To Crush Left-Wing Organizing, Canada Embraced Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators

 

Canada’s Nazi ovation gaffe in the House of Commons was just the tip of the iceberg. For years, the country deliberately admitted World War II Nazi collaborators in the hopes of dismantling political radicalism and suppressing labor militancy.

In September, Canada’s parliament ignited controversy when it celebrated Yaroslav Hunka, a ninety-eight-year-old World War II Nazi collaborator. The incident has brought renewed focus to the issue of war criminals who immigrated to the country after 1945. The primary source of outrage has rightly centered on how someone like Hunka, who voluntarily served in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), gained entry into Canada, and why the government never deported or prosecuted suspected war criminals. Even a desultory 1980s investigation into the matter of Nazi immigrants is still mostly sealed from the public, despite identifying dozens of suspected war criminals living freely in Canada — most of whom are now likely all dead.

However, media coverage has largely failed to engage with the question of why Canada let people like Hunka immigrate, resulting in the current political controversy lacking essential historical context. There have been some exceptions, such as pieces in these pages that have pointed out that there is a troubling history that Canada must reckon with, and correctly suggested that this immigration of war criminals was tied to anti-communism. It is important to delve further into this history, as it reveals a deliberate effort by the Canadian state to dismantle political radicalism and tame labor militancy in the postwar period.

Immigrants like Hunka were granted entry specifically because their collaborationist pasts made them useful in crushing left-wing organizing in Ukrainian Canadian communities. Collaborators assumed control of community organizations, some of which were transferred to them by the federal government, having seized them from socialist groups during the war. The process was often quite violent, with mob violence intimidating leftists, fascists serving as strikebreakers in mining towns, and a Ukrainian labor temple being attacked with a bomb during a concert. All of these actions were condoned by the Canadian state in the name of anti-communism.  (more...)

To Crush Left-Wing Organizing, Canada Embraced Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators