How Many Prominent Ukrainian-Canadians Have Nazi Ties?

 

Since the revelation that Parliament honoured a Nazi soldier many Canadians have started asking questions about our country.

Yaroslav Hunka is among 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers who volunteered to fight with the Nazis in WW2. 2,000 of those soldiers in the 14th Wafen-SS Galacian Division settled in Canada after the war. The Nuremberg Trials in 1946 concluded that all SS divisions were Nazi units and had committed war crimes. The Galacian unit was by all accounts a Nazi force.

But this past weekend, the leader of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada defended Hunka and said there was “nothing wrong with applauding him”.

Many newspapers are now trying to downplay the significance of Nazis in Parliament. In North Bay (where the Hunka family resides), there seems to be more support for Hunka than there is criticism of Rota or Parliament.

It all seems very bizarre. That in 2023, it would be acceptable to defend Nazis in Canada. That it would be understandable that 338 MP forgot who the “Allies” were during WW2. That Canada would still openly glorify a Nazi Unit that murdered a thousand civilians (killing just one civilian on purpose is generally considered a war crime).

"They massacred entire villages of Polish residents in this region… including women and children because they were accused of being associated with Soviet partisans. This was just mass murder without any real justification” - Ivan Katchanovski Ph.D, Ukrainian-Canadian University of Ottawa Political Science Professor

I remember not long ago in Canada when a Nazi was a Nazi. When we didn’t try to downplay how bad a Nazi was or tried to figure out how many Jews or Poles he killed before kicking him out of Parliament.

What led our country down this path? What changed between 1945 to today? I spent the last few days trying to understand my country’s strange behaviour.  (more...)

How Many Prominent Ukrainian-Canadians Have Nazi Ties?