An incident involving graffiti spray painted on a monument to those who fought in Adolf Hitler’s SS is being investigated as a hate crime by an Ontario police force.
Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph commemorating those who served with the 14th SS Division. The monument is located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.
The division, made up of Ukrainians who pledged allegiance to Hitler, was part of the Nazi’s Waffen SS organization. Some members of the division have been accused of killing Polish women and children as well as Jews during the Second World War.
Halton Regional Police believe the graffiti was spray painted on the cenotaph sometime around June 21. Police said they were investigating the incident as a “hate-motivated” crime but they declined to release images of the graffiti so as to stop “further spreading” of the message.
But researcher Moss Robeson, who has written articles on Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis, provided details about the graffiti and the monument on Twitter, prompting questions about why Halton Regional Police think members of the Nazi SS can be the subject of hate crimes.
In response to questions from this newspaper, Const. Steve Elms, spokesman for Halton-Regional Police, cited a section of the Criminal Code that noted those communicating statements in any public place inciting hatred against any identifiable group could face imprisonment not exceeding two years. “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group,” he explained in an email to questions about how a hate crime could be perpetrated against members of the SS. (more...)
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