Features
Decision to invite former member of Nazi-aligned Ukrainian military unit to House of Commons raises questions about why he was allowed into Canada in the first place
By BERNIE BELLAN (Originally published Sept. 25 in The Jewish Post & News)
The storm that erupted over the revelation that a former member of a Ukrainian unit that fought with the Nazis during the Second World War was invited to attend the appearance by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he spoke to the House of Commons on Friday, September 22, has led to a whole series of questions:
- Who is Yaroslav Hunka, the 98-year-old Ukrainian-Canadian who received a standing ovation from members of all four parties in the House of Commons on Friday, September 22, when he was introduced by House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota prior to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech in the House of Commons?
- What was the Wafen-SS Galicia Division (also known as the SS 14th Wafer Division)?
- How is it that many former members of the Wafen-SS Galicia Division were allowed entry into Canada following World War II?
- Why was there no vetting of Hunka by anyone prior to his having been invited to attend the House of Commons on September 22?
The fierce reaction from various Jewish Canadian groups, including the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, B’nai Brith Canada, and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, was unrelentingly critical of the decision to invite Hunka to attend Zelensky’s appearance in the House of Commons.
Hunka’s past participation in the Wafen-SS Galicia Division was well known. As an article that appeared on Wikipedia on September 24 noted: “Yaroslav Hunka (Ukrainian: Ярослав Гунька; born c. 1925) is a veteran of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), a Nazi Germany military formation. Hunka was born in Urman, then in Poland, and volunteered for SS Galizien in 1943. He emigrated to Canada after the conclusion of World War II. In 2023, Hunka made international headlines after he received a standing ovation from the House of Commons of Canada, and was recognized by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Later, it was revealed Hunka was affiliated with Nazis, and Canadian government officials apologized to the worldwide Jewish community. Hunka is retired and lives in North Bay, Ontario.
Biography
“Yaroslav Hunka was born in
“Yaroslav Hunka was born in Urman, Second Polish Republic (now Ukraine) c. 1925. In 1944, Hunka was deployed into combat against Red Army forces on the Eastern Front of World War II. Following the conclusion of World War II in Europe, Hunka immigrated to Canada and joined the Ukrainian-Canadian community.] As of 2022, Hunka lived in North Bay, Ontario, and travelled to Greater Sudbury to protest against that year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The question why so many former members of a Ukrainian military unit that fought for the Nazis were allowed into Canada following WWII is laced with controversy. A website that is very sympathetic to Russia lists a number of very serious allegations about Canadian complicity in allowing those individuals into the country:
“In the immediate postwar period, Canada’s then Liberal government, working in close cahoots with US and British intelligence, opened Canada’s doors to Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. These included members of the infamous 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS, also known as the Galicia Division.
“The scale of the influx of Nazi collaborators only became public knowledge in the 1980s. A comprehensive study carried out by Alti Rodal on behalf of the federal government-appointed Deschênes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada uncovered records proving that US intelligence agents in Europe had funneled Nazi collaborators from Eastern Europe through the Canadian immigration system using false papers. Rodal revealed that large numbers of identically typed applications were received by Canada’s immigration department from one address in West Germany. On closer inspection, this address turned out to be a US military base.
“The Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney established the Deschênes Commission in 1985, in response to a mounting public outcry over exposures of Nazis and Nazi accomplices who had found a safe haven in Canada and tasked the inquiry with identifying Nazi war criminals residing in Canada.
“Around the same time, the Simon Wiesenthal Center estimated that upwards of 2,000 Nazis and Nazi collaborators emigrated to Canada in the years after the war. A quarter-century later, in 2011, it would give Canada an “F minus” in its annual report ranking countries on their efforts to prosecute war criminals. This placed Canada on a par with Ukraine and the former Baltic republics, i.e. countries where the right-wing, nationalist regimes that have emerged since the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union openly venerate the ultranationalists who aligned with the Nazis when they invaded the USSR.
“War criminals in Canada
“A significant number of those who made their way to Canada were members of the Nazi SS’s Galicia Division, which was made up of Ukrainian nationalist volunteers who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht against the Red Army during the Nazis’ war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. This preplanned onslaught—launched in June 1941 when a 3 million-strong force comprised of German troops, their Axis allies and fascist volunteers invaded the Soviet Union—led to the deaths of 27 million Soviet citizens and the Holocaust.
“In waging war, suppressing the population, and pursuing the annihilation of the Jews, across Eastern Europe and above all in the USSR, Hitler’s Wehrmacht and SS shock troops relied on the loyal collaboration of ultraright-wing, anti-Semitic forces. Among the Ukrainian nationalists, in both occupied Poland and the USSR, the Nazis found eager collaborators. The Galicia Division was formed in 1943 out of a faction of the Stepan Bandera-led Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists Bandera (OUN-B) and fought with the Nazis against the Red Army throughout 1944.
“Massacres perpetrated by the division against Polish and Jewish civilians have been well documented, including at Huta Pieniacka, Podkamien, and Palikrowy. At Podkamien, 100 Polish civilians were massacred in a hilltop monastery, and at least a further 500 in surrounding villages as the Red Army approached the German-occupied area in March 1944.
“Members of the Galicia Division were initially prohibited from entering Canada due to their membership in the SS. But in 1950, Britain made an appeal to the Commonwealth for volunteers to accept a total of 9,000 division members who were at that time residing in the UK after being disarmed by British troops at the war’s end.
“When Canada’s External Affairs Department, prompted by complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), raised concerns about the division’s ties to the Nazis and role in Nazi atrocities, the British government insisted that it had carried out background checks. “While in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and neither then nor subsequently has any evidence been brought to light which would suggest that any of them fought against the Western Allies or engaged in crimes against humanity,” claimed the British Foreign Office. “‘Their behaviour since they came to this country, added London, ‘has been good and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with any trace of Nazi ideology.’
“With this letter serving as political cover, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and his cabinet declared that Galicia Division members would be permitted to immigrate to Canada unless it could be proved that they had personally committed atrocities against civilian populations based on ‘race, religion or national origins.’ Simply having been a Galicia Division member would not be considered a valid reason to prevent entry, even though after the war all Waffen-SS members had been deemed complicit in war crimes.
“The immigration of Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals continued for more than a decade after the war and was a significant factor in Canada’s emergence during the Cold War as a political-ideological centre of far-right Ukrainian nationalism.
“Speaking to a CBS “60 Minutes” programme in 1997, Canadian historian Irving Abella, who is currently Professor for Canadian Jewish history at York University, bluntly summed up the political climate of the time. ‘One way of getting into postwar Canada,’ he said ‘was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist.’
“Ottawa carried out this policy in close collaboration with US authorities, who similarly permitted ex-Nazis to settle in the US and recruited hundreds to act as spies against the Soviet Union and the Soviet-allied regimes in Eastern Europe. According to investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau, up to 1,000 former Nazis were made use of by the CIA in Europe, within the US itself, the Middle East, and in Latin America.
Yet, other historians dispute the notion that Canada became a safe haven for Nazi and Nazi-allied war criminals. In a book titled , written by historian Howard Margolian, and reviewed by Urs Obrist in 2002, Obrist writes the following:
“Even though the debate on the admission of Nazi war criminals to Canada after World War II seemed to have reached its apex in the mid-1980s, with the investigation of the Jules Deschênes Commission and its inquiries on war criminals, the issue has continued to stir historical interest in the 1990s and beyond.[1] This recent publication by Howard Margolian, Unauthorized Entry, revises the widely held view that Canada has been a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. Margolian is a Canadian historian with a special interest in the history of World War II and Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. As the author of Conduct Unbecoming, he has already shed light on the story of the murder of Canadian POWs in Normandy and the trial and fate of the SS-General Kurt Meyer.[2] In Unauthorized Entry, Margolian challenges and refutes accusations stating that the King and St. Laurent governments had been negligent in the admission of Nazi war criminals and collaborators to Canada.
“His study concludes that neither the immigration bureaucracy, nor the immigration lobby in Canada, nor the western intelligence community were as responsible for the influx of about 2000 war criminals and collaborators as has been generally assumed. Instead, he argues, the blame is to be put on the war criminals and collaborators who gained entry to Canada by forged identities or by giving false information about their wartime history. The great majority of Nazi war criminals and collaborators who settled in Canada after the Second World War were admitted not on purpose, but as a result of the absence of, or inaccessibility to, information about their wartime activities. Margolian summarizes that, in view of the benefit drawn from the immigration of the 1.5 million immigrants arriving in Canada between 1945 and 1955, it was worth taking the risk and admitting some 2000 war criminals to Canada.”
However, in his review of Margolin’s book Obrist notes that the Canadian government made exceptions for three categories of immigrants – who were not denied entry even if they might have had Nazi connections: “German scientists, Estonian refugees from Sweden and former members of the Ukrainian SS-Division ‘Galicia’.”
As for how the Speaker of the House of Commons could have completely overlooked Hunka’s past membership in a Nazi-affiliated unit during WWII, Rota released a statement late Sunday afternoon saying he recognized an individual in the gallery on Friday, and that he has “subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so.”
“I wish to make clear that no one, including fellow parliamentarians and the Ukraine delegation, was aware of my intention or of my remarks before I delivered them,” he wrote.
“I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world.”
The statement does not make clear what Rota is apologizing for, and it does not name Hunka or give any details about what information Rota learned about him since Friday.
Features
I Speak “Jew”
By MARK E. PAULL I grew up in Montreal. Born in 1956. Anglo by birth, sure. But that never quite fit. I don’t speak “Anglo” the way they mean it. My real language is Jew.
And I don’t mean Hebrew or Yiddish. I mean the language of reading the room before you enter it. The code-switching, shame-dodging, laugh-first-so-they-don’t-pounce dialect we pick up early. It’s a language built on side-eyes and timing and ten generations of tension.
I speak French—enough to make myself understood. Enough to charm a dinner table, crack a joke, get someone’s uncle to nod. I’m not fluent, but I’m fast. Doesn’t matter. In Quebec, language isn’t grammar—it’s inheritance. It’s who your grandfather cursed out in a hardware store.
To the Francophones, I’ll never be one of them. My accent betrays me before I say a word. I’m just an Anglo. And not even that, really. Because when the lens tightens, when they look closely, I’m just un Juif. Just a Jew.
And to the Anglos? Same thing. I can wear the suit, speak the Queen’s English, order the wine properly—still a Jew. Even in rooms where I “pass,” I don’t belong. I’m not invited in to be myself. I’m invited in to behave. To be safe. To not say the thing that makes the air stiff.
We’re the only people still called by our religion. No one says “Orthodox” for a Greek. No one says “Vatican” for an Italian. No one calls a Black man “Baptist” before they see his face. But “Jew”? That sticks. That’s the label. Before passport. Before language. Before hello.
I’ve mostly made peace with that. But there’s still this ache—knowing you can live your whole life in a place and never really be from there.
Let me tell you a story.
We had this block party once—the folding-table, paper-plate kind. Kids zipping by on scooters. Music low. Everyone asked to bring something from “your culture.”
The Greek guy brought lemon potatoes and lamb—felt like it came with a side of Byzantine history. The Italians brought two lasagnas—meat and veggie—with basil placed like confetti. The Vietnamese couple brought shrimp rolls that vanished before they hit the table. Even the German guy—built like a fridge—brought bratwurst and a six-pack with gothic lettering.
And then us.
My partner made Moroccan fish. Her grandmother’s recipe. Red with tomatoes, garlic, cumin. Studded with olives and preserved lemon. I brought a bottle of white wine. Dry. Crisp. From the Golan Heights. Not Manischewitz. Not even close.
We laid it out. Someone leaned over: “Moroccan? But I thought you were Jewish.”
We smiled. “We are.”
Then: “So… where’s the brisket? Isn’t Jewish wine supposed to be sweet?”
That’s when it hits you. No matter how long you’ve lived here, how many snowstorms you’ve shoveled through, you’re still explaining yourself. Still translating your presence.
Because they don’t know. They don’t know Jews came from everywhere. That “Jewish” isn’t one dish—it’s a whole map. That we had Jews in Morocco before there was even a France. That some of us grew up on kreplach, some on kefta. That some of our mothers sang in Yiddish, others in Arabic, and some in both—depending on who was knocking.
They don’t know. And worse—they don’t ask.
And that’s the part that gets you. Not the slurs. Not the graffiti. Not even the occasional muttered cliché. It’s the blankness. The shrug. The image they already have of you that’s built out of dreidels and sitcoms.
“Jewish” as nostalgic. As novelty. Something they saw once on a bagel.
Sometimes, when those questions come, I float. One version of me walks out. Another turns into a mouse. One turns into a Frisbee. Just gone. Not mad. Just tired.
Because being a Jew isn’t cute. It’s not nostalgic.
It’s ancient.
Before Montreal.
Before France.
Before Poland. Before Spain.
Before pogroms.
Before ghettos.
Before Hitler.
Before even the word Europe.
We were there.
Go back to the 5th century. 2nd century.
Go back to Jesus—our kid, by the way.
Go further—Babylon. Persia.
Keep going—Temple. Exile. Wandering.
And still, after all that, I’m at a table in Quebec explaining why our fish has cumin in it.
It’s almost funny. If it didn’t wear you down a little.
I’m not looking for pity. This isn’t a complaint.
I’m proud. I know what I carry. I walk into any room with five thousand years behind me. I come from people who kept the lights on through every kind of darkness—and laughed through it, too.
But sometimes, I just wish I didn’t have to explain so much.
All I want is to put down my dish…
…and hear someone say:
“That smells amazing. Tell me the story.”
That’s all.
Mark E. Paull, C.A.C. is a Certified ADHD Coach – IPHM, CMA, IIC&M, CPD Certified
Writer | Lived-Experience Advocate | Type 1 Diabetic since 1967
He has been published in:
The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, Folklife Magazine, Times of Israel, CHADD’s Attention Magazine, The Good Men Project
Features
At 104, Besse Gurevich last original resident of Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence
By MYRON LOVE At 104, Besse Gurevich is the last of the original residents of Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence. She may also be the oldest member of our Jewish community.
Although her vision and her hearing have diminished considerably, her mind and memory are still intact. A few weeks back, this writer sat down with her in her suite as she recalled a life filled with highs and lows and her many contributions to her community, both in Winnipeg and Fort William before that.
The daughter of Jack and Rebecca Avit, her life’s journey began in 1921 in a home on Carlton Street near Ellice Avenue, near her father’s furniture store. He later operated a cap factory.
When she was ten, the family – she had two brothers and a sister – moved to Manitoba Avenue in the old North End. “My father had put a deposit down on a house on Scotia,” she recalls. “But my parents didn’t feel that the neighbourhood was Jewish enough.”
Her schooling included Peretz School and, like so many of her generation, St. John’s Tech (as it was known back then.) “I was actually supposed to be going to Isaac Newton for high school,” she says. We were living on the wrong side of the tracks for St. John’s. After one day at Isaac Newton, I found a way to transfer to St. John’s.”
In 1940, 19-year-old Bessie Avit married Jack Gurevich, a young man from Fort William. The wedding was marred though, by the sudden, untimely passing of her father.
Following the wedding, Besse moved with her new husband to Fort William where Jack Gurevich worked in retail clothing sales. “We lived in Fort William for 20 years,” she says. “Our three children (Judy, Richard and Howard) were born there.”
She recalls that there were about 200 Jewish families – including her sister and one of her brothers for some years – in town, during the time she lived there. “We were very well known in the community,” she recalls. “I was involved in everything.”
Her community activism continued after the family’s return to her home town. While Jack went to work as a salesman for Western Glove Works, Besse became an indefatigable community volunteer. At one time or another, she served as vice-president of ORT, Hadassah and National Council of Jewish Women in Winnipeg. She was also a long time B’nai Brith member.
In the business world, the highlight of her career was the building of Linden Woods. “I became involved in real estate development for a time,” she recalls. “I was hired by Genstar to develop Linden Woods. The company estimated that it would take about 20 years to complete. I got it done in two.”
She also taught hair dressing for a while. “I worked with many young Jewish brides,” she says.
Recent years have not been kind to Besse Gurevich. Her beloved husband, Jack, died in 2016 – after almost 65 years of marriage. Older son, Richard, passed away in Vancouver in 2018 and, most recently –six months ago – younger son, Howard, followed. She notes that there were 200 mourners at Howard’s funeral.
(Howard Gurevich was in marketing for many years before turning his talents to the art world. In recent years, he was best known for Gurevich Fine Art in the Exchange District and his support of local artists.)
Besse Gurevich celebrated her 100th birthday – which took place at the height of the Covid shutdown – quietly.
While she used to enjoy reading. she is unable to do so any more. She can still listen to television.
And while she has few family members to visit her any more, she does have a group of friends interesting enough from the local theatre scene. For many years, she was a close friend of the late Doreen Brownstone, one of the leading figures in theatre in Winnipeg for more than half a century. Besse became part of the group that would visit Doreen every week and, since Doreen passed on three years ago, the members of the group have continued to visit Besse on a weekly basis.
Features
Winnipeg author’s first novel gripping tale of romance, action and intrigue, set in 15th century Spain and Morocco
By MYRON LOVE “The Chronos of Andalucia”, a novel just released by first-time author Merom Toledano, is a historical romance set in late 15th century Spain and Morocco, filled with passion, action, intrigue, unexpected twists and turns – and, of course, with the requirement of any medieval story – a quest.
The easy-to-read, 190 page book follows the adventures of Catalina, a young woman living by her wits on the streets of Granada in the year 1487, (just after the Christian armies of Ferdinand and Isabella had recaptured all of Spain from the Moors) – while trying to evade the agents of the Inquisition, who had murdered her Jewish mother and Christian father 10 years earlier. She was left with an insatiable desire to learn about astronomy, along with a mysterious map and an astrolabe (an instrument formerly used to make astronomical measurements) – the importance of which will only be unveiled if she can get to the city of Tangier in Morocco.
Early on, there is a reference to Abraham Zacuto, a prominent Spanish rabbi famed for his knowledge of astronomy and astrology.
The action begins when she has a casual interaction with a former Spanish soldier, Diego. When the forces of the Inquisition approach, she flees with the soldier – who is also her love interest – and who helps her to escape. They turn for help to a childhood friend of Catalina’s – Roberta, a nun, who helps them on their perilous journey to Tangier – a journey that includes being captured by pirates, surviving a shipwreck, being separated for a long period of time and, of course, finding each other again and realizing the success of their joint quest.
In his writing, the author paints vivid word pictures of the different characters and beautifully invokes the colour, sights, sounds and scents of the time and the places.
What I found truly remarkable about the writing of “The Chronos of Andalucia” is that English is not Merom Toledano’s first language. The Israeli-born author – he grew up near Haifa – came to Winnipeg with his young family just eight years ago.
“I have had this book in mind for several years now,” says the satellite engineer whose working career takes him to many different parts of the world.
He notes that he has always felt a connection to Spain, Spanish music and literature – a reflection of his family’s modern origins in that country. His great-grandparents, he relates, lived in Toledo – hence the family name, Toledano. His parents lived in Meknes in Morocco while his father attended university in Tangier before making aliyah.
Toledano just published “The Chronos of Andalucia” in April on Amazon. He reports that the book – which is available here at McNally Robinson – has been selling well –close to 100 copies – with orders coming from a bookstore chain in England, a bookstore in Denmark, and one in Italy.
“I have had between 30 and 40 positive reviews so far,” he reports.
Toledano adds that he envisages “The Chronos of Andalucia” to be the first in a series – a la the writer Danielle Steele. He is already working on a sequel – which is hinted at the end of “The Chronos” and, he reports, he is establishing his own independent publishing operation.