Canada, a Harbour For Nazi War Criminals

"Canada has a really dark history with Nazis in Canada."

"There was a point in our history where it was easier to get in [immigrate to Canada] as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person."

"I think that's a history we have to reconcile."

Immigration Minister Marc Miller 

"What little we know of their [SS members] war record is bad."

"We're still hoping to get rid of the less desirable Ukrainian PoWs either to Germany or to Canada."

British Home Office official Beryl Hughes, 1948

Ukrainians dressed in SS Galicia Division uniforms march past graves during a re-burial ceremony at the SS Galicia Division cemetery near the village of Chervone, Ukraine, in 2013. Photo by Efrem Lukatsky/AP/File

Documents compiled by a commission set up in the 1980s to scrutinize Canada's record in permitting members of the Nazi SS into Canada through government-sanctioned visas, including members of the Ukrainian collaborationist special ethnic SS-linked divisions meant to work with German SS units in

rounding up Jews in massive pogroms of shooting deaths -- part of the Holocaust's 'Final Solution', a priority with Nazi Germany while it was prosecuting World War I --, have never been made available for public scrutiny.

 

In the wake of a public scandal where a North Bay Ukrainian military veteran was invited to parliament to meet with visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who was to address the House of Commons, where the entire House inclusive of parliamentarians and diplomatic guests rose on the introduction of the 98-year-old, a former volunteer serving with a Ukrainian SS division, Jewish groups in Canada are now demanding the release of the documents, unredacted.

 

The 40-year-old report along with allied documents that contain details relating to Nazi war criminals residing in Canada remains in a 'secret' category. It represents a second portion of a 1986 government-commissioned report on Nazis who were permitted to enter and settle in Canada. Another 1986 report was heavily censored, one that examined how it was that Nazis were enabled to enter Canada to begin with, post World War Two. That commission was struck in the wake of years of Jewish groups urging the government to investigate and extradite Nazi war criminals known to be living in Canada.

Over 600 pages of the document finally obtained through the country's Access to Information law, was censored. B'nai Brith is now demanding the release of RCMP and Department of Justice files on Nazi war criminals in Canada. "We've run up against a brick wall", commented David Matas, counsel for the Jewish advocacy organization ... in view of the government's ongoing decision to withhold such records from public view. A ray of hope shimmered briefly when Canada's Immigration Minister Marc Miller allowed that the government might reconsider whether the records could be released.

Canada's track record, he commented pointedly, with Nazi criminals was notoriously poor. B'nai Brith pointed out in a submission to the House of Commons committee on Access to Information in February that the government's approach to Nazi war criminals reflected its "intentional harbouring of known Nazi war criminals" along with "deliberate inaction".

And that historical puzzle has now been resurrected since MPs in the House of Commons a week ago honoured a Canadian-Ukrainian who had served in a Nazi SS division. Two standing ovations from those present were awarded Yaroslav Hunka, sparking outrage on social media, prompting the resignation of the House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota on whose invitation to the man living in North Bay, arrived at the House of Commons, with no one apparently aware, despite that House security and Canadian intelligence services were to have scrutinized the man's background prior to his entrance.

 

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

 

The now-98-year-old had volunteered to fight with the 14th Waffen-SS Division Galicia, a Nazi military unit recruiting Ukrainians to fight alongside German SS groups, and more to the point, help in the extermination of Europe's Jews. Poland, along with Jewish groups denounced the infamous division, citing its role in killing civilians in grouped massacres during the war. Poland, in fact has petitioned Canada for the man's extradition as a war criminal.

Large numbers of SS soldiers and other Nazi collaborators from eastern Europe settled after the war in Canada. Jewish refugee-survivors who had also come to Canada, spoke in shocked whispers to one another when they recognized on the streets of Toronto, German SS members they had last seen in the ghettos and death camps. Many of the records sought have links to the 1986 war crimes commission that was led by Justice Jules Deschenes.

The International Military Tribunal had declared the SS a criminal organization, including units of the Waffen SS, like the Galicia division that Yaroslav Hunka had fought with. There are nationalist Ukrainian-Canadians today, who view the 14th Waffen Division as heroic for battling Soviet forces who at that time were allies with the US, Canada and Britain after Russia was invaded by Germany despite Russia having begun the war as part of the Axis group.

The release in Britain in 2005 of documents from British archives outlined concerns relating to the members of SS Galicia along with intentions to ship them to Canada. "The Division was an SS division and technically all of its officers and senior NCOs are liable for trial as war criminals", noted one report for the British government. In another report dated 1948 there were discussions on sending SS members to Canada. And they did.

Persuasive Firepower : Preferred Historical Version

"The attempt to appease the aggressor on the eve of the Great Patriotic War turned out to be a mistake that cost our people dearly."

"We will not make such a mistake a second time, we have no right."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Putin greeting veterans   Mikhail Metzel/Kremlin Pool/Sputnik/EPA-EFE

Such Orwellian language and logic! The Soviet Union made a pact with Nazi Germany. They had, after all, much in common. The Communist USSR and the Fascist Third Reich both embraced totalitarianism, a dictatorship of nationalist nobility, guiding their people to the promised land of conquest to result in power, placing their nations first among secondary and tertiary nations of the world who would grovel at their feet. 

Each had plans to extend their territorial advantages, to absorb the geographical realms and natural resources of neighbouring nations and they planned to succeed through an Axis Aryan-ideal clique of like-minded nations. Even Axis member Japan was given honourary Aryan-nation status. Russia and Germany would fight the Allied nations led by Great Britain who sought to deny them the right to invade and occupy their neighbours.

Until Germany miscalculated and defaulted on their agreement by invading Russia. For a replay of the Napoleonic invasion where extreme weather conditions and a bitterly determined defense launched by the Soviet Union beat back, at great cost to human life and military materiel, the German advance. And spelled an early death knell to the Third Reich's grandiose plan of installing itself as a unipolar world power.

 

Here the commanders of BMD-4 amphibious infantry fighting vehicles salute    Yuri Kochetkov / EPA-EFE

 

Vladimir Putin, like most dictators with a self-serving agenda, simply 'forgot' Russia's role as a member of the Axis, preferring to portray the Soviet Union as a courageous opponent of fascism and Nazi Germany in particular. He would not linger on the sacrifice exacted in Russian lives where millions perished defending the Motherland from a former partner in a diabolical plan to overturn the world order. His legend has it that Soviet Russia dedicated itself to destroying a monster to save the world.

Today's celebrations marking the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany saw Russian President Vladimir Putin proudly presiding over an atmosphere of joyous triumph, complete with dramatic displays of Russia's immense firepower parading massive mechanized war machines, highly technical rocketry and intercontinental ballistic missiles to showcase Russia's might while its military goosestepped with pride.

 

There were no invited international guests of honour this year in reflection of the isolation imposed on Russia by the West for its invasion of Ukraine. A fly-past over St.Basil's Cathedral to include supersonic fighters, Tu-160 strategic bombers and the II-80 "Doomsday" command plane tasked to carry Russia's elite military should a nuclear war event occur. Where the II-80 is designed to transform into a roaming command centre for the Russian president, offered singular drama.

 

Putin's speech did not contain any major announcements about the conflict in Ukraine   Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP

 

Vladimir Putin describes his 'special military operation in Ukraine as similar to the Soviet Union facing up to Hitler's Nazis invading Russia in 1941. A cataclysmic event on the world stage that took 27 million Soviets to their graves, a sacrifice no other country had faced. The Victory Day parade is meant to show the true path of history of the Second World War which in the West relegates the glorious Soviet element to a sideshow.

In Ukraine, the invasion by Russian troops has led to the deaths of thousands on both sides displacing close to ten million Ukrainians, while leaving Russia with tough Western sanctions, raising fears of a potential wider confrontation between the two major antagonists; Russia and the United States representing the world's biggest nuclear powers.

Ever-increasing supplies of military weapons have been provided to Ukraine by the U.S. and its allies. Leading to some within the Russian military calling on their president to unleash greater firepower on Ukraine. Western nations have been advised by Moscow that their arms supplies are legitimate targets. As for the speculation of a special announcement on Ukraine being issued on May 9th, Dmitry Peskov characterizes such speculation as "nonsense". 

Parades are taking place in 28 Russian cities including the capital Moscow, involving 65,000 people, 2,400 items of military hardware and more than 400 aircraft   Analtoly Maltsev / EPA-EFE