Macabre Entitlement

It's breathtakingly incredible that the Federal Court of Appeal has taken it upon itself to order the Government of Canada to think twice about its decision to revoke the citizenship of a former Nazi collaborator. This is a man who lied about his Nazi connections, his war-time experiences, when he applied to enter Canada as a new immigrant. This is a criminal offence, a felony that in and of itself constitutes reason, under Canadian law, for revocation of citizenship and removal from the country.

Yet the Appeal Court ruled that the cabinet which revoked Helmut Oberlander's citizenship two years ago for that very reason, should do a double-think about the matter. On compassionate grounds that he is an elderly man, he adamantly insists he had no choice, was forced to join German forces while still a teen-ager. That, of course, is irrelevant to his having lied on entry to Canada. But he lied because he knew very well that his active Nazi past would not permit him entry.

Mr. Oberlander was a member of Einsatzkommando 10A, a mobile mass killing squad. Their purpose was to exterminate civilians, mostly Jews in the Soviet Union. Through mass executions Mr. Oberlander and his squad annihilated over 90,000 people. This ruling may be seen as a partial victory for Mr. Oberlander, who claims not to have been involved in mass murder. His Einsatzkommando unit most certainly was, and he was an integral part of that unit. As a Ukrainian national, serving as an interpreter, his association would not have been unusual.

Sixty years is a long time. There is no direct evidence that might prove that Mr. Oberlander undertook personally to commit murderous atrocities against humanity. If he did not, and considered himself innocent of any involvement in the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people, if he considered himself to have been forced to join a killing unit against his will, why then commit to a lie? Simply because he knew he was involved, he was complicit at the very least, if not actively involved.

Perhaps nine years after the conclusion of the Second World War, when this man and his wife emigrated to Canada, research might have given proof of his direct involvement. But that was the time when he made no mention of his past, and now his original denial has come back to haunt him. Witnesses to the atrocities he took part in are not readily accessible. The Final Solution saw to that.

Of course the Court of Appeal's injunction to the Cabinet to re-consider the revocation does not commit the Cabinet to anything other but to acknowledge Mr. Oberlander's claim that he was conscripted under duress. After which acknowledgement the Cabinet may feel free once again to re-certify his non-citizenship and deport him.

It is not, however, the Cabinet that deserves a cautionary, compassionate slap on the wrist, but rather the two out of three judges who thought in their wisdom to overturn the 2008 Federal Court ruling.