Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators are Rebranded as Nationalist War Heroes

[Guno צְבִי]

Jan. 26, 2022, in the midst of Russia’s preparations to invade Ukraine, Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a statement outlining why Canada—home to the largest Ukrainian diaspora outside Russia—would support Ukraine unconditionally, outlining a Manichean view of a “struggle between democracy and authoritarianism.” “Canadians—our own parents and grandparents—fought and died,” she continued, “to establish a rules-based international order during and after the Second World War.”

Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather on her mother’s side, Michael Chomiak, did nothing of the sort. During the War, he edited Krakivski Visti, a Nazi propaganda rag in occupied Krakow that was printed on a press confiscated from a Jewish newspaper. Freeland, of course, is not her grandfather, nor is she responsible for his actions. But she is responsible for bringing him up at every opportunity to portray him as a liberal democrat who profoundly influenced her politics.

The deputy prime minister and finance minister’s revisionist family history is part of a broader project of myth-making in parts of the Ukrainian diaspora, in which certain anti-Soviet Nazi collaborators are often rebranded as nationalist war heroes. In Edmonton, where Freeland was raised, there are two monuments commemorating Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. A bust of Roman Shukhevych, who massacred thousands of Jews and Poles, has stood outside the Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex since the 1970s, in addition to a monument to the 14th Waffen SS Division—which was celebrated in the pages of Krakivski Visti—at a local cemetery.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/...n-about-her-nazi-collaborationist-grandfather

 

[Guno צְבִי]

When Canada announced it was offering $7.8 million in military assistance to Ukraine on Feb. 14, alongside a $500 million loan, there were few safeguards to ensure it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the country’s Azov Battalion, whose founder, Andriy Biletsky, said in 2010 that Ukraine must “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].” Reporting from the Ottawa Citizen revealed that Canadian military officials met with Azov leaders in June 2018, and rather than distance themselves from the unit, merely expressed concern that it could get leaked to the media. In response to questions from the Citizen, Canadian Forces spokesperson Lt.-Cmdr. Julie McDonald said it is Ukraine’s responsibility to vet its own forces for far-right extremism.

Azov, of course, is not representative of Ukraine, whose Jewish president won a landslide electoral victory in 2019. That same year, a coalition of far-right parties affiliated with Azov received just 2% of the vote, well below the threshold required to sit in parliament. But after the Russian invasion, Azov was incorporated as part of the Ukrainian National Guard to assist in fighting Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.