I’ve Gotta Attribute This to Malice

I can understand an honest mistake, but given the known history of WWII, and the public pronouncement by Vladimir Putin about Nazis in the Ukraine (spoiler, there are a f%$# tonne of Nazis every country in Europe).

That the Speaker of the House in the Canadian Parliament called for, and got, a standing ovation for a former SS member for their service in WWII is no accident.

When he called for this there is no way that he could not have known that this man,Yaroslav Hunka (יִמַּח שְׁמו), was collaborating with the Nazis, particularly given the reporting in Canada about Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland lying about her grandfather's collaboration from the Nazis is absurd.

Someone with more authority than the speaker, his role is largely bureaucratic and procedural, had to have made this decision consciously, for reasons that are unclear.

It could have been someone pandering to Canada's Ukrainian community, they constitute about 4% of the population, it could have been someone trying to sabotage Zelensky's visit, or it could have been someone trying to send some sort of other message.

In any case, this should require a more thorough investigation.

The statement by Speaker Anthony Rota which is basically ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.  He said that he did not know and he's very sorry.  Bullsh%$.

The Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation on Friday to a 98-year-old immigrant from Ukraine who fought in a Third Reich military formation accused of war crimes.

The elderly veteran, Yaroslav Hunka was honored during a session in which President Volodomyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the lawmakers to thank them for their support since Russia invaded his country, saying Canada has always been on “the bright side of history.” The Speaker of the House of Commons, Anthony Rota — who had compared Zelenskyy to Winston Churchill — recognized a “veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”

If you fought "the Russians" (actually fought the USSR) in the 2nd world war, you were fighting for the Nazis. This is inescapable historical fact.

Rota knew. The only question is who told him to do this.

………

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.

………

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.

(Emphasis mine)

Nazi SS members like the Jews?

Unf%$#ing believable.

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.

It is unclear whether Zelenskyy knew that Hunka fought with the unit. In 2021, the Ukrainian president joined the governments of Israel and Germany in denouncing a march honoring SS Galichina in Kyiv.

I'd really like to see someone to get to the bottom of this. 

I don't think that anyone will, but I would really like them to do so.