Canadian parliament speaker apologizes for wrongly honoring Ukrainian SS man during Zelenskiy’s visit to Ottawa.
Following violent protests, Canadian Parliament Speaker Anthony Rota apologized for honoring a Ukrainian SS veteran during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Ottawa. “I would particularly like to express my deepest sympathy to the Jewish communities in Canada and around the world,” Rota said, according to Canadian media reports over the weekend. He takes full responsibility for his actions.
As Ukraine’s head of state, Zelensky visited Canada on Friday and spoke to parliament in Ottawa. A little later, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) organization expressed outrage that Rota honored 98-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Jaroslaw Hunka as a “Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran” who fought for Ukraine’s independence against the Russia. Rota did not mention that Hunka served in a Waffen-SS unit during World War II. Hunka was present in the chamber and received thunderous applause, according to the statement. According to Radio Canada, he lives in the Rota electoral district.
Service in the Waffen SS Galicia Division
According to the FSCW, Hunka served in the 14th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division, also known as the Waffen-SS-Division Galizien. The SS, which was classified as a criminal organization at the Nuremberg Trials after the end of the war, had national associations in many occupied countries that were involved in war crimes. Canadian broadcaster CBC News reported on Sunday night (local time) that it had tried in vain to contact Hunka.
Russian propaganda repeatedly tries to portray wartime enemy Ukraine as “neo-Nazi”. The Kremlin called the incident in Canada “outrageous” on Monday. Young people in many countries, including Canada, don’t know who they would fight for, they don’t know anything about the threat of fascism.
Russia repeatedly refers to the Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera (1909-1959), who temporarily collaborated with the Germans, was sentenced to death in absentia in the Soviet Union and murdered by a KGB agent in Munich.
The FSWC claims to be one of Canada’s leading human rights organizations. It is named after Austrian Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (1908-2005). (APA)