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Nazi Collaborators, Eastern Europe

"This is like a nightmare."
"This is all happening once again in the lifetime of survivors."
"It has to be tearing their hearts out."
Bernie Farber, former chief executive officer, Canadian Jewish Congress

"[Such events as Ukraine's honouring of Nazi collaborators are] internal issues of Ukrainian politics."
"[Israel's decision to condemn such parades is] counterproductive."
Gennady Nadolenko, head, Ukraine diplomatic mission, Israel

"We must challenge all those who distort the historical record on governments, military units or organizations that fought with, supported or sympathized with the Nazis during World War II."
"This includes government leaders who acquiesce in, or fail to condemn, a process of Nazi glorification that amounts to Holocaust distortion."
"Those who glorify the record of such organizations or units cannot dismiss criticism as 'fake news'."
Michael Mostyn, CEO, B'nai Brith Canada

Veterans of the Latvian Legion, a force that was commanded by the German Nazi Waffen SS during WWII, and their sympathizers carry flowers as they walk to the Monument of Freedom in Riga, Latvia on March 16, 2016 to commemorate a key 1944 battle in their ultimately failed attempt to stem a Soviet advance. Jewish groups, Moscow and some in Latvia's ethnic-Russian community see the parade as glorifying Nazism because the Legion, founded in 1943, was commanded by Germany's Waffen SS, the armed wing of the Nazi party's Schutzstaffel SS (Protective Squadron). / AFP / afp / Ilmars ZnotinsILMARS ZNOTINS / AFP/Getty Images

For Jews around the world the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Red Army's liberation of Poland's Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where Nazi Germany engineered the death of almost a million Jews, along with Roma, Soviet POWs, Polish political dissenters, gays, the very thought that Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and Poles would in the 21st Century, celebrate their national heroes who were Nazi collaborators is unthinkable.

Yet the reality is that throughout Eastern Europe countries are celebrating their nationals who collaborated with the Third Reich and took active participation in the rounding up and murder of Jews. Torchlight parades were held in a number of cities in Ukraine early this month in honour of Stepan Bandera, a nationalist Ukrainian and Nazi collaborator involved in the killing of thousands of Jews and Poles. Despite which, Ukraine sponsors such events celebrating Nazi collaborators with links to the Holocaust.

A school was named in Lithuania for Jonas Noreika whose own family agrees was involved in the killing of Jews. A Ukrainian diplomat talked about punishing "k----", while posing for photographs with a cake baked in the shape of Hitler's memoir Mein Kampf, and blaming Jews for the Second World War. Once a minor kerfuffle passed, when he was condemned by Jewish groups, he was reinstated to his diplomatic position.

For the approximately 200 Canadian military trainers currently deployed to Ukraine, it is likely that on the first of January they would have witnessed a torch lit procession. Throughout Kiev and numerous other towns in Western Ukraine, thousands of civilians took to the streets – not to usher in the New Year – but to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of a man named Stepan Bandera.  Scott Taylor, Canadian Military Magazine

Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine have all held parades in honour of those who fought in Nazi SS units. The Latvian SS units who fought for the Nazis in the Second World War were praised by Latvian Defence Minister Artis Pabrike in December, who spoke of them as "the pride of the Latvian people and of the state". One of the unit's officers, Viktors Arajs, participated in the murder of 26,000 Jews with his unit. At a dinner party in Riga he entertained guests with his method of killing Jewish babies.

Throwing the babies into the air, then shooting them would avoid any ricochets that might occur if the babies were shot while lying on the ground. Eastern European nations such as Latvia, Ukraine and Lithuania are involved in rebuiilding their national identities, "rediscovering" individuals from the 1940s to elevate them to the status of national heroes, according to Holocaust researcher, Professor Per Anders Rudling.

Latvian Herbert Cukurs was a key member in the Arajs Kommando, known as the "Butcher of Riga". In 2014, the Israeli government raised concerns relating to a musical performed in Latvia celebrating his life, that of a Nazi war criminal whom Holocaust survivors linked to the murder of Jews. Over 50 members of the U.S. Congress in 2018 condemned Ukraine's efforts to glorify leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, along with the 14th SS Galizien Division, comprised of Ukrainian volunteers.

"It's particularly troubling that much of the Nazi glorification in Ukraine is government-supported", the letter stated. Poland passed legislation to make it illegal to accuse Poles of any complicity in the Holocaust when the simple reality is that fascist Germany felt confident in placing a number of forced labour and death camps in Poland, knowing there would be no popular outcry from a country where antisemitism was well entrenched.

In Western Ukraine, thousands of civilians took to the streets to celebrate the 110th anniversary of the birth of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera

Lithuania's pro-Nazi government had been involved in the rounding up and murder of Jews, according to well-researched conclusions, yet a new law is under consideration in Lithuania to declare that neither Lithuania nor its leaders had ever participated in the Holocaust. Ukrainians, for their part, push back against Israel's condemnation, insisting that Stepan Bandera had never supported Nazi Germany, just as the Latvian government claims the Latvian SS units hadn't fought in support of Hitler, but to fight the Soviets.

News articles and research relating to Nazi collaborators have been dismissed by officials in Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Lithuania, claiming them to be the product of Russian disinformation campaigns meant to cast their countries in a bad light. Canadian officials failed to join Jewish groups condemning Latvian Defence Minister's Pabriks praise of the Latvian SS and two months later, he met with Canadian Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan, while next month he returns to Ottawa for a defence conference.

Chrystia Freeland, formerly Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs and in this new Liberal government named as deputy Prime Minister, is of Ukrainian background. She has been banned from entry to Russia. Her grandfather was a Ukrainian patriot who collaborated with Nazi Germany, publishing a newspaper in Nazi-occupied Poland, supportive of the Third Reich and rife with antisemitic tropes. The Ukrainian-Canadian community has always denied that members of the 14th SS Galizien were Nazi collaborators, many of whose members immigrated to Canada.

After Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, their initial collaboration with the Nazis and participation in the slaughter of Ukrainian Jews prevented Bandera and Shukevych from being considered national role models. However, much to the consternation of the Jews, and the Poles – whom Bandera’s OUN also massacred in the thousands – over the past three decades history in Ukraine has been revised.

At the time of the Maidan uprising in 2014, the spirit of Bandera was revived by the right wing, ultra-nationalists, and, just five years later, his past crimes have been whitewashed to the point where his date of birth is a national holiday.  Scott Taylor, Global-Politics,EU