When Canada’s House of Commons gave Yaroslav Hunka two standing ovations on Sept. 22, 2023, House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced the 98-year-old as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Ottawa that day as an official guest of Parliament.

What Rota and the rest of the House had apparently missed was that Hunka fought the Red Army as part of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician). This was a volunteer division of the Nazi-German Waffen SS established in Lviv in 1943. Elements of the division not only fought against Soviet troops (then allied with Canada), but also were involved in the ethnic cleansing of Poles in the Volhynia region and atrocities against Jews.

Read more: Canada’s House speaker quits: What the Hunka scandal reveals about Second World War complexities

Some historians, including David Marples, have suggested that members of the division “were prepared to overlook the fact that they had to wear uniforms and swear allegiance to Hitler” to further Ukrainian nationalist aspirations.

Even if this was the case, by the time the division was formed in 1943, there was no hiding the nature of the Nazi regime from those who enlisted in it. At the same time, there was significant overlap between the aspirations of Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi Germany.

The scandal led........

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