Canadian parliament honours Nazi with standing ovation

[Moe]

I did some looking into this thing. What a mess. This unit, and others in Ukraine, joined the Nazi's to fight the Soviets. The old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Ukrainians hated the Soviets after millions of them died in the Stalin forced famine called the Holodomor.

I think the young Hunka joined to kill Soviets and then everything went sideways and other perceived enemies were also killed. More Poles than Jews from what I see. Be interesting to know what Hunka actually did in the war.

Anyway hate is hate and grows. Nazi scumbags sure caused a lot of grief in the World. The Soviets were no better and for many, many years of Russia and then Soviet leadership, the Jews always suffered (pogroms). That's why so many Jews in Israel come from the old USSR

[Moe]

"Fight your own war"!!!!!! Believe it or not, this is also our war and all civilized nations. Remember your history! The Americans tried to avoid WW1 and WW2 as it was "Europes War and let them fight it". They got dragged in anyway and millions more died than needed to. If they had been involved earlier, like Canada did, then the war would have ended earlier and millions more would have survived.

This is the cheapest war in history to fight as no Canadian, or its allies, blood is being spilled ...... just some coloured paper (money). If we do not support Ukraine, Russia will move on and next thing you know, a NATO ally will be attacked and we will all have to fight anyway. Better to do it now when it costs a few bucks instead of your sons, brothers, cousins etc.

[58thecat]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

The nazis started a world war, committed all kinds of atrocities, and tried to wipe out an entire religion, murdering millions of people in the process, how else should people see it? Sure ,some people were too clueless to realize that he was a nazi, but some must have figured it out, yet they went along with the speaker, standing and applauding. Nobody with the least bit of integrity, would have gone along and stood and applauded, knowing that they were applauding someone that fought for the nazis.

Agree


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[58thecat]

Originally Posted by Pathfinder76

Many? How about ALL of them. This isn’t a Lions club meeting. These are the elected leaders of our country doing what they do best. Bowing themselves to popular opinion. They are a disgrace.

Lions club would have turned it into a brawl, a few would have been bruised up and sent to the curb. No need to resign your just immediately removed.


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[Sundancefisher]

Originally Posted by dgl1948

Karina Gould, the liberal house leader said on the national news last night that Trudeau apologized on behalf of all Canadians. They just don’t get it

I’m sure I speak for the majority of Canadians when I say I’m sorry Trudeau is our Prime Minister.

But hey… at least he wasn’t wearing blackface when he apologized. Could of been worse.

[densa44]

This was a terrible time in the world and almost everyone with personal experience is dead. I wonder if the guy will get extradited to Poland. He is 92 so they will have to be quick.

I remember something about a guy from the middle east I think when Joe Clarke was PM that we let in. He has since gone to ground.

Well I guess the world is full of evil people and we do our best to keep them out.

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by densa44

This was a terrible time in the world and almost everyone with personal experience is dead. I wonder if the guy will get extradited to Poland. He is 92 so they will have to be quick.

I remember something about a guy from the middle east I think when Joe Clarke was PM that we let in. He has since gone to ground.

Well I guess the world is full of evil people and we do our best to keep them out.

No politicians do not always do their best to keep evil people out, if there is a political advantage, they will welcome them instead.

[jbrow397]

Originally Posted by densa44

This was a terrible time in the world and almost everyone with personal experience is dead. I wonder if the guy will get extradited to Poland. He is 92 so they will have to be quick.

I remember something about a guy from the middle east I think when Joe Clarke was PM that we let in. He has since gone to ground.

Well I guess the world is full of evil people and we do our best to keep them out.

He is 98. I’d imagine this coming to light will bring the end soon, from stress and upset, if he is of sound mind to understand that he has been exposed. Extradition for this stuff takes awhile.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by jbrow397

He is 98. I’d imagine this coming to light will bring the end soon, from stress and upset, if he is of sound mind to understand that he has been exposed. Extradition for this stuff takes awhile.

Seems absurd given the amount of time that has passed and his age. Wheeling a man in a wheel chair for crimes that supposedly happened close to a hundred years ago seems like exactly what he is accused of.

https://www.dw.com/en/nazi-war-crime...any/a-59275568

Grizz

[jbrow397]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

Seems absurd given the amount of time that has passed and his age. Wheeling a man in a wheel chair for crimes that supposedly happened close to a hundred years ago seems like exactly what he is accused of.

https://www.dw.com/en/nazi-war-crime...any/a-59275568

Grizz

It does seem like a waste of effort. Extraditing him doesn’t serve Canadians. A dozen or so MPs being expelled from government employment due to inviting an ex nazi in would serve Canada well by instilling some fear in MPs that there is in fact, consequences for incompetence.

[glen moa]

Think they should make it a national holiday. Let’s give a round of applause to all the nazi.
I’m sure grandpa would like to see that.
(Come on clown show don’t let us down)

[Bigwoodsman]

Originally Posted by elkhunter11

The nazis started a world war, committed all kinds of atrocities, and tried to wipe out an entire religion, murdering millions of people in the process, how else should people see it? Sure ,some people were too clueless to realize that he was a nazi, but some must have figured it out, yet they went along with the speaker, standing and applauding. Nobody with the least bit of integrity, would have gone along and stood and applauded, knowing that they were applauding someone that fought for the nazis.

It is the responsibility of the PMO to vett all guests to the HOC. This isn't the first time our government has properly vetted guests or MP's for that matter.

I would think that all sitting members would be given a guest list and do their own vetting.

They all have stink on their hands, but none more than the PMO and his bobble heads.

BW

[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by jbrow397

He is 98. I’d imagine this coming to light will bring the end soon, from stress and upset, if he is of sound mind to understand that he has been exposed. Extradition for this stuff takes awhile.

No extradition will happen, obviously. Everyone knows it, including the Poles.

I watched a fragment on the news the other day and they were talking about it. The guy asked how they knew he was a nazi. The other one answered that besides common sense, he himself posted some photos of himself back in 2001 or something like that, and talked about how when the nazis came to his town, they met them with open arms, he proudly served in the SS, and blah blah. I don’t think he cares about being exposed and sounds like he is pretty proud and has no regrets. I am assuming it was his son sitting next to him in the Commons, who seemed just as proud and dumb enough to let his old man be there. Quite fascinating that there are people who think there is nothing wrong with it and others, like the son most likely, are actually proud. Crazy stuff. I imagine they thought there would be a great outcome by sitting in and the old man being recognized like that? Like his time has come? Not sure what people are thinking. These two obviously knew (unless the old man had already lost his mind though he didn’t look like it) exactly what he is.

The good thing about this whole embarrassment is that it brought this real issue to light and there is a discussion being had and hopefully it will continue for a while and appropriate conclusions are made.

There were at least two other people there who were smart enough and know their stuff who likely right away realized what was happening (if not beforehand - there is gotta be some kind of agenda and Zelensky being prepared and told what is going to happen; not like he shows up, does his address and then “Surprise! We have a nazi in da house! Let’s clap!). Those two are Freeland, due to her academic and cultural/ethnic backgrounds, and Zelensky, due to his ethnic/cultural background and he isn’t stupid. I am positive they both knew who they were clapping to. I am sure there were a few more.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s great-grandparents died when the Nazis burned their village, he said in an interview on CNN Monday.

Speaking through a translator with Fareed Zakaria, Zelensky said, as he has many times before, that his grandfather and his grandfather’s brothers all enlisted in the Soviet Red Army, and only his grandfather survived.

He also offered details about what happened to his grandfather’s parents that have not previously been reported in English.

“His father and his mother were killed in a terrible fire. The Nazis set ablaze the entire village where they lived and where my grandfather was born,” he said.

…

“When Russians are telling about neo-Nazis and they turn to me,” he said, “I just reply that I have lost my entire family in the war because all of them were exterminated during World War II.”

From March 2022: ‘Killed in a fire’: Zelensky gives new details about his family’s Holocaust history

His grandparents are not alive, most likely, but his parents must be thinking he is a great man.

Some time last year, I do not recall when exactly, he was addressing Greek Parliament (is that what they call it Greece?). He spoke his thing and said there was someone else who wanted to address them. On the screen appeared two dudes that were introduced as two Azov battalion fighters. Half of the lawmakers got up and left the room right away. There were a few articles in the media about it back then. But boy there are more articles about this clusterf of embarrassment now all over the world. Russian officials are greatly appreciating it too, I am sure.

I doubt any vetting is done by anyone but the authorities responsible for security. Here someone saw an opportunity to kiss ass and thought it was a great idea without thinking too much. Then said that their intern would ask some questions and write a speech and then we will all humiliate ourselves in front of the whole world. I doubt there was any ill intent and purpose other than kiss ass. But sure shows how idiotic it is and how much thought is put into it. Everyone is trying to outdo the other. This time, we sure did. Let’s clap!

Not sure how people write the WEF into this whole thing, lol. Does it have to be inserted into every subject that involves (and sometimes doesn’t involve) the guberment?

[Stinky Buffalo]

[britman101]

Seems the repercussions from the Yaroslav Hunka affair is far reaching. Looks like the University of Alberta is returning a donation it received from the Hunka family to its endowment fund.

http://cbc.ca/news/politics/yaroslav...osed-1.6980882

[AxeMan]

Originally Posted by Grizzly Adams1

Seems absurd given the amount of time that has passed and his age. Wheeling a man in a wheel chair for crimes that supposedly happened close to a hundred years ago seems like exactly what he is accused of.

https://www.dw.com/en/nazi-war-crime...any/a-59275568

Grizz

Your posts do bring a level of contrasting narrative to this whole affair. History is messy, no doubt. Would a 16 year kid being starved out by Stalin in WW2 really know who the real enemy was? Was he really a monster? Individually, maybe or maybe not. I watched a number of documentaries on WW2 regarding the 1941 Operation Barbarossa. One of Stalin's tactics was to starve the German forces out, and this meant destroying the Ukrainian crops in turn. This was preceded at least once before under Stalin as well in 1932-33 during the Holodomer (Great Ukrainian Famine).

Canada did study the fact that ex-NAZI soldiers had and were taking refuge in Canada as ordered by Brian Mulroney. The Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, often referred to as the Deschênes Commission, was established by the government of Canada in February 1985.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desch%C3%AAnes_Commission

In June 1987, the House of Commons passed legislation that allowed for the prosecution of foreign war crimes in Canadian courts and the deportation of naturalized war criminals. The second part of the final report, which concerned allegations against specific individuals, remains confidential and has never been made public.

I wonder if Yaroslav Hunka was one of those individuals?

This whole circus in Parliament now is more about backfired virtue signaling than anything else. The condemnation of NAZI Germany and the Holocaust is noble, but so much of this circus was political grandstanding, and far from learning from history. Don't get me wrong, the Liberals bringing this guy into the House is unthinkable and absurd, based solely on his affiliation in 1941.

[britman101]

The reason why there is such hatred toward that military division that Hunka was a part of is that division was responsible for killing entire villages of Polish residents in that region. That would include innocent women and children. So please I have no pity for individuals who used the guise of war to practice heinous crimes of violence against innocent civilians. His past has caught up to him, and if he is extradited back to Poland to stand trial for war crimes, so be it.

[AxeMan]

Originally Posted by britman101

The reason why there is such hatred toward that military division that Hunka was a part of is that division was responsible for killing entire villages of Polish residents in that region. That would include innocent women and children. So please I have no pity for individuals who used the guise of war to practice heinous crimes of war against innocent civilians. His past has caught up to him, and if he is extradited back to Poland to stand trial for war crimes, so be it.

Then the Canadian government screwed up once again. Hunka should have been flagged in the Deschênes Commission in 1985 and tried/prosecuted/deported then if that is true.

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by fishnguy

Some time last year, I do not recall when exactly, he was addressing Greek Parliament (is that what they call it Greece?). He spoke his thing and said there was someone else who wanted to address them. On the screen appeared two dudes that were introduced as two Azov battalion fighters. Half of the lawmakers got up and left the room right away. There were a few articles in the media about it back then. But boy there are more articles about this clusterf of embarrassment now all over the world. Russian officials are greatly appreciating it too, I am sure.

How corrupt does one need to be? The Greeks could figure it out. Like I said earlier. Every single one of those politicians in that room that stood and clapped needs to resign. If your local MP was in that room, they need a phone call and a letter.

[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by AxeMan

Your posts do bring a level of contrasting narrative to this whole affair. History is messy, no doubt. Would a 16 year kid being starved out by Stalin in WW2 really know who the real enemy was? Was he really a monster? Individually, maybe or maybe not.

For a different perspective, I’d recommend a book by Christopher Browning called Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Or there is a short version sort of thing documentary on Netflix called… I think it is called Ordinary Men.

Edit: The Netflix documentary is called Ordinary Men: The Forgotten Holocaust

[trailraat]

Originally Posted by jbrow397

It does seem like a waste of effort. Extraditing him doesn’t serve Canadians. A dozen or so MPs being expelled from government employment due to inviting an ex nazi in would serve Canada well by instilling some fear in MPs that there is in fact, consequences for incompetence.

That's the kind of thing dictatorships do. MP's should be able to be recalled by their constituents, not expelled from government.

This is an unfortunate situation from every angle.

I don't know what Yaroslav Hunka personally did during the war, but I think a 16 year old Ukranian joining a Nazi group to fight against the Soviets deserves a bit more understanding than some are giving. It's never as straight forward as some would like to make it.

However, celebrating him on a public stage is probably the most diplomatically ignorant event that I can remember.

This is a total embarrassment to our country at an international level.

People should be far more angry about this complete diplomatic incompetence than the fact parliament recognized someone who was part of a Nazi group.

In a serious country this would be a reason to hold an election as it is now undeniable that we are being governed by totally incompetent, pompous, self-seeking, sanctimonious children.

[ruffy71]

The division Hunka was in was formed after almost every Jew, Roma and "other" had been rounded up in Ukraine.

There were Ukrainians, and Slovaks, and Lithuanians, and Germans, and... that participated in the sadistic deeds of the SS. They should be extradited even if they are about to draw their last breath. There was Demaniuk (not spelled right) who was suspected of guarding at a concentration camp. I think he was a guard but I cannot be 100% sure and he should have been on the first plane to Israel.

Hunka, likely never involved in any of that, but anybody who puts on that uniform should never be recognized or celebrated.

What that division may have gotten involved in was killing Polish civilians, but even that is not likely. Also, that had nothing to do with Nazis. Nobody knows or is taught, but Ukraine and Poland fought a war just 20 years prior to WW2. Tens of thousands of killed. One of maybe couple of dozen wars between them since the 14th century.

The Polish would have despised those soldiers even if they had been wearing Scottish kilts. Any killing of civilians is terrible, needs to be acknowledged, but for Poland to claim they have been the historical victim of Ukrainian aggression is, farcical. Poland and Ukraine have a lot of work to do to acknowledge the wrongs that ebbed and flowed over that land for hundreds of years. Fun fact, France and England have fought 41 wars and are now allies and buds.

If they can do it, so can Poland and Ukraine, and eventually, so can Ukraine and Russia.


What should be the point of all this? After WW2, and the unbelievable death that modern science could bring to battle field, nations, Europe, and to some extent the world has taken faint stabs at saying "borders are borders, empires and the endless wars they bring are a thing of the past"

Except of course good 'ol Putin and just enough Russians to support him so that he can't be overthrown, still think the old way is still the way to go.

Back to land wars in Europe and 10's of thousands dead.

[1hogfarmer]

This has to be a distraction from something

[KGB]

Well gents after reading all these posts and certainly agreeing with almost all of them, I have only one question: what a hell are we going to do now with the monuments erected in Edmonton and Winnipeg commemorating the Ukrainian freedom fighters against Russians? You know, those monuments to SS Galicia division of so called Ukrainian patriots…. It’s time to take them down!

[ruffy71]

I think the world is moving on from trying to recognize individual people from the past. The thing is, they were all......people. And we have warts, good ideas, bad ideas, did good things, but may have done bad things or said some pretty unsavory things. That doesn't mean that Ukrainian independence is inherently bad, or that any country is inherently bad. And nobody is perfectly good either. We need to move on from that obsession.

I think those monuments should be carefully restored to remove any mention of that division, or people from it, and add to the monument to make it bigger, more beautiful while they're at it.

[AxeMan]

Originally Posted by KGB

Well gents after reading all these posts and certainly agreeing with almost all of them, I have only one question: what a hell are we going to do now with the monuments erected in Edmonton and Winnipeg commemorating the Ukrainian freedom fighters against Russians? You know, those monuments to SS Galicia division of so called Ukrainian patriots…. It’s time to take them down!

Here is the article that talks about this in Edmonton. Good point, KGB.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9990704/e...-nazi-history/

Oh, and one other quick point. So good to see many AO members on here being aware of history and giving thoughtful responses, instead of just clapping like circus seals like our 338 elected elites.

[KC1]

Originally Posted by Stinky Buffalo

Thanks for posting

[stupiddumbman]

Originally Posted by Moe

"Fight your own war"!!!!!! Believe it or not, this is also our war and all civilized nations. Remember your history! The Americans tried to avoid WW1 and WW2 as it was "Europes War and let them fight it". They got dragged in anyway and millions more died than needed to. If they had been involved earlier, like Canada did, then the war would have ended earlier and millions more would have survived.

This is the cheapest war in history to fight as no Canadian, or its allies, blood is being spilled ...... just some coloured paper (money). If we do not support Ukraine, Russia will move on and next thing you know, a NATO ally will be attacked and we will all have to fight anyway. Better to do it now when it costs a few bucks instead of your sons, brothers, cousins etc.

huh?

I am going to be so ****ed if I get conscripted into a nuclear war because a bunch of boomers had to have a ****ing match of who can pretend to be more socially compassionate based on how many Ukrainian flags they can stick to their car and fit in their social media bio's.

[jbrow397]

Originally Posted by stupiddumbman

huh?

I am going to be so ****ed if I get conscripted into a nuclear war because a bunch of boomers had to have a ****ing match of who can pretend to be more socially compassionate based on how many Ukrainian flags they can stick to their car and fit in their social media bio's.

Agreed. This made me chuckle.

[fishnguy]

Originally Posted by ruffy71

The division Hunka was in was formed after almost every Jew, Roma and "other" had been rounded up in Ukraine.

The 100,000 or so Poles were massacred in 1943-44 (see one of my previous posts). Also, Holocaust didn’t end in 1943. In fact, some concentration camps were just being opened and some ghettos beginning to be liquidated. Some of the most horrible things were still to come. Gypsies were yet to be eliminated, and so on.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

There were Ukrainians, and Slovaks, and Lithuanians, and Germans, and... that participated in the sadistic deeds of the SS. They should be extradited even if they are about to draw their last breath. There was Demaniuk (not spelled right) who was suspected of guarding at a concentration camp. I think he was a guard but I cannot be 100% sure and he should have been on the first plane to Israel.

That guy was on the plane to Israel, where he was sentenced to death, then the sentence reversed because of possible mistaken identity (they thought he was a famous torturer in one of the camps and ran the gas chambers there). Turns out he was a guard at Sobibor (I think?), and was later prosecuted and sentenced to minor jail time in Germany and died there in a nursing home while waiting for the appeal decision or something like that, I do not remember exactly.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

Hunka, likely never involved in any of that, but anybody who puts on that uniform should never be recognized or celebrated.

We do not know what he was involved in. Partially why I agree with the latter.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

What that division may have gotten involved in was killing Polish civilians, but even that is not likely. Also, that had nothing to do with Nazis. Nobody knows or is taught, but Ukraine and Poland fought a war just 20 years prior to WW2. Tens of thousands of killed. One of maybe couple of dozen wars between them since the 14th century.

The Polish would have despised those soldiers even if they had been wearing Scottish kilts. Any killing of civilians is terrible, needs to be acknowledged, but for Poland to claim they have been the historical victim of Ukrainian aggression is, farcical.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

Poland and Ukraine have a lot of work to do to acknowledge the wrongs that ebbed and flowed over that land for hundreds of years.

This is nonsense because, again, they massacred something like 100,000 Polish civilians, burned down entire villages. Guess what they are saying and the official line is? There were thousands of Polish and Ukraines murdered and blah blah blah. Exactly what the nazis did to many others.

Also, that reads (exactly) like the Ukrainian propaganda and has been discussed by various scholars numerous times. For example:

As early as October 1943, leaders of the OUN and UPA issued orders to prepare documents that would indicate that the Germans persecuted and killed the Jews without any help from the Ukrainian police. During the Holocaust, the OUN and UPA publications very rarely mentioned the annihilation of Jews. The few publications which mentioned the Shoah, pointed only to the Germans as perpetrators. The mass violence against the Polish civilians was partially ignored in the OUN and UPA propaganda and partially portrayed as a Polish–Ukrainian war or a Polish aggression. The killing and suffering of Ukrainians, on the other hand, was an important component of the official nationalist propaganda, during the war. Especially important were the Ukrainian nationalists who were killed or imprisoned by the Nazis. These individuals were portrayed as soldiers who had fallen for Ukraine or suffered for their country.

And:

Immediately after the war, Ukrainian nationalists in exile published several short books and booklets about the war in western Ukraine, and also a number of brief memoirs in newspapers. One of such publications was authored by Mykola Lebed’, who from fall 1941 until May 1943 had been the leader of the OUN-B. Lebed’s book appeared in 1946 in Rome and was titled UPA: Ukrainian Insurgent Army: Its Genesis, Rise and Deeds in the Struggle of the Ukrainian Nation for an Independent United State. The former OUN-B leader portrayed the UPA as an army that bravely fought against Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union for an independent Ukrainian state. He did not mention in his book the vehement and racialist nationalism and antisemitism of the OUN, and characterized the ideology of the UPA as patriotism or love for its own country. Similarly, he did not mention the pogroms of 1941, the involvement of the OUN in mass violence against Jews as policemen, UPA’s mass killings of the Poles, and the killings of Jews in hiding by the Ukrainian police, UPA, and the local population. Describing Jewish doctors who stayed or were forced to stay with the Ukrainian insurgents, he stated that the UPA rescued them although he knew that some of them were killed by the Security Service (SB, Sluzhba Bezpeky) of the OUN-B, other OUN members, and UPA partisans. It is also possible that he personally issued orders to kill them, before he left Ukraine. To substantiate the argument that the OUN-B and UPA did not collaborate with the Nazis, Lebed’ described in detail most of the better-known Ukrainian nationalists who had been killed by the Germans, and published their photographs.

Another intriguing early publication about the Second World War in Ukraine appeared in 1946 in Buenos Aires. Its author, Volodymyr Makar, used the pseudonym Marko Vira and called his book Seven Years of Liberating Struggle. Similar to Lebed’, Makar forgot to describe the various kinds of mass violence conducted by the Ukrainian nationalists; the racist, antisemitic, and other radical right elements of their ideology; and their collaboration with Nazi Germany. He victimized the Ukrainians even more than Lebed’. Before describing the Second World War, Makar strongly exaggerated the number of the Ukrainian victims of the Soviet policies while arguing that twenty million Ukrainians were starved to death and murdered by the Soviet regime. Describing the events after 22 June 1941 and the proclamation of the state on 30 June 1941, he did not mention the collaboration with Nazi Germany, but wrote about following the principle of independence. Describing the events of 30 June 1941, he described how the OUN-B established militia and attempted to establish a state but he did not write anything about the Lviv pogrom and the role the OUN-B militia played in this anti-Jewish act of violence.

Next to heroism and the fight for independence, Makar made suffering a crucial component of his narrative. The Ukrainians are in his account portrayed as the sole and main victims of the Nazi terror in Ukraine. Every aspect of their suffering is exaggerated. Jews, on the other hand, are not mentioned at all. As a result, the reader gets the impression that the Ukrainians were the main victims of the Nazis in occupied Ukraine. Makar described, for example, how the Soviet POWs suffered in Ukraine because there were, according to him, many Ukrainians among them. Similarly, he explained in detail how the living conditions deteriorated during the German occupation and how the slave work affected the life of the Ukrainians. The fate of any other national group is not mentioned at all. Even when describing the mass shootings by the Germans, he argued that the sole victims were Ukrainians. The word “Jew” does not appear even once in the entire publication.

This way of remembering and representing the German occupation of Ukraine has persevered among many communities of the Ukraine diaspora until today. During the last seven decades, no major changes can be seen in the nationalist narrative of understanding and presenting the Second World War and the Holocaust, although the narrative has adapted itself to the particular political situation of the day, such as the importance of nuclear power during the Cold War or the economic dependence of Russia after the Soviet Union disintegrated. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainians in western Ukraine, in particular in eastern Galicia and Volhynia where the UPA had been active until the early 1950s, adapted this narrative and began to explain the Second World War in a very similar selective manner.

A central element that appears in possibly all Ukrainian nationalist publications on the Second World War is the motif of Ukrainian nationalist prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Similarly to the killing of Ukrainian nationalists by the Germans, this fact has been used to argue that the Ukrainian nationalists opposed Nazis, did not collaborate with them, and were not fascists but fought for national independence and a free democratic state. Although Ukrainian nationalists stayed in the camps as special and ordinary political prisoners and although about 80 percent of them survived the camps because of this special treatment, they are presented as people who shared the fate of the Jews. These claims appear in both the memoirs of the former Ukrainian political prisoners of the German concentration camps and in various historic books and articles about the Second World War. The fact that Bandera’s two brothers Vasyl and Oleksandr died or were killed in Auschwitz was absolutely central for the nationalist narrative because it allowed to fortify the idea of sharing the fate of the Jews and using the most important symbol of Ukrainian nationalism. The question, if some of the Ukrainian nationalist prisoners participated in the pogroms in summer 1941, was on the other hand not discussed in these publications.

From https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10....88325419831351. Weren’t you saying something about the narrative?

Originally Posted by ruffy71

Fun fact, France and England have fought 41 wars and are now allies and buds.

If they can do it, so can Poland and Ukraine, and eventually, so can Ukraine and Russia.

This is true. However, there should be acknowledgment of the past, not rewriting it and pretending it didn’t happen as it did.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

What should be the point of all this? After WW2, and the unbelievable death that modern science could bring to battle field, nations, Europe, and to some extent the world has taken faint stabs at saying "borders are borders, empires and the endless wars they bring are a thing of the past"

Except of course good 'ol Putin and just enough Russians to support him so that he can't be overthrown, still think the old way is still the way to go.

Back to land wars in Europe and 10's of thousands dead.

Agree with most, but disagree with some, but we already talked about it so there is no point of repetition.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

I think the world is moving on from trying to recognize individual people from the past. The thing is, they were all......people. And we have warts, good ideas, bad ideas, did good things, but may have done bad things or said some pretty unsavory things. That doesn't mean that Ukrainian independence is inherently bad, or that any country is inherently bad. And nobody is perfectly good either. We need to move on from that obsession.

Again, agree with caveats mentioned above, ie acknowledgement of the past before letting it be. Justification as it is now doesn’t cut it. Yuo can’t move on without realization and acceptance.

Originally Posted by ruffy71

I think those monuments should be carefully restored to remove any mention of that division, or people from it, and add to the monument to make it bigger, more beautiful while they're at it.

Definitely strongly disagree.