NaziGate: Former SS Fighter Yaroslav Hunka’s Family Is in Hiding, Following Controversy Over His Honoring by Canadian Parliament
The few minutes of standing ovation in Parliament developed into a long nightmare for the family of 98-year-old Nazi veteran Yaroslav Hunka.
Hunka is a WWII veteran of the Nazi forces, having been member of the SS Galician Division, accused of widespread war crimes.
His family claims to have been unaware that he would be honored in Parliament last week, which they so much regret.
The session was held in front of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Hunka’s participation ignited an international scandal.
CBC reported:
“Barb Bonenfant, who lives in North Bay, Ont., told CBC News that Hunka’s daughter-in-law sent her a message on Sunday after the public backlash began.
‘She said that her family was shocked at what happened’, said Bonenfant. ‘If her and her husband would have had any idea what was going to happen, they would have never brought this 98-year-old man to Ottawa’.”
While PM Trudeau makes his usual deflection and Anthony Rota took the fall by resigning to his House Speakership, it is unclear what political ramifications, if any, will arise from the scandal.
But one thing is certain: for the Hunka family, everything changed.
In little North Bay, Ontario, shock waves from the political controversy are being felt ever increasingly.
“‘The family is in hiding here in North Bay’, Bonenfant said. ‘I’m sure [they’re] afraid to show their faces’.
[…] Bonenfant said she’s known the Hunka family for more than 30 years and they have a reputation in North Bay for ‘their integrity’. She described them as a ‘honest, kind, helping family’.”
The whole debacle has got Canada taking a new, hard look, in the matter of the Nazi migration post-WWII.
An editorial from the Toronto Sun:
“The root cause of the global diplomatic debacle in Canada last week was declining public knowledge about the Second World War and the Holocaust by a public official, in this case former Commons speaker Anthony Rota.
That’s not surprising. As time marches on there are fewer and fewer Canadians alive who lived through those events — as war veterans and survivors — who can tell us directly what they saw and experienced.
[…] As memories fade, so does the fact Canada allowed as many as 2,000 individuals with similar backgrounds to 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, who served in Adolf Hitler’s Waffen-SS in Ukraine, to emigrate to Canada after the war.
They weren’t prosecuted — a Canadian investigation into what happened did not accuse them of war crimes — a subject of fierce debate ever since, where many support that finding while others allege Canadian governments have been lax about pursuing war criminals for decades.”
As far as it goes, it’s positive that Canada is facing this reality. But what about NOW?
How about the real life Azov Nazis in Ukraine, that Canada and other Western countries keep aflush with taxpayers’ money?
Trudeau made the pathetic move of reaching out to Kyiv through diplomatic channels ‘to apologize to President Volodymyr Zelensky’.
Read more about NaziGate:
Anthony Rota, Speaker of the Canadian House, RESIGNS after Honoring Nazi Fighter in Parliament
