The Nazi rag Michael Chomiak oversaw recruited for the very organization Yaroslav Hunka volunteered for — a connection that's unlikely lost on the deputy PM.
Now that Canadian Parliament has ignited an international conversation about the dark side of Ukrainian nationalism by giving a standing ovation to Waffen-SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, it might be worth revisiting the role Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather played in recruiting young men like Hunka to the Nazi cause.
During Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Sept. 22 House of Commons visit, Freeland was one of hundreds of parliamentarians who stood to applaud after now-former speaker of the house Anthony Rota announced the presence of a “98-year-old Ukrainian Canadian who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians during the Second World War.”
The ensuing controversy must have created a sense of déjà vu for Freeland, who is long overdue for setting the record straight about the nationalist hagiography she’s constructed around her Ukrainian nationalist forebear — if only the media would ask her about it.
Michael Chomiak, Freeland’s maternal grandfather whom she’s repeatedly cited as a political inspiration, edited a Nazi newspaper for Ukrainian exiles in occupied Krakow called Krakivski Visti, which was printed on a press seized from a Jewish owner.1
Despite the equivocations of Liberal partisans, these facts aren’t in dispute. Freeland, in fact, helped edit a 1996 academic paper on the depiction of Jews in Krakivski Visti, written by her uncle, University of Alberta scholar John-Paul Himka.
At some point, Freeland decided it was politically useful to present the elder Chomiak as an avowed liberal democrat and the “most passionate” of Canadian patriots. When Chomiak’s history resurfaced in 2017, no doubt with some help from Russian authorities, Freeland claimed it was all a bunch of Russian propaganda. (more...)
Chrystia Freeland's Gramps and the Waffen-SS
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