Canada Should Release Nazi War Criminal Report

 

It is long past time for the Canadian government to release the final report of the Commission of Inquiry On War Criminals In Canada.

The commission, whose mandate was to deal with the explosive issue of suspected Nazi war criminals admitted into Canada, was chaired by Jules Deschenes, a retired Quebec Superior Court judge.

He released the first part of the report in 1986, but classified the second section, which contains a list of suspected war criminals allowed into Canada after World War II.

The classified segment is stored in the vaults of Library and Archives Canada (LAC), which last year refused to release it on the grounds that it could damage Canada’s relationship with foreign countries, further tarnish the names of individuals whose alleged crimes were never proven in court, and furnish Russia with material to vilify the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

LAC’s reasoning is supported by the Access to Information Act, which states that Canadian institutions can refuse to release data that could undermine Canada’s national interests.

Recently, the office of the Information Commissioner informed The Globe and Mail newspaper that it accepted LAC’s rationale for keeping the second half of the report under lock and key.

LAC’s argument rests on thin ice because a University of California historian named Jared McBride, an expert on war crimes, has already examined an annotated and redacted version of the secret list. The Information Commissioner acknowledges that McBride’s request was granted several years ago.

Among the names on the list were Helmut Oberlander, a member of an Einsatzgruppen killing squad during Nazi Germany’ military campaign in the Soviet Union, and Volodymyr Kubiovych, a Ukrainian instrumental in the formation of the SS Galicia division in the German army. Kubiovych died in the mid-1980s. Oberlander passed away in 2021.

Particularly in light of McBride’s success in gaining access to the classified report, the Canadian government should declassify and release it, says Richard Evans, an authority on Nazi Germany.  (more...)

Canada Should Release Nazi War Criminal Report