The National Post is reporting on controversial Canadian monuments to Ukrainians who volunteered to fight with the Waffen-SS starting in 1943. A large number of those who fought in the division immigrated to Canada after the war, aided in part by intervention from the Roman Catholic Church. While the immediate context of the controversy is critical comments from the Russian embassy (possibly with questionable motives), some of those quoted advocate more critical thought within the Ukrainian community about the wartime roles of their compatriots:
“It would be refreshing and perhaps a form of self-healing …” writes University of Alberta professor David Marples in a 2007 book on “heroes and villains” in Ukrainian national history, “if Ukrainians could offer a conception of their recent past that looked at all aspects of these events, recognizing in passing that heroes could be criminals.”
One of the monuments in question is at St. Volodymyr Cemetery in Oakville, Ont. It commemorates a major battle, the Brody, fought by the Ukrainian Galician Division of the German Waffen-SS against the Soviet Red Army, during which more than three-quarters of the Ukrainian soldiers perished.
The article also describes potential involvement of future Galician Division soldiers in anti-Semitic actions and war crimes. A spokesperson for the B’nai Brith is quoted saying that they would oppose future such monuments, but do not object to the existing ones remaining in place.
The article mentions the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada (Deschênes Commission) which concluded in 1986 “that members of the Galician Division who immigrated to Canada hadn’t had charges against them substantiated”. I was once able to briefly speak with a former commission member at a Massey College event, but he did little but reiterate the high level conclusions of the commission.
I should read Marples’ book.
Ukrainian-Canadian community urged to confront WWII past amid controversy over monuments
Marie-Danielle Smith
OTTAWA — They were played up in October, and continued to trickle out through November: amid tweets about tennis, ambassadorial photo-ops and United States politics, Russia’s embassy in Canada posted several comments about Canadian monuments to a Ukrainian independence leader and to soldiers from the Galician Division of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS.
A military division formed in 1943, the Galician was made up of Ukrainians rallying against Soviet occupiers, whom Nazis were battling. Russian tweets about monuments to the Second World War fighters — “Nazi collaborators,” as the Russians describe them, or Ukrainian freedom fighters, as many in Canada’s Ukrainian community prefer to think of them — have rekindled a longstanding debate over how Ukrainian-Canadians should commemorate their forebears.
…
“It would be refreshing and perhaps a form of self-healing …” writes University of Alberta professor David Marples in a 2007 book on “heroes and villains” in Ukrainian national history, “if Ukrainians could offer a conception of their recent past that looked at all aspects of these events, recognizing in passing that heroes could be criminals.”
The speaker of Canada’s Parliament, Anthony Rota, resigned, after he introduced a 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian to a parliamentary session as a war “hero” for fighting for Ukrainian independence. After the session, which was attended by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, it emerged that the man had fought in a unit under ss Nazi command against the Russians.
https://www.economist.com/the-world-this-week/2023/09/28/politics
University of Alberta under fire for not acting on over $1-million in donations linked to Waffen-SS unit
Failure to return Waffen SS veteran donations bemuses University of Alberta faculty
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-university-of-alberta-donations-waffen-ss-unit/