"The Waffen SS was founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1943 and soldiers swore an oath to Hitler."

"On Aug. 7, 2026, the Court of King’s Bench issued a decision allowing the termination of the $30,000 Yaroslav and Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund, and authorizing the return of the donation to the Hunka family. We acknowledge and respect the Court's decision. While this concludes the legal process, we remain mindful of the varied and deeply felt impacts this decision can have on individuals and the community. This court decision brings to a close an issue that began in September 2023, following Mr. Hunka’s introduction in the Canadian House of Commons."

"Since this process began, the university has strengthened its approach to naming and gift acceptance to ensure appropriate due diligence is conducted before creating a named endowment and that clear mechanisms are in place to reconsider or revoke naming arrangements when circumstances warrant. This includes updates to the Naming Policy and Gift Acceptance Policy, as well as the establishment of a Naming Advisory Group to provide recommendations on university namings informed by internal and external consultation. Drawing on lessons from this case, the Naming Advisory Group now provides additional oversight and review of named endowments, objects and spaces across the university."

"There are an additional eight endowments the university administers as trustee that are named for individuals with connections to the Galicia Division – the same division Mr. Hunka was a member of. The eight endowments vary in their specific purposes, and some include multiple donors. All of the endowments support valued research and education in Ukrainian studies. After consulting with partners and other organizations, including the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) and the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, we will not undertake the time- and cost-intensive application process required to seek court approval to terminate or alter them."

University of Alberta Website statement 

The University of Alberta

 

The University of Alberta was given legal approval to proceed with the dissolution of a research trust named in honour of Ukrainian SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka. The Yaroslav & Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund, valued at $30,000 given to the university by Martin Hunka, son of Yaroslav, was meant to further research into Ukrainian history. If so, it would be quite embarrassing to the Hunka family if that research highlighted that the Waffen SS unit Mr. Hunka served with in the Galicia Division was comprised of Ukrainians who volunteered to serve with the Nazis. Their service aided Nazi German in its persecution of, carnage and mass murder of Poles and Jews during World War II.

 

In 2023, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting Canada to express his appreciation for the considerable material and financial assistance by Canada given war-torn Ukraine through Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-fledged military campaign to continue wresting Ukrainian regional geographic assets into the Russian grasp of  territorial annexation with its full-scale invasion of February 2022, following its 2014 partial invasion of Ukraine's Donbas when Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Yaroslav Hunka was introduced as a Ukrainian hero and feted in the House of Commons. 

 

He had fought courageously against the Russians, proudly declared Parliament's then-Speaker Anthony Rota who declared him as a hero "who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians". A standing ovation ensued by Parliamentarians whose memories had been swamped by the occasion. It took no time at all for others who had no problem recalling such details that Russia had joined the Allied Forces against the Axis Forces in the wake of Germany invading its up-to-then Axis partner. Ukraine vastly preferred German occupation to that of the Soviets.  

 

Yaroslav Hunka, who served in a Ukrainian SS unit during World War Two, found himself in the middle of an international firestorm after receiving a standing ovation in Canada's House of Commons in 2023. The University of Alberta was granted permission to dissolve a charitable endowment in Hunka's name Aug. 7, 2026, over protests from his family. Photo by Handout photo

 

"The university did not terminate the Hunka Trust because it determined that Yaroslav [Hunka] was a war criminal or anti-Semitic."

"Rather, it did so because it perceived that any continued association with an individual who had served in a regiment connected to the Nazis would adversely affect the University of Alberta." 

"The House of Commons incident, and the public response that followed, made it clear that maintaining the Hunka Trust was not in the university's best interests."

Justice Debra Yungwirth, Court of Kings Bench, Alberta  

The $30,000 trust fund in honour of his parents made in 2019 by Martin Hunka was to be used for research into the underground activities of the Ukrainian Catholic Church during the Second World War. According to Martin Hunka, the university authority was made aware by him when he made the endowment, that his father Yaroslav had served in the Galicia Division, comprised of Nazi-favouring fascist 'nationalist' Ukrainians. 

 

Ukrainian nationalists contend that the decision by Mr. Hunka and others to become members in the unit should be considered a pragmatic choice, in exchange for which they would receive arms and training to enable them to respond to the dreaded Soviet reoccupation of Ukraine. For which the unit took an oath to Adolf Hitler. Their fascist inclination would be difficult to explain away, for a group operating under SS direction and implicated in wartime atrocities. 

 

Once this history was re-kindled through the controversy of Parliamentarians in Canada honouring a then-98-year-old veteran of World War II as a distinguished war hero, public censure ran high. Speaker Anthony Rota resigned his position and the University of Alberta informed Martin Hunka that the funding for the study he had directed would be returned. The Hunka family was set against the intention to dissolve the trust which led the university to seek formal court permission to proceed.

 

Yaroslav Hunka, right, sits in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario on Friday, September 22, 2023.

Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press/AP

 

Now, despite that the university, while acknowledging other trusts set up to honour other World War II Ukrainians who voluntarily joined the Galicia Division to fight alongside other Waffen SS units and that they would not move to dissolve them, it should realize that its integrity and moral choices have been stained and will continue to be viewed with the suspicion they deserve if it just allows matters to rest there. Its concern over losing the over $1-million in endowments from all these sources, should never override its moral compass. 

"The Waffen SS was founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1943 and soldiers swore an oath to Hitler."

"The entire SS was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal during the Nuremberg trials after the war."

"The 1986 Deschênes Commission, which investigated how Nazi war criminals arrived in Canada, concluded in a decision that was disputed at the time by Jewish groups, that membership in the Waffen SS was not a war crime."

Zenith Wolfe,  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Canadian Jewish News

 

"For years, FSWC has called on the University of Alberta to divest itself of all endowments that honour individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. FSWC has identified numerous additional such endowments held by the university that are collectively worth millions of dollars. Among them is an endowment named after Peter Savaryn who later became Chancellor of the University of Alberta. In 2023, the Governor General’s office expressed deep regret for awarding Savaryn the Order of Canada in 1987, given revelations about his Nazi past."

"Justice Yungwirth’s ruling affirms the University of Alberta’s decision to dissolve the Hunka endowment and return the funds to the Hunka family. However, in a statement released yesterday, the university indicated it did not intend to take similar action with respect to its other remaining endowments linked to individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. Instead, the university announced it would commit $100,000 over three years to research this Nazi division and “other complex and difficult aspects of twentieth-century history” through the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies."

"These actions do not resolve the fundamental concern: the University of Alberta is currently honouring individuals who served in the Waffen-SS by maintaining endowments that bear their names. As long as these endowments remain, they compound the harm to the Jewish community and Canadians more broadly, while leaving serious unanswered questions about the university’s decision to accept these funds in the first place. Research can deepen the historical record, but it cannot substitute for institutional accountability. That accountability must begin with eliminating the endowments."

“The university should now exercise its authority to dissolve its remaining endowments honouring individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. Such endowments have no place at the University of Alberta or any other institution of higher learning in this country,” said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at FSWC. “The university must act without delay to right this longstanding wrong and ensure all future naming and gifting practices reflect historical truth and respect the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre 

Over a week after Yaroslav Hunka was cheered in the House of Commons, Jewish groups are calling for Ottawa to release a decades-old report from the Deschênes Commission containing details about alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.  CBC News

 

Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp -- Honouring Waffen SS Heroes

"The purpose of this monument is solely to remember our homeland and those that died in battles to defend Estonia's freedom from 1941 to 1945." 

"Some concerns were recently expressed within our own community about displaying names, so all names of individuals were removed with no objections."

Lia Hess, head, board of directors, Estonian Summer Camp Society Inc.

"Estonia has received significant international criticism for allowing ex-SS veterans to march in parades."

"More recently, it was criticized for erecting a plaque that commemorates Alfons Rebane, an SS officer and Nazi collaborator, who did however, fight the Soviets."

Canadian heritage official comment

"Instead of using this moment to reflect on its history of wrong-doing, this camp has chosen to deny incontrovertible facts, make lame excuses, and smear Jewish community advocates with absurd accusations."

"Not for a moment has the camp taken responsibility for its role in glorifying Nazi war criminals in the eyes of Ontario's children over the course of many decades."

"Not once has the camp shown a desire to address the harm it has caused."

"Everything about the camp's response to our research has made this story even more sad and disturbing."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center

Pictures from the Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp Society's Facebook page show both kids and adults laying wreaths and hosting ceremonies at the Swords Monument while the names of the Nazi officers were still on display. (Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp Society/Facebook)

 

The issue is that of a venerated monument erected at an Ontario camp as a memorial -- at Seedrioru, a camp for Estonian Canadian children and teens located in Elora, Ontario, not far from Toronto. The memorial was established in celebration of 'Estonian heroic freedom fighters', engraved with the names of four men who distinguished themselves in service with the Waffen SS, collaborating with Adolf Hitler during his genocidal campaign to rid the world of any Jewish presence.

Four men whose names appear on the monument were known members of the Estonian Waffen SS. And each of these men are known to have received the top military award representing Nazi Germany's World War II campaign to go to war with Western democracy and just incidentally commit genocide while they and their Axis partners were fighting the Allies for world supremacy. Although the Soviet Union started out the war as one of the Axis nations, when Germany attacked the USSR, it switched its loyalties to the Allies.

Countries like Ukraine and Estonia, among other Eastern European neighbours of Russia who were occupied and coerced to become part of the Soviet Union, hated Russian domination and willingly allied themselves with Nazi Germany, sharing many of its goals. Buried with full military honours in Estonia, Harald Nugiseks was one of those honoured on the summer camp's monument. In a 1993 interview he explained his volunteerism with the Waffen SS resulted from his support for what Nazi Germany planned for Europe.

 

A handful of pictures on the Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp Society Facebook page show the Swords Monument with fresh wreaths or flowers at its base. (Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp Society/Facebook)

 

Others whose names were etched on the monument were also Waffen SS veterans; Harald Riipalu, Paul Maitla and Alfons Rebane. The latter was recognized by Canadian government officials for his Nazi past. The federal government's special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism stated that knowledge of the monument's existence indicated a need for education. "This situation reinforces the importance of comprehensive Holocaust education, not only in our schools, but also among the broader Canadian public."

When the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center discovered the existence of the Seedrioru memorial, where photographs posted on the web page of the organization showed young campers and staff laying wreaths at the monument, they issued a new release of its existence.  The Estonian Central Council in Canada responded by condemning "disinformation and lies", suggesting concern raised by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center was in reality, Russian disinformation. 

Denials were swift and emphatic when Jaime Kirzner-Roberts stated that the memorial's four names etched for posterity were those of individuals who held roles n the murder of Jews during the Holocaust, serving in an Estonian Waffen SS division. When asked for proof for an investigative reporting media outlet that Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center was working with the Russians or that the four being honoured on the monument were not members of the Waffen SS, none was forthcoming.

According to some Holocaust scholars, aside from fighting with the Nazis, the Estonian SS division's soldiers were also involved in the executions of up to 2,000 prisoners at the Klooga concentration camp in Estonia.

This plaque at the bottom of the Swords Monument includes an excerpt from the 19th-century epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, considered to be the cornerstone of Estonia's national literature. It translates to: 'Like a brave protective wall, we will defend our homeland.' (Lia Hess/Seedrioru Estonian Summer Camp Society)