Its election time in Finland, with the voting set to take place this Sunday for the selection of new members to the Finnish Parliament, and one candidate stands out from all the rest.
Viljo Heikkinen, from the Pohjois-Savo region of Finland is participating in the Finnish parliamentary elections as a representative for the communist party, and thought it a wise political move to write an op-ed criticizing a conservative Jewish candidate who views communism as a detrimental ideology.
Heikkinen ends up penning an anti-Semitic op-ed which appeared in last month’s edition of a leftist labor union paper, the Rakentaja-lehti . The racist screed was severely degrading towards both MP Ben Zyskowicz of National Coalition Party, and his father Abram Zyskowicz, a Holocaust survivor now deceased.
Viljo Heikkinen’s anti-Semitic op-ed is very similar to the one published last year which led to two Finnish newspapers being found guilty by a court for incitement to racism, and fined. One of the newspapers was the leftist Kansan Uutiset (The People’s News). The author of that op-ed was also a communist and a labor union representative.
Finnish MP, Ben Zyskowicz states to the Ilta Sanomat:
“It is both cheap and disgusting that a certain candidate for office would dare attack me using my father’s tragic experiences and write about a concentration camp prisoner’s life in a humorous way as an act of public service. He further mocks me by saying that I needn’t worry over matters if the Nazis had finished things off.”
According to Juha-Pekka Tikka, journalist for the Ilta-Sanomat, Heikkinen’s op-ed was published in one of Finland’s largest labor union (SAK) newspapers, the Rakentaja-lehti, stating that:
Ben Zyskowicz has bad memories about the Red Army, which had interrupted Ben’s father’s civil service in the labor camp, whose entrance read “Arbeit macht frei”. Ben was still a gleam in his father’s eye then, if the father had been allowed to complete his service in that kind of work place, Ben would not be now suffering from migraines.
BZ:
— It is historically true, that the Red Army liberated the Sachsenhausen labor camp, where my father was at. But to attach it with some kind of responsibility to honor communism, which was a monstrous and murderous system of millions of people, is a totally unimaginable thought, Zyskowicz commented.
BZ: “This article (by Heikkinen) is not in any way in accordance with good taste. “
Tikka (IS): “Ben Zyskowicz’s father Abram Zyskowicz was his only relative that survived the Nazi’s concentration camps alive. His father died when Ben Zyskowicz was six years old.”
I am curious however, as to whether or not Viljo Heikkinen’s fellow communists and socialists and the others on the far Left will band together and vote him into parliament. Or better yet, issue a clear statement of condemnation over his anti-Semitical screed. That Heikkinen is still running on the communist ticket doesn’t give rise to hope that they’ll be ashamed of having him in their ranks any time soon.
Note: The editor of the commy rag has apologized, but I’d like to see this reach the courts against both the paper and the author of the op-ed.
Note. Special kudos are reserved for Juha-Pekka Tikka for bringing this story to the light of day. As of yet, no other Finnish news media that I know of, has picked up on the story.
