The Canadian government of Justin Trudeau has been ridiculed for hiding what has up until now been a secret list of alleged Nazi war criminals.
It appears that Ethnic Ukrainian activists have lobbied Ottawa intensely to keep secret a list of people who collaborated with Hitler’s Germany.
Several Jewish groups in Canada have denounced Trudeau’s government for not being forthcoming with the secret list. The latter contains the names of up to 900 suspected Nazi war criminals who emigrated to the country after WWII. The government in Kiev and a host of Ukrainian activists have argued that publishing the list would play into the hands of “Russian propaganda.”
The list of names was compiled as the second part of a report by the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada. Retired Superior Court of Quebec Judge Jules Deschenes chaired the commission.
Recently, the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) had decided to seek public comment on the matter, but ultimately decided against any action.
Upon receiving notice of “no further action” on their part from Library and Archives Canada, B’nai Brith Canada chided Trudeau’s government saying, “Canada is withholding hundreds of Nazi war-crimes files from the public. This disgraceful secrecy dishonors survivors and denies justice.” The Jewish group also accused the government of “endless delays and stonewalling,” as well as reneging on and then totally defying its commitment to the Canadian people and Jewish groups from around the world to open Holocaust-related archives.
“Absolutely disgusted by the government’s decision to continue to conceal the truth about the Nazi war criminals who moved to Canada and enjoyed total impunity,” Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jaime Kirzner-Roberts said. “What a grave insult to those who suffered at their barbaric hands. What a slap in the face to our great veterans.”
Polish groups also urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to ultimately publish the full Deschenes Report, but no action was taken. The document was originally scheduled for release to the public in August of this year, but the LAC procrastinated, citing a greater need for “full review in accordance with the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act of Canada.” The LAC declined to comment about who or which entities were to participate in the review process.
Among those entities considered to have the right to review the content of the document and to be consulted on the matter was the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, according to several media outlets.
The LAC expressed concern that some of the comments received indicated that “associating Ukrainian names with Nazis” could validate Russia’s claims about its military operation in Ukraine, or enable Moscow to “conduct disinformation campaigns in Canada” that might affect public support for Kiev. Many of the suspected Nazi war criminals who immigrated to Canada after WWII were members of the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division (Galicia Division), a group composed of ethnic Ukrainians. One of their members was Yaroslav Hunka, who received two standing ovations in the Canadian Parliament last year during a visit by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Due to the not insignificant blowback from several countries (including the US) the speaker of the parliament was forced to resign over the incident and Trudeau issued an apology for the incident.
Governor General Mary Simon has also said previously that Rideau Hall is sorry for honoring Peter Savaryn — a former chancellor of the University of Alberta who served in the same Nazi unit as Yaroslav Hunka — with the Order of Canada.
Among recent political missteps by the Trudeau government, Canada has also delayed the opening of the Victims of Communism memorial in Ottawa. Several countries raised objections to the site based on the circumstance that it included many names directly linked to the Third Reich, including Croatian Ustasha leader Ante Pavelic and Ukrainian nationalist Roman Shukhevich.
Russia, for its part, has long criticized Ukraine for allowing public processions and other ceremonies honoring Waffen-SS veterans and nationalist organizations that collaborated with Nazi Germany during WWII.
Reports suggest as many as 2,000 Ukrainian members of Hitler’s Waffen-SS were admitted to Canada after the war — and this, it should be noted, after some British prodding. The Deschenes report has also concluded that allegations of war crimes committed by this division have “never been substantiated.” However, this finding conflicts with what the post-war, Allies-led Nuremberg trials concluded about SS units like the Galicia Division.
The Deschênes findings were also contradicted by Alti Rodal, a historian hired by the commission to research the circumstances that led to the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada. In a 1987 article for Canadian Dimension, journalist Sol Littman cited Rodal, noting that while Soviet and British agents were sent to screen the Galicia Division for potential war criminals, both failed to carry out the task effectively. The British agent, for example, had no history of the unit he was investigating, no documents to refer to, and could not speak Ukrainian.
A colleague of Trudeau’s, Quebec Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, remarked that it’s a sensitive issue because the government doesn’t want to “bring pain to a lot of Eastern European communities.”
“We have to recognize we have a horrible past with Nazi war criminals. We opened our country to people after the war in a way that made it easier to come if you were a Nazi than if you were a Jew,” Housefather said.
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, the party’s deputy leader, said Canadians need to know more about the country’s “dark history” of “letting Nazis through the door to live here in peace and security.”
“I think the victims of the Nazi regime, victims of the Holocaust – Jews, Poles – deserve answers. We have a past to reckon with and it’s time we look at that past very seriously,” she said. “We are going to support opening up the discussion.”
Asked if it might be too painful for some communities to revisit alleged Second World War-era crimes, Lantsman said,
“History is painful but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to reckon with it.”
Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May is also a proponent of reopening the Deschenes commission report. In a press release May states that it was “unquestionably very late” to be releasing these decades-old documents but it must be done.
“Apologies are not enough. We must atone for Canada’s history of allowing Nazis to live here,” May said.
In light of the lack of transparency and political “foot dragging” by the Canadian government, the issue of former Nazis having been allowed to live in Canada for decades is disturbing in itself. People died (including Canadians) protecting Western liberal democracy from the likes of them. And now
the great nation-state of Canada is protecting them by hiding the past just because it might offend the sensibilities of East European states or disclose who actually was responsible for letting them in.
The question still remains as to how so many suspected Nazis entered Canada after WWII and why Canada? In the wake of the Hunka affair, Canada needs to reckon with questionable post-war immigration decisions that allowed Hunka and others like him to settle there and live in relative peace – a peace by the way won by those conceivably fighting against people like him – what a world.
