Graffiti on monument commemorating Nazi SS division being investigated as a hate crime by police

[canada-man]

An incident involving graffiti spray painted on a monument to those who fought in Adolf Hitler’s SS is being investigated as a hate crime by an Ontario police force.


Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph commemorating those who served with the 14th SS Division. The monument is located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.

The division, made up of Ukrainians who pledged allegiance to Hitler, was part of the Nazi’s Waffen SS organization. Some members of the division have been accused of killing Polish women and children as well as Jews during the Second World War.

Halton Regional Police believe the graffiti was spray painted on the cenotaph sometime around June 21. Police said they were investigating the incident as a “hate-motivated” crime but they declined to release images of the graffiti so as to stop “further spreading” of the message.


But researcher Moss Robeson, who has written articles on Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazis, provided details about the graffiti and the monument on Twitter, prompting questions about why Halton Regional Police think members of the Nazi SS can be the subject of hate crimes.

In response to questions from this newspaper, Const. Steve Elms, spokesman for Halton-Regional Police, cited a section of the Criminal Code that noted those communicating statements in any public place inciting hatred against any identifiable group could face imprisonment not exceeding two years. “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group,” he explained in an email to questions about how a hate crime could be perpetrated against members of the SS.


The 14th SS Division, also known as the Galizien Division, was formed in 1943 when Nazi Germany needed to shore up its forces as allied troops, including those from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Russia, started to gain the upper hand and turn the tide of the war. In May 1944, SS leader Heinrich Himmler addressed the division with a speech that was greeted by cheers. “Your homeland has become more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – the residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name – namely the Jews,” Himmler said. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles, I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”


There are allegations members of the 14th SS Division took part in killing hundreds of Polish civilians in 1944 in the village of Huta Pieniacka. Some Ukrainians dispute that the SS division took part in the killings or they argue that only small elements from the unit – and under Nazi command – were involved. Others argue the SS members were heroes who fought against the Russians.

In 2017, a Polish judge issued an arrest warrant for then 98-year old Michael Karkoc, a 14th SS Division deputy company commander for war crimes. Karkoc, living in the U.S., died before he could be tried in court. He had been accused of coordinating the massacre of 44 civilians, including women and children, in the Polish village of Chłaniów in 1944.

Bernie Farber of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said there is a need for Halton Regional Police to better educate themselves on what constitutes a hate-motivated crime. “Yes, it’s destruction of property for sure,” Farber said of the graffiti on the monument. “But a hate crime? Far from it.”

The monument to the 14th SS Division was also in the headlines in 2017 when the Russian Embassy in Ottawa posted images on its Twitter account pointing out the “Nazi monuments” in Canada.

Graffiti on monument commemorating Nazi SS division being investigated as a hate crime by police

Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.

ottawacitizen.com

 

[mandrill]

Ukrainian Canadian community leaders will say that fighting w the Nazis was the best option for the Ukrainians to save their country from Stalin and the Communists and that the graffitti is an anti Ukrainian act.

This will open a can of worms.

The little I know about it, Ukrainians killed Poles and Jews. Poles killed Ukrainians and Jews. Germans killed Poles and Jews. And Soviets killed everyone they thought had any anti Communist ideas or was middle or upper class. What happened in the 1940's in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine makes Kosovo in the 1990's look like a kiddies' game of tiddly winks. Oh, and we'll throw in Katyn and the Holodomyr just for shits and chuckles too. The violence was on a genocidal scale.

Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians fought with the Nazis too. If this opens up, half the Eastern European immigrant communities in Canada are going to be under scrutiny. Oh, and the Croats, Romanians and Hungarians as well. My mom's erstwhile Romanian immigrant boyfriend wannabe in the 80's had a story about killing a couple of Red Army dudes and running for the West when he was a teen. They'd come to rape and kill his mother and sister and loot the family home.

Belarus lost 60% of its population during WW2. That makes what London suffered during the Blitz look like a tooth ache. I am guessing Poland and Ukraine lost pretty much in the same ballpark.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

They have reunions every year in Germany. So at least they are honoring themselves. Just a nice group of old men. Mocking the idea that they should have asked permission to invade the Netherlands.

 

[jcpro]

Ukrainian Canadian community leaders will say that fighting w the Nazis was the best option for the Ukrainians to save their country from Stalin and the Communists and that the graffitti is an anti Ukrainian act.

This will open a can of worms.

The little I know about it, Ukrainians killed Poles and Jews. Poles killed Ukrainians and Jews. Germans killed Poles and Jews. And Soviets killed everyone they thought had any anti Communist ideas or was middle or upper class. What happened in the 1940's in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine makes Kosovo in the 1990's look like a kiddies' game of tiddly winks. Oh, and we'll throw in Katyn and the Holodomyr just for shits and chuckles too. The violence was on a genocidal scale.

Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians fought with the Nazis too. If this opens up, half the Eastern European immigrant communities in Canada are going to be under scrutiny. Oh, and the Croats, Romanians and Hungarians as well. My mom's erstwhile Romanian immigrant boyfriend wannabe in the 80's had a story about killing a couple of Red Army dudes and running for the West when he was a teen. They'd come to rape and kill his mother and sister and loot the family home.

Belarus lost 60% of its population during WW2. That makes what London suffered during the Blitz look like a tooth ache. I am guessing Poland and Ukraine lost pretty much in the same ballpark.

That is mostly true, but what is an undeniably true is that the Ukrainian SS units were involved in the unspeakable atrocities- as a rule not as an exception. As a liberal and a Canadian, I acknowledge the right of my fellow citizens to express themselves with a monument. But, I am sad that any human being would thought it a good idea to build a monument to murderers.

 

[TeeJay]

That is mostly true, but what is an undeniably true is that the Ukrainian SS units were involved in the unspeakable atrocities- as a rule not as an exception. As a liberal and a Canadian, I acknowledge the right of my fellow citizens to express themselves with a monument. But, I am sad that any human being would thought it a good idea to build a monument to murderers.

lol what???

You do realize how many monuments we have across Canada, US, and western Europe being dedicated to mass murderers who committed war atrocities right?

We committed more than our fair share of war crimes as well only diff is we "won" the war so no prosecution

 

[jcpro]

lol what???

You do realize how many monuments we have across Canada, US, and western Europe being dedicated to mass murderers who committed war atrocities right?

We committed more than our fair share of war crimes as well only diff is we "won" the war so no prosecution

Which monument in Canada would you compare to the Nazi SS monument? Just curious.

 

[xyphy]

in

lol what???

You do realize how many monuments we have across Canada, US, and western Europe being dedicated to mass murderers who committed war atrocities right?

We committed more than our fair share of war crimes as well only diff is we "won" the war so no prosecution

incomparable!
The organized, systematic and industrialized murder of millions of people can not be compared to anything. Absolutely, there were horrific moments during war that could be described as "atrocities", but this happens when you are fighting a totalitarian fascist state that marginilized, scapegoated and almost annihilated an entire race of people.

 

[Robert Mugabe]

Actually, What the Fuck is a nazi war memorial to the SS doing in Canada? How do you desecrate it? spray paint swastikas on it? Should be converted into a public toilet.

 

[Frankfooter]

The police apologized and admitted that vandalizing Nazi memorials isn't hate speech.

 

[canada-man]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1278703445684490241

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/923677847453040640

 

[canada-man]

How a network of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists penetrated Canada’s Conservative Party to lobby for military conflict


Once an underground network of fascist ideologues shunned by the Ukrainian Canadian community for “criminal ideas,” Canada’s ultra-nationalist Bandera lobby is today a major political player. It recently rubbed shoulders with former PM Stephen Harper and top contenders for the leadership of his Conservative Party.
By Moss Robeson


A month ago in Toronto, former Canadian Prime Minister and Conservative Party heavyweight Stephen Harper called out to an audience of Ukrainian Canadians, “Slava Ukraini!”

Harper’s audience responded to his cry of “Glory to Ukraine!” by compleing the salutation of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement once led by the notorious fascist Stepan Bandera: “Heroyam Slava!” In other words, “Glory to the Heroes!” who, in fact, collaborated with Nazi Germany during its occupation of Ukraine in World War Two.

Harper spoke as the keynote guest at a gala organized to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC) and its newspaper, Homin Ukrainy (“Ukrainian Echo”), as well as the 65th anniversary of the League of Ukrainian Canadian Women (LUCW). The event capped off a three day, tri-annual convention of the Leagues.

Held on February 22, the gala took place six years and one day after the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled his country following the Euromaidan “Revolution of Dignity” in Kyiv, which saw pro-EU protesters and hard-right street fighters topple their Russian-oriented government.

Through the so-called “Canadian Conference in Support of Ukraine” (CCSU), many of Canada’s leading Conservatives have befriended a historically criminal, fascist network of Ukrainian nationalists that has remained dedicated to pushing the West to the brink of war with Russia since before World War Two ended. Today, followers of the long dead Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera are vying with Ukraine’s neo-Nazis to lead another “revolution” – this time, against Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his moves to peace with Russia.


During the Cold War, the Banderivtsi agitated for the declaration of a U.S.-led “holy war of liberation” against Soviet Russia – a World War Three – placing their faith in the United States government to free the Soviet “prison of nations” by force, and to do so without obliterating them in the process with nuclear weapons. Similary, during World War Two, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists led by Bandera (OUN-B) initially counted on Nazi Germany to “liberate” Soviet Ukraine, although Adolf Hitler had no intentions of doing so.

The LUC is the Canadian spearhead of the CCSU and an international coalition of NGOs affiliated with the decades-old, highly secretive cult of personality centered around Stepan Bandera. The League of Ukrainian Canadians plays a leading role in the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian World Congress, the first vice president of which (from Australia) is the present-day leader of the OUN-B. “At the Forefront of Ukrainian Issues” is the LUC’s slogan.

Bandera’s OUN-B, an extremist “revolutionary” fascist organization, carried out numerous brutal pogroms against Jews throughout western Ukraine in 1941 before infiltrating Nazi auxiliary police units that served at the frontlines of the “Holocaust by Bullets.” Bandera aspired to be the Führer of a pro-Nazi Ukrainian dictatorship, but was rejected by Hitler and later the CIA. He was drifting into irrelevance when his 1959 assassination by the KGB in Munich turned him into a beloved ultra-nationalist martyr.

Over the course of the Cold War, the CIA attempted to incubate a rival, so-called “democratic” faction of the OUN-B – which also happened to be led by former Nazi collaborating war criminals. But the more radical, fascistic Banderites eventually hijacked Ukrainian communities around the world in the name of an anti-democratic “Ukrainian Liberation Front.” The OUN-B sought to establish a “dictatorship in exile,” as told by historian Per Anders Rudling, “intended to be re-exported to Ukraine, following its ‘liberation.’”

In 1956, the CIA collected from its Ukrainian collaborators a “set of complaints” made against Stepan Bandera and “a list of his anti-American acts,” however, “we were not interested in the specifics or evidential details related to the complaints or acts since these were already known to Headquarters.” That included the existence of an “illegal underground Bandera organization” of “blindly loyal” cadres mobilizing in the United States, taking orders from the fascist OUN-B leadership then located in Munich.

Meanwhile, according to a book by Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, the OUN-B’s “rezident” in Canada “had an organized if modest nationalist network in place by the fall of 1948 … [and] was in regular communication with the nationalist provid (or leadership) in Europe.”

Furthermore, “everything possible was being done to ensure that nationalist cadres were spread out ‘in a planned way’ across Canada, to ensure that the Banderivtsi would have some of their people in every centre where they might be able to work on behalf of the liberation movement.”

At the third national convention of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in 1950, Stepan Bandera’s followers “were harried and jeered out of the meeting hall,” writes Luciuk, “accompanied by a stern reprimand from the podium … [denouncing] those whom he accused of trying to ‘take over’ Ukrainian Canadian organizational life.”

By the 1960s, some in the CIA were convinced that the KGB had infiltrated the OUN-B at high levels, perhaps to the point of controlling it through double agents. The OUN-B and its supporters in the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America eventually denounced the US-backed ex-Banderites based in New York City as “CIA tools” who were “soft on Communism.” The New York-based nationalist clique responded by accusing the former of colluding with ex-Nazi West German officials.

Despite all this, there is no evidence that Western governments took measures to suppress the OUN-B. Instead, well-connected anti-communist political interests from around the world nurtured the Banderites, ensuring that their apparatus would live on not just in the US, but in Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and Western Europe. All parties abided by the OUN-B’s whitewashed, distorted script when it came to the Ukrainian Nationalists and World War Two.

“You have to understand,” a member of the OUN-B told journalist Russ Bellant, “we are an underground organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions of influence.”

Today, the transnational crypto-fascist network of Banderite NGOs once known above board as the “Organizations of the Ukrainian Liberation Front” operates in the open and with the full-throated support of Western politicians like Stephen Harper. Its global coordinating body is called the International Council in Support of Ukraine, or ICSU, which in turn looks to the OUN-B for leadership.

The ICSU and the Ukrainian World Congress are presently headquartered in Toronto. And it’s there that the LUC – the group that hosted Harper – presides over the ICSU’s Canadian branch, the CCSU. Oksana Prociuk-Cyz, CEO of the largest Ukrainian Canadian credit union, is a former treasurer of the ICSU, the present-day leader of which, Borys Potapenko, is from Detroit, but a former executive director of the LUC.

Over forty years ago, Potapenko chaired a “Committee in Defense of Ukraine” that “conducted a major campaign in protest against the showing of the [1978] television movie ‘Holocaust’” starring Meryl Streep and James Woods.

Several nationalist subsidiary groups function under the CCSU’s umbrella. They include the Ukrainian Youth Association of Canada, Homin Ukrainy, and the Canadian Society of Veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The UPA was responsible for the ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of ethnic Poles and an unknown number of Jews from 1943 through ‘44.

According to Lubomyr Luciuk, a Canadian academic and Ukrainian nationalist historian, Homin Ukrainy had been “an unflagging advocate of revolutionary nationalist principles,” and the Canadian “press organ of the movement headed by the Banderivtsi.” In an email, Luciuk told me that he was unaware of any OUN-B activity in Canada “anymore,” but declined to specify when he believed it ceased to operate in the country. Luciuk’s downplaying of the Bandera network in Canada might have something to do with “his continuous…cooperation with various OUN-B institutions,” including the ICSU.

The recent gala in Toronto demonstrated how far an underground network once held in suspicion by the CIA and the Ukrainian Canadian community has come. Besides Stephen Harper, the 2020 LUC gala featured both Peter McKay and Erin O’Toole, contenders for the leadership of Canada’s Conservative Party.


more at

How a network of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists penetrated Canada’s Conservative Party to lobby for military conflict - The Grayzone

Once an underground network of fascist ideologues shunned by the Ukrainian Canadian community for "criminal ideas," Canada's ultra-nationalist Bandera lobby is today a major political player. It recently rubbed shoulders with former PM Stephen Harper and top contenders for the leadership of his...

thegrayzone.com

 

[avocat]

The fact that there were Ukrainians who at the time chose to fight for and with the Nazi's to better themselves is extremely unfortunate. What is worse, is those same people for their entire lives, even after being allowed to live in Canada are still filled will hate and prejudice against not only Jews, but pretty much everyone else who they do not consider like them. It is despicable that ON, and Canada allows these monuments to exist. Even more, these are not old monuments, but erected decades after the war ended which shows that their heirs are still Nazi's, Nazi sympathizers, and the government should remove these symbols just as the government of Germany removes them.
At least the fake "reverse hate crime" argument is now gone. See https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...kville-no-longer-considered-a-hate-crime.html

By the way, this is a fucking huge monument! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Volodymyr_Ukrainian_Cemetery

 

[canada-man]

Canadian officials honour Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, angering Jewish groups

The Canadian Forces and Global Affairs Canada are facing criticism after honouring members of Ukrainian organizations that helped the Nazis in the Second World War.

Canada’s Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk spoke at an Aug. 21 ceremony that unveiled a monument in Sambir to honour members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), two groups that are linked to the killing of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Canadian officials honour Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, angering Jewish groups

'It’s like putting a monument to killers on the top of the graves of their victims,' said an official from the Ukrainian Jewish Committee based in Kiev

nationalpost.com

8 months earlier Russian Tv aireda documentary saying nazi ukrainians are running canada's govt

Russian TV airs doc claiming Nazi-loving Ukrainians are running Canada's government

 

[mandrill]

The fact that there were Ukrainians who at the time chose to fight for and with the Nazi's to better themselves is extremely unfortunate. What is worse, is those same people for their entire lives, even after being allowed to live in Canada are still filled will hate and prejudice against not only Jews, but pretty much everyone else who they do not consider like them. It is despicable that ON, and Canada allows these monuments to exist. Even more, these are not old monuments, but erected decades after the war ended which shows that their heirs are still Nazi's, Nazi sympathizers, and the government should remove these symbols just as the government of Germany removes them.
At least the fake "reverse hate crime" argument is now gone. See https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...kville-no-longer-considered-a-hate-crime.html

By the way, this is a fucking huge monument! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Volodymyr_Ukrainian_Cemetery

I'm not seeing any Nazi symbols on that memorial btw. I'm seeing a Trident of Volodymyr (the symbol of Ukraine everywhere) and a lion w 3 crowns.

Here's what the wiki article says:

Around June 21, 2020, the cenotaph was vandalized, with spray paint reading "Nazi war monument". Halton Regional Police Service initially reported that the vandalism was a "hate motivated offense",[7] and refused to release images of the graffiti. Halton police later stated that the graffiti may have been targeting Ukranians either as a whole or in the area, and that they did not "consider that the identifiable group targeted by the graffiti was Nazis."[8][9]

On 26 May 1988, Monument to the Glory of the UPA, a memorial to members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, was erected. Soon after, a cenotaph was erected, displaying the emblem of 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), and an inscription dedicating it "To Those Who Died For the Freedom of Ukraine".[3]

On October 14, 2017, the Embassy of Russia in Ottawa's Twitter account posted images of the monuments, alongside a bust of Roman Shukhevych in Edmonton, with a caption referring to them as "monuments to Nazi collaborators."[4][5] Alexandra Chyczij, vice president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, called these claims "long-disproven fabrications".[6]

Ukrainian Insurgent Army - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If the lion is the emblem of an SS formation, the cemetery may well want to take it down and replace it with a monument displaying just the Trident. The generation that participated in WW2 is now 90 years old or more likely dead and I doubt that the present day Ukrainian Canadian population has much interest or appetite for this battle. Whatever feelings and beliefs their great grandparents had are likely long gone.

 

[mandrill]

Canadian officials honour Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, angering Jewish groups

The Canadian Forces and Global Affairs Canada are facing criticism after honouring members of Ukrainian organizations that helped the Nazis in the Second World War.

Canada’s Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk spoke at an Aug. 21 ceremony that unveiled a monument in Sambir to honour members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), two groups that are linked to the killing of tens of thousands of Jews and Poles.

Canadian officials honour Nazi collaborators in Ukraine, angering Jewish groups

'It’s like putting a monument to killers on the top of the graves of their victims,' said an official from the Ukrainian Jewish Committee based in Kiev

nationalpost.com

8 months earlier Russian Tv aireda documentary saying nazi ukrainians are running canada's govt

Russian TV airs doc claiming Nazi-loving Ukrainians are running Canada's government

Of course they did. Putin currently claims that neo Nazis run the entire Western world and that the US is secretly plotting to steal Siberia from the noble Russian nation and that journalists who want a free and fair government in Russia are part of the devious neo Nazi US scheme. Just business as usual in Putin's Russia.

 

[canada-man]

14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jcpro]

Actually, I'm sure that nobody gives a shit beyond a couple of busy bodies. Regardless, the historical reconciliation should come from within the Ukrainian community.

 

[TeeJay]

in


incomparable!
The organized, systematic and industrialized murder of millions of people can not be compared to anything. Absolutely, there were horrific moments during war that could be described as "atrocities", but this happens when you are fighting a totalitarian fascist state that marginilized, scapegoated and almost annihilated an entire race of people.

The allied people bombed civilian cities and killed hundreds of thousands of Germans who had nothing to do with the war.
Dresden is the most infamous of allied war crimes on a scale that rivals the jewish solutions but is hardly unique.

The UK and USA in particular deliberatly bombed schools and churches in a attempt to force the civilians to stop supporting the Nazis.
Paton and Churchill are monsters to rival Hitler (Paton even got demoted because he abused his OWN troops lol during war years that takes a special kind of asshole).

And all of this is compounded exponentially when you look at the aftermaths of both WW1 and WW2 which can only be described as punitive (eg the thousands of rapes and murders and thefts when Berlin fell; lots of artifacts ended up in US museums after the fact)

 

[HungSowel]

I am putting up a monument to celebrate the 2 nukes being dropped on Japan, you left-wing assholes better not deface it.

 

[TeeJay]

Which monument in Canada would you compare to the Nazi SS monument? Just curious.

MANY
But start at the top

Our PM during the war was William Lyon Mackenzie King
He has a whole bunch of issues, but the most obvious parallel was the Chinese Immigration Act (a massively racist piece of legislation that is no different than the discrimination the jews faced pre-war years)
Its ok though because to most people Asians were subhuman at the time
He also went after Japanese, Indian and the Native populations
And he was a card carrying racist since this month has been all about BLM
He might as well have worn his white hood in office
The race riots during those times are legendary, prob worst Canada has ever seen

Oh and lets not forget the fact he PUBLICLY applauded Adolph HItler (he was anti-Jew as well) and was anti-UK (there was a huge stink that we took the side of USA against Japan as the UK-Japanese alliance still existed at this time, the USA-Canada were opposed to them coming here)
And he conducted seances lol
And he was against the "displaced persons" (does not want to let WW2 refugees into Canada)

Fuck even Steven Harper had to publicly apologize for Kings issues, where have you been living?