Wouldn’t you think Canadian MPs would know a little about WWII? It’s a long time ago but not that long, and anyway it cast a very long shadow. A very very very fucking long shadow, on account of the many millions of people who were killed, and on account of the gruesome specter of genocide. On account of the UN and the UDHR, on account of nuclear weapons, on account of the Bloodlands.
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6 responses to “Be careful what you give a standing ovation for”
There is another perspective. I don’t have the specific knowledge to determine the truth, but as the article notes…
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/09/25/did-canada-parliament-really-invite-nazi-yaroslav-hunka/
Is UNN a trustworthy entity? Sounds Russian to me…
There’s this oldish article. Link then was to the UKIP party’s new far right leaders
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/03/new-ukip-gerard-batten-corbyn-hard-right-momentum
I couldn’t find anything explicitly pro-Russian on their website or Telegram, although I didn’t look for long. Certainly anti-gay, ~trans, ~Muslim, ~EU, ~Ukraine, ~left, ~ UK Conservative, in fact pretty much anything that doesn’t stink of alt-right. The article I link to claims a relationship with infowars, so toss in the typical grab bag of conspiracies and most likely Russian sympathy.
I knew a woman whose family immigrated from Ukraine as political refugees during the Cold War. Her father was a doctor who fought in the Resistance against the Nazis, and as soon as World War II was over the Soviet Allies turned on a dime and her father’s resistance turned just as quickly against the Soviets. She said that the KGB never forgets, and I asked if she would go back to Ukraine for a visit after the fall of the Soviet Union. She said that even though her father was dead, she would be marked by the FSB and perhaps kidnapped to Russia. The FSB is largely the KGB with new badges. The KGB never forgets, even if they have a new name. It’s very tangled, the history of Ukraine’s struggle against Russian attempts to claim it.
Was he a soldier caught up in any attempt to keep away the Russians? Or did he actually believe in the full cause of the Galician SS?
Meanwhile, the 30th SS Galician Division (Ukrainian) defected to the French partisans. August 27th, 1944.
Some additional background info:
https://forward.com/fast-forward/561927/zelenskyy-joins-canadian-parliaments-ovation-to-98-year-old-veteran-who-fought-with-nazis/
https://forward.com/fast-forward/561961/trudeau-apologizes-for-ovation-to-98-year-old-ukrainian-who-fought-with-the-nazis/
Nuremberg declared the entire Waffen-SS responsible for mass atrocities throughout the war. Which is not to say that every single soldier subscribed to Nazism, but there is certainly a long history of anti-semitism from Ukrainians in Canada.