Moral Indignation Over Reality Does Not Expunge It

"It is appalling that the Canadian government could attempt for no good reason to subject innocent Canadians, their family members and descendants to public scorn."

"When the announcement is made, we will have to be ready to go to the Federal Court challenging the government's authority to ignore Justice [Jules] Deschenes' [Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, February 1985] ruling on confidentiality. To do so, we need to prepare now."

"All alleged war criminals, regardless of their ethnic, religious, racial or cultural origin, or where or when they committed their crimes should be bought to trial in Canada under Canadian criminal law."

"If evidence of wartime criminality by any person found in Canada exists, that information must be communicated to the proper authorities for investigation."

Ihor Michalchyshyn, CEO, executive director, Ukrainian Canadian Congress

Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, carrying a banner with a portrait of Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) Roman Shukhevych (second from the right), march in the centre of the western city of Lviv on April 28, 2013. The march commemorated the 70th anniversary of 14th Waffen SS Galicia Division made up mostly of Ukrainian volunteers.  Photo:  (YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP/Getty Images)

When then-prime minister Brian Mulroney was lobbied by Jewish groups to conduct an investigation into the infamously well-known refuge that Canada had become post World War II for Nazi war criminals, he appointed Justice Jules Deschenes to head the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, back in 1985. Previous administrations were disinterested in examining the situation whereby known and unknown war criminals were living ordinary lives in Canada, protected by their postwar-acquired Canadian citizenship. 

The Commission created several documents, one titled Master List of Alleged War Criminals Resident in Canada with a List of Sources. 774 appeared on the list. Additional names of alleged war criminals, including Nazi scientists and technicians who arrived in Canada not as fugitives but as immigrants entitled to entry as landed immigrants simply because the immigration department appeared to find it unnecessary post-war to investigate backgrounds for war-incriminating evidence, brought the total closer to 900 names.

The documents were labelled secret and conveniently shelved, despite Jewish groups which had lobbied to have the investigation take place, then demanding that the result of the inquiry be made public. Justice Deschenes, having done his duty, felt it appropriate and declared his studied opinion that the Inquiry documents be withheld from public scrutiny. Among the large groups of named individuals a smaller number on the list are believed to be Ukrainian in origin, or people hailing from other eastern European nations, complicit with Nazi crimes.

Requests for the release of the documents have never been stilled under Canada's access to information law. It is Library and Archives Canada which must make the critical decision to release the documents. Or not. In June a secret meeting/consultation whose participants were present by specific invitation to attend; described as a "discrete group of individuals or organizations" were present to offer their opinion whether the list should be made public. 

 

Given the Jewish communities' urging over the years for the documents' release, it might have been thought they would be among those receiving invitations to attend. They were not. Given the reality that it was Jews in horrendous numbers that were the designated fascist victims of Nazi Germany's 'Final Solution', that Jewish groups, knowing of the presence in Canada of their persecutors, had a fully vested interest in having their presence revealed, thus finally forcing the government of the day to finally act. 

 

To divest recognized war criminals of their Canadian citizenship, to ensure, despite the passage of years, that their crimes, if proven in law, merited final accounting for.

Neither Holocaust survivors nor Holocaust scholars all of whom had advocated for full release of the documents, including the list of alleged Nazi war criminals, were included to attend the 'consultation' respecting the potential of releasing clearly incriminating documents. In the lead-up to Library and Archives releasing its final decision on the matter, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which had been among the invitees, is seeking funding to finance a legal challenge in Federal Court.

As a declared representative of the Canadian Ukrainian community comprising one and 1/3 million people, the organization is encouraging its contacts within the Ukrainian community to donate to a fund that would aspirationally be in the neighbourhood of $150,000 to launch their legal challenge against the release of the documents with the intention of sparing humiliation, ignominy, harassment and possible charges against those of the Ukrainian community named in the documents.

 

Canadians in general have hugely supported doughty Ukraine in its epic existential battle against the modern equivalent of the Soviet Union, against a tyrant who will stop at nothing to achieve his aims at dominating a smaller neighbour that has no wish to be other than fully independent of Russia, its ideology and grasping territorial ambitions. Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin have been recognized in the commission of war crimes in Ukraine. The conflict continues and so does Russian disinformation. Yet Ukraine itself and its expatriates must also recognize reality of the past.

Another issue identified was the awkwardness of the Soviet involvement in the Second World War; first as an Axis ally of fascist Germany, and later as a member of the Allied forces following Moscow's invasion of Russia. The Soviet Union, loathed by most countries in eastern Europe for its stranglehold on their sovereignty, capturing them all in a forced wide web of enforced 'socialism' within the United Soviet Socialist Republic. During the War and Holocaust years voluntary recruits from some of those nations augmented the Nazi SS, fighting alongside them, participating in deathly carnage.

 

Russia, before and after its invasion of Ukraine, had infiltrated Canadian news through social media to sow divisions between various groups in Canada, particularly through statements both unofficial and official alluding to Ukraine as 'fascist', and a 'neo-Nazi' state. Since Ukraine had ousted its former Russian-oriented President who represented the interests of Russian-Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine and Moscow, to release itself from Russia's imposed bondage, a campaign of Russian propaganda has painted Ukraine as fascist.

 

Russia's top prosecutor has asked the Supreme Court to designate the Azov Regiment, seen here in 2014, as a terrorist group

 

Ukraine most certainly had its fascism-inclined demographic that saw more in common with Nazi Germany than its Soviet occupier. And no one could argue that Ukraine was free from the ancient virus of antisemitism. And the fact that the infamous Azov Battalion was comprised largely of fascists infected with the virus of acute antisemitism. Attention was riveted on the issue of Canadian war criminals when in 2023, Canadian Members of Parliament offered two standing ovations to a 99-year-old war veteran, a Ukrainian-Canadian living in North Bay.

Until it was revealed that Yaroslav Hunka, hailed as a wartime hero in the Canadian Parliament, had done voluntary service in a Ukrainian Waffen SS unit, fighting for and with the Nazis. Canada was the involuntary, disinterested, oblivious recipient of large numbers of soldiers from a Ukrainian Waffen SS division following the war. Jewish groups and the Polish government made it clear that Hunka's unit was involved in war crimes; massacres of women and children.

In the final analysis, the Commission reached the decision that claims of large numbers of war criminals entered Canada were exaggerated, yet as a result of inadequate government screening post-war, it also stated that: "it would be rash to assume that significant numbers of war criminals and Nazi collaborators did not enter Canada". Investigations into the hundreds of individuals alleged to have been war criminals did not fall under the purview of the Deschenes Commission.

According to Professor Jared McBride, an American who had been a fellow with the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, his researchers made use of declassified American government records alongside other materials, to compile a list of 275 alleged war criminals held to be most likely to be included in the Canadian records, although  his research is expected to add more names as their own investigation proceeds. 

 

The monument to Roman Shukhevych, commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army from 1943 until his death in 1950, at the entrance of the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in North Edmonton, Alberta, since mid-1970s. Critics of the monument say it glorifies a Nazi henchman who sided with Germany in hopes of winning independence for Ukraine.  Photo: (Photo courtesy of John-Paul Himka)

"Whether Library and Archives Canada [LAC] likes it or not, these names are going to be released to the public."

"Instead of moving toward a path of openness and transparency about its record on allowing war criminals into the country and its failure to prosecute them, the Canadian government held a secret meeting to discuss the secret names from the secret report from 40 years ago that still has not seen the light of day."

"Moreover, they invited to this meeting the same people who helped to keep the report under wraps four decades ago."

Professor Jared McBride, specialist, Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, UCLA, U.S. Holocaust Memorial fellow

Canada's Negligent Absorption of War Criminals

"It is with deep regret that we acknowledge that Mr. Peter Savaryn was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1987, and we express our sincere apology to Canadians for any distress or pain his appointment may have caused."

"Mr. Hunka's past involvement with the Waffen-SS and his recognition in the House of Commons have been a source of great concern to the Governor General."

"The Chancellery is committed to working with Canadians to ensure our honours system is reflective of Canadian values."

"Historical appointments to the Order of Canada reflect a specific moment in time and would have been based on limited information sources available at that time."

Rideau Hall statement

The office of Governor General Mary Simon says it "deeply regrets" appointing Peter Savaryn to the Order of Canada in 1987. Mr Savaryn died in 2017, aged 90   Getty Images

"If subsequently, evidence comes to light of something as grievous as collaborating with a Nazi regime, that there should be some mechanism where it's made clear that this individual is rejected by the institution [a new process should be instituted to formally remove Savaryn's honour award]."

"It would be undoing a historical misstep by the Canadian government in covering that up [Canada's past history of a lax attitude toward permitting postwar Nazis and war criminals to enter Canada and achieve citizenship], because it would enable the Canadian public to recognize how deep this problem goes."

"This would provide much needed sunlight into a very dark period that a lot of people don't know about."

Dan Panneton, director of community engagement, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center

It's somewhat disingenuous at this point to declare that not enough was known about the background of a person who was permitted to immigrate to Canada despite being identified as a member of a Nazi SS unit, to explain away how it could be possible for such a man to flourish in Canada, build a new persona and future for himself and be recognized as a credit to the community, and by extension to human endeavours when such a man's past held the reality of voluntarily serving the Nazi regime, swearing an oath of allegiance to its Fuhrer, and pursuing the goal of genocide.

When former Nazis entered Canada as new immigrants they faced no scrutiny or roadblock to entry, in the decades following World War II. Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust and arrived to Canada, were shocked to realize that their tormentors and murderers had gained entry to a country they themselves sought refuge in. Jewish social-cultural groups petitioned various governments over the years to hold these people accountable for their war crimes; at the very least to extradite them to Germany or the country of their origin.

Time after time these requests were ignored, until one prime minister consented to look into the matter, striking an enquiry and appointing an esteemed judge to oversee the resulting investigation. The two reports that came out of that enquiry have never been released to the public in their entirety. The Deschenes enquiry reached the conclusion that individuals should not be held responsible for what the battalions they were attached to engaged in, despite that the Nuremberg authorities deemed such SS divisions as being involved in war crimes. 

The 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, known as the Deschenes Commission, interviewed 774 individuals suspected of being war criminals. The interviews and the names of those involved were never released, but were held for the succeeding years as secret, classified documents. One part of the report was eventually released, but was heavily redacted. Jewish groups are now demanding that both Commission reports be released in their entirety.

Several weeks ago, a Canadian parliamentarian invited an elderly Canadian-Ukrainian citizen to the House of Commons on the occasion of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Canada where he was scheduled to address Parliament. The 98-year-old guest was revealed days after he was feted in the House as a Ukrainian military 'hero' who had fought with Germany against the Soviet Union in a voluntary ethnic brigade attached to the Nazi SS -- whose focus was the elimination of Jews during the Holocaust years -- as a former voluntary enlistee in an ethnic SS division.

 

That embarrassment was compounded mere days later by Canada's Governor General Mary Simon apologizing to Canadians yet again on the discovery that a recipient of the prestigious Order of Canada went to yet another Canadian-Ukrainian who had fought in the very same SS-Galicia Battalion and had, like Yaroslav Hunka, sworn an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. 

 

It somehow escaped the notice of these Members of Parliament that there is no correlation between Russia's current invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainians that saw fit to align themselves with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, fighting at that time with the Allies against the Fascist Axis coalition.

Over a week after Yaroslav Hunka was cheered in the House of Commons, Jewish groups are calling for Ottawa to release a decades-old report from the Deschênes Commission containing details about alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.  CBC

Once again, it was not that Rideau Hall -- and the office of the Governor General, similar to the lack of oversight by Canadian parliamentarians or the prime minister's office, or the House of Commons' security, to look into the background of someone invited to the House -- themselves undertook a simple background check of those they were championing. It was a Jewish news source, the venerable old Forward that brought the Nazi backgrounds of these two men to the tardy attention of Canadian authorities.

 

The International Community, which has a far better memory in Europe of the horrors of wars fought on their soil, has viewed these compelling errors of judgement and lack of memory on the part of the government of Canada with incredulous bemusement. Inexcusable lapses which saw an event as lunatic as introducing a former Nazi whose battalion was involved in the roundup and murder of Jews, to a Jewish president of a nation once again embattled by a territorial-hungry neighbour.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)