Meme - James Lindsay, honorary Canuck, eh @ConceptualJames: "I feel obligated to tell you explicitly that the Left is trying to rewrite history to downplay Nazis because their side cheered for one."
Faustian: "this should not imply that it's members were Nazi party members"
"14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galicia"... was a Wwrld War II Nazi German military formation""
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis - The Globe and Mail - "The president of the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada is defending a Second World War veteran of a Nazi unit who was recently lauded as a hero in Canada’s Parliament. Jurij Klufas has not met 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka but says the veteran is being treated unfairly. He says Hunka was fighting for Ukraine – not Germany – and that countries, including Canada, have cleared his division of war crimes... 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. The revelation forced the resignation of Anthony Rota as Speaker and an apology on behalf of Parliament by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 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. He says supporters have tried to present the division as a patriotic Ukrainian force despite the fact it collaborated with Nazis and was involved in a variety of atrocities, including the killings of Jews, Ukrainians and Poles. “They represent this division as fighting not for Nazi Germany, but fighting for Ukrainian independence, even though there was never any opportunity to fight for any Ukrainian independence,” he said. “They were fighting under German command until the end of World War II.”... Frank Sysyn, a history professor at the University of Alberta, says it’s accurate to say that Hunka was not a Nazi, despite fighting for Nazi Germany, because non-Germans weren’t allowed to join the party. He said Canada's choice to allow veterans of the unit to live out their lives in the country ultimately came down to a decision that membership in the unit was not reason enough to prosecute someone, if there was no proof they committed individual crimes. Ukrainians, he added, are far from the only group of postwar immigrants to benefit from such an approach. “Most of our Italian immigrants of the 1950s, if they were men of a certain age, had probably been in the Italian army and fought for Fascist Italy,” said Sysyn, who is a member of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. 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. “So for the people in this region, the Soviets were the nightmare and the Germans were relatively tolerable," he said. "So that, I think, explains why so many of them thought that what they were doing fighting against the Soviets was patriotic.” He said some Galician units did participate in atrocities, including murders in Polish villages. The division had an antisemitic newspaper and accepted into its ranks “policemen who had been very important in the Holocaust, who had rounded up Jews for execution and sometimes executed Jews themselves," he said. He blames the Ukrainian community for failing to fully acknowledge and grapple with the country's Second World War history, including Nazi ties. However, he said many Canadians are guilty of not learning enough about the truths of the war on the Eastern front, including the rapes and murders perpetuated by the Soviets on the Allied side. 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."
Nuance and complexity in history are bad when they clash with political agendas
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis : canada - "The irony of the “everyone I disagree with is a Nazi” or “racist bigot” liberals celebrating actual proud Nazi and murderers of Jews is unreal."
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis : canada - "Jesus Christ man, it was 80 years ago! Hunka was a teenager at the time, and urged to volunteer to fight against the Soviets who had occupied the Ukraine. Germany offered him that chance and he took it. That was in 1943, it is unlikely any of the information on the concentration camp nightmares had come out yet. There was no internet, how in the world would a bumpkin teenager have any idea? From his essay published 12 years ago: "Mr. Hunka describes how people in his western Ukrainian city initially welcomed the invading Germans, after years of repressive Polish occupation, followed by 18 months of brutal rule by the Soviets. He talks about how under Stalin, he saw children and their families shipped away to Siberia, and later found out his aunt and uncle had also been taken. When the Galicia Division was created, many young Ukrainians jumped at the chance to fight back, he said." So yes, the Liberals probably should have done their homework, but a teenager is being excoriated for doing what he thought was the right thing to do 80 years ago. Now, of course, we know better. But there was no way he would have known exactly what he was getting into at the time."
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis : canada - "This is the logic you would apply if he was being recognized for charity work in Canada, for instance. And it just so happened he was a Nazi and this seemed out of character and maybe irrelevant to his later work. But he was applauded for this service. The Nazi service. Which is insane."
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis : canada - "Eastern Europeans see nazis as anti communists. So culturally in my understanding they see it similar to the way many westerners see communists. We fought the nazis. They then had to live under and fight the communists."
Head of Canadian Ukrainian group defends man who fought for unit created by Nazis : canada - "Both were awful. I think we tend to consider the Nazis worse because of how merciless and industrial the Holocaust was and because they were the enemy. The Soviets were no slouches though. The Holodomor killed around 5 million Ukrainians. 22,000 Poles were massacred at Katyn. Stalin killed 700,000 of his own people in the Great Purge. Millions like the Crimean Tatars were ethnically cleansed from their homes. I think it is easy to sit here in the Canada in the 21st century in judgement of people that were caught in between these two killing machines. People that committed war crimes and crimes against humanity should be exposed and prosecuted, but that shouldn't apply to everyone that picked up a gun against either set of invaders."
govt.exe is corrupt on X - "#BREAKING: After missing 2 days of Question Period due to #NaziGate... Trudeau says it's a grievous attack on the rights of Parliamentarians to have intelligence agencies vet guest speakers to the HOC. Is Trudeau once again making a mockery of the situation by gaslighting?"
The Post Millennial on X - "Conservative MP Andrew Scheer: "In this case it would have taken a simple Google search to find a blog post written that individual saying that he served in an SS division, in a Nazi division, during World War II ... This issue does not end with your statement or your apology.""
Dr. Leslyn Lewis on X - "I was out of Ottawa on Friday, but was shocked to learn that the Liberals disgracefully arranged for a Nazi veteran to be honoured in parliament after President @ZelenskyyUa’s address. These visits are carefully curated and guests lists vetted. To claim that the PMO was unaware…"
Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 on X - "Justin Trudeau & his government smeared the 2022 Canadian Convoy protesters as Nazis & racists, but he, President Zelensky & Canadian lawmakers gave a standing ovation to an actual Nazi SS veteran in the parliament a few days ago. Full live video:"
Woke Canadian MP claims Freedom Convoy's 'Honk Honk' catchphrase is a secret code for HEIL HITLER - "Canadian Liberal MP Ya'ara Saks is claiming that the 'Honk Honk' catchphrase used by Freedom Convoy protesters over the past few weeks is actually a secret code for 'heil Hitler.'... In the early days of the protests back in January, a Confederate flag and a swastika flag were spotted in the crowd, which led to Trudeau calling all protesters 'swastika wavers' in a speech addressing the demonstrations."
Liberal logic: if it's a cause liberals disapprove of, one swastika or confederate flag (even if it's unrelated to the protest) means they're all Nazis. But if they approve of the cause, celebrating a Nazi doesn't matter
Glenn Greenwald on X - "How -- after a lifetime of appearing in black face -- does Justin Trudeau get caught applauding an SS soldier who fought with the Nazis, and then instantly starts babbling about "Russian disinformation"? Do you see how Western elites use RUSSIA to blame for all their failings?"
Justin Trudeau says 'it's important to push back against Russian propaganda' as he is grilled over Nazi in Canadian parliament - "Trudeau admitted it was 'extremely upsetting this happened', blamed the Speaker of the house for the 'mistake' - but then launched into a message about 'Russian disinformation.'... Rota, 62, said in his statement yesterday: 'In my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery... He went on to insist that it was his idea to honor Hunka... In an online blog written more than a decade ago, Hunka described the period between 1941 and 1943 as the happiest of his life."
Keean Bexte on X - "CAUGHT: Gould let's it slip that the Nazi was reviewed, vetted, and approved by the Government itself. This is not just the Speaker's mistake. The Liberal Government invited the Waffen SS soldier."
Conservatives stop Liberals from erasing Rota's praise of Nazi veteran - "Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday that “such sloppiness of memory is outrageous” and that many Western countries including Canada “have raised a young generation that does not know who fought whom or what happened during the Second World War.”"
Douglas Murray: Canada's descent into ignorance shocks the world - "Standing ovations are very rare things. They should be very special things. When a whole House stands to applaud someone they had better be very sure who they are applauding. I know that Speaker Anthony Rota has now resigned. But here is the thing. Anybody who knows anything about the Second World War knows that if you were fighting the Soviets in Ukraine in the 1940s you were most likely fighting with the Nazis. It does not require a fine-tuned expert in the era to know this. Almost anybody could have guessed this. If almost anyone knew anything. It seemed to be the assumption not just of Speaker Rota but of the whole Canadian Parliament that there existed in the 1940s some proto-anti-Putin fighting force and that the great cause of this moment has some direct lineage back to the fight of the 1940s... In a war which Putin pretended to start in order to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, how much help has Canada given by your entire Parliament standing to applaud an actual Nazi? What makes this worse is that this all comes after a period in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been perfectly happy to call decent, ordinary Canadians Nazis. To use measures like the de-banking of his critics in moves that have horrified most of the other democracies in the West. When a bank in my country of birth — Britain — was recently found to have de-banked a politician (Nigel Farage) for what turned out to be political reasons not only did the head of the bank resign, but politicians in Britain from across the political system condemned the bank. Such moves are unlikely to be taken by another bank in Britain again. But in Canada it seems to be perfectly acceptable, because at any time the Canadian prime minister and deputy prime minister can claim that their critics are homophobes, xenophobes, racists, Nazis, misogynists and all of the rest. The world — especially America — has looked on in horror as the Canadian government has tried to curtail speech in the country, and looked on with ever-more horror as Canadians seem willing to go along with this. It seems to be the view of the Canadian authorities that they are capable of deciding at the merest glance who is and is not allowed to speak, what is and is not acceptable speech, what any Canadians can and cannot read and who is and who is not a “Nazi.” These being the same authorities who apparently cannot even perform the most basic Google searches on their guests. I know that Canadians often like to look down on Americans. But as someone who spends most of his time in America I can tell you that it is the American public who now wonder at what on earth is happening with our neighbour in the north... The governing body for Ontario psychologists thinks that Peterson has committed some crime for expressing his thoughts. It is also noticed — I can assure you — that a Toronto doctor who sexually abused four of his patients was only given a six-month suspension... Take that bizarre moment most in 2021 that I know most Canadians would wish to forget about. The moment when the country went into a bizarre moral panic after one totally unverified report claimed to have found numerous graves near residential schools run by the Catholic Church in areas with First Nations communities. That one unverified report was based on ground penetration radar that was wholly inconclusive. Nevertheless the country went into one of the most disturbing moral panics since Salem. Canadian media ran reports of the discovery of “mass graves” containing the bodies of children. How many churches were burned as a result? Some estimates say over 80, across the country. These included churches built by First Nations peoples. But it was Canadian authorities that fanned these fires. It was a Canadian law professor who called the burnings “resistance to extreme and systemic injustice.” It was a New Brunswick radio host who demanded “Burn the churches down.” It was the head of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and a former volunteer at the Newfoundland Canadian Bar Association who said “Burn it all down.” And it was Gerald Butts — friend and advisor to your Prime Minister — who said that although burning down churches may not be advisable it was certainly “understandable.”... all this in a society whose leaders seem to believe that they understand so much about “hate” and “hate speech” that they can actually put a stop to it once and forever if Canadians just put their shoulder to the wheel hard enough."
I know someone who cheered Farage's de-banking. First they came for Nigel Farage...
Dr Jordan B Peterson on X - "I think it's absolutely surreally hilarious that the @TorontoStar has accused me Of being far right Whatever the hell that's supposed to be now https://t.co/wqVjpqw7tp On the same bloody day the Canadian Parliament under @JustinTrudeau Actually celebrated an SS Nazi…"
Good guys versus bad guys: The nuance of history - "If there is one truth about people and politics, it’s this: nothing is black and white... On June 22, 1941, with his failure to conquer Britain still fresh, Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Moscow was now in the war on the Allied side. To many Ukrainians, however, the Soviet Union—not Germany—was still the enemy. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the saying goes. And so, they chose the means at hand to further their cause of resistance. The 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division was manned by about 25,000 Ukrainians over its lifetime, most driven by a desire for Ukrainian independence. They fought mostly in Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland, where they are known to have wiped out entire villages during the winter and spring of 1944... Justice Jules Deschênes of the Canadian Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes concluded in October 1986: “The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS [gal. #1]) should not be indicted as a group. “The members of Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada,” he wrote. “Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission. “Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.” Myroslav Shkandrij, professor emeritus of Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba and author of Into the Maelstrom: The Waffen SS ‘Galicia’ Division and its Legacy, said opposing perspectives have clashed over the matter. “Victims of German aggression have naturally seen the force as complicit in Nazi criminality, specifically in the victimization of Jewish and Polish civilians, while the counter-perspective has cast the soldiers as patriots and pragmatists who grasped arms from the Germans because they wanted to fight Stalin. “Both views have sometimes calcified into tropes or memes.”... But in the public eye, it’s history be damned. Image is everything. And the image of Canadian parliamentarians, notably the prime minister, standing in the House of Commons to applaud a former Waffen SS soldier is a hard one to get past. History—life—is not black and white. And the history and politics of Eastern Europe are a kaleidoscope of greys, underscored by threads of anti-Semitism, a record of pogroms—including in Ukraine—and passive and active collaboration in the Holocaust."