There are simple mistakes, and then there are mistakes on such a scale that SOMEONE should have caught it before it happened. Such a “mistake” happened in Canada on Friday, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota, now says he “regrets” what happened.
Brace yourselves, it is a doozy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Canada, where he gave a speech in the House of Commons last Friday. This was after Zelensky shook down the United Nations for more money, and got some quality time with Joe Biden. Trudeau’s invitation to Zelensky to give a speech? Not a problem.
What WAS a problem was the guest that the House of Commons Speaker, Anthony Rota, decided to bring in, and recognize during his own speech, a 98 year old Ukrainian man named Yaroslav Hunka, from his own district. In these remarks, Hunka is described as a “World War II veteran” who fought against the Russians. There was a moment during those remarks that Speaker Rota may have realized they had a problem, but he just kept going.
You can see Speaker Rota doing some quick on the spot math in his head.
"from the second world war who fought… against the Russians… … …" pic.twitter.com/tMiwVBrlu8
— Stephen Taylor (@stephen_taylor) September 24, 2023
Remember that at the time, Russia was the Soviet Union. If one was fighting in World War II against the Russians, then…. uh oh.
Just after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address in the House of Commons on Friday, Canadian lawmakers gave 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka a standing ovation when Speaker Anthony Rota drew attention to him. Rota introduced Hunka as a war hero who fought for the First Ukrainian Division.
Canadian lawmakers cheered and Zelenskyy raised his fist in acknowledgement as Hunka saluted from the gallery during two separate standing ovations. Rota called him a “Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”
The First Ukrainian Division was also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
This wasn’t just some conscripted Ukrainian soldier who ended up in the German army during World War II. THIS IS THE SS WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. And the unit deliberately changed their name in order to AVOID being identified with the SS.
Formed in 1943, SS Galichina was composed of recruits from the Galicia region in western Ukraine. The unit was armed and trained by the Nazis and commanded by German officers. In 1944, the division was visited by SS head Heinrich Himmler, who spoke of the soldiers’ willingness to slaughter Poles.”
Three months earlier, SS Galichina subunits perpetrated what is known as the Huta Pieniacka massacre, burning 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers alive.
During the Nuremberg Trials, the International Military Tribunal declared the Waffen-SS to be a criminal organization responsible for mass atrocities including the “persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners.”
After the war, thousands of SS Galichina veterans were allowed to resettle in the West, around 2,000 of them in Canada. By then, the unit was universally known as the First Ukrainian Division.
A blog by an association of its veterans, called “Combatant News” in Ukrainian, includes an autobiographical entry by a Yaroslav Hunka that says he volunteered to join the division in 1943 and several photographs of him during the war. The captions say the pictures show Hunka during SS artillery training in Munich in December 1943 and in Neuhammer (now Świętoszów), Poland, the site of Himmler’s visit.
In posts to the blog dated 2011 and 2010, Hunka describes 1941 to 1943 as the happiest years of his life and compares the veterans of his unit, who were scattered across the world, to Jews.
Canada has two monuments to the unit, one in a Wayville, which is outside Toronto, the other in Edmonton. Canadian Jewish organizations have called for their removal.
Canadian journalist Ezra Levant did the legwork on this one in a Twitter/X thread. And if this information was easy enough for him to find, then WHY did Rota or his office NOT know about Yaroslav Hunka’s actual background and service???
https://twitter.com/ezralevant/status/1705816365251080456
And not only did Hunka get a standing ovation from the House of Commons, he was also at a private reception with Trudeau and Zelensky, which Hunka’s daughter-in-law said on Facebook was set up by Rota.
There is this thing called the internet, and apparently no one in Rota’s office knows how to run a search on Google or Bing or whatever they like using. They are also apparently too stupid to follow the logical path and realize that if one was fighting Russia – an Allied power at the time – during World War II, then that meant something rather different than it does now.
Anthony Rota, now being confronted with his own colossal f**k up, is sorta kinda apologizing. But he’s only apologizing to the Jews. Apologize to his colleagues, for having them stand and applaud a 98 year old Nazi? Apologize to Canadians at large for screwing up? Nope. Just going to apologize to the Jews.
HoC Speaker, Anthony Rota, says the decision to invite a Ukrainian veteran who served in a Nazi military unit in WW2 to Zelensky’s speech, was “entirely” his own.
“I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world” #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/n3pnwWwGdI
— Mackenzie Gray (@Gray_Mackenzie) September 24, 2023
Trudeau, who stood and applauded, is more than happy to throw Rota straight under the bus.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office said in a statement to Fox News Digital on Sunday that the “Speaker of the House has apologized and accepted full responsibility for issuing the invitation and for the recognition in Parliament.”
“This was the right thing to do,” the office continued. “No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition.”
“Canada will continue to stand for a free Ukraine, and we were proud to host President Zelenskyy and reaffirm our support.”
However, it is a little shocking that Zelensky, a Ukrainian of Jewish descent, didn’t connect the dots. No one will be asking him about that, though, I’m sure.
What happens now? Well, some Jewish groups are demanding an explanation. I don’t think this letter from Anthony Rota is going to cut it.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies issued a statement Sunday saying the division “was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
“An apology is owed to every Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Second World War who fought the Nazis, and an explanation must be provided as to how this individual entered the hallowed halls of Canadian Parliament and received recognition from the Speaker of the House and a standing ovation,” the statement said.
B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO, Michael Mostyn, said it was outrageous that Parliament honored a former member of a Nazi unit, saying Ukrainian “ultra-nationalist ideologues” who volunteered for the Galicia Division “dreamed of an ethnically homogenous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”
“We understand an apology is forthcoming. We expect a meaningful apology. Parliament owes an apology to all Canadians for this outrage, and a detailed explanation as to how this could possibly have taken place at the center of Canadian democracy,” Mostyn said before Rota issued his statement.
You can also bet that Conservative politicians want some answers as well.
Members of Parliament from all parties rose to applaud Hunka. A spokesperson for the Conservative party said the party was not aware of his history at the time.
“We find the reports of this individual’s history very troubling,” said Sebastian Skamski, adding that Trudeau’s Liberal party would have to explain why he was invited.
Anthony Rota is going to end up taking the fallout directly on the chin, and Trudeau will have no problem letting him – or making him – take the hit. This is an international embarrassment for Canada, and there is no way that Justin Trudeau is going to take responsibility for this one. I’m guessing that it’s going to be a very interesting week up in Ottawa, and if Speaker Anthony Rota still has his leadership position in the House of Commons by next weekend, then we might know why Canada hasn’t removed those monuments to a Ukrainian Waffen-SS unit yet.
Featured image: Anthony Rota by Michael Ignatieff on Flickr, cropped, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)
[…] blog of the day is Victory Girls Blog, with a post on Nazis in […]
One should always, always, always remember that, on the Eastern Front, there were NO heroes. There were those who fought for the tyrannical, murderous Nazi German regime – and there were those who fought for the tyrannical, murderous Soviet Russian regime.
The choice of which regime to fight for (and you fought, no opt-out there) usually came down to the answer to one question: “Is this tyrannical, murderous regime killing MY people, my family, my neighbors in job lots? Or is it the other one?”
Many Ukrainians did join the Germans. They did help them to commit atrocities, killing Poles, Jews, ethnic Russians, etc. in job lots. But not fellow Ukrainians.
Pray that neither you nor yours ever find themselves with such a Devil’s choice to make.
Hate_me says: Not every Waffen-SS enlistee – especially those from satellite nations against the Russians – were Nazis, and many were honorable and capable soldiers. They were on the losing side, even the “wrong” side of that war, but they were not evil.
Exhibit A: Lauri Allan Törni – Finnish Army, Waffen-SS Division Wiking, US Army Special Forces; veteran of the WWII (Winter War, Continuation War, Eastern Front) and the Vietnam War (KIA, Operation Shining Brass). He fought for Germany during WWII, not because he was a Nazi but because he was anti-communist. He is rightfully interred at Arlington.
Military service and wartime allegiance is much more nuanced than revisionist historians make it out to be.
Canada’s government is currently very fucked up and they threw mud in their own eye on this – that doesn’t mean Hunka was anything but an honorable soldier and the SS label for foreign units is not nearly as damning as it might be for German troops.
Liz says: “He fought for Germany during WWII, not because he was a Nazi but because he was anti-communist”
I’m certain he mostly fought against the Soviets because they invaded Finland.
Liz says: I don’t think the Finnish “SS” soldier defending his homeland and a Ukrainian SS fighting on the eastern front is a reasonable comparison.
Liz says: FWIW, just to add, the Nazis and Soviets were on the same side when the Soviets invaded Finland. It is likely the poor performance of the Soviets (by comparison to the “fighting Fins” who lost but made sure it was a pyrrhic victory) led to the Nazi invasion of the USSR.
Perhaps not a “defender” – but a “revolutionary.” Against a regime that committed the Katyn Forest Massacre and the halt in place during the Warsaw Uprising. Among many, many other Soviet atrocities during the war.
Many Ukrainians (and Latvians, and Lithuanians, and Estonians, and even western Russian) welcomed the German Army with open arms as “liberators.” At least at first, until they realized the German SS troops were just as bad as the Soviet NKJB.
Hate_me says: Plenty of Finnish men (almost entirely left-wing) fought on the Soviet side, as well, during the Winter War.
Törni didn’t only fight on his Finnish homeland, he also fought in Germany during the Eastern Front as part of the German army. Aside from his later service for the US, his story is largely analogous to Hunka’s. Neither should be personally damned for what others did under the same flag.
Hell, 94 individuals from our own Greatest Generation are buried in dishonor (for rape, murder, or both) at the Oise-Aisne Plot E. There were monsters on every side, but no unit was made up exclusively of such. The difference is of scale, not principle. Short of actual evidence of his part in atrocity, I’ll extend Hunka the benefit of the doubt as having served with honor.
Sadly, I have a feeling he’ll now face a good deal of harassment from those who see only a binary version of history.
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