After refusing to provide the identities of 900 suspected Nazi war criminals who escaped to Canada during World War Two, Justin Trudeau has provoked uproar.
Jewish groups have called the decision, ‘disgraceful’ and say it dishonors Holocaust victims and survivors.
The Canadian government is concealing the list of names amid fears it could be too embarrassing for the country, TNC reports.
After the war, a significant number of Ukrainian SS Waffen troopers moved to Canada.
Officials said there are also concerns the list could be used as Russian propaganda against Ukraine amid Vladimir Putin’s ongoing invasion of the eastern European nation.
The list of members of the Nazi-led SS Galicia unit was compiled by the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada.
The panel then met with members of the Ukrainian community and ‘discrete group of individuals or organizations’ to consult on whether the names should be released.
But they did not meet with any Holocaust survivors or advocates pushing for the list’s release, the Ottawa Citizen reports.
The Jewish non-profit organisation B’nai Brith expressed disapproval of the decision.
‘For decades, B’nai Brith & David Matas, B’nai Brith Canada’s senior legal counsel, have fought for full access—only to face endless delays and stonewalling,’ the organization said.
‘Canada is withholding hundreds of Nazi war crimes files from the public. This disgraceful secrecy dishonours survivors and denies justice.’
Bernie Farber, who is the son of a Holocaust survivor and a past member of the Canadian Jewish Congress, branded the decision ‘a shameful blot’.
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of advocacy and policy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, also expressed anger.
‘Absolutely disgusted by the government’s decision to continue to conceal the truth about the Nazi war criminals who moved to Canada and enjoyed total impunity,’ she said in a post on X.
‘What a grave insult to those who suffered at their barbaric hands. What a slap in the face to our great veterans.’
The list makes up the second part of the Deschênes Commission report, which began with a two-year inquiry in the 1980s.
The first part was released in 1986 and admitted that Nazis had been permitted to enter Canada and were residing there.
Campaigners including Jewish and Polish groups as well as the United Ukrainian Canadians have long been pushing for the latter half of the report to be released.
However, they were overruled by other Ukrainian heritage groups including the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.
It comes after Canadian officials were heavily criticized for inviting former SS soldier Yaroslav Hunka to parliament where he was hailed as a war veteran and given a standing ovation.
House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota was forced to apologize after he recognized Hunka, 99, as ‘a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians’ and ‘a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero.’
In 1944, Hunka’s unit – the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division – was visited by SS leader Heinrich Himmler, who branded Jewish people a ‘dirty blemish’ and said his men would be ‘eager’ to ‘liquidate the Poles’.
There is still debate about the division’s role in war crimes and atrocities, especially during the German occupation of Ukraine.
In the face of the intense criticism, Rota was ultimately compelled to step down over the error.
There are probably many Canadian elites who are connected, just like the US. Let’s not forget many were given new identities and given jobs. Oh, and don’t forget ‘Operation Paperclip.’
For those of you who have no idea what ‘Operation Paperclip’ was. It was a secret US intelligence programme in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians were taken from Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II in Europe, between 1945 and 1959, several were former members of the Nazi Party.
The endeavour started in earnest in 1945, as the Allies advanced into Germany and uncovered a wealth of scientific dexterity and advanced research that had contributed to Germany’s wartime technological advancements.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff officially launched Operation Overcast (operations “Overcast” and “Paperclip” were related, and the terms are frequently used interchangeably) on July 20, 1945, with the dual aims of leveraging German expertise for the continuous war effort against Japan and to strengthen U.S. postwar military research.
The operation, conducted by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA), was essentially actioned by special agents of the U.S. Army’s Counterintelligence Corps (CIC).
Numerous selected scientists were involved in the Nazi rocket program, aviation, or chemical/biological warfare. The Soviet Union executed a similar program, called Operation Osoaviakhim, that highlighted many of the same fields of research.
The operation, characterized by the recruitment of German specialists and their families, resettled more than 6000 experts to the US. It has been valued at US $10 billion in patents and industrial processes.
Recruits included such prominent figures as Wernher von Braun, a leading rocket-technology scientist. Those recruited were instrumental in the development of the U.S. space program and military technology during the Cold War.
Despite its contributions to American scientific advances, Operation Paperclip has been controversial because of the Nazi affiliations of numerous recruits, and the ethics of assimilating individuals associated with war crimes into American civilisation.
The operation was not only concentrated on rocketry; endeavours were directed toward synthetic fuels, medicine, and other fields of research. Notable advancements in aeronautics cultivated rocket and space-flight technologies key in the Space Race. The process played a vital role in the establishment of NASA and the success of the Apollo missions to the Moon.
Operation Paperclip was part of a wider approach by the US to harness German scientific talent in the face of emerging Cold War pressures and ensure this expertise did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union or other countries. The operation’s legacy has remained controversial in subsequent decades.
On September 22, 2023, Speaker Anthony Rota, the Member of Parliament for Hunka’s constituency, welcomed Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian Canadian who served in the SS Division Galicia of the Waffen-SS, the Nazi Party’s military branch, to the House of Commons of Canada for recognition.
All members of the house, including visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and other party leaders, gave Hunka two standing ovations.
The Forward first revealed that Hunka was a member of the Waffen-SS, citing a tweet from scholar Ivan Katchanovski. The story gained international prominence after being picked up by the Canadian media.
The incident, seen as a political indiscretion and a scandal, such that it attracted comparisons to the most discomfiting moments in Canada’s history, was leveraged by the Russian establishment to further its reasons for waging war in Ukraine, which had been initiated under a pretext of “denazification”, among other stated reasons.
Rota quit as speaker five days later, and the House unanimously assumed a motion to condemn Nazism and revoke its praise of Hunka. Prime Minister Trudeau and Canadian government officials apologized to the worldwide Jewish community.
The handling of suspected World War II war criminals in Canada became a renewed matter of public interest.
Tragic for every victim and their loved ones, and it’s time for Trudeau to go – he needs to step down!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 