finns are very open about who Finland sided with and it’s very commonly talked about too. If anything it should rather be that we’re too nonchalant about it rather than trying to hide it somehow.
I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for those who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs. A pretty far cry from the “thousands” you mentioned, but as I said, I’m not sure what you are counting.
For a long time the war and stuff like this was a sore point and the heroic myth overruled everything but since at least for a decade this particular topic has got a lot of public discourse. The heroic myth still lives on though, even if it is milder than it used to be.
That is the official ahistorical line. Actual historical work accounts for thousands.
Can you share some of these works?
E: TL;DR cited works didn’t actually claim “thousands” but “approximately 100”. With two zeroes.
For a book, “Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History” by Muir and Worthen provides decent context. For more specifics, the pioneering work of Elina Sana, particularly Luovutetut, should provide the later basis. The thing to focus on is how the intentional ignorance of what her work revealed was maintained for decades by a “if nobody looks or talks about it, Nobody will know” approach to Finland, whose whitewashed participation as a Nazi ally had been fairly thorough. Subsequent critics picked at the margins but her overall thesis and work holds up.
I have the book here in front of me and I think this is the part your’e thinking. From first book, talking about your second source:
Finland’s Holocaust: Silences of History, page 151.
How you could turn that to thousands of handed over Jews, I don’t know. If some other part brings it up tenfold then I didn’t see it with a quick glance. I think you might’ve misread or misremembered that part since nowadays that doesn’t challenge what I said with “I’m not sure how you’ve counted it but the number for Jews who were given to the Germans was eight refugees and “some tens” of (Soviet) PoWs.” Some upper estimates got “up to a hundred” based on just the last names, but usually the number I’ve seen is below that since just the names can be very uncertain in Russian context.
Still horrible, no question about that, but I originally came to correct was this:
You’ve gotta read both books
I am looking at both but I honestly think you just made a mistake and thought the total number of extraditions was all Jews when the claim is just that “approximately 100” were.
If there’s part on either that goes against the quote shown, that jumps up the number tenfold (or more), I’d be happy to see it. But neither book nor any public discourse or (academic) reviews of the books seem to talk about anything but what I’ve quoted here. If the claim was thousands of Jewish victims and not “approximately 100”, from what I could find, everyone but you have read it differently or missed that part. And that would be really significant with how big of a disconnect there has been.
I think you’ve just misread or misremembered that part…
While I agree with you and what I’m about to say is the result of decades of propaganda sadly a massive part of the Russian population fully support putin and believe the bullshit they get fed.
Like I said it makes sense and they are victims of the propaganda but it doesn’t change the fact
Unhinged bullshit like this did more to make people support Putin than any propaganda he could spit.
Mate have you interacted with many Russians since the war broke out? I happen to spend every day surrounded by quite a few, all but one think they are justified in the war.
Now there are of course tonnes of people that don’t think that way, but they are sadly not the majority
For first several months the war was extremely unpopular, but sanctions and discrimination against Russians did orders of magnitude more to make people think of the West as the enemy than the dumb state propaganda.
I cracked up reading this. It’s not like that these days. Some people are and it used to be worse but things have changed a bunch.
The Russian attack into Ukraine soured things again though. Not that that’s an excuse, rather it just happened following that.