User:Brigade Piron/sandbox8
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- By 1942, there are 2,000 Finnish Jews in Finland
- Before the war, the population of Finnish Kale, a Romani ethnic group, numbered approximately 4,000. Stereotyped as undisciplined and lazy, they were subject to various discriminatory measures including the 1936 Act on the Regulation of Vagrancy (irtolaislaki) which mirrored similar anti-Romani measures introduced elsewhere in Europe.[1]
- Finland introduced the Act on the Obligation to Work (työvelvollisuuslaki) in May 1942 as part of the mobilisation of the Finnish labour force. Alongside this measure, it also began to target groups supposedly unable to work including Finnish Kale. The government legislated in autumn 1943 for the introduction of "special labour camps" (erikoisleirit) specifically targetting the Kale, alcoholics, and prostitutes.[2] In spite of these measures, the policy proved unworkable in practice and was soon abandoned.[3]
- Toivo Horelli, Minister of the Interior, was a "known antisemite". Arno Anthoni, Director of the State Police (Valpo), was close to Gestapo officials in German-occupied Estonia. Between them, they sponsored a policy whereby foreign refugees, including Jews, were detained in the Arctic Circle and later in regions subject to Soviet attack