As the magic eight-ball says: All signs point to ‘yes.’ The estimable Ezra Levant, a Canadian hero in the fight for freedom of expression, broke this news in this thread late last night:
2. The Nazis were in Hitler's 14th Waffen SS Division Galicia. According to military historian/journalist David Pugliese, they were able to sneak into Canada by changing their name and hiding their past.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
4. That was nearly 80 years ago, so most of those Nazis have since died. But one of them is apparently still alive -- Yaroslav Hunka. And if I'm reading the news correctly, Trudeau invited him as an honoured guest today, to Zelenskyy's visit to Canada's Parliament.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
6. It says,
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recognize Yaroslav Hunka, who was in attendance and fought with the First Ukrainian Division in the Second World War before later immigrating to Canada, in the House of Commons on Friday.
8. Hunka was introduced to Parliament as a 98-year-old soldier “who fought… against the Russians… a hero.” pic.twitter.com/R8b0a1Gu2u
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
10. And last year, Chrystia Freeland held up a scarf promoting a far-right Ukrainian Nationalist movement linked to Neo-Nazis commemorating Stefan Bandera, the Nazi criminal. Freeland deleted her social media posts, but not before the photo was saved: https://t.co/NAQHtLKmm7
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
To break in for a moment, here’s a bit more from the article he links to:
The red and black flag has historically represented the Bandera movement in Ukraine. Stepan Bandera was a Nationalist Ukrainian politician during the Second World War who is accused of war crimes and leading atrocities against Jewish and Polish people.
He is an incredibly polarizing political figure in Ukraine, as some view him a national hero who fought for Ukrainian independence.
Bandera helped create the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (UPA), an organization that legacy media reports have described as being ‘far-right’ and ‘extremist’ and who have been characterized as ‘Neo-Nazis.’
In April 2021, Euro News described Bandera and the UPA as Nazi-collaborators and war criminals.
‘Bandera, Shukhevych, and the UPA are controversial for several reasons. Critics point to the mass killings of up to 100,000 Jews and Poles and the fact that UPA cooperated with Nazi Germany at the beginning of WW2 until it became clear that Nazi Germany wouldn’t recognize Ukrainian independence.’
And, of course, we have talked about Freeland before. But back to Levant’s thread:
12. Those articles were published in the prestigious Ottawa Citizen. Here's an article in the Globe and Mail about Freeland's grandfather, a Nazi propagandist. She tried to keep that a secret for years, and then claimed it was Russian propaganda: https://t.co/3jo2Zw0seA
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
14. As usual, if it’s a report about Trudeau’s misconduct, you’ll read about it in the foreign press before you’ll read about it (if ever) in Canada’s news media, which has been colonized by Trudeau: https://t.co/n77VXiaElh pic.twitter.com/cUkqRh31d0
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
16. Google has 738,000 hits for "trucker convoy Nazi", all stories from one fake photograph of an agent provocateur with a swastika flag that no-one else saw.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
738,000 hits.
Trudeau invited an actual Nazi SS veteran to Parliament and so far, not one story from the Regime Media. pic.twitter.com/OwQ1TgQkYw
That is the end of the thread. Naturally, there were reactions:
That’s correct. Trudeau and Zelensky cheered on an actual Nazi SS soldier at Parliament today. https://t.co/X44aVVYVAl
— Chaya Raichik (@ChayaRaichik10) September 24, 2023
It looks like it is in fact true @ezralevant https://t.co/7gQjceEocp pic.twitter.com/tHBtiTSwoa
— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) September 24, 2023
AP News confirming that the 98-year old veteran given standing ovation by Canadian parliament, is Yaroslav Hunka, who fought for the 14th division of the Waffen SS.
— The Canada Files (@TheCanadaFiles) September 23, 2023
Canadian parliament gave a standing ovation to an outright Nazi collaborator.
First noticed by @lingerence. pic.twitter.com/Vm8VAHq7yy
Also, the CIJA, which describes itself as ‘The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is the advocacy agent of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, representing Jewish Federations across Canada’ put out this statement:
We are deeply troubled & disturbed that a Ukrainian veteran of the infamous 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the Nazi SS - which actively participated in the genocide of Jews - was celebrated with a standing ovation in the Canadian Parliament.
— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) September 24, 2023
#Canada's Jewish community stands…
The cut off text reads:
#Canada's Jewish community stands firmly with #Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression.
But we can't stay silent when crimes committed by Ukrainians during the Holocaust are whitewashed.
We also checked the Anti-Defamation League website and weirdly they have not said anything as of this writing.
🚨ATTENTION: On Friday, the Canadian Parliament paid tribute to 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Yaroslav Hunka, who fought against the Russians in WW2.
— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) September 24, 2023
It's profoundly alarming and unequivocally condemnable that he received such honor, as his record shows that he fought… pic.twitter.com/TkMjlRJ4JZ
Well, that’s a heck of a spin from the CBC narrator in that video, huh? (The CBC being state media in Canada.)
Meanwhile, the text of the post pulls few punches:
ATTENTION: On Friday, the Canadian Parliament paid tribute to 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Yaroslav Hunka, who fought against the Russians in WW2.
It's profoundly alarming and unequivocally condemnable that he received such honor, as his record shows that he fought alongside the Nazıs during the Third Reıch as a part of the 14th Waffen, also known as SS Galizien.
SS Galizien was involved in brutal actions and atrocities against civilians, such as:
▪️ Participation in anti-partisan operations, contributing to numerous civilian casualties.
▪️ Involvement in the mass murđer of Polish and Jewısh civilians.
▪️ The destruction and annihilation of whole villages, resulting in the displacement of thousands.
▪️ Collaborating in the oppressive Nazı regime’s endeavors to obliterate Jewısh communities.
▪️ Enforcement of the brutal policies of racial purity and Aryan supremacy propagated by the Nazı ideology.
The spectacle of standing ovations being given to an individual with literal Nazı affiliations is a stark reminder of the urgent and continuous need to combat the rise and normalization of (bio-)fascıst ideologies and actors.
Do you agree that SS Nazıs should not be honored in our parliaments?
Also, Mr. Levant previously linked to a 'foreign' report by Forward (it's an American source, thus 'foreign' to Canadians). Here, he links to it again, and provides some background on who Forward is:
One of the America’s oldest Jewish newspapers just noticed what, so far, every Canadian “mainstream” reporter has done their best NOT to notice: Trudeau brought an actual 98-year-old Nazi soldier with him to Parliament. https://t.co/aIGpXA9C21
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 24, 2023
From the article:
The AP caption described Hunka as having ‘fought with the First Ukrainian Division in World War II before later immigrating to Canada.’ The First Ukrainian Division is another name for the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, the military wing of the Nazi Party; the unit was also called SS Galichina.
This is the same unit that is honored by controversial monuments in Canada, Australia, and, as the Forward recently exposed, the suburbs of Philadelphia and Detroit. Jewish groups have called for their removal.
Funny, we are eagerly removing statues of George Washington and even Abraham Lincoln …
Controversial Lincoln statue is removed in Boston, but remains in D.C. https://t.co/HFjJODI84d
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) December 30, 2020
… but statues of actual members of the SS remain. For that matter, FDR locked up an entire ethnicity in America and no one has called for his monument to be torn down, either. It’s almost as if all of this statue-destruction and school-renaming is about undermining certain American values, rather than any outrage at historical injustice.
But back to the article:
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.
During the Nuremberg Trials, the International Military Tribunal declared the Waffen-SS to be a criminal organization responsible for mass atrocities including the ‘persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave labor program, and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners.’
But the article notes something in Zelensky’s favor:
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.
And this post makes an interesting point:
Zelensky, a Ukrainian Jew, has introduced and given a standing ovation, along with the whole Canadian Parliament, to a veteran of the Waffen SS Galician division Yaroslav Hunka, who "bravely" fought against the Soviets during WWII
— Olga Bazova (@OlgaBazova) September 24, 2023
One of those Soviets was Zelensky's grandfather. https://t.co/3Xe5Ovxntu pic.twitter.com/ZLcsceAsIr
It is also worth noting that Zelensky’s military has been accommodating to Nazis:
Is anyone in Congress going to ask Volodymyr Zelenskyy about Operation Paperclip?
— Tricia Flanagan (R-NJ) (@NewDayForNJ) September 20, 2023
Asking for Americans who hate antisemitism.
“…Azov uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks…”https://t.co/RdphH4aUgx
From the article she links to:
Many of the National Militia's members come from the Azov movement, one of the 30-odd privately-funded ‘volunteer battalions’ that, in the early days of the war, helped the regular army to defend Ukrainian territory against Russia's separatist proxies. Although Azov uses Nazi-era symbolism and recruits neo-Nazis into its ranks, a recent article in Foreign Affairs downplayed any risks the group might pose, pointing out that, like other volunteer militias, Azov has been ‘reined in’ through its integration into Ukraine’s armed forces. While it’s true that private militias no longer rule the battlefront, it’s the home front that Kiev needs to worry about now.
The article goes on to talk about how getting in bed with these actual neo-Nazis is causing domestic problems for Ukraine.
Still, to be fair, we have some sympathy for the notion that as Ukraine’s David faces off against Russia’s Goliath, they can’t exactly be picky about who is going to help them. ‘The enemy of my enemy’ is my friend and so on, although we always thought this was an excellent counter-point:
The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more and no less.
— Silence and Frost (@secjr112) August 14, 2023
And to address this current controversy, maybe Zelensky had no idea who this Hunka guy was, when he was introduced in Canada’s Parliament. The reports made it sound like it might have been a surprise for Zelensky, so maybe he didn’t know. But it’s hard to believe that Trudeau and his parliament had no idea who they were introducing. They knew. They just didn’t care.
And why would they, when so few people in the media are willing to call them out, even now?
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