The Simon Wiesenthal Center does have documentation, detailed documentation on the SS officer Yaroslav Hunka! He was an SS officer which means that he took a blood oath to Hitler. He definitely would have had extremely fanatical beliefs on racial purity and politics. Hunka's division, the 14th Waffen SS is responsible for crimes against humanity: The slaughter of over 100,000 unarmed Poles in Volhynian and Galicia! He said in an essay that he joined the SS because the Poles in his area of were suppressing his people! Yet he went into Polish villages where there was only unarmed citizens and burnt them to the ground. And in true SS style locked the inhabitants inside burning buildings. And where it is true that his children did not engage in war crimes it is not unusual for the children of Nazis to continue their membership in the Nazi party, and thereby reap the financial rewards for that association. Hunka could have joined anyone of 4 Partisan groups fighting for the Ukraine, but, he chose the one that best appealed to him, the SS. As for 'checking out' the opinion of Ukraine citizenry you will have to keep in mind that the Nazis never left Ukraine! What do you think the Azov Brigand of the Ukrainian Army is? They are Nazis! That is why so many Jews have now fled Ukraine!
As the community tries to fiercely erase the Hunka family from view, a few points may be worth noting:
There is no information on what Hunka has personally done during the war. He was 18-20 years old at the time the crimes could have taken place.
His children likely did not participate in the genocide as they were born on Canada in the 1950's. I see no rational or ethical reason to punish them in this context. I do understand the social pressure to do so. Still, it would be wise to have an open discussion and not to act "instinctively".
It's also worth checking out what the natives of Ukraine think on the subject. It is not exactly black and white although some Ukrainians were the targets of the killings.
I appreciate your thoughts on this. I do not know if they should be treated this way however I don't think organizations should try and erase the past without any transparency or accountability.
There is also a risk of losing the sense of scale. We have a genocide going on right now in Ukraine today. Yesterday, Russia fired an Iskander missile at a village where one in six inhabitants was killed (about 50 people, including children). There was no military target in the village.
We are responsible for what is happening now, not for what happened during the Second World War.
The Kremlin wants to use the events of 80 years ago to link today's Ukraine with Nazism. This is cynicism in the extreme. I hope Canadians are aware of this manipulation.
The Kremlin is prepared to use extreme means to exploit the mutual trust that, for example, Canada is accustomed to.
For example: "the academic Katchanovski" (university Ottawa) is not necessarily the kind of academic to use as a source of information (he is pretty obviously SVR or RISS worker 🤦♂️).
Yet he appears in one of Canada's biggest newspapers as a 'Ukraine specialist". When I assessed this as a Finn, it seemed baffling...
Thanks for sharing that. I know there are atrocities going on in Europe right now. And I know Russia is not being honest. But the problem is we don't know if anyone is being honest anymore. They have discounted almost all inconvenient claims as "Russian disinformation". In doing so, they have left us to question all claims.
Well said. Great reporting.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center does have documentation, detailed documentation on the SS officer Yaroslav Hunka! He was an SS officer which means that he took a blood oath to Hitler. He definitely would have had extremely fanatical beliefs on racial purity and politics. Hunka's division, the 14th Waffen SS is responsible for crimes against humanity: The slaughter of over 100,000 unarmed Poles in Volhynian and Galicia! He said in an essay that he joined the SS because the Poles in his area of were suppressing his people! Yet he went into Polish villages where there was only unarmed citizens and burnt them to the ground. And in true SS style locked the inhabitants inside burning buildings. And where it is true that his children did not engage in war crimes it is not unusual for the children of Nazis to continue their membership in the Nazi party, and thereby reap the financial rewards for that association. Hunka could have joined anyone of 4 Partisan groups fighting for the Ukraine, but, he chose the one that best appealed to him, the SS. As for 'checking out' the opinion of Ukraine citizenry you will have to keep in mind that the Nazis never left Ukraine! What do you think the Azov Brigand of the Ukrainian Army is? They are Nazis! That is why so many Jews have now fled Ukraine!
As the community tries to fiercely erase the Hunka family from view, a few points may be worth noting:
There is no information on what Hunka has personally done during the war. He was 18-20 years old at the time the crimes could have taken place.
His children likely did not participate in the genocide as they were born on Canada in the 1950's. I see no rational or ethical reason to punish them in this context. I do understand the social pressure to do so. Still, it would be wise to have an open discussion and not to act "instinctively".
It's also worth checking out what the natives of Ukraine think on the subject. It is not exactly black and white although some Ukrainians were the targets of the killings.
https://euromaidanpress.com/2023/09/25/did-canada-parliament-really-invite-nazi-yaroslav-hunka/
I appreciate your thoughts on this. I do not know if they should be treated this way however I don't think organizations should try and erase the past without any transparency or accountability.
One perspective:
There is also a risk of losing the sense of scale. We have a genocide going on right now in Ukraine today. Yesterday, Russia fired an Iskander missile at a village where one in six inhabitants was killed (about 50 people, including children). There was no military target in the village.
We are responsible for what is happening now, not for what happened during the Second World War.
The Kremlin wants to use the events of 80 years ago to link today's Ukraine with Nazism. This is cynicism in the extreme. I hope Canadians are aware of this manipulation.
https://twitter.com/kolga/status/1710290095591338242?t=AB-VU8jldXZyxIu-nAj4qg&s=19
The Kremlin is prepared to use extreme means to exploit the mutual trust that, for example, Canada is accustomed to.
For example: "the academic Katchanovski" (university Ottawa) is not necessarily the kind of academic to use as a source of information (he is pretty obviously SVR or RISS worker 🤦♂️).
Yet he appears in one of Canada's biggest newspapers as a 'Ukraine specialist". When I assessed this as a Finn, it seemed baffling...
https://twitter.com/TTarkkailija/status/1708528664969724120?t=YEElV0fHoyXTO0A0XB7cLg&s=19
Thanks for sharing that. I know there are atrocities going on in Europe right now. And I know Russia is not being honest. But the problem is we don't know if anyone is being honest anymore. They have discounted almost all inconvenient claims as "Russian disinformation". In doing so, they have left us to question all claims.