How could this happen?

Canada is in uproar after the exposure that its parliament on September 22 provided a standing ovation to a Nazi veteran who had been invited into the chamber to participate in the parliamentary welcome to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Yaroslav Hunka, 98, a Ukrainian man who volunteered for service in Nazi Germany’s SS Galizien during World War II received two standing ovations led by the speaker Anthony Rota who had invited him to the session. Rota described Hunka as a Ukrainian war veteran, from the second world war, who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.”

Hunka in the 1940s. Source: Wikipedia.

That got one standing ovation. The second came when the speaker declared that Hunka was “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”

How could this happen? Two standing ovations from Canadian lawmakers, and from the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, for a representative of the most evil of military formations. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies condemned SS Galizien as “responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”

How could this happen? Surely Anthony Rota and other members of the Ukrainian parliament have IQ levels a bit higher than room temperature (Centigrade not Fahrenheit). Surely, they were aware that the Russians  Hunka fought against were members of the Soviet Red Army which was fighting to liberate Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe from Nazism. Surely, they know at the time there was no question of fighting for independence from the Russians – it was a matter of fighting to liberate Ukraine from Nazi Germany. And that required fighting alongside the Red Army and Soviet Partisans, not serving in a Nazi military unity fighting the Red Army.

As for President Zelensky, he surely knew what this description meant. His own grandfather Semyon (Simon) Ivanovych Zelenskyy served in the Red Army during World War II. Even more painful is the fact that his grandfather and his two brothers were killed in the Holocaust.

I despair at attitudes today. Do we no longer despise Nazis and what they did? If history were repeated, would we be siding with the Nazis today? Or do we no longer concern ourselves with facts and instead go for the emotion of the moment or the approved narrative? How could any sensible person not know what the situation described by Canadian Parliamentary Speaker Rota really meant?