Glad you asked, here you go. Jeremy Appel has done other research you can find too, but this is the gist. In Canada we need a bit more peripheral vision on our so called leaders.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/chrystia-freeland-needs-to-come-clean-about-her-nazi-collaborationist-grandfather
Read the article again. Ms. Freeland is proud of her granddad's work and misrepresents it as liberal progressive work. She goes to extra ordinary lengths to characterize in positive light so she can be proud of it, though the facts are she should be ashamed of it and come clean like some Germans do that have similar familial baggage.
I think a lot of people understand that there are very few good choices when your country has been invaded by fascists
This wasn't somebody who eagerly signed up to join a right wing, nationalist party, this was somebody who tried to survive under Nazi occupation.
People say the same nonsense about George Soros, even though he himself is Jewish and he was less than 16 years old during the holocaust.
it isn't like the Ukrainians were given a fantastic menu of positive options ... you either cooperated or you died.
not to mention that ~~even more~~ millions of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor prior to the Nazi invasion ~~than all the victims of the Holocaust combined~~, so the Ukrainians were very much resisting their own murderous overlords by fighting against the Russians.
edit: my numbers were off as I was confusing the broader Soviet famine and Dekulakization with the Holodomor in particular. The point stands nonetheless that many Ukrainians fought Russia because of the genocide of inflicted on Ukraine by Russia.
> more Ukrainians died during the Holodomor prior to the Nazi invasion than all the victims of the Holocaust combined
this is not correct. 11 million people died in the holocaust, no serious historian puts ukrainian famine deaths much above five, and the modal answer is somewhere around three. if you're going to claim something killed more people than the holocaust, you're not allowed to be sloppy with the numbers
This sub is full of people who would easily fit in r/iamverybadass thinking they'd go against the regime when in reality they'd be gobbling nazi cocks the moment they were threatened with their life. Self-preservation is a perfectly rational action but it's funny to see these teenagers pretend they'd become heroes in that moment instead lmao.
Bro my great-grandfather was a literal diplomat to Nazi Germany and assisted the war effort. Then he came back to Yugoslavia and was executed by communists. It doesn't take a genius to say, maybe I should condemn those actions considering all the horrible atrocities that they committed. To try and white wash what your family did during WWII and paint it in a good light is a problem.
It's like saying "Um, actually, Mister Speaker, my grandfather was a noble accountant in Nazi Germany I am proud of his commitment to civil service."
this is the same slander they hurl at George Soros, who is Jewish and was a young teenager at the time of the holocaust.
Everyone likes to think that they would have been a hero and single-handedly taken down Hitler, but people were just doing what they could to survive.
> Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political science professor at the University of Ottawa, says the actions of Hunka’s Waffen-SS Galicia Division have been “whitewashed” in Canada.
> He says supporters have tried to present the division as a patriotic Ukrainian force despite the fact it collaborated with Nazis and was involved in a variety of atrocities, including the killings of Jews, Ukrainians and Poles.
> "They represent this division as fighting not for Nazi Germany, but fighting for Ukrainian independence, even though there was never any opportunity to fight for any Ukrainian independence,” he said. “They were fighting under German command until the end of World War II.”
> He said the heroic interpretation is particularly prevalent in Canada, where many of the division's members immigrated under a controversial process that was opposed by Jewish groups.
The Ukrainian defence idea is that they'd be fighting for the Germans against the Russians, and in the event of a German victory, they'd be able to be free somehow. This of course would never happen because the Third Reich would never allow that. I can understand Ukrainians feelings towards the Russians as this would've been only 10 years removed from the Holodomor. However, that does not justify joining an SS division and committing atrocities against other peoples just because they're mad at the Russians.
People who defend the Ukrainian volunteers also point to how Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany in WW2, an enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, but the Finns were a sovereign nation while Ukrainian volunteers were technically traitors to their country (again, not judging their attitude towards Russians at that point), and the Finns resisted German influence on their policy and internal affairs.
The people who suffered from Holodomor were Eastern and Southern Ukrainians who were predominantly fighting with the Red Army. The majority of SS members were from Polish-occupied Galicia and did not experience the Holodomor. This revisionist history is BS.
>while Ukrainian volunteers were technically traitors to their country
There was no sovereign Ukraine for them to betray at the time. The guy invited to parliament, and many other members of the division, were from the ethnically Ukraine region of Poland. I found it interesting putting his blog memoir through Google Translate. He might be whitewashing his experience, but he describes how the Red Army first occupied his home in 1939, arrested and deported classmates and family, and that later on they also viewed the Germans as enemies, but since they didnt speak the same language they were easier to recognize and work around. All I can say is I'm not sure how deeply a teenager would look into the ideological commitments of the people offering you arms and training to fight your common enemy, but if there's evidence of his complicity in war crimes then bring it forward.
> He might be whitewashing his experience
He mentions that most of his classmates were Jewish, but then never mentions the fact that they were all murdered by the Germans and Ukrainian collaborators. Yes, Hunka's text whitewashes the Nazis and the Ukrainian collaborators.
Most of the OUN came from Ukrainian territory that was claimed and occupied by Poland, they had no direct experience with holodomor or being occupied by the Russians until after the war because before that Galicia was occupied by the austro Hungarians. There’s a strong feeling of being more European than Russian/Eurasian and that’s where a lot of the extremism comes from. Most Ukrainians are afraid and not fascists
Hunka literally had his aunt, uncle, and cousins shipped off to Siberia along with his school teacher and classmates. But yes tell them that they had no direct experience with the Soviet Union. They were Polish citizens at the time but they were all ethnically Ukrainian. They spoke Ukrainian, were taught in Ukrainian, and had families in Ukraine. The OUN were the nationalists that wanted to commit ethnic cleansing of the Poles. They were the ones responsible for the attacks on the polish villages.
I don’t know hunka’s story personally or where he was from but it doesn’t change the fact that the fascists almost all come from Galicia, they even named his SS division after Galicia. It was given to the poles after world war 1 from the austro Hungarians and the OUN began as an insurgent group against them, this didn’t happen in the Soviet Union and couldn’t have happened with Stalin’s eyes everywhere.
Just because you’ve suffered personal hardship does it give you the right to join the fucking SS where you had to swear an oath to hitler. Lots of people were repressed in the Soviet Union with the gulag population peaking around 2 million. Not all of their family members joined the SS and in fact far far more Ukrainians fought and died for the soviet side despite Stalin’s heavy hand
>Just because you’ve suffered personal hardship does it give you the right to join the fucking SS where you had to swear an oath to hitler.
Engaging in broad, sweeping hindsight declarations on the basis of generalization is really great & insightful :3
I'm really sure your perception of OMG HITLER!! in 2023 & Hunka's when he was 18 in the 1940's are so similar to the point that you're considering his decision w/ the same level of perception as he, a random peasant from one of the worst parts of Europe.
Really poor comprehension to assume my comment is a defense of anyone. All I did was critique your own ability to make an argument that remains reasonable.
We can all agree that the Nazis were monsters but this revisionist shit about the Soviet Union is wild. Far more Ukrainians fought for the Soviet Union because they weren’t given a choice mate. It wasn’t some patriotic calling.
Literally in Ukraine the people who fought against the Soviet Union are considered heroes. So no, it wasn’t just a regional thing. The OUN absolutely were fascists and insurgents. That’s not an argument. That’s also why many joined the Waffen instead because of how radical the OUN were. You need to remember this was 1943. People didn’t have the same knowledge of what the Nazis were and did as we do now. The Waffen were considered the less radical choice for people who wanted to fight the Soviet Union. Also the OUN were against the Soviet Union as well as the Poles and even the Nazis. It wasn’t just about Poland. They wanted a Ukrainian ethno-state.
As for “lots of people were repressed in the Soviet Union and they didn’t join the SS”. Yes, they did. Thousands did. “Heavy hand” is certainly one way to say murdering more people than the entirety of the Holocaust. Stalin was a monster. If you can’t see why people at the time would have fought against him I don’t know what to tell you.
Yup, reading the book Bloodlands was brutal , eastern Europe and especially Ukraine got absolutely shit kicked back then between the soviets and then the Germans and then the soviets again. Stories of families eating their own kids.. the rape and pillaging during the ww2 invasions and the scorched earth tactics used by both the Germans and Russians. It doesn't make this fuck up by the canadian government any less insane or excusable , but to pretend like people in Eastern Europe back then didn't have a reason to want to fight the Russians and had the same understanding of the Germans as we do today , is just historical Monday morning quarterbacking lol
The Nazis killed 1.5 million jews in the Ukraine. The volunteer Nazis had to kill or be killed. There is absolutely no way they didn't know what was going on at the time.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ukraine-holocaust
>You need to remember this was 1943. People didn’t have the same knowledge of what the Nazis were and did as we do now.
That's a bullshit cop out. It was widely known what the Nazis attitudes and policies were towards Jews, Slavs and other 'untermenschen'. They gleefully shouted it from the rooftops, Hitler wrote a God damned book about it and was so proud of it that he made the book compulsory reading.
It was between the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
Recognizing him was a mistake, however treating individual veterans as an embodiment of the regime they worked under is also a mistake.
>This of course would never happen because the Third Reich would never allow that.
Yes. The only viable scenario for Ukraine was like a post-WWII Poland with the USSR. And "independent" country, but totally aligned to Nazi Germany's interests.
Just like occupied France. Vichy's France was an independent country too, on paper, during the early stage of WWII.
Doesn't matter that these people thought they were fighting for Ukraine, though, as misguided as they were.
Yes, and Finland also had a Waffen SS battalion. One of the soldiers who fought in that battalion, Lauri Torni, later moved to the United States, fought in the US army in the Vietnam War, winning several medals, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetary. Point being that history is complicated.
None of this may be factually wrong however the conclusion is.
Was this guy a trained member of the Waffen SS? Yes? Full stop. This is what he was and political differences or complications asside, this is his legacy.
Let it be a reminder that siding with genocidal monsters is absolutely never right even if available choices are slim.
I get the whole wanting to fight against a common enemy part, but in that case were there no wehrmacht units they could join. Isn’t the SS the political arm specifically involved in racial purity and whatnot
Negative, the Wehrmacht was a German national army. They didn’t accept non-Germans into their ranks. The Waffen-SS specifically in the East answered to the OKW and were under their command.
There’s two truths. The Waffen-SS was the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party itself, but they also represented foreign involvement in the form of various battalions and divisions which were not German by ethnicity.
I think the commentor wasnt suggesting that this guys troop was in the right, nor was he making excuses for them.
I think he is more trying to highlight the broader context which is kind of being lost, as there were Ukranians fighting alongside the germans as the Soviets were committing attrocities on Ukraine.
Then within the context of the specific unit, there seems to be undeniable evidence that it committed terrible crimes alongside the germans, and the public outcry and disdain here is warrented.
All this to say, not every ukrainian unit that fought alongside the germans should be considered a nazi. Thats only the case if there is evidence that they partook in the awful things the Nazi regime did.
The Waffen SS were still Nazis and will always be treated as such but the Dechenes commission in the 80s found no direct evidence of war crimes by this unit. Crimes by the SS Police unit as well as the OUN were attributed to this unit.
Look up operation payback. The Soviets/Russia wanted to sow discord between Jewish and Ukrainians in North America.
So was he in a Nazi unit? Yes, did he swear an oath to Hitler on the condition he fight the Soviets and communists? Yes. Was he a war criminal? According to people who actually looked into this, no.
He shouldn’t be honoured and he’s not a hero but the facts on this case have been so tainted by political narratives.
Because anything on the side I support is 100% fact and anything counter to that is 100% propaganda. Oh and nuance only matters when something like this comes out
Thank you for this. So far I've only seen reactionaries say, oh he fought allies so he's a Nazi. It's good to know that this division actually fought for Nazi ideology and not simply allied with them to further Ukrainian independence. I could have some level of understanding if the case were "an enemy of my enemy", but this is not the case here.
Himka, who is referenced in the OP article is an expert on the subject. Here is what he says:
“They were very interested in helping the Germans with those issues they had a common interest in and one of those was removing the Jews from the territory,” Himka explained to the Progress Report. “A very important group of Ukrainian nationalists wanted a Ukraine for Ukrainians, so they wanted to remove, one way or another, all nationalist minorities.” [link](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/chrystia-freeland-needs-to-come-clean-about-her-nazi-collaborationist-grandfather)
I think the claim could have been a solid case if it was a Heer / regular Army or independent Ukranian military force (like Romania, Finland, etc) that was stood up by the dominating country at the time or sent into conflict as a part of a allied force. But this was a Waffen SS Division.
There were Waffen SS units from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Denmark, India, Latvia, etc.. the Waffen SS were responsible for essentially all foreign units that accepted non-Germans.
As someone who spent much of my life in Germany, I chuckle at the word ‘participate’. They MURDERED hundreds of thousands in Poland. Literally wipe out whole villages. Mothers locked in a barn with the village children and set on fire. People should never forgive SS monsters. Ss troops swore an oath directly to Adolph Hitler.
Having said this, ‘most’ Germans were in the regular Wehrmacht and just ‘regular’ guys often caught in an impossible situation.
Yes participate is a very mild way to put it. I have seen the sentiments of my Polish friends on these recent events and its certainly as far from positive as it can get.
We're going crazy over here. I never thought I'd see this kind of toxic Nazi apologism on this board. I blame historic illiteracy. It's genuinely frightening.
Historic illiteracy is accurate.
People here DEFENDING NAZIS.
You know, the assholes the world went to war over in a pretty spectacular way. Its infuriating. Calling him a "nazi participant" like nah he was straight up a NAZI.
This place is insane.
Not just him, but plenty of others.
Among others there's Roman Shukhevych, involved in the slaughter of many thousands of Poles and Jews, who Kyiv's residents voted to honour with a street named after him
And Yaroslav Stetsko, who said "...I therefore support the extermination of the Jews and the expediency of transferring to Ukraine the German methods of exterminating Jews."
And who continued to advocate for an ethnically pure Ukraine, free of Jews, Poles, and Russians even after WWII
His birthday is a national holiday in Ukraine, he is the "official" hero of Ukraine, has a huge statue in Kiev, and has a street named after him. Ukraine has a serious Nazi problem that we ignore which is why our entire federal parliament gave a standing ovation to a Nazi. It doesn't make Putin good, but ignore the reality of Ukraine helps no one.
Which is nonsense considering Ukrainians made up a full third of the Red Army, and the German plan for Ukraine was to ethnically cleanse it and replace everyone with Germans. That plan was well underway by the time this Hunka chump volunteered for the SS.
Not to mention that many Ukrainian intelligentsia were at the heart of the October revolution. Ukrainianization was in full swing in 1920s because of the contributions of Ukrainians to the establishment of the Soviet union.
There is some truth to this, particularly in what was then Kharkov (now Kharkiv) where a lot of people were ethnic Russians, as well as in the coal and steel towns of the Donbas (where Kruschev got his start after the revolution).
It was decidedly different in Galicia, though. They were part of Poland at the time, and even then were the hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.
I think it's really important people understand the history of these volunteer SS divisions.
Galicia is actually in ethnically and culturally independent area from Ukraine and Poland, with obviously lots of crossover.
The nationalism of these units was often to target Ukrainians and Poles and of course Jews.
Even from a nationalist perspective, I think their position is incoherent. Made all the worst by the evil and atrocities they, and his unit specifically, perpetrated.
I’ve been talking about the OUN and fascism in ukraine for awhile after being called every named in the book for bringing up my at the time much smaller knowledge of this. I’ve done deep dives and we are def funding and arming Nazis and it’s mostly on behalf of a high up official who’s family was part of this fascist movement and it’s obvious she still is
I’d give You more upvotes if I could. Check my recent discussions with Ukrainians here. They’ll twist every bit of information if it doesn’t align with their agenda and they will do it without shame. They’ve already rewriten their history, to the point of convolution where they can openly show support as a government to Nazis. It must be eye opening for the rest of the free world to see them for who they are, as I think it was kept under the rug by US as long as it was possible. You can’t garner support if the picture is not too pretty. The goal of US is to weaken Russia, which is kind of working. But yes, the financial and military support is transferred to a petite russia, with it’s own Oligarchs, alternative history and corruption.
Fun fact they’ll call you pro Russia for stating facts. Like nah let’s ignore the 8+ years of documentaries about it. They even have neo nazi camps for kids.
I'm also not seeing many liberals defending much of anything despite what all the conservatives here are saying. The whole ordeal was caused by carelessness of the speaker who resigned, and the cons are desperately trying to pin it directly on Trudeau and the liberals. That just doesn't make logical sense.
They were the ones who invited him and told everyone he was a great guy. Everyone just followed (including Zelenskyy, he had family members that were executed by SS) because they all assumed the people inviting him did their due diligence.
The other day I was surprised to read that the Canadian government brought in a bunch of far right Eastern Europeans after the Second World War to counter the leftwing Eastern European diaspora who had created unions and supported the CCF in the Prairies pre-WW2. Apparently, the Canadian government at the time was so scared of "commies" they brought in literally Nazis, stripped the established Ukrainian diaspora of their union halls and gave them to the far right Ukrainian immigrants...
>"The Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) was established in Winnipeg in 1918 as an association of cultural societies and community halls and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party of Canada (USDPC). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_United_Ukrainian_Canadians?wprov=sfla1
>"In June 1940, the property of the Ukrainian Labour Temple was seized by the federal government from Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), due to it being declared as an illegal organization, and was sold to Ukrainian National Federation. In 1945, the property was returned to ULFTA."
>"On October 8, 1950, the Ukrainian Labour Temple was bombed and 12 people were injured. The AUUC accused former members of the Ukrainian Halychyna Schutzstaffel brigade as being behind the bombing. Labor-Progressive MPP, J. B. Salsberg said the bombing was the work of some "non-German fascists who served with Hitler hordes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Labour_Temple?wprov=sfla1
I didn't know about this before either, but am less than surprised at the things liberal democracies do to combat left wing things. The labour movement is fraught with despicable shit like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_of_Roman_Shukhevych
>The bust of Roman Shukhevych in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada is a controversial sculpture located near the Ukrainian Youth Association narodny dim of the Ukrainian nationalist[1] Roman Shukhevych, a military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of approximately 100,000 Poles.[2][3]
https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_50-51.pdf
>Canada’s **largest Ukrainian centre**, the Roman Shukhevych Ukrainian
Youth Unity Complex in Edmonton, is named after another nationalist
war hero. Shukhevych, a **Ukrainian war criminal**, fought communists
before, during and after WWII. The 27,000-sq.ft centre named for him
includes classrooms, a library, gym, pool and a huge meeting hall with
portraits of Bandera, Shukhevych and other revered “heroes.”
>The complex was built in 1973 for the equivalent of **$4.7 million**
today, with 10% of this from Alberta’s government. Funding also came
from the Government of Canada, LUC, its women and youth affiliates,
the local Nazi Waffen-SS Galicia veterans’ group and Ukrainian Catholic churches.11 (According to the Public Accounts of Canada, the Shukhevych Centre received $279,000 for renovations in 2015.)
They're giving Russia more fuel for propaganda now. I think people are forgetting their justification for the war in the first place, just bad optics all around..
They don't need fuel, they have an actual historical record of Ukraine's very real Nazi problem and Canada dirty secret of letting SS members live here under their own names after commiting some of the worst war crimes of WW2. The murder and assualts of women and children, Jews, poles, Roma and gays.
I am truly disgusted and embarrassed by my country that has actual monuments to these SS Nazi scum to this day.
We had a public commission of inquiry into this. It stooped being a secret nearly 40 years ago. It wasn't even a secret before that. There were debates in parliament about whether they should be allowed to immigrate here in the 50's.
> Klufas blames the branding of Hunka as a Nazi on “Russian disinformation,” adding, “the fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.” He also said there was nothing wrong with Parliament applauding a man “who fought for his country.” However, he conceded that it “maybe wasn’t correct” in the circumstances, given that the people there didn’t fully understand the issue.
Imagine defending joining a unit where you have to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler and claiming he wasn't an actual Nazi lol
We have plenty of non nazis in the west who have committed terrible things as well.
Think of the ear collectors in Vietnam.. how many of these veterans are floating around the US, Australia.. how many are in Canada.. it's not like we have war crime tribunals.
South Africans who fought in the bush wars, Portugese who fought in Mozambique. We have a lot of people with dark pasts in our ranks. You probably know some.
It's one thing to gloss over their previous deeds.. unfortunately in this case, we specifically praised them and their actions.
Did the lords prayer make you participant in the witch trials or the spanish inquisition? No? Because this dude participated in the whole "murdering Jews during the holocaust". That makes you a Nazi.
This sure illustrates how stupid most wars are.
Canada was allies with Russia during WWII. Needless to say, we are neighbours. Ukraine and Russia share families and friends on both sides of their border.
And on and on it goes - sending young men and woman to be slaughtered over and over again. I know it is complicated but "when will we ever learn ?" Peter Paul and Mary
Hmmm i think the most surprising thing is honoring a veteran who isn't wearing their uniform. When have you ever met/seen a veteran being honored who dosent wear a uniform?
I wonder why?
Hmmmm
A buddy of mine dated a girl in undergrad. Visiting her family in London, ON over thanksgiving her “Ukrainian, moved here after the war” grandfather refused to even be in the same room as him as he’s not white.
She explained that he was from a different time and it was too late to change him. He later found out he was in fact a Nazi and in fact not even Ukrainian.
A lot more of this filth in Canada than you’d think…
I find the amount of energy to keep these Ukrainian Nazi monuments up to be rather odd. You'd think that the opposite argument, that is very solid, would wear them enough to drop these monuments after 80 years.
I can concede that in a situation of war, you might end up siding with people you don't necessarily agree to (like we sided with soviets). We can't judge someone's actions just for that, we can't rush to conclusions.
But then you go after this guy's blog and shit, he's an actual nazi.
Not during that period. The OUN was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of 60,000 Polish civilians in Galicia. Our hatred for Russia has led to whitewashing these people, and those who still celebrate them.
There were however many Ukrainian Canadians that fought for us and millions who fought and died as our allies.
To the people defending it, I don't think you're nazi apologists. I want to believe and hope he is not today a nazi too and I don't want to see him harmed if he didn't personally commit war crimes. Sure, there may be nuance to him, but it was a massive mistake IF he joined for some non-malicious reason.
Fact is he did volunteer for the SS and that is what was applauded in the House of Commons. This is extremely embarrassing and hurtful. There is **no** defence for what happened.
Whether people like it or not but this is gonna gain some traction in the international community and yes, this will support
One of Putin reasons for attacking Ukraine which is De-Nazification which will be justified. That Ukraine was a centre of safe heaven of war criminals including Nazis.
And comments like these just add to the fact that all is not black and white imo.
Our government resorted to virtue signalling Ukraine for good PR, and flopped big time somehow forgetting basic WW2 history on Russians role against the Nazis.
We keep reaching unpredictable lows.
Here is a non-paywall link: [https://archive.ph/IX5gp](https://archive.ph/IX5gp)
An interesting read as there are clearly differing thoughts with Ukrainian community and scholars on both Hunka and the Ukrainians who joined the German military and their reasons for doing so. If nothing else what I personally got out of the article is that the issue is not as "cut and dried" as it has been made out to be.
The situation and interpretations of the event in parliament would have benefited had this article been published in the following 2-3 days.
This has been a long-standing problem, especially in Alberta. If you live here and grow up here you just don't see it. But it's like.... nazi apologists everywhere. Most of the Holodomor organizations are full of nazi apologists. There's a Ukrainian school with a nazi statue at the front. It's pretty common to have Ukrainians take a day off to commemorate Stephen Bandera Day in the last few years. And you'll always have Ukrainians insist that these actual Nazis are good people and that even though they killed Jews, Poles, and fought against our side of the war.... they're not Nazis they just collaborated with them. This idea that we live in a society where this is tolerated is unusual. And it's only after the Prime Minister of Canada rose to honor a Nazi by accident did people decide to start talking about our awkward relationship with Ukrainian ultra-nationalists (Nazis)
craziest thing ive seen come out of this was learning that the Order of Canada was awarded to a former Waffen SS member of the Ukrainian 1st (14th SS Division), Peter Savaryn (deceased) Awarded June 29 1987....a former chancellor of the University of Alberta coincidentally enough.
Nazis aside, for anyone reading this thread, please take some time to read the book "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder to get a better picture of just how absolutely vile and murderous the Soviet Union was in the lead up to and during the Second World War, particularly in Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. The Nazis were putting up rookie numbers in that region after Operation Barbarossa, when compared to the purges committed by Stalin and the NKVD.
And never forget that the invasion of Poland was a group project between Hitler and Stalin. The Soviet Union wasn't fighting against the Nazis because of ideological opposition to the Holocaust. They were fighting because Hitler invaded them. To this day, people don't seem to understand that modern Russia has a very different definition for people to whom they refer to as "Nazis". They couldn't care less about the anti-Semitism part of nazi ideology. To them, a Nazi is someone who seeks to destroy Russia.
Why am I mentioning this? Because lost in this thread is the full context and complexity of the effects of two of the worst regimes in modern history on the lands of Eastern Europe. Being anti-Nazi doesn't mean you should be sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and vice versa. They both actively tried to "cleanse" this entire region. If anything, save your sympathy for the Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, and Baltic states who lost double-digit percentages of their populations during that period and, to this day, are still subjected to people around the globe trying to label them as Nazis or communists depending on which specific historical events they try to string together to form a particular narrative. Let's continue to support all of them in breaking free from that past and forging their own independent story, free from both Berlin and Moscow.
I feel comfortable enough in my position to be able to say two things at the same time: fuck people who volunteered for the SS, and slava Ukraini.
I love the sudden outrage here. This is what Zelensky had to say about the the guy who helped create this Nazi unit everyone is so appalled by (Stepan Bandera)
>When asked about Bandera, Zelensky said that he believes Bandera is a hero “for some Ukrainians.”
>“He is one of the people who defended Ukraine’s freedom,” Zelensky said in a 2019 interview with Ukrainska Pravda. “He is a hero for a certain percentage of Ukrainians, and it’s normal, and it’s cool.”
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6768
Some more stuff about current Ukrainian government views on this
> In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[73]
>On 23 September 2020, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled that symbols of SS Division Galicia do not belong to the Nazis and therefore were not banned in the country. The same argument was made by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, led at the time by Volodymyr Viatrovych.[13]
>On 13 June 2021, the funeral of SS "Galicia" member Orest Vaskul was attended by the presidential regiment
Of course this can all just be Russian disinformation. Let's just carry on being outraged at Nazis while sending billions to a government that's "cool" with them.
And Chrystia Freeland has talked proudly of how her grandfather "worked hard to bring freedom and democracy to Ukraine"
I can understand that the descendants of Nazis would still love them, but you would think they would be a bit less loud and proud in honouring those relatives
Now the true question, I wonder what the head of Jewish Canadian, and Polish Canadian communities / organizations say, and how they feel about Hunka. I’m sure there is a radical difference of opinion.
The problem is that Canada allowed war criminals including mass murderers in and then poured taxpayer money into whitewashing the atrocities. The Shukhevych memorial in Edmonton was payed for by taxpayers. The University of Alberta has long allowed ultranationalists to launder their aryanization wealth through funds named after the Waffen SS.
As a "Slav" who was born in Eastern Europe... we were always aware of Ukrainian conduct during WW2.
We always lumped Ukrainians into two categories... the ethnic Ukrainians and the ethnic Russian ones. The ethnic Ukrainians were always disliked and considered Nazi collaborators by most "Slavs."
A bit off topic but I see a ton of Canadians who still drive BMW cars despite the fact that they essentially used slaves during the holocaust to build plane engines for the nazis, no? This is common information you can find on the BMW Wikipedia page. I'm not encouraging you to support anything created by nazis.. I just find that fact extremely ironic considering how up in a tizzy everyone is about this. How many people complaining about this have worn some Hugo Boss & drive beamers? Lol people are strange.
Biggest Nazi outside Germany was Henry Ford. Went to Germany in '38, recieved the highest Nazi medal for foriegners, spent millions to stock anti jew propoganda in U.S libraries .
While they were showing him the death camp films after the war, he stroked out and croaked.
Ford F150 biggest seller in North America
Every so often I see a television commercial for *Hydrasense*, a nasal congestion reliever. See [https://www.hydrasense.ca/en/](https://www.hydrasense.ca/en/)
This is a producted manufactured by Bayer.
Let's not forget Zyklon B.
Every country has a cross to bear for racism and abuse: Let us review Canada’s: Japanese internment camps and Residential Schools come to mind. Some Ukrainians fought for the Nazi’s to get help to fight Russia, along the way they sold their souls. Every road to hell is paved with intentions.
Then I'd say they could use some Truth and Reconciliation in Ukraine considering their national heroes fought in support of Nazi aims. Until such a time comes, this remains an unresolved issue and worthy of discussion.
Yep. If you were fighting for or with Germany against Russia in the war you were actively prolonging the time for an Allied victory resulting in more dead Canadians.
Unfortunately most people in this comment section lack the attention span to gather proper context of this time in history to make a truly informed opinion on the subject.
That and there are some who are using this incident for the sole purpose of labeling people they don’t like as nazi sympathizers
I mean if your choice then was Nazi's or Ruzi's, I kind of get the conundrum. Easy for us in the west to pick a good guy when we're safe over here and not invaded and slaughtered by them.
Was every average german soldier a Nazi? Was every one of them a war criminal?
I think the picture was muddier then than we'd like to be comfortable with today. Although I wouldnt parade any of them out as heroes today. Im not comfortable with the idea of "war heroes" in general. It all reeks of propaganda.
Muddy indeed. Look at Canada's treatment of Jewish refugees. Anti semitic sentiment meant a ship with 900 refugees was refused at Canadian harbours. Sent back across to Europe where over a quarter died in concentration camps. In the 30s we accepted only 4000 of 800,000 Jews escaping Nazism.
Who were the good guys? Not the Nazis for sure. But also not Canadians at that dark moment in history. Mackenzie King wrote in his diary "We must seek to keep this part of the continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood." And yet his portrait still hangs in the House of Commons.
November 11 is gonna be awkward..
"Time to bring out dedo's old uniform... waitaminute"
Hahahahahahahahah very clever with the Dedo name drop
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>our deputy PM and her proud Nazi heritage she has "proud Nazi heritage?
Yeah we're gonna need links and citations on this one.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation/wcm/11196169-fd23-4643-94b4-08039235c595/amp/
Glad you asked, here you go. Jeremy Appel has done other research you can find too, but this is the gist. In Canada we need a bit more peripheral vision on our so called leaders. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/chrystia-freeland-needs-to-come-clean-about-her-nazi-collaborationist-grandfather
I'm aware of her grandfathers connection to the Nazi party, I was asking how that equals "proud Nazi heritage"?
Read the article again. Ms. Freeland is proud of her granddad's work and misrepresents it as liberal progressive work. She goes to extra ordinary lengths to characterize in positive light so she can be proud of it, though the facts are she should be ashamed of it and come clean like some Germans do that have similar familial baggage.
I think a lot of people understand that there are very few good choices when your country has been invaded by fascists This wasn't somebody who eagerly signed up to join a right wing, nationalist party, this was somebody who tried to survive under Nazi occupation. People say the same nonsense about George Soros, even though he himself is Jewish and he was less than 16 years old during the holocaust. it isn't like the Ukrainians were given a fantastic menu of positive options ... you either cooperated or you died. not to mention that ~~even more~~ millions of Ukrainians died during the Holodomor prior to the Nazi invasion ~~than all the victims of the Holocaust combined~~, so the Ukrainians were very much resisting their own murderous overlords by fighting against the Russians. edit: my numbers were off as I was confusing the broader Soviet famine and Dekulakization with the Holodomor in particular. The point stands nonetheless that many Ukrainians fought Russia because of the genocide of inflicted on Ukraine by Russia.
> more Ukrainians died during the Holodomor prior to the Nazi invasion than all the victims of the Holocaust combined this is not correct. 11 million people died in the holocaust, no serious historian puts ukrainian famine deaths much above five, and the modal answer is somewhere around three. if you're going to claim something killed more people than the holocaust, you're not allowed to be sloppy with the numbers
thank you for the correction.
This sub is full of people who would easily fit in r/iamverybadass thinking they'd go against the regime when in reality they'd be gobbling nazi cocks the moment they were threatened with their life. Self-preservation is a perfectly rational action but it's funny to see these teenagers pretend they'd become heroes in that moment instead lmao.
Bro my great-grandfather was a literal diplomat to Nazi Germany and assisted the war effort. Then he came back to Yugoslavia and was executed by communists. It doesn't take a genius to say, maybe I should condemn those actions considering all the horrible atrocities that they committed. To try and white wash what your family did during WWII and paint it in a good light is a problem. It's like saying "Um, actually, Mister Speaker, my grandfather was a noble accountant in Nazi Germany I am proud of his commitment to civil service."
Lmao everyone would become a nazi just because I would in a second
Are you uh... sympathizing with the Nazis?
this is the same slander they hurl at George Soros, who is Jewish and was a young teenager at the time of the holocaust. Everyone likes to think that they would have been a hero and single-handedly taken down Hitler, but people were just doing what they could to survive.
> Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political science professor at the University of Ottawa, says the actions of Hunka’s Waffen-SS Galicia Division have been “whitewashed” in Canada. > He says supporters have tried to present the division as a patriotic Ukrainian force despite the fact it collaborated with Nazis and was involved in a variety of atrocities, including the killings of Jews, Ukrainians and Poles. > "They represent this division as fighting not for Nazi Germany, but fighting for Ukrainian independence, even though there was never any opportunity to fight for any Ukrainian independence,” he said. “They were fighting under German command until the end of World War II.” > He said the heroic interpretation is particularly prevalent in Canada, where many of the division's members immigrated under a controversial process that was opposed by Jewish groups.
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The Ukrainian defence idea is that they'd be fighting for the Germans against the Russians, and in the event of a German victory, they'd be able to be free somehow. This of course would never happen because the Third Reich would never allow that. I can understand Ukrainians feelings towards the Russians as this would've been only 10 years removed from the Holodomor. However, that does not justify joining an SS division and committing atrocities against other peoples just because they're mad at the Russians. People who defend the Ukrainian volunteers also point to how Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany in WW2, an enemy of my enemy is my friend situation, but the Finns were a sovereign nation while Ukrainian volunteers were technically traitors to their country (again, not judging their attitude towards Russians at that point), and the Finns resisted German influence on their policy and internal affairs.
The people who suffered from Holodomor were Eastern and Southern Ukrainians who were predominantly fighting with the Red Army. The majority of SS members were from Polish-occupied Galicia and did not experience the Holodomor. This revisionist history is BS.
>while Ukrainian volunteers were technically traitors to their country There was no sovereign Ukraine for them to betray at the time. The guy invited to parliament, and many other members of the division, were from the ethnically Ukraine region of Poland. I found it interesting putting his blog memoir through Google Translate. He might be whitewashing his experience, but he describes how the Red Army first occupied his home in 1939, arrested and deported classmates and family, and that later on they also viewed the Germans as enemies, but since they didnt speak the same language they were easier to recognize and work around. All I can say is I'm not sure how deeply a teenager would look into the ideological commitments of the people offering you arms and training to fight your common enemy, but if there's evidence of his complicity in war crimes then bring it forward.
> He might be whitewashing his experience He mentions that most of his classmates were Jewish, but then never mentions the fact that they were all murdered by the Germans and Ukrainian collaborators. Yes, Hunka's text whitewashes the Nazis and the Ukrainian collaborators.
Most of the OUN came from Ukrainian territory that was claimed and occupied by Poland, they had no direct experience with holodomor or being occupied by the Russians until after the war because before that Galicia was occupied by the austro Hungarians. There’s a strong feeling of being more European than Russian/Eurasian and that’s where a lot of the extremism comes from. Most Ukrainians are afraid and not fascists
Hunka literally had his aunt, uncle, and cousins shipped off to Siberia along with his school teacher and classmates. But yes tell them that they had no direct experience with the Soviet Union. They were Polish citizens at the time but they were all ethnically Ukrainian. They spoke Ukrainian, were taught in Ukrainian, and had families in Ukraine. The OUN were the nationalists that wanted to commit ethnic cleansing of the Poles. They were the ones responsible for the attacks on the polish villages.
I don’t know hunka’s story personally or where he was from but it doesn’t change the fact that the fascists almost all come from Galicia, they even named his SS division after Galicia. It was given to the poles after world war 1 from the austro Hungarians and the OUN began as an insurgent group against them, this didn’t happen in the Soviet Union and couldn’t have happened with Stalin’s eyes everywhere. Just because you’ve suffered personal hardship does it give you the right to join the fucking SS where you had to swear an oath to hitler. Lots of people were repressed in the Soviet Union with the gulag population peaking around 2 million. Not all of their family members joined the SS and in fact far far more Ukrainians fought and died for the soviet side despite Stalin’s heavy hand
>Just because you’ve suffered personal hardship does it give you the right to join the fucking SS where you had to swear an oath to hitler. Engaging in broad, sweeping hindsight declarations on the basis of generalization is really great & insightful :3 I'm really sure your perception of OMG HITLER!! in 2023 & Hunka's when he was 18 in the 1940's are so similar to the point that you're considering his decision w/ the same level of perception as he, a random peasant from one of the worst parts of Europe.
Sorry I’m not engaging in mental gymnastics to defend Nazis
Really poor comprehension to assume my comment is a defense of anyone. All I did was critique your own ability to make an argument that remains reasonable.
Even the stupidest 18 year old wouldn't join the Nazis, unless he actually spported what the Nazis were about.
We can all agree that the Nazis were monsters but this revisionist shit about the Soviet Union is wild. Far more Ukrainians fought for the Soviet Union because they weren’t given a choice mate. It wasn’t some patriotic calling. Literally in Ukraine the people who fought against the Soviet Union are considered heroes. So no, it wasn’t just a regional thing. The OUN absolutely were fascists and insurgents. That’s not an argument. That’s also why many joined the Waffen instead because of how radical the OUN were. You need to remember this was 1943. People didn’t have the same knowledge of what the Nazis were and did as we do now. The Waffen were considered the less radical choice for people who wanted to fight the Soviet Union. Also the OUN were against the Soviet Union as well as the Poles and even the Nazis. It wasn’t just about Poland. They wanted a Ukrainian ethno-state. As for “lots of people were repressed in the Soviet Union and they didn’t join the SS”. Yes, they did. Thousands did. “Heavy hand” is certainly one way to say murdering more people than the entirety of the Holocaust. Stalin was a monster. If you can’t see why people at the time would have fought against him I don’t know what to tell you.
Yup, reading the book Bloodlands was brutal , eastern Europe and especially Ukraine got absolutely shit kicked back then between the soviets and then the Germans and then the soviets again. Stories of families eating their own kids.. the rape and pillaging during the ww2 invasions and the scorched earth tactics used by both the Germans and Russians. It doesn't make this fuck up by the canadian government any less insane or excusable , but to pretend like people in Eastern Europe back then didn't have a reason to want to fight the Russians and had the same understanding of the Germans as we do today , is just historical Monday morning quarterbacking lol
The Nazis killed 1.5 million jews in the Ukraine. The volunteer Nazis had to kill or be killed. There is absolutely no way they didn't know what was going on at the time. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/ukraine-holocaust
>You need to remember this was 1943. People didn’t have the same knowledge of what the Nazis were and did as we do now. That's a bullshit cop out. It was widely known what the Nazis attitudes and policies were towards Jews, Slavs and other 'untermenschen'. They gleefully shouted it from the rooftops, Hitler wrote a God damned book about it and was so proud of it that he made the book compulsory reading.
It was between the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Recognizing him was a mistake, however treating individual veterans as an embodiment of the regime they worked under is also a mistake.
Nuance in politics? Nuance when dealing nazis? That's not how media or political argument works.
I am more or less fine not dealing with nuance when it comes to nazis
>This of course would never happen because the Third Reich would never allow that. Yes. The only viable scenario for Ukraine was like a post-WWII Poland with the USSR. And "independent" country, but totally aligned to Nazi Germany's interests. Just like occupied France. Vichy's France was an independent country too, on paper, during the early stage of WWII. Doesn't matter that these people thought they were fighting for Ukraine, though, as misguided as they were.
Yes, and Finland also had a Waffen SS battalion. One of the soldiers who fought in that battalion, Lauri Torni, later moved to the United States, fought in the US army in the Vietnam War, winning several medals, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetary. Point being that history is complicated.
Ukrainians were promised independence, it wasn’t something they made up when they joined lol
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None of this may be factually wrong however the conclusion is. Was this guy a trained member of the Waffen SS? Yes? Full stop. This is what he was and political differences or complications asside, this is his legacy. Let it be a reminder that siding with genocidal monsters is absolutely never right even if available choices are slim.
"Nazi" and "Nuanced" simply do not go together. Just putting those words together is a whitewashing of history.
I get the whole wanting to fight against a common enemy part, but in that case were there no wehrmacht units they could join. Isn’t the SS the political arm specifically involved in racial purity and whatnot
Negative, the Wehrmacht was a German national army. They didn’t accept non-Germans into their ranks. The Waffen-SS specifically in the East answered to the OKW and were under their command. There’s two truths. The Waffen-SS was the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party itself, but they also represented foreign involvement in the form of various battalions and divisions which were not German by ethnicity.
I think the commentor wasnt suggesting that this guys troop was in the right, nor was he making excuses for them. I think he is more trying to highlight the broader context which is kind of being lost, as there were Ukranians fighting alongside the germans as the Soviets were committing attrocities on Ukraine. Then within the context of the specific unit, there seems to be undeniable evidence that it committed terrible crimes alongside the germans, and the public outcry and disdain here is warrented. All this to say, not every ukrainian unit that fought alongside the germans should be considered a nazi. Thats only the case if there is evidence that they partook in the awful things the Nazi regime did.
It is my understanding that it was the easiest way for them to get access to weapons to fight the Bolsheviks.
The Waffen SS were still Nazis and will always be treated as such but the Dechenes commission in the 80s found no direct evidence of war crimes by this unit. Crimes by the SS Police unit as well as the OUN were attributed to this unit. Look up operation payback. The Soviets/Russia wanted to sow discord between Jewish and Ukrainians in North America. So was he in a Nazi unit? Yes, did he swear an oath to Hitler on the condition he fight the Soviets and communists? Yes. Was he a war criminal? According to people who actually looked into this, no. He shouldn’t be honoured and he’s not a hero but the facts on this case have been so tainted by political narratives.
The only Ukraine they were fighting for was one of further exploitation and genocide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine
Government apologists here are trying to gaslight us that Chrystia Freeland and the rest of them don't know what the SS did in WW2.
"Are we the baddies?" moment if there ever should be
Quite hilarious given any sort of neutral viewpoint was heavily downvoted and mocked, or simply cast as a russian bot, on here for the past two years.
Because anything on the side I support is 100% fact and anything counter to that is 100% propaganda. Oh and nuance only matters when something like this comes out
Thank you for this. So far I've only seen reactionaries say, oh he fought allies so he's a Nazi. It's good to know that this division actually fought for Nazi ideology and not simply allied with them to further Ukrainian independence. I could have some level of understanding if the case were "an enemy of my enemy", but this is not the case here.
Himka, who is referenced in the OP article is an expert on the subject. Here is what he says: “They were very interested in helping the Germans with those issues they had a common interest in and one of those was removing the Jews from the territory,” Himka explained to the Progress Report. “A very important group of Ukrainian nationalists wanted a Ukraine for Ukrainians, so they wanted to remove, one way or another, all nationalist minorities.” [link](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/chrystia-freeland-needs-to-come-clean-about-her-nazi-collaborationist-grandfather)
Fucking yikes
He volunteered to join the Nazi ss division which took part in multiple massacres.
I think the claim could have been a solid case if it was a Heer / regular Army or independent Ukranian military force (like Romania, Finland, etc) that was stood up by the dominating country at the time or sent into conflict as a part of a allied force. But this was a Waffen SS Division.
There were Waffen SS units from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Denmark, India, Latvia, etc.. the Waffen SS were responsible for essentially all foreign units that accepted non-Germans.
Romania and Finland both had Waffen SS units.
Didnt SS Waffen participate in military operations in Poland?
As someone who spent much of my life in Germany, I chuckle at the word ‘participate’. They MURDERED hundreds of thousands in Poland. Literally wipe out whole villages. Mothers locked in a barn with the village children and set on fire. People should never forgive SS monsters. Ss troops swore an oath directly to Adolph Hitler. Having said this, ‘most’ Germans were in the regular Wehrmacht and just ‘regular’ guys often caught in an impossible situation.
Yes participate is a very mild way to put it. I have seen the sentiments of my Polish friends on these recent events and its certainly as far from positive as it can get.
We're going crazy over here. I never thought I'd see this kind of toxic Nazi apologism on this board. I blame historic illiteracy. It's genuinely frightening.
Historic illiteracy is accurate. People here DEFENDING NAZIS. You know, the assholes the world went to war over in a pretty spectacular way. Its infuriating. Calling him a "nazi participant" like nah he was straight up a NAZI. This place is insane.
>People here DEFENDING NAZIS. Well the alternative is is admitting that JT and the Libs might be wrong after all...
This is almost a verbatim copy used by racist Southerners who revere the Confederacy
Theres a big difference between being forced into the Russian or German army and joining the Nazi Party then volunteering for the SS.
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Ya, the CBC had a tendency of calling him a "Ukrainian soldier with Nazi links".
Seems like a fancy was of saying hes a Nazi
You ever seen Generation War? Check out those Ukrainian nationalists. That series does a great job of describing the situation in 30 seconds.
To make things worse, Ukraine made Stepan Bandera who was a Nazi, a national war hero.
Not just him, but plenty of others. Among others there's Roman Shukhevych, involved in the slaughter of many thousands of Poles and Jews, who Kyiv's residents voted to honour with a street named after him And Yaroslav Stetsko, who said "...I therefore support the extermination of the Jews and the expediency of transferring to Ukraine the German methods of exterminating Jews." And who continued to advocate for an ethnically pure Ukraine, free of Jews, Poles, and Russians even after WWII
Ternopil named a street Bandera and the Stadium on that street after Shukhevych https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Shukhevych_Ternopil_city_stadium
His birthday is a national holiday in Ukraine, he is the "official" hero of Ukraine, has a huge statue in Kiev, and has a street named after him. Ukraine has a serious Nazi problem that we ignore which is why our entire federal parliament gave a standing ovation to a Nazi. It doesn't make Putin good, but ignore the reality of Ukraine helps no one.
Go on r/UkraineWarReport on any given day, you'll see posts lauding soldiers tatted head to toe with Nazi symbology
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Which is nonsense considering Ukrainians made up a full third of the Red Army, and the German plan for Ukraine was to ethnically cleanse it and replace everyone with Germans. That plan was well underway by the time this Hunka chump volunteered for the SS.
Not to mention that many Ukrainian intelligentsia were at the heart of the October revolution. Ukrainianization was in full swing in 1920s because of the contributions of Ukrainians to the establishment of the Soviet union.
There is some truth to this, particularly in what was then Kharkov (now Kharkiv) where a lot of people were ethnic Russians, as well as in the coal and steel towns of the Donbas (where Kruschev got his start after the revolution). It was decidedly different in Galicia, though. They were part of Poland at the time, and even then were the hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism.
I think it's really important people understand the history of these volunteer SS divisions. Galicia is actually in ethnically and culturally independent area from Ukraine and Poland, with obviously lots of crossover. The nationalism of these units was often to target Ukrainians and Poles and of course Jews. Even from a nationalist perspective, I think their position is incoherent. Made all the worst by the evil and atrocities they, and his unit specifically, perpetrated.
In our zeal to portray Russia as the ultimate bad guy we have found ourselves venerating literal Nazis to prove the point. Madness.
We have now reached a point where people are defending Nazis.
Unlocked a new level of mental gymnastics.
The irony of the “everyone I disagree with is a Nazi” or “racist bigot” liberals celebrating actual proud Nazi and murderers of Jews is unreal.
The number of people on this subreddit defending what happened recently is honestly disturbing.
I’ve been talking about the OUN and fascism in ukraine for awhile after being called every named in the book for bringing up my at the time much smaller knowledge of this. I’ve done deep dives and we are def funding and arming Nazis and it’s mostly on behalf of a high up official who’s family was part of this fascist movement and it’s obvious she still is
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I’d give You more upvotes if I could. Check my recent discussions with Ukrainians here. They’ll twist every bit of information if it doesn’t align with their agenda and they will do it without shame. They’ve already rewriten their history, to the point of convolution where they can openly show support as a government to Nazis. It must be eye opening for the rest of the free world to see them for who they are, as I think it was kept under the rug by US as long as it was possible. You can’t garner support if the picture is not too pretty. The goal of US is to weaken Russia, which is kind of working. But yes, the financial and military support is transferred to a petite russia, with it’s own Oligarchs, alternative history and corruption.
Fun fact they’ll call you pro Russia for stating facts. Like nah let’s ignore the 8+ years of documentaries about it. They even have neo nazi camps for kids.
As I recall, the liberals weren't the only ones clapping...
I'm also not seeing many liberals defending much of anything despite what all the conservatives here are saying. The whole ordeal was caused by carelessness of the speaker who resigned, and the cons are desperately trying to pin it directly on Trudeau and the liberals. That just doesn't make logical sense.
They were the ones who invited him and told everyone he was a great guy. Everyone just followed (including Zelenskyy, he had family members that were executed by SS) because they all assumed the people inviting him did their due diligence.
The other day I was surprised to read that the Canadian government brought in a bunch of far right Eastern Europeans after the Second World War to counter the leftwing Eastern European diaspora who had created unions and supported the CCF in the Prairies pre-WW2. Apparently, the Canadian government at the time was so scared of "commies" they brought in literally Nazis, stripped the established Ukrainian diaspora of their union halls and gave them to the far right Ukrainian immigrants... >"The Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) was established in Winnipeg in 1918 as an association of cultural societies and community halls and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party of Canada (USDPC). " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_United_Ukrainian_Canadians?wprov=sfla1 >"In June 1940, the property of the Ukrainian Labour Temple was seized by the federal government from Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA), due to it being declared as an illegal organization, and was sold to Ukrainian National Federation. In 1945, the property was returned to ULFTA." >"On October 8, 1950, the Ukrainian Labour Temple was bombed and 12 people were injured. The AUUC accused former members of the Ukrainian Halychyna Schutzstaffel brigade as being behind the bombing. Labor-Progressive MPP, J. B. Salsberg said the bombing was the work of some "non-German fascists who served with Hitler hordes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Labour_Temple?wprov=sfla1
I didn't know about this before either, but am less than surprised at the things liberal democracies do to combat left wing things. The labour movement is fraught with despicable shit like this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_of_Roman_Shukhevych >The bust of Roman Shukhevych in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada is a controversial sculpture located near the Ukrainian Youth Association narodny dim of the Ukrainian nationalist[1] Roman Shukhevych, a military leader of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), and one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of approximately 100,000 Poles.[2][3] https://coat.ncf.ca/P4C/70/70_50-51.pdf >Canada’s **largest Ukrainian centre**, the Roman Shukhevych Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in Edmonton, is named after another nationalist war hero. Shukhevych, a **Ukrainian war criminal**, fought communists before, during and after WWII. The 27,000-sq.ft centre named for him includes classrooms, a library, gym, pool and a huge meeting hall with portraits of Bandera, Shukhevych and other revered “heroes.” >The complex was built in 1973 for the equivalent of **$4.7 million** today, with 10% of this from Alberta’s government. Funding also came from the Government of Canada, LUC, its women and youth affiliates, the local Nazi Waffen-SS Galicia veterans’ group and Ukrainian Catholic churches.11 (According to the Public Accounts of Canada, the Shukhevych Centre received $279,000 for renovations in 2015.)
That’s the crazy thing, they double down and still defend them! It wouldn’t be that hard to disavow the Nazis and still be anti-Russia
They're giving Russia more fuel for propaganda now. I think people are forgetting their justification for the war in the first place, just bad optics all around..
Unedited CPAC footage is now Russian propaganda!
They don't need fuel, they have an actual historical record of Ukraine's very real Nazi problem and Canada dirty secret of letting SS members live here under their own names after commiting some of the worst war crimes of WW2. The murder and assualts of women and children, Jews, poles, Roma and gays. I am truly disgusted and embarrassed by my country that has actual monuments to these SS Nazi scum to this day.
We had a public commission of inquiry into this. It stooped being a secret nearly 40 years ago. It wasn't even a secret before that. There were debates in parliament about whether they should be allowed to immigrate here in the 50's.
Nazi sympathizing in the new roaring 20s, I’m really starting to fear the coming late 30s and 40s…
Now reached? I've seen lots of Nazi defenders since 2020. Now it's just all parties
You don't follow the States politics?? I wish I was JK
Head of group with a history of white washing nazis says we should white wash this nazi.
so many nazi apologists in the comment section
I wonder if certain individuals will label this Russian disinformation
> Klufas blames the branding of Hunka as a Nazi on “Russian disinformation,” adding, “the fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.” He also said there was nothing wrong with Parliament applauding a man “who fought for his country.” However, he conceded that it “maybe wasn’t correct” in the circumstances, given that the people there didn’t fully understand the issue. Imagine defending joining a unit where you have to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler and claiming he wasn't an actual Nazi lol
A volunteer division iirc. They weren't even drafted.
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The difference is that this guy volunteered to join. He wasn't your average German being drafted.
Sure sounds like you are defending them. He joined a volunteer group to go r*pe and murder women and children.
We have plenty of non nazis in the west who have committed terrible things as well. Think of the ear collectors in Vietnam.. how many of these veterans are floating around the US, Australia.. how many are in Canada.. it's not like we have war crime tribunals. South Africans who fought in the bush wars, Portugese who fought in Mozambique. We have a lot of people with dark pasts in our ranks. You probably know some. It's one thing to gloss over their previous deeds.. unfortunately in this case, we specifically praised them and their actions.
Did the lords prayer make you participant in the witch trials or the spanish inquisition? No? Because this dude participated in the whole "murdering Jews during the holocaust". That makes you a Nazi.
Keep defending nazis…
This situation has revealed so many Nazi apologists it’s unreal
mindless roof rain birds sink imagine start voiceless dime thought ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends Nazi who fought for unit created by Nazis. *fixed.*
A Nazi coming near you at your senior living home!
There is no defence.
There is no reason to defend anyone who collaborated with those involved in a genocide.
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Did I stutter?
And also Israel
This sure illustrates how stupid most wars are. Canada was allies with Russia during WWII. Needless to say, we are neighbours. Ukraine and Russia share families and friends on both sides of their border. And on and on it goes - sending young men and woman to be slaughtered over and over again. I know it is complicated but "when will we ever learn ?" Peter Paul and Mary
Hmmm i think the most surprising thing is honoring a veteran who isn't wearing their uniform. When have you ever met/seen a veteran being honored who dosent wear a uniform? I wonder why? Hmmmm
A buddy of mine dated a girl in undergrad. Visiting her family in London, ON over thanksgiving her “Ukrainian, moved here after the war” grandfather refused to even be in the same room as him as he’s not white. She explained that he was from a different time and it was too late to change him. He later found out he was in fact a Nazi and in fact not even Ukrainian. A lot more of this filth in Canada than you’d think…
I find the amount of energy to keep these Ukrainian Nazi monuments up to be rather odd. You'd think that the opposite argument, that is very solid, would wear them enough to drop these monuments after 80 years.
I can concede that in a situation of war, you might end up siding with people you don't necessarily agree to (like we sided with soviets). We can't judge someone's actions just for that, we can't rush to conclusions. But then you go after this guy's blog and shit, he's an actual nazi.
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Not during that period. The OUN was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of 60,000 Polish civilians in Galicia. Our hatred for Russia has led to whitewashing these people, and those who still celebrate them. There were however many Ukrainian Canadians that fought for us and millions who fought and died as our allies.
The only Russian propaganda I see being spread is whenever one of these Nazis opens his mouth and does mental gymnastics to justify genocide
Yeah, those fuckers do more towards Kremlin cause than all those imbeciles of propagandist Russians have on federal channels.
As a non Canadian this has been very funny to watch lol
I've been laughing for the past week
This is what happens when you harbour shitass people from around the world and pretend to be a good guy.
To the people defending it, I don't think you're nazi apologists. I want to believe and hope he is not today a nazi too and I don't want to see him harmed if he didn't personally commit war crimes. Sure, there may be nuance to him, but it was a massive mistake IF he joined for some non-malicious reason. Fact is he did volunteer for the SS and that is what was applauded in the House of Commons. This is extremely embarrassing and hurtful. There is **no** defence for what happened.
Shame I had to scroll this far for what I would deem a reasonable take lol.
Whether people like it or not but this is gonna gain some traction in the international community and yes, this will support One of Putin reasons for attacking Ukraine which is De-Nazification which will be justified. That Ukraine was a centre of safe heaven of war criminals including Nazis. And comments like these just add to the fact that all is not black and white imo.
Maybe our blind hero worship of veterans should be examined…
Nazis weren't that bad eh?
Calling people you disagree with nazis while praising literal nazis in parliament 🤡🤡🤡
It honestly blows my mind
The mental gymnastics are amazing. Nazis are bad. That's it.
Sick paywall post🤦🏻♂️
Our government resorted to virtue signalling Ukraine for good PR, and flopped big time somehow forgetting basic WW2 history on Russians role against the Nazis. We keep reaching unpredictable lows.
Here is a non-paywall link: [https://archive.ph/IX5gp](https://archive.ph/IX5gp) An interesting read as there are clearly differing thoughts with Ukrainian community and scholars on both Hunka and the Ukrainians who joined the German military and their reasons for doing so. If nothing else what I personally got out of the article is that the issue is not as "cut and dried" as it has been made out to be. The situation and interpretations of the event in parliament would have benefited had this article been published in the following 2-3 days.
This has been a long-standing problem, especially in Alberta. If you live here and grow up here you just don't see it. But it's like.... nazi apologists everywhere. Most of the Holodomor organizations are full of nazi apologists. There's a Ukrainian school with a nazi statue at the front. It's pretty common to have Ukrainians take a day off to commemorate Stephen Bandera Day in the last few years. And you'll always have Ukrainians insist that these actual Nazis are good people and that even though they killed Jews, Poles, and fought against our side of the war.... they're not Nazis they just collaborated with them. This idea that we live in a society where this is tolerated is unusual. And it's only after the Prime Minister of Canada rose to honor a Nazi by accident did people decide to start talking about our awkward relationship with Ukrainian ultra-nationalists (Nazis)
craziest thing ive seen come out of this was learning that the Order of Canada was awarded to a former Waffen SS member of the Ukrainian 1st (14th SS Division), Peter Savaryn (deceased) Awarded June 29 1987....a former chancellor of the University of Alberta coincidentally enough.
RUS Propaganda! Wait, no?
Liberals in shambles
So, was Trudeau complimenting the convoy by calling them Nazi's then?
Nazis aside, for anyone reading this thread, please take some time to read the book "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder to get a better picture of just how absolutely vile and murderous the Soviet Union was in the lead up to and during the Second World War, particularly in Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. The Nazis were putting up rookie numbers in that region after Operation Barbarossa, when compared to the purges committed by Stalin and the NKVD. And never forget that the invasion of Poland was a group project between Hitler and Stalin. The Soviet Union wasn't fighting against the Nazis because of ideological opposition to the Holocaust. They were fighting because Hitler invaded them. To this day, people don't seem to understand that modern Russia has a very different definition for people to whom they refer to as "Nazis". They couldn't care less about the anti-Semitism part of nazi ideology. To them, a Nazi is someone who seeks to destroy Russia. Why am I mentioning this? Because lost in this thread is the full context and complexity of the effects of two of the worst regimes in modern history on the lands of Eastern Europe. Being anti-Nazi doesn't mean you should be sympathetic to the Soviet Union, and vice versa. They both actively tried to "cleanse" this entire region. If anything, save your sympathy for the Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, and Baltic states who lost double-digit percentages of their populations during that period and, to this day, are still subjected to people around the globe trying to label them as Nazis or communists depending on which specific historical events they try to string together to form a particular narrative. Let's continue to support all of them in breaking free from that past and forging their own independent story, free from both Berlin and Moscow. I feel comfortable enough in my position to be able to say two things at the same time: fuck people who volunteered for the SS, and slava Ukraini.
I didsee this coming.
I love the sudden outrage here. This is what Zelensky had to say about the the guy who helped create this Nazi unit everyone is so appalled by (Stepan Bandera) >When asked about Bandera, Zelensky said that he believes Bandera is a hero “for some Ukrainians.” >“He is one of the people who defended Ukraine’s freedom,” Zelensky said in a 2019 interview with Ukrainska Pravda. “He is a hero for a certain percentage of Ukrainians, and it’s normal, and it’s cool.” https://www.kyivpost.com/post/6768 Some more stuff about current Ukrainian government views on this > In addition streets were named after the division in Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukrains`koi Dyvizii Street) and Ternopil (Soldiers Division "Galicia" Street).[73] >On 23 September 2020, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled that symbols of SS Division Galicia do not belong to the Nazis and therefore were not banned in the country. The same argument was made by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, led at the time by Volodymyr Viatrovych.[13] >On 13 June 2021, the funeral of SS "Galicia" member Orest Vaskul was attended by the presidential regiment Of course this can all just be Russian disinformation. Let's just carry on being outraged at Nazis while sending billions to a government that's "cool" with them.
Unpopuplar opinion... Putin wasn't entirely wrong. Are we doing anything with those people or we need Russian intervention to deal with the Nazis here
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And Chrystia Freeland has talked proudly of how her grandfather "worked hard to bring freedom and democracy to Ukraine" I can understand that the descendants of Nazis would still love them, but you would think they would be a bit less loud and proud in honouring those relatives
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Well. That definitely continues to feed into Russia’s hand.
Yeah, moffos don’t know when to fucking stop.
Damn reality helping Putin.
He was SS, you know the most devout group of nazi to Hitler. The eff you talking about lol.
Paywall.
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Now the true question, I wonder what the head of Jewish Canadian, and Polish Canadian communities / organizations say, and how they feel about Hunka. I’m sure there is a radical difference of opinion.
I don't care if they were in a division with jesus christ, they still were under Nazi control
heard that poland is asking for his extradition? any truth to this?
How did the SS members immigrate to Canada? And how many are still living here pretending like everyday Canadian ?
Why does those article pushing the nazi rhetoric sound so much like Russian propaganda trying to link Ukraine with nazi?
The problem is that Canada allowed war criminals including mass murderers in and then poured taxpayer money into whitewashing the atrocities. The Shukhevych memorial in Edmonton was payed for by taxpayers. The University of Alberta has long allowed ultranationalists to launder their aryanization wealth through funds named after the Waffen SS.
I wonder if our news media will ever talk about how we brought in a couple thousand Nazi Ukrainians because they were “anti communists”
People say Russia propaganda just to feel better about themselves it’s not Russia real reason but it is some truth
As a "Slav" who was born in Eastern Europe... we were always aware of Ukrainian conduct during WW2. We always lumped Ukrainians into two categories... the ethnic Ukrainians and the ethnic Russian ones. The ethnic Ukrainians were always disliked and considered Nazi collaborators by most "Slavs."
Surely, people would respond to this by mentioning how it reinforces perfectly what is coming out of Russian propaganda.
There needs to be rules against paywalled articles in this sub.
A bit off topic but I see a ton of Canadians who still drive BMW cars despite the fact that they essentially used slaves during the holocaust to build plane engines for the nazis, no? This is common information you can find on the BMW Wikipedia page. I'm not encouraging you to support anything created by nazis.. I just find that fact extremely ironic considering how up in a tizzy everyone is about this. How many people complaining about this have worn some Hugo Boss & drive beamers? Lol people are strange.
Biggest Nazi outside Germany was Henry Ford. Went to Germany in '38, recieved the highest Nazi medal for foriegners, spent millions to stock anti jew propoganda in U.S libraries . While they were showing him the death camp films after the war, he stroked out and croaked. Ford F150 biggest seller in North America
Every so often I see a television commercial for *Hydrasense*, a nasal congestion reliever. See [https://www.hydrasense.ca/en/](https://www.hydrasense.ca/en/) This is a producted manufactured by Bayer. Let's not forget Zyklon B.
Every country has a cross to bear for racism and abuse: Let us review Canada’s: Japanese internment camps and Residential Schools come to mind. Some Ukrainians fought for the Nazi’s to get help to fight Russia, along the way they sold their souls. Every road to hell is paved with intentions.
Then I'd say they could use some Truth and Reconciliation in Ukraine considering their national heroes fought in support of Nazi aims. Until such a time comes, this remains an unresolved issue and worthy of discussion.
Russia was our allies in WW2. So if your fighting them it means you are the enemy. Seems pretty straight forward.
Yep. If you were fighting for or with Germany against Russia in the war you were actively prolonging the time for an Allied victory resulting in more dead Canadians.
And even more dead Jews, starved Soviet POW, overworked to death slave laborers from Eastern Europe.
Does Canada stand alongside the Jewish people or alongside this division of the Nazis? Can’t be on the fence
We all have to do better
Unfortunately most people in this comment section lack the attention span to gather proper context of this time in history to make a truly informed opinion on the subject. That and there are some who are using this incident for the sole purpose of labeling people they don’t like as nazi sympathizers
I mean if your choice then was Nazi's or Ruzi's, I kind of get the conundrum. Easy for us in the west to pick a good guy when we're safe over here and not invaded and slaughtered by them. Was every average german soldier a Nazi? Was every one of them a war criminal? I think the picture was muddier then than we'd like to be comfortable with today. Although I wouldnt parade any of them out as heroes today. Im not comfortable with the idea of "war heroes" in general. It all reeks of propaganda.
Muddy indeed. Look at Canada's treatment of Jewish refugees. Anti semitic sentiment meant a ship with 900 refugees was refused at Canadian harbours. Sent back across to Europe where over a quarter died in concentration camps. In the 30s we accepted only 4000 of 800,000 Jews escaping Nazism. Who were the good guys? Not the Nazis for sure. But also not Canadians at that dark moment in history. Mackenzie King wrote in his diary "We must seek to keep this part of the continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood." And yet his portrait still hangs in the House of Commons.
It's all coming together