2023-09-26 05:01:00
the essential The image caused a scandal, with the House of Commons of Canada unanimously hailing Yaroslav Hunka, presented as a “Ukrainian hero”, and a figure in the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany. Who is this man with a troubled past who is embarrassing Justin Trudeau’s government?
98 years old, white hair, a hearing aid and a velvet jacket, Yaroslav Hunka attends the tribute paid by his adopted country, Canada, to his country of origin, Ukraine, on the occasion of the arrival of its president Volodymyr Zelensky. A guest who could have blended into the crowd if the Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota had not greeted him, paying tribute to a “Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” whom the country thanks for “his service”.
MASSIVE OUTRAGE after Canada’s parliament gave a standing ovation during Zelensky joint address Friday to Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian Nazi collaborator who served in a Nazi military unit during the Second World War implicated in the mass murder of Jews and others.… pic.twitter.com/PFWQNEoM76
— Simon Ateba (@simonstheba) September 24, 2023
An intolerable tribute for Canadian Jewish associations recognizing, in this applauded old man, a former soldier of Nazi Germany. Yaroslav Hunka is in fact a former member of the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS created in 1939 by Adolf Hitler, following the recommendations of Commander Heinrich Himmler. More precisely, he belonged to the 14th Grenadier Division, known as the Galicia Division, a unit composed of so-called “ethnic” Ukrainians placed under Nazi command.
The unit was renamed the First Ukrainian Division before surrendering to the Western Allies in 1945. It was never convicted of its war crimes, but it was allegedly responsible for the execution of Polish and Jewish civilians.
Canada, land of refuge for former Nazis?
The BBC recounts that in 1985, Brian Mulroney, then Prime Minister of Canada, created the Commission of Inquiry into War Criminals after a Member of Parliament claimed that Nazi doctor Josef Mengele might be in the country.
Some 600 former German soldiers then sought to return to the country. Among them, members of the Galicia division who were subject to individual control for security reasons. “The Galicia Division’s war crimes charges have never been substantiated, neither in 1950, when they were first filed, nor in 1984, when they were renewed, nor before this commission,” declared Jules Deschênes, the president of the commission of inquiry.
However, following this controversial tribute – and involuntary according to the Speaker of the House of Commons who regretted it in view of “the new information” brought to his attention – the Center of Friends of the Center for Studies on Holocaust Simon Wiesenthal reiterated that the division “was responsible for the massacre of innocent civilians with an unimaginable level of brutality and viciousness”.
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