Canada's Faulty WWII Memory

"The Canadian government should directly condemn SS Galicia, not honour it. It is  unbelievable this happened in the first place."

"Members of this division were involved in mass murder of Jews, Poles and Ukrainians during [the Second World War], and many of them did this before they joined this division."

"They're considered to be Nazi collaborators, and they are not regarded even as heroes in Ukraine by the Ukrainian government."

"They massacred entire villages of Polish residents in this region… including women and children because they were accused of being associated with Soviet partisans. This was just mass murder without any real justification."

"In addition to this, the SS Galicia Division was involved in other cases of violence. They took part in the suppression of the anti-Nazi uprising in Slovakia, and they also took part in the brutal and violent suppression of the anti-Nazi partisan movement in Yugoslavia."

Ivan Katchanovski, Ukrainian Canadian professor, University of Ottawa 

 

"Those units were involved in real acts of atrocities against Jews and other victims of the Nazi regime."

"The Nazi units, like the one he was involved with, did not give the victims of the Holocaust, the millions of them, Jews and others, an opportunity to live their lives, have children and grandchildren and live to be 98 years old."

"[It's] absolutely critical that we reflect back on Canada's absolutely awful, awful record of holding Nazis accountable for their crimes."

"We have failed at that -- we were a safe haven for so many that came in."

Wiesenthal Center president, CEO Michael Levitt 

"[The military division contributed to the deaths of six million Poles during the war, half of whom were Jewish." 

"This is a person who participated in an organization that was targeting Poles, was committing mass murders of Poles, not only the military personnel but also civilians." 

"For me, such people should not be present in public life and probably should be prosecuted."

Witold Dzielski, Poland's ambassador to Canada

The obtusely stunning performance -- during the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Canada, preparing to address Parliament -- to reveal the invited presence of a Ukrainian WWII 'hero',

98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka by Parliamentary Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota as a surprise went sideways fairly quickly. "He is a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service" said Speaker Rota in introducing the nonagenarian invitee. The entire chamber burst out in an ovation of appreciation.

Only to soon enough discover him to be a Ukrainian who had voluntarily, during World War II, joined a Nazi SS division, fighting with the Waffen-SS Galicia Division known as well as the SS 14th Waffen Division, referred to as well as the First Ukrainian Division under the command of Nazi SS officers. Friday was the day that Yaroslav Hunka was feted by Parliament, and on Sunday, Speaker Rota apologized for the man's presence in Parliament, before a Jewish Ukrainian president no less, whose family had perished in the Holocaust.

Jewish groups in Canada and the world over were shocked, dismayed and angered, demanding at the very least an apology from the Canadian government, the rousing standing ovation honouring a Ukrainian Nazi, beyond belief. Poland too has demanded an apology. And has gone even further issuing a formal request for the man's extradition to Poland to stand trial for war crimes as a former officer of the Waffen-SS Galicia Division.

 

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. Photo by Patrick Doyle /The Canadian Press

Calls for the resignation of House of commons Speaker Anthony Rota were swift in coming. And finally, on Tuesday, he did resign, under pressure from even several members of his own governing party. What stretches credulity is that everyone invited to appear in person at a parliamentary session is given a background security check, and in this instance it would have been no different. It was well known in North Bay and among Ukrainians that the man was a Nazi collaborator. That he was a resident of the Speaker's riding, fails to excuse Mr. Rota of ignorance of his past.

A website honouring the division that includes photographs of the man in his Nazi uniform offers ample details. The photographs that the professor posted on social media were viewed over three million times. The shameful episode on Parliament Hill has been reported in American, British, Polish and Australian legacy media. The Waffen-SS Galicia Division is well noted for its role in murdering civilians and its involvement during the war in bloody massacres.

At that point of the war after Hitler's Germany had invaded Russia, despite its pact with Germany as part of the Axis group, Soviet Russia allied itself with Canada, the United States, Britain and other Allied nations against Nazi Germany. The Ukrainian SS division dates from 1943 when Germany looked for allies to support its forces at a time when the Allies began gaining traction in the war and Germany became concerned the war was its to lose.

Recruitment of Ukraines to the SS made use of propaganda, one particularly appealing poster featuring an SS soldier in conflict with a caricature with the Star of David emblazoned on its arm. In the end, 80,000 Ukrainians volunteered for the SS Division with 12,000 making the final selection. Many more Ukrainians fought against the Nazis, with the Soviet military. Following war's end, the International Military Tribunal included the units of the Waffen SS like the Galicia division in its identifying them as criminal organizations. 

In Canada, there remain some nationalist Ukrainian-Canadians that view the 14th Waffen Division as heroes for fighting Soviet forces. Oakville, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta have sites where monuments honouring the Ukrainian SS troops were erected to express that pride. And while the monuments fail to state the Divisions as part of the Nazi SS, this is what they clearly are.  B'nai Brith Canada and the Canadian Polish Congress jointly called for their removal.

Finally, not a word from Chrystia Freeland, finance minister, and deputy prime minister of Canada. Whose own Ukrainian-Canadian background surely entitles her to make some pithy comments. Then again, perhaps not, given that her grandfather was in essence, little different from a Ukrainian member of a Waffen SS. He was stationed in German-occupied Poland, editor of a newspaper that parroted Nazi propaganda de-humanizing Jews, a collaborator himself.