Elina Sana’s Luovutetut and the Politics of History

Abstract

Upon its publication in 2003, Elina Sana’s Luovutetut: Suomen ihmisluovutukset Gestapolle (Finnish, Extradited: Finland’s human deliveries to the Gestapo) aroused a pointed controversy in Finland.1 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.2 These extraditions were carried out in cooperation with the Gestapo, even though the discriminatory treatment of the Jewish community in and on the territories of the Third Reich was known by the Finnish authorities. Despite these human deliveries, however, in the aftermath of World War II Finland claimed a non-existing or insignificant role in the Holocaust, asserting it had remained a state governed by the rule of law with respect for human rights. Sana’s book dramatized the politics undergirding the “research establishment” and its alleged objectivity, also showing the extent to which academic historiography had been, if not explicitly legitimizing, at least closely related to state politics, not least through its reliance on access to official documentary sources.