This is the best summary I could come up with:
The incident drew widespread international criticism after it was revealed Hunka was a member of a mostly volunteer unit created by the Nazis to fight the Soviet Union.
Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian-Canadian political science professor at the University of Ottawa, says the actions of Hunka’s Waffen-SS Galicia Division have been “whitewashed” in Canada.
In 1950, the federal cabinet decided to allow Ukrainians living in the United Kingdom to come to Canada “notwithstanding their service in the German army," as long as they went through a security screening.
In response to questions about Hunka, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said Thursday that the people of present-day Ukraine, including its Jewish population, suffered successive occupations by “foreign empires and colonizers” going back centuries.
John-Paul Himka, a University of Alberta professor emeritus and the author of a book about Ukrainians and the Holocaust, said many of the young men who joined the Galicia division in 1943 were motivated by the atrocities they witnessed under Soviet occupation, including the murder of thousands of political prisoners and mass deportations to labour camps.
Klufas blames the branding of Hunka as a Nazi on “Russian disinformation,” adding, “the fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.” He also said there was nothing wrong with Parliament applauding a man “who fought for his country.” However, he conceded that it “maybe wasn’t correct” in the circumstances, given that the people there didn’t fully understand the issue.
The original article contains 947 words, the summary contains 242 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
the fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.
But he was a soldier that volunteered to fight for a Nazi unit. He literally chose to join the Nazis.
This might be a case of an expert being overly pedantic whereas the public doesn’t really care because if it quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck
I mean, at least in this summary (the article is pay-gated) it sounds like his point is valid. The line, “The fact that he was a soldier does not mean that he was a Nazi.”, seems suspect, but I assume by “Nazi” he means the ideology or the political party directly, which could be true. Again, working purely off the summary. As Himka stated, those in Ukranian divisions may have been motivated to volunteer by fear of continued Soviet atrocities after witnessing the Holodomor and other crimes against humanity, or by vengence for these crimes.
If Yaroslav Hunka did join for these reasons, I think the matter is a lot more grey. If you watched your family and friends die to a violent, genocidal government, its not weird that you might be willing to work with another if you think they’re a less immediately dangerous. Of course, if thats not the case, or he did support the Nazi party, the ideology, or if he was involved in any of the division’s war crimes, then all of this is out the window and he deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law. My point is that he should be proven guilty before being counted as a supporter of the Nazi ideology, and there is still room for error currently (unless there’s social media posts or other evidence I don’t know of).
Edit: And just to be extra clear in case it wasn’t obvious, I think supporters of the Nazi ideology, its modern incarnations, facists, and racists are all terrible. I think anyone who supports these belefs should be denounced and avoided. I just also believe that it is important to be certain of the accusation of something so awful before condeming someone for them.
Geez, if it ain’t embarrassing enough after regrets, apologies and resignation in Canada, now we have justifications.
You don’t understand, it’s different!! Sarcasm. He was a hero of his time, even Zelensky applauded him! Zelensky whose grandfather fought with the German fascist scum, and now you see for yourself what is happening… The West is pumping Ukraine with weapons, it is nullifying everything that the Russians created, because the Russians are evil! As someone said, the Russians really liked that someone crap with this moronic situation… The West will always find an excuse for itself, the Russians are to blame for everything.
grandfather fought with the German fascist scum
Well this is straight up false - in fact his grandfather fought in the red army against the Nazis, and lost his siblings AND father in the Holocaust.
“The president applauded someone introduced as a Ukrainian war hero, who was afterwards revealed to have been a nazi” does not retroactively legitimise the illegal Russian war of aggression.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, is aggravating geopolitical tensions and divisions, threatening regional stability, increasing the nuclear threat, and creating deep fissures in our increasingly multipolar world.
- UN Secretary-General in remarks to the Security Council debate on Maintenance of Peace and Security of Ukraine, 20 September ’23
Nobody is arguing that the Nazi deserved any of the respect he was given, to the extent that it has become an international scandal that he was allowed in the building.
it is nullifying everything that the Russians created
This is the really revealing part of your imperialist rant. You have decided that Ukraine is a “russian creation” that intrinsically belongs to them, rather than a sovereign nation that has a right to self determination. This is despite the fact that Russia is a signatory to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which obligates Russia not to use military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, except in self defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, in exchange for their giving up nuclear weapons.
Ukraine has not violated this agreement, nor been an aggressor against the Russian Federation.
As such, the Russo-Ukrainian war is an illegal war of aggression under international law, and the Russian Federation’s occupation of Crimea and the Donbas is illegal.
Russians are not “evil”. Putin, however, most certainly is, and he deserves to stand trial in front of the international criminal court.
Just leave Ukraine and the war ends. It’s that fucking easy. Get out.
The “nullifying everything Russia did” comment reminds me of British people who continue to insist that colonization was “beneficial” to all the people that were colonized, and how people like DeSantis say that slavery was “beneficial” to black people
Right-wingers all operate on the same basic playbook. It just gets more obvious as the right-wing is radicalising and moving further to the far right (where Russia already sits).