July 18, 2020
Oakville, Ontario
Canadians have taken to social media over the last 24 hours to express their disgust after news resurfaced of a Nazi-affiliated monument’s existence in Ontario. The monument is located inside St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery, on the outskirts of Oakville.
The news broke out Internationally due the fact it was vandalized and the police subsequently considered it to be a “hate-motivated” crime. This was in spite of the fact the monument was made to honour the 1st Ukrainian Division, part of 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Galizien. The SS Galizien is accused of serious war crimes, which include burning Polish citizens and Jewish people alive during World War Two.
After significant social media backlash, Halton Police snapped under pressure, and declared they were investigating the defacement as an act of vandalism instead. Despite this change of pace, it left many Canadian wondering why police would make such a comment in the first place. It was either due to police’s ignorance of the monument’s significance, or knowledge of the monument’s significance. Both are equally troubling.
Coupled with criticisms of Halton Police’s suspiciously naive blunder, Canadians took to Twitter to attack Oakville Mayor Rob Burton for his attempts at shifting blame. Burton cited lack of jurisdiction as his reason for not having the monument torn down earlier. This answer didn’t sit well with some people.
Many Canadians were simply disgusted at the whole mess, and indicated that monuments like these are tied to Canada’s history of entrenched anti-Semitism and hatred.
Some Canadians played the Devil’s advocate, but any attempts to do so were quickly shot down.
Huta Pieniacka Massacre
The Ukrainian Galizien Division is accused of murdering countless people on behalf of the Nazis in the 1940s. The peak of their atrocities was the Huta Pieniacka massacre in modern day Ukraine, which saw approximately 900 people slaughtered at their hands.
The Huta Pieniacka massacre is considered to be the most serious crime committed by Ukrainian nationalists in that region of Eastern Europe. On Feb. 28, 1944, Ukrainian volunteers forming a unit of the German 14th SS “Galizien” Division massacred between 850 and 900 people in the village.
Source: https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/we-must-remember-the-huta-pieniacka-murder-victims—pm-4901
Previous allegations
The Canadian government previously came under for fire from the Russian Embassy (of all places), in 2017. A tweet from the Russian Embassy mentioned the monument in Oakville, as well as another in Alberta. In turn, Ottawa feverishly denied the allegations, and instead defended the monument.
Ottawa continued to accuse the Russians of spreading disinformation. However, an article by the Ottawa Citizen states the Russians were actually telling the truth. Ottawa simply defended the monument to save face, ignoring the war crimes and atrocities it represented.
Petitions
North 99, a left leaning news organization was the first to start a petition demanding the removal of the monument. Graham Clark started a similar petition on Change.org. Both of these petitions target the City of Oakville.
Toronto Today released its own petition, the difference being it targets the owners of the cemetery, as they have the authority to take the statue down. It appears the police and the city do not have the legal authority to rip the monument down. Only the owner of the cemetery can make that call.
Despite modest activity at the time of writing, Toronto Today’s petition has been shared by several Twitter users.
Article by: Mark Slapinski
We need to ensure the following are widely known: First , the author has consciously chosen to ignore Canadian jurisprudence, to wit the findings of the Deschenes commission which exonerated the Division of war crimes and other allegations of attrocities. Second,the evidence existing in the archives at Kew, to wit a letter from L Scopes of the British Foreign Office to The Official Secretary at Canada House. Written in Sept 1950 , the letter states, “I am directed by Secretary Bevan to inform you that while in Italy these men were screened by Soviet and British missions and that 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. Their behaviour since they came to this country has been good and they have never indicated in any way that they are infected with any trace of Nazi ideology…..Some of its members however appear to be survivors of an earlier formation known as the 14 th Galicia Grenadier Division. This was also a Wehrmacht unit, an attempt made by the Germans to make it into an SS Division having apparently been resisted by the Ukrainians themselves. ……….
From the reports of the special mission set up by the War Office to screen these men, it seems clear that they volunteered to fight against the Red Army from nationalistic motives which were given great impetus by the behaviour of the Soviet authorities during their earlier occupation of the Western Ukraine after the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Although Communist propaganda has constantly attempted to depict these, like so many other refugees, as ‘quislings’ and ‘war criminals’ it is interesting to note that no specific charges of war crimes have been made by the Soviet or any other Government against any member of the group.”
Given that this is information is available to the author of the article and the editorial board that they knew or ought to have known about, perhaps it is the press that should be investigated for the fomenting of hate crimes?
At the very least it is reasonable to question whether everything/anything written by them is the truth.
Ironic that the Russian Embassy ignores its own country’s role in collaborating in the Soviet-Nazi pact which started WW2. There were also Russian divisions in the German army funded by the Nazis.
Note the continued Russian disinformation and hiding from the photographic evidence of their own collaboration with Nazis. Joint parade September 1939 celebrating invasion of Poland.
http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/05/09/top-6-soviet-world-war-ii-myths-used-by-russia-today/