Legal historian Dr. Jukka Lindstedt says that as many as 50 Jews may have been among Soviet prisoners of war sent by Finland to Germany during the Continuation War.

   

"I believe that the total number is somewhere between 45 and 50. The archive cards of 39 people give their nationality as Jewish."

   

A few years ago Lindstedt wrote a doctoral dissertation on death sentences handed down in Finland during the Second World War, and it was in connection with his research that he came across the deportations of POWs.

   

The issue of foreigners extradited from Finland to Germany during the war has made headlines recently on the basis of a new book by researcher Elina Sana who calculates that as many as 3,000 Soviet prisoners may have been sent to Germany.

   

Professor Heikki Ylikangas of the Academy of Finland has been commissioned by the Finnish government to investigate the deportations of prisoners during the war years.