Basically yes, and that's why I don't fault Finland for acting as it did.
I just pointed out that it wasn't a complete surprise that Nazi Germany was virulently anti-Semitic and mistreated the Jews and other groups in their own and countries they occupied. That was already known in the world and Finland before they decided to ally with Nazi-Germany.
But I still defend that Finnish choice that time if people attack them for it.
History isn't black and white but often has a lot of shades of grey as well.
Especially in times of war countries can't always afford to do what they would have done in peacetime, but must look to the security of the nation. And sometimes that means choosing between only bad options, trying to pick the least bad one for the nation.
It's very easy for us to sit in safety decades later and accuse them of doing the wrong things then, but had we been in a position to decide, in most cases, most of us would have ended up doing the exact same thing ourselves.
Because most of the time these questionable historical choices where still the least bad option available to the governments at the time.
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@Tjalve
Basically yes, and that's why I don't fault Finland for acting as it did.
I just pointed out that it wasn't a complete surprise that Nazi Germany was virulently anti-Semitic and mistreated the Jews and other groups in their own and countries they occupied. That was already known in the world and Finland before they decided to ally with Nazi-Germany.
But I still defend that Finnish choice that time if people attack them for it.
History isn't black and white but often has a lot of shades of grey as well.
Especially in times of war countries can't always afford to do what they would have done in peacetime, but must look to the security of the nation. And sometimes that means choosing between only bad options, trying to pick the least bad one for the nation.
It's very easy for us to sit in safety decades later and accuse them of doing the wrong things then, but had we been in a position to decide, in most cases, most of us would have ended up doing the exact same thing ourselves.
Because most of the time these questionable historical choices where still the least bad option available to the governments at the time.