2023-09-27 07:06:11
Ukrainian President Zelensky was at the Canadian Parliament to make a speech last weekend. SEAN KILPATRICK/AFP
STORY – The ovation of a Ukrainian veteran of the Waffen SS in the presence of President Zelensky illustrates a particular reading of history.
He is a “hero” that the Canadian political class would have done well without. The Speaker of the House of Commons in Ottawa, Anthony Rota, presented a volunteer from the 14th SS Galicia Division, Yaroslav Hunka, 98, as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero”, while Ukrainian President Zelensky was in Parliament to make a speech at the end of last week.
The entire chamber rose to give the former Nazi a standing ovation. But when the advocacy group Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center recalled the man’s past, scandal erupted. Justin Trudeau denounced an unacceptable act and “deeply embarrassing”. Anthony Rota apologized.
Also read: Are there really “Nazis” in Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin claims?
For Professor Ivan Katchanovski, specialist in Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa, “it is hard to believe that no one in Parliament, in the government or in Zelensky’s delegation suspected that being labeled a veteran of a Ukrainian division fighting the Red Army in Ukraine during the Second War…
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