Hunka scandal spurs renewed calls for disclosure of alleged war criminal investigation records

Jewish groupssay the federal government must disclose more information from investigations intoalleged war criminals who entered Canada after the Second World War, in a push that was re-energized after Parliament honoureda man who was revealed to have fought for a Nazi unit.

"When it comes to remembering the victims, we've done a lot. But when it comes to remembering the murderers, we've done very little," David Matas, senior legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada, said in an interview onRosemary Barton Livethat aired Sunday.

"If we're really going to learn from the past, we have to find the lessons that can be learned from what the murderers did and how they escaped justice. And right now, we're not able to fully learn that lesson because of the failure to disclose the records," Matas told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

Jewish groups and Holocaust researchershave long opposed the continued secrecy of parts of a report released by theDeschnes Commission in December 1986, following nearly two years of hearings. The commission was looking into claims that Canada was playing host to Nazi war criminals, who were escaping accountability for acts during the Second World War.

Much of the report was never released, including a list of 240 alleged Nazi war criminals who might have been living in Canada.

WATCH | Hunka debacle prompts calls for Canada to reckon with past:

Hunka debacle prompts calls to release records on former Nazis in Canada

12 months ago

Duration 1:55

Over a week after Yaroslav Hunka was cheered in the House of Commons, Jewish groups are calling for Ottawa to release a decades-old report from the Deschnes Commission containing details about alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.

"It's now time for Ottawa to not only release the unredacted files related to the Deschnes Commission, but to also address the stark reality that there are still former Nazis with blood on their hands living in Canada," Michael Levitt, president of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, saidin a statement earlier this week.

The push to release more information from the commission, as well ashow Canada navigated the question of immigration by those with Nazi ties, has received renewed attention after parliamentarians in Ottawa gavetwo standing ovations on Sept. 22 to Yaroslav Hunka, without knowing that he had fought fora Nazi SS unit while a Ukrainian soldier.

Hunka, 98, was in the House of Commons on the invitation of Speaker Anthony Rota, who was presiding over a visit to Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The backlash eventually led to Rota's resignation and an apology from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on behalf of Parliament.Canada alsosent an apology to Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian delegation through diplomatic channels, he said.

The commission determined that the unit Hunka fought for could not be indicted for war crimes as a group. Historians, though, have said the unit was involved inseveral massacres, including of Polish civilians. Critics of the commission have accused it of whitewashing the unit, while the Waffen-SS in its entiretywas declared a criminal organization during the Nuremberg trials after the war.

Some movement on records

Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this week that releasing additional documents or declassifying more is something that Canada "could possibly examine again."

"If we want to avoid reiteration of the mistakes of the past ... we have to remember the past. And we can't remember the past until we know the past, and we can't know the past until we get the records," B'nai Brith Canada's Matas said.

Irwin Cotler,Canada's Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, told Barton that the Hunkaincident pointed to a broader issue.

WATCH | The story of how people with Nazi ties immigrated to Canada:

How soldiers with Nazi ties ended up in Canada after WW II

12 months ago

Duration 7:29

Canada has been home to many people some historians say thousands who fought for the Nazis in the Second World War. But how did they get into the country and why isnt more being done to bring them to justice?

"There's a larger issue here of how did the Nazi war criminals get in and how were they able to avoid any accountability all this time," Cotler, a former Liberal justice minister, said, adding that there are also real-world consequences.

"We have both the historical truth and the contemporary situation, where we don't want to allow Putin's Russia to weaponize the situation and support his false 'de-Nazification'claim regarding the Ukraine," he said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who oversaw theinvasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Matas expressed some optimism thateventually, the records willbe released and Canadians willhave a better sense of how their government dealt with the issue of alleged war criminals.

"Yes, we'll eventually get the records. I just hope to see it in my lifetime," he said.