White-Washing the 14th Waffen SS Galicia

"I don't understand this upside-down universe where people here admire the Waffen SS and somehow that's OK."

"It doesn't embarrass the people at my university very much that they have a [group] that has been laundering Waffen SS reputations and funds for years now."

Karyn Ball, professor, Holocaust scholar, University of Alberta

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22. The University of Alberta is returning endowment funds from the family of Hunka, a Ukrainian man whose military service was linked to the Nazis.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

After professors at University of Alberta lodged complaints that the University continues to engage in white-washing Nazi crimes, a panel scheduled to discuss the Waffen SS was quietly cancelled. A number of online discussions have been held at the university since an episode involving Ukrainian-Canadian veteran Yaroslav Hunka who served in the Waffen SS was invited to the House of Commons on September 22 on the occasion of Ukraine's Jewish President addressing Parliament. The-then Speaker of the House, ignorant of the Nazi connection, invited the man, characterizing him as a Ukrainian 'hero'.

Despite reality, speakers at the online discussions claim that the 14th Waffen SS Galicia was never involved in Nazi war crimes, attributing such claims to Russian disinformation. When, once again the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the university planned another online discussion for October 14, university professors launched yet another protest. Complaints were filed to the university's administration charging the CIUS in whitewashing Nazi collaborators and war crimes. 

The Hunka family had endowed the organized event with $30,000, before it was cancelled. The Waffen SS Galicia was involved in massacres of civilians during the Second World War, and used as well by the Nazis to crush an uprising in Slovakia. The university's vice-president of academics announced the Hunka family funding would be returned to them. "On behalf of the university, I want to express our commitment to address antisemitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present", she stated.

Laurie Adkin, a political scientist at the university, called for an investigation of funding and activities of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. Recently an article in  media outlet Progress Report revealed that the university took money from Hunka, as well as from other Waffen SS members, accepting as well funds from the estate of Volodymyr Kubijovyc, a Nazi collaborator who founded Waffen SS Galicia, advocating for ethnic cleansing, for a Ukraine without Jews or Poles.

 

Monument to the people slaughtered by the 14th Waffen-SS at Huta Pienacka. Image via Stako

 

Another veteran of the Waffen SS Galicia division, Peter Savaryn, had served at the University of Alberta as chancellor from 1982 to 1986. He helped to fund the CIUS and had been awarded the Order of Canada in 1987. Among nationalist Ukrainian-Canadians, members of Waffen SS Galicia are viewed as heroes, reflecting their battles against Soviet forces, at that time in the war fighting the Nazis with the Allied coalition. Oakville, Ontario and Edmonton, Alberta both host monuments in honour of the Ukrainian SS troops.

There is a sharp distinction from that group to the 40,000 Ukrainian-Canadians who were members of Canada's military, fighting the Nazis, for whom no monuments have ever been erected in honour of their loyalty to democratic values and Canada. A 1980s study of war criminals in Canada found 600 former members of SS Galicia still resident in Canada. "The Division was an SS division and technically all of its officers and senior NCOs are liable for trial as war criminals", a 1948 British government report noted.

"The University of Alberta says it is reviewing other donations it has received after returning $30,000 from the family of Yaroslav Hunka, a Waffen SS veteran who got a standing ovation in Parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month."

"The university is facing calls to return hundreds of thousands of dollars in endowments in the names of Ukrainians linked to the Waffen SS Galicia division, who were admitted to Canada after the Second World War. They include an endowment of about $430,000 in the name of Volodymyr Kubijovych, who played a key role in the SS unit’s establishment in 1943."

The Globe and Mail

Left image: Peter Savaryn (left standing) and Volodymyr Kubijovyč (center sitting) pictured here at the 1976 contract signing between the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies and Shevchenko Scientific Society of Europe to collaborate on the Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Right image: Volodymyr Kubijovyč (circled in red) gives a Nazi salute at the 14th Waffen-SS recruitment ceremony in 1943.