I remember not long ago in Canada when a Nazi was a Nazi. When we didn’t try to downplay how bad a Nazi was or tried to figure out how many Jews or Poles he killed before kicking him out of Parliament. What led our country down this path?
Since the revelation that Parliament honoured a Nazi soldier many Canadians have started asking questions about our country.
Yaroslav Hunka is among 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers who volunteered to fight with the Nazis in WW2. 2,000 of those soldiers in the 14th Wafen-SS Galacian Division settled in Canada after the war. The Nuremberg Trials in 1946 concluded that all SS divisions were Nazi units and had committed war crimes. The Galacian unit was by all accounts a Nazi force.
But this past weekend, the leader of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada defended Hunka and said there was “nothing wrong with applauding him”.
Many newspapers are now trying to downplay the significance of Nazis in Parliament. In North Bay (where the Hunka family resides), there seems to be more support for Hunka than there is criticism of Rota or Parliament.
It all seems very bizarre. That in 2023, it would be acceptable to defend Nazis in Canada. That it would be understandable that 338 MP forgot who the “Allies” were during WW2. That Canada would still openly glorify a Nazi Unit that murdered a thousand civilians (killing just one civilian on purpose is generally considered a war crime).
"They massacred entire villages of Polish residents in this region… including women and children because they were accused of being associated with Soviet partisans. This was just mass murder without any real justification” - Ivan Katchanovski Ph.D, Ukrainian-Canadian University of Ottawa Political Science Professor
I remember not long ago in Canada when a Nazi was a Nazi. When we didn’t try to downplay how bad a Nazi was or tried to figure out how many Jews or Poles he killed before kicking him out of Parliament.
What led our country down this path? What changed between 1945 to today? I spent the last few days trying to understand my country’s strange behaviour.
To start I wanted to understand the significance of the 2,000 Nazi soldiers that settled in Canada after WW2. Here’s what I discovered. Although only a small portion of the over one million Ukrainian-Canadians today arrived in the 1940s, many important Ukrainian figures in our political system come from the Nazi era immigrants. This might explain our country’s slow acceptance of Nazism and the WW2 atrocities.
Natalka Cmoc, Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine
Earlier this year, Canada appointed a new Ambassador to Ukraine. When introducing Natalka Cmoc who is a first time ambassador, Justin Trudeau described her as having “deep connections to Ukraine”. Cmoc told CTV News that it was an honour to be assigned to “the land of my grandparents”.
Her connections are indeed deep. It appears her family came to Canada shortly after the war and were actively involved with extremist groups that supported the Nazis. An obituary for her paternal aunt, Olga Bilas (sister of Cmoc’s grandmother’s) says the family came to Canada shortly after WW2. Her 2014 obituary says that the Bilas family was forced to leave Ukraine in 1944 because of the “invasion of the Soviet Army”. In 1944 the Soviets were an Ally and their “invasion” was to rid the country of its Nazi occupation.
Bilas’ eulogy also mentions that she was an active member of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). Wikipedia describes the OUN as one of the most important far-right organizations operating in Ukraine before WW2 with an ideology known to have been influenced by German Nazism. Many scholars claim that the OUN’s goal were to create an ethnically homogenous and totalitarian Ukrainian state. The organization frequently used terrorism and assassinations to advance their ideas. The OUN strongly collaborated with the Nazis during WW2 and supported the formation of the 14th Wafen-SS Division.
Bilas’s parents (Cmoc’s great-grandparents) are listed as Eva Danylyshyn and Dmytro Bilas from Truskavetz. Coincidentally in 1931, a OUN member from Truskavetz named Dmytro Danylyshyn (father’s first name and mother’s last name) became famous for assassinating a popular Polish politician. Danylyshyn’s accomplice was a man named Vysal Bilas.
Alexandra Chyczij, President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) was created in the 1940s and has grown to be the largest and most powerful Ukrainian organization in Canada. Their website boasts that the organization has been “instrumental in shaping Canada’s social, economic and political landscape”. They frequently meet with politicians including our Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland. They have urged Canada to continue to provide financial assistance to Ukraine (now at $9.5B since 2022).
Alexandra Chyczij who in 2017 attributed factual claims that Canada had Nazi monuments to “Russian disinformation”, is now the President of UCC. A Kiev Post article from 2021 states that Chyczij’s parents and grandparents also arrived in Canada shortly after WW2. It appears her family may have been on the side of the Germans as well. Her mother’s obituary in 2020 describes her family’s eventual emigration to Canada with the passage: “the defeat of the Nazis in the Battle of Stalingrad paved the way for a return of Soviet terror to Ukraine, millions of Ukrainian refugees fled to seek refuge in western Europe”. The Battle of Stalingrad occured in 1942-43, 2 years before the end of the war and is regarded as a critical victory for the Allied forces in WW2. Presumably those fleeing west after Stalingrad would have seeked refuge in Nazi occupied territories.
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Deputy Prime-Minister
When reports surfaced in 2017 that Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator as well, she discounted it as, you guessed it… “Russian disinformation”.
Luckily, Canada’s largest newspaper didn’t take her word for it. The Ottawa Citizen went digging and found that Michael Chomiak was indeed a Nazi. He was in charge of a very important Nazi newspaper. They even discovered that he had to move to Austria during the war to continue editing his paper after the Soviets advanced too far.
The Globe & Mail uncovered that Freeland herself was well aware of her grandfather’s past since at least the 1990s. They also noted that Freeland had frequently praised and paid tribute to her Nazi grandfather in articles, books and scholarly articles before she became a politician.
Conclusion
This may be just a coincidence or the tip of the iceberg. There is no debating the fact that Canada accepted Nazis after the war. Many of the powerful Ukrainian voices and organization in Canada are led by direct descendants of these immigrants. These organizations have repeatedly come to the defence of the 14th Wafen-SS Galacian Division and extremist groups such as the OUN. This might explain the eventual normalization of Nazism in Canada.
Last week, Jewish MP, Melissa Lantsman said “Canadians need to know more about the country's dark history of letting Nazis through the door to live here in peace and security."
I agree. But what if Canada’s “dark history” of Nazi appeasement in 1945 was just the beginning? What if allowing these people in, free of judgements and punishment, allowed for the normalization of their crimes? What if that normalization is finally giving their descendants the opportunity to be proud of their Nazi heritage?
Rejean Venne is a regular newsletter providing insight and analysis on Canadian issues. Please consider becoming a subscriber.
Very interesting article Rejean. Great job on the research... keep going!
Let's not let this episode minimize the evil of the USSR, however. I certainly have sympathy for the many Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians and others who fled to the West ahead of Soviet tanks.
Important information. What happened in parliament was the combined result of ignorance and, unfortunately, for some people, positive emotional attachment to Nazism. Stirling (in the comment below), I agree with you that the atrocities committed by the USSR should not be minimized. However, the implied argument that some people are making--that it is "okay" to celebrate an SS soldier as a freedom fighter for Ukraine-- is deeply manipulative. The SS was not about freedom and was not about liberty. It was a murderous and obsessive organization dedicated to the annihilation of innocent civilians. Its main obsession was the murder and physical and psychological torture of the Jews--but indeed it had many other victims. Foreign SS soldiers were attracted to the SS by deeply entrenched Jew hate and by the idea that they themselves were branded as superior beings. Foreign SS soldiers were entirely subjugated to Hitler-ruled Germany. But when the Nazi boot was no longer there, they "reinvented" their story as if they were freedom fighters. No atrocity by the USSR justifies this rewriting of history.