Two antisemitic incidents were recorded in Finland within a week.
In the first incident, a Jewish cemetery in the of Hamina, near the Russian border, was vandalised. The perpetrators are believed to be neo-Nazis.
In the second incident, a statue of communist leader Vladimir Lenin was defaced with a Star of David and the words “Jewish mass murderer.” The statue is located in the nearby of Kotka.
It appears for now that the two incidents are not connected.
A senior member of the Finnish Jewish community said that “Finland is now like other places. In recent months, there has been a rise in antisemitic incidents, in which Jews are blamed for the coronavirus pandemic”.
This is notable in online discourse and also in the stickers distributed throughout Helsinki by the Nordic Resistance Movement.”
