Luciuk calls the claim of “thousands of Nazi war criminals hiding in Canada” hysterical. Yet, research published by the University of Toronto Press written by former Department of Justice War Crimes Unit historian Howard Margolian sets out that Canada admitted 2,000 Nazi war criminals and collaborators.
Luciuk asserts that Mr. Justice Jules Deschênes, Commissioner for the 1985-1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, had a “peculiar bias” because he did not address Soviet war crimes [nor did he address American, British and Canadian war crimes]. Yet, Justice Jules Deschênes was a distinguished, fair-minded judge. His report focused on the mandate it was given.
Luciuk writes: “It was fake news then and still is. Allegations about ‘Nazis in Canada.’ ” The Commission on War Criminals, which limited itself to considering only those allegations submitted to it, concluded that there was prima facie evidence against 20 individuals.
Luciuk observes that “not a single person was ever convicted of being a ‘Nazi’ in a Canadian criminal court.” He omits to mention that the Supreme Court of Canada made the Canadian war crimes law unworkable by a ruling in the 1994 case of Imre Finta, a man responsible for shipping Jews off in box cars from Szeged, Hungary to Auschwitz and other camps. The court held that the fact that Finta thought the Jews were his enemies was a legally permissible defence. The court in 2005 in a Rwandan genocide case rejected and overruled its reasoning in the Finta case.
Luciuk further omits to mention that the government of Canada, because of the Finta ruling, switched from criminal prosecution to revocation of citizenship and deportation. The government, as a matter of policy, decided to launch cases against only those accused Nazi war criminals about whom the government concluded that the accusations were well founded.
Altogether, the federal government launched 28 Nazi war crimes cases in Canada. The government lost five. Five were terminated prematurely because of death or illness of either a key witness or the accused. The government won eighteen.
[W.Z. Mr. Matas uses incorrect terminology: Certain (corrupt?) prosecutors in the Department of Justice launched 28 denaturalization cases and in 18 cases the judges ruled that on the balance of probabilities (rather than beyond a reasonable doubt, as required in criminal proceedings) the victim must have lied when they applied to immigrate to Canada, even when there was no proof of such.]
The organized Ukrainian community urged cabinet not to revoke the citizenship of two ethnic Ukrainian individuals, Vladimir Katriuk and Wasyl Odynsky, even though the courts had found against them. The government of Canada acceded to this political pressure, despite the court rulings.
Michael Chomiak, grandfather to Chrystia Freeland, was editor-in-chief of an antisemitic newspaper in Nazi occupied Poland. Chrystia Freeland bears no responsibility for the editorials in her grandfather’s newspaper. Luciuk bears full responsibility for his incomplete version of the serious and necessary efforts to bring Nazi war criminals in Canada to justice.
David Matas is a Winnipeg lawyer and senior honorary counsel to B’nai Brith Canada. He represented B’nai Brith at the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals.
[W.Z. According to the late Robert H. Keyserlingk (1933.05.16 - 2009.12.08) Professor of History at the University of Ottawa, who was intimately familiar with Canadian immigration procedures from war-torn Europe in the 1950's, the defense in these denatruralization cases was woefully inadequate. He wrote a submission on the issue for the defense in the Wasyl Odynsky, but on the advice of his lawyers Marrocco and Armstrong, Olya Odynsky declined to use his expertise. In his last Email message to me on 08Oct2009, he wrote:I’ve heard it all before. It was fake news then and still is. Allegations about “Nazis in Canada” -- the most recent regurgitation targeting Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland -- have circulated for decades.
Understandably, just after the war’s end, Jewish Canadians were alarmed at the prospect of “Ukrainian Nazis” escaping justice by posing as Displaced Persons. In response, the Liberal government initiated high-level inquiries, ensuring no such villains resettled here. Yet claims about “thousands of Nazi war criminals hiding in Canada” resurfaced in the early 1980s, resulting in a Conservative government establishing the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, headed by Justice Jules Deschênes. Tellingly, its 1987 report rebuked those who had spread “increasingly large and grossly exaggerated” figures about “Nazi war criminals.”
I drafted the Ukrainian Canadian community’s response to this hysteria. We recommended anyone accused of war crimes, regardless of ethnic, religious or racial origins, be brought to trial in a criminal court, knowing the stringent rules of evidence followed in such a venue would ensure justice. Ottawa adopted that “made in Canada” position. Not a single person was ever convicted of being a “Nazi” in a Canadian criminal court.
Unfortunately, no effort was made to investigate whether Soviet war criminals got into Canada pretending to be refugees. The commission’s report may explain this partiality. Listed on page 857 is the name of a man who published an English-language book in 1981 admitting he served in the Judenrat under Nazi rule and was later an officer in the NKVD, the notoriously murderous Soviet political police. That record made him legally inadmissible. Yet he got in and was possessed of the chutzpah to offer a self-serving spin on history, although I doubt he gifted Justice Deschênes with a copy of his book. When the Deschênes Commission’s history is finally written, its peculiar bias should be addressed.
Today, Minister Freeland is being pilloried over the unproven wartime misconduct of her grandfather, an editor at Krakivski Visti (Krakow News). Years ago, another journalist told me the paper’s editors had no affinity for Nazi aims but used their positions to sustain the Ukrainian resistance. Of course, from the Kremlin’s point of view, Ukrainian nationalism represented a threat, one they expended considerable resources on eradicating, well into the 1950s. There followed a concerted Soviet defamation campaign, portraying the nationalists as “war criminals” and “agents of Western imperialism.” Moscow’s men still spout the same disinformation, apparently sharing Hitler’s view that if you keep repeating the big lie, people will believe it.
What is shocking about this recent effort, however, is the “blood libel” argument the Russians have deployed. Certainly, Ms. Freeland made herself a target of their yellow journalism by taking a principled position supporting Ukraine against Russian imperialism. But should she be judged because of the supposed sins of her grandfather?
Thankfully, her political opponents in Parliament recognize Moscow’s muck-racking for what it is. That said, let’s not forget that Vladimir Putin’s grandfather was Stalin’s loyal servant, his father an NKVD man, and that he carried on the family tradition as a KGB officer, even if he did better than all previous Putins, becoming a billionaire on his secret policeman’s pension while securing the sinecure of president-in-perpetuity of the so-called Russian Federation. Now there’s a family tree demanding scrutiny.
By way of full disclosure, my paternal grandfather was a veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army during the Great War, then a PoW in Siberia, returning years after the war’s end a traumatized man. And my maternal grandfather, a forester and Ukrainian nationalist, joined the struggle for Ukraine’s independence against the Polish, Nazi and Soviet occupations before he was betrayed, imprisoned and murdered by the Communists. I never met either man but am proud of both because they fought for Ukraine’s freedom, just as Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather did.
So she has nothing to be ashamed of and is the right person to be minister of Foreign Affairs as Justin Trudeau’s government condemns Russia’s subversion of Europe’s peace, just as did Stephen Harper’s government did before it.
Lubomyr Luciuk teaches political geography at The Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston.
I’ve heard it all before. It was fake news then and it’s still fake now. Allegations about supposed “Nazis in Canada” -- the most recent regurgitation targeting our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland -- have been around for decades. Understandably, just after the war’s end, Jewish Canadians were alarmed at the prospect of “Ukrainian Nazis” escaping justice by posing as Displaced Persons. In response, the Liberal government initiated high-level inquiries ensuring no such villains resettled in our midst. Nevertheless, claims about “thousands of Nazi war criminals hiding in Canada” resurfaced in the early 1980s, resulting in a Progressive Conservative government establishing the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals headed by the (late) Mr Justice Jules Deschênes. Tellingly, its public report, released in the spring of 1987, rebuked those who had spread “increasingly large and grossly exaggerated” figures about “Nazi war criminals,” a campaign engineered to provoke public disquiet. Back then an anonymous denunciation could get your name added to a suspects list – in one case a couple were investigated for having a German surname and 2 black dogs on their secluded property, “evidence” enough for self-styled “Nazi hunters” to pounce.
I helped draft the Ukrainian Canadian community’s response to this hysteria. We recommended anyone found in Canada and accused of being a war criminal, regardless of their ethnic, religious, or racial origins, be brought to justice in a Canadian criminal court, knowing the stringent rules of evidence followed in such a venue would ensure justice was done. That “made in Canada” position was eventually adopted by Ottawa. Not a single person was ever convicted of being a “Nazi” in a Canadian criminal court of law.
Unfortunately, no effort was made to investigate whether any Soviet war criminals managed to enter Canada pretending to be refugees. The Commission’s report perhaps explains this partiality. Listed on page 857 is the name of a man who published an English-language book in Montreal in 1981 admitting he served in the Judenrat under Nazi rule, later joined a Communist partisan group and was then an officer in the NKVD, the notoriously murderous Soviet secret police. With that record he was legally inadmissible to Canada. Yet he got in and even had the chutzpah to offer the Commission his self-serving spin on history, although I doubt he ever gifted Mr Justice Deschênes with a copy of his book. When a history of the Commission is written its peculiar bias will need to be addressed.
Today Chrystia Freeland is being pilloried for the unproven wartime misconduct of her grandfather, an editor at Krakivski Visti (Krakow News). Years ago another journalist who worked there told me his colleagues had no affinity for Nazi aims but did use their positions with the newspaper to sustain the clandestine work of the Ukrainian resistance. Of course, from the Kremlin’s point of view, Ukrainian nationalism represented a threat, one they would expend considerable resources on eradicating, well into the 1950s. There followed a concerted Soviet defamation campaign, portraying Ukrainian nationalists as “war criminals,” “collaborators” and “agents of Western imperialism.” Moscow’s men still spout the same lines, a rather unimaginative repetitiveness in their disinformation program -perhaps they share Hitler’s view that if you keep repeating a lie people will eventually believe it.
What is shocking about this recent effort, however, is how the Russians have deployed a ‘blood libel’ argument to undermine Ms Freeland. Certainly she made herself a target of their yellow journalism by taking a principled position supporting Ukraine against Russian imperialism. But who believes she should be judged because of the supposed sins of her grandfather? Thankfully her political opponents, like Conservative foreign affairs critic, Peter Kent, do not, recognizing Moscow’s muck-racking for what it is. That said let’s not forget that Mr Putin’s grandfather was Stalin’s loyal servant, his father was an NKVD man and he not only carried on the family tradition as a KGB officer but did better than all the previous Putins, somehow becoming a billionaire on his secret policeman’s pension while securing the sinecure of president-in-perpetuity of the so-called Russian Federation. Now there’s a family tree demanding scrutiny.
By way of full disclosure I acknowledge my paternal grandfather was a veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army during the Great War and then a POW in Siberia, returning to his village many years after the war’s end, a traumatized man. And my maternal grandfather, a forester and Ukrainian nationalist, joined the struggle for Ukraine’s independence against the Polish, Nazi, and Soviet occupations before he was betrayed, imprisoned, and murdered by the Communists, his remains dumped into an unmarked grave. I never met either man but am proud of them both because I know they fought for Ukraine’s freedom, just as Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather did in the circumstances he found himself in during the Second World War. So to my way of thinking she has nothing to be ashamed of and is exactly the right person to be Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs as the Trudeau government rightfully condemns Russia’s subversion of the peace of Europe, just as Mr Harper’s government did before it.