In Finland during World War II, openly Jewish soldiers were awarded the highest recognition by the German military, the Iron Cross. “Strangers in a Stranger Land” is a book in which the author John Simon examines the survival of Finland’s Jews against the most daunting power struggles in Europe toward the end of the second world war.
“City Lights” host Lois Reitzes spoke with Simon in November and asked why those Germans, whose government was systematically murdering Jews throughout Europe, didn’t kill those Jewish soldiers.
Simon’s book is out now.
