A young British girl, wounded in a Luftwaffe raid on London, is comforted by two ladies, one of them possibly her mother.

Young victim

The bombing of Helsinki 1944. The main building of Helsinki University, on Senate Square, burns during the night.

In February 1944, the Soviet Union launched three massive bombing raids against Helsinki. The aim was to break the Finnish fighting spirit and force the Finns to the peace table.

Finnish air defense forces counted 2,121 bombers in the three raids of February 1944, which dropped more than 16,000 bombs. The Finns deceived Soviet pathfinders by lighting fires on the islands outside the city, and only using the searchlights east of the city, thereby leading the pathfinders to believe that it was the city. Only 530 bombs fell within the city itself. 

Helsinki burns

Organised burning of "unGerman" books, Berlin, May 1933, "stewarded" by SA and SS men.  One notable point about the May "book burnings" was that it took place well before Nazi power was fully consolidated by the assumption of the office of President of the Republic (and there Fuhrer of the new Reich) by Hitler.  The Nazi's energetic efforts to consolidate their power was well under way by then, to the extent that none of the established State authorities were willing or able to stand in the way of this outrage against the republican principles of the Weimar constitution.  Best regards, JR.