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Comment by justsomehnguy | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Please, let's not re-fight WWII on HN.

We know that the impact from that time is far from worked through, but to the extent it shows up here, commenters should make the effort not to fall back into war mode.

You're welcome on HN, and so are the users you disagree with—but you all (i.e. we all) need to stay within the site guidelines when discussing tough stuff. These include: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

p.s. This comment is not just for the user I'm replying to but everyone else who's expressing strong feelings below. It's amazing, and totally human, how alive these feelings are after 80+ years, but at the same time, 80+ years of distance should give us the ability to relate to each other a little bit better than our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were able to.

> Finland was one of Germany's most important allies in the attack on the Soviet Union, allowing German troops to be based in Finland before the attack and joining in the attack on the USSR almost immediately.

I wonder, why on earth would Finland have any hostility towards the USSR in 1941? It beggars belief!

OTOH, after trying to conquer Finland in 1939-1940 Russians definitely have no moral right to judge Finns.

OP here. I obviously registered to post my own blog entry.

You might also want to read your own link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad#Finnish_par...

> OP here

Can you clear up the confusion as to whether or not the earlier user named 'gyrovague' is operated by you as well? (There was some suspicion on the earlier thread that it might not be you.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=gyrovague

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46869388

Thank you!

Finland did send hundreds of people to be murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

No, it did not. Unless you count the Soviet POWs who were murdered in Stalin's gulags.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Finland...

Finland starved thousands to death in it's own camps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Karelian_concentration_ca...

No, Finland handed both jewish and non-jewish Soviet POWs to Germany. Hundreds of people sent from Finland to Germany died in the camps. Finland also deported multiple jewish refugees to Germany, these people were neither Soviets nor POWs.

https://journal.fi/haik/article/view/139103/86888

Yes, sure, Finland had it's own complicated reasons for behaving the way it did. There's however no serious dispute about whether or not Finnish collaboration in the holocaust happened.

I couldn't care less if this person's grandfather was a Nazi, even if it turns out to be true. What are they supposed to do, go back in time and convince their grandfather to change their ways? It ridiculous using this as some kind of insult, and it disturbs me that people might take it as one.

Just do not take him for your own roleplay model

Could it be that Germany was the only nation willing to help Finland fight the Soviets?

From Wikipedia

> Interim peace > ... > Defensive arrangements were attempted with Sweden and the United Kingdom, but the political and military situation in the context of the Second World War rendered these efforts fruitless. Finland then turned to Nazi Germany for military aid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_in_World_War_II

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