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So, The Canadian parliament are now inviting NAZI SS officers in so they can honour / applaud and do standing ovations for them,

exotic · 22-25, F
Shocking, right?

Yet there are still many minimizing this man's role by saying "he was just fighting for his country".

If fighting for your country involves murdering civilians, these people have no right to criticize anything the Russian army does.

Moreover, they are defending nationalism, which they claim to hate! Ukraine, throughout various points in its history, has seen the most extreme Ukrainian nationalism. Even in recent times, it is a country that hosts extreme nationalism and that is partly why some are so eager to participate in war.

This is also why Ukraine hasn't made ONE effort to find or bring to justice any of its Nazis. In fact, they do all they can to protect their Nazi past. Nazi symbols are still legal there, parades where they celebrate their SS "soldiers" still occur, and they have a current division in their military that is neo Nazi.

Statues of Ukrainian Nazis or Nazi affiliates have also been erected in recent years.

In parts of western Ukraine, the Svoboda Party is very popular. Ternopol, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Khmelnytskyi all have mayors belonging to the Svoboda Party.

In case anyone wasn't aware, the Svoboda Party is antisemitic.

This particular guy was from western Ukraine, where many thousands of Jews were murdered.

As well as committing atrocities in Ukraine, many Ukrainian men went to other countries.

This Nazi division from Galicia went to Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

At home, they participated in the Huta Pieniacka massacre. Most of those murdered were Polish civilians. Many of the civilians there were from the Volyna Oblast, and were being sheltered.

Other villages in the Lvov Oblast were the site of mass murder of Polish civilians.

ALL of the region, and of course country, was home to Jews who were murdered.

They also helped put down the Warsaw Uprising.

In Slovakia, they helped put down another uprising.

To minimize or deny the realities surrounding their existence and their actions, is horrible.

Anyone who does that should be ashamed, and nothing they say should be treated as credible.

If you're doing it because you're ignorant, it's time to read a book, or talk to people who know.

People keep saying it's a mistake, but I think this Nazi being there is representative of a wider issue, especially when you have people trying to excuse Ukraine's actions in WW2.

If it is due to ignorance, it's so sad that you all don't know more. This was only eight decades ago, and this guy who was a young adult at the time, was there.

This "Russia bad, Ukraine good" mentality has to stop, because it has now reached the point where Canada failed to ask questions about a man who belonged to an SS division.

Why weren't questions asked? Because Russia. They are so desperate to appease and virtue signal that they allowed and ignored the presence of a Nazi. Then, they honored him.

His division was declared a "criminal organization" at the Nuremberg trials, but they got to elude potential justice.

I want to tell people that Ukraine hasn't always been a victim, and hasn't always fought for what people see as a good cause.

And, even now, they are not blameless.
JimboSaturn · 51-55, M
An epic blunder. Gold for Russian propaganda. Very embarrassing for Canadian Parliament and Canada itself. Didn't they realize if this guy was fighting the Russians in WWII, our ally at the time, he was fighting with Germany?
Gorps · 46-50, M
@JimboSaturn [quote]Canada is not known for it's robust security lol[/quote]Well, we haven't had a head of state assassinated yet .... eh?
JimboSaturn · 51-55, M
@Gorps True. But we don't kill our politicians like other countries fortunately.
Gorps · 46-50, M
@JimboSaturn Yes maybe I should have said 'politicial leader', not 'head of state'. Forgot for a moment that we're fortunate ( :) ?) enough not to have them combined in a single person.
Gorps · 46-50, M
Immediately after the war I became acquainted with a Polish man who had escaped Siberian imprisonment; made it, on foot to 'the west', - India I think - and was now working on an RAF base. He told me stories from the early days of the war when many eastern Europeans couldn't decide which were their worst enemies or whose forces it was best to join. He said there were cases of brothers shooting at each other from opposing trenches. EIghty years on I don't think I have the detailed knowledge or broad wisdom to pass judgement on almost anyone from that time.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Gorps J No do you? I met Jake at a Mennonite Bible study. He was 16 when conscripted. He was told at gun point he would join the SS. He refused. When his company was taken captive by Canadians he decided to move to Canada. He went on to be a psychiatric nurse living a quiet life with his lovely wife Marie as they raised their two daughters. Oh and btw the fellow across the street from me came from Poland after the war. The family in the house just west of my house came from Holland, The people right behind her house came from Germany. Strangely enough the Dutch family and the German family didn't get along really well. Something about eating tulip bulbs..... We still have some tulips in our flowerbed from the dutch family. Maybe you live in a nice uniculture but I don't. I also know people who escaped Iran and Iraq as well as Lao, Ethiopia and Russia. You see I go to a church that welcomes and sponsors refugees. We did reach out to a couple from Kosovo but they decided they were better people if they stayed in Kosovo and helped rebuild it after Nato destroyed it. Maybe you should get out more.
Gorps · 46-50, M
@hippyjoe1955 Oh my god you're so wonderful. I didn't realize. So sorry!
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Gorps You are the one saying that being an SS nazi is a good thing so....
Richard65 · M
The guy actually lived in Canada and was formerly a member of the Waffen SS, which Ukranians joined in WW2 in the hope that Hitler would grant independence to Ukraine after the war. Apparently, Canada offered refuge to a few Ukranian SS soldiers after the war. It is a huge mistake to applaud this man because the Canadian parliament wasn't aware of his history. One particular politician noticed him in the crowd and spontaneously requested an ovation for him. They've all now admitted it was completely wrong to do so. But it is going to draw a lot of criticism.
exotic · 22-25, F
@Richard65 hundreds of them went to Canada
Richard65 · M
@exotic that's shocking. I know the Nazis called the warehouses at Auschwitz where the stolen belongings were piled "Kanada", because in the 1940s Canada was regarded as the land of plenty. The Nazis named them that as a black joke because they were effectively warehouses for plunder that was stolen from Jewish victims.
exotic · 22-25, F
@Richard65 indeed.

I believe the total number of Ukrainian Nazis who went to Canada is around 600. If they were Germans, and able to be found (which they were/are) they would have been brought to trial years ago.

I think Poland will look into bringing him there.
ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M
Let's not exaggerate eh.[b][/b] One Ukrainian who fought for his country in a Nazi-run unit was applauded in parliament, during the visit from Zelenskyy. Nobody involved realized that he was in that unit until afterwards, and they've admitted it was a stupid error.
ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M
@Gorps Don't get me started on DNA tests and Jewish identity.
He's Jewish because his parents and their families before them were Jewish, and because he identifies as such.
Gorps · 46-50, M
@ServantOfTheGoddess [quote]Don't get me started on DNA[/quote]OK I won't. 🙂 As for someone 'being' a Jew; I've never been sure what people (Jewish or otherwise) meant when they spoke that way. Do they believe it's about ancestry/heredity; or about holding to a religion; maybe just embracing a culture - being related to or hanging out with other 'Jewish' people.
ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M
@Gorps It can be any or all of that!
Gorps · 46-50, M
[quote]If fighting for your country involves murdering civilians, these people have no right to criticize anything the Russian army does.[/quote]If that's the case, people in almost no country would have a right to criticize. Virtually all countries at war, for whatever reason, justifiable or not, have murdered civilians - without calling it murder because they can shield that fact behind legal semantics.

Actually everyone everywhere has the right to criticize. It would be nice though if they did it with a reasonable amount of critical thought, and perhaps even humble empathy for all involved.
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Gorps · 46-50, M
[@exotic quote]Nazi apologist.[/quote] 🤣 🤣 🤣
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Gorps · 46-50, M
If we never knew the people, their circumstances, their perceptions or their specific actions. We are unqualified to judge them.
ididntknow · 51-55, M
@Gorps Go back to sleep 😴
Richard65 · M
@Gorps wrong. If you can't judge the actions or personality of a guy who wore the uniform of the Waffen SS, then you can't judge any war criminal. Back in 1940, this guy bet on the wrong horse and should have lost his shirt.
whowasthatmaskedman · 70-79, M
That war ended in 1945.. How many do you think are left??😷
ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M
JimboSaturn · 51-55, M
@whowasthatmaskedman This guy was 98, Can't be much longer until everyone of that generation is dead.

 
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