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TORONTO — The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons has apologized for celebrating a man who served in a notorious Nazi military unit during World War II.

Speaker Anthony Rota introduced 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka of North Bay, Ontario, to fellow lawmakers on Friday during Ukrainian President Volodymyr’s visit to Parliament. After <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/09/22/russia-ukraine-war-news-zelensky-canada-visit/" target=_blank>Zelensky addressed the body, thanking Canada for supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia and urging it to stay committed</a>, Rota pointed out Hunka and described him as a war hero “who fought [for] Ukrainian independence against the Russians, and continues to support the troops today.”

“He’s a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service,” Rota said. Lawmakers and guests stood in ovation.

But on Sunday, Jewish groups condemned the honor, saying Hunka had been a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, a Waffen-SS unit composed of ethnic Ukrainians. The Waffen-SS, the paramilitary force of the Nazi Party, was formed by Heinrich Himmler, a key organizer of the Holocaust. It engaged in mass shootings and supplied guards for Nazi concentration camps.

“The fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking,” the Toronto-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies said.

Putin says he will ‘denazify’ Ukraine. Here’s the history behind that claim.

Rota apologized Sunday and said he accepted “full responsibility.” His office did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

“In my remarks following the address of the President of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so,” Rota said. “I particularly want to extend my deepest apologies to Jewish communities in Canada and around the world. I accept full responsibility for my actions.”

In a statement, Rota said Hunka lives in his legislative district, known in Canada as a riding, and neither his fellow lawmakers nor the Ukrainian delegation were involved in or knew about the decision to invite and recognize Hunka.

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the incident “extremely upsetting.”

“The speaker has acknowledged his mistake and apologized,” he told reporters in Ottawa, “but this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension, to all Canadians.”

The left-leaning New Democratic Party called on Rota to resign for the “unforgivable error.”

“Unfortunately, I believe a sacred trust has been broken,” Peter Julian, an NDP lawmaker, said in Parliament on Monday. “It’s for that reason — for the good of the institution of the House of Commons — that I say sadly, I don’t believe you can continue in this role. Regrettably, I must respectfully ask that you step aside.”

The incident draws attention to a controversial moment in Ukrainian history, when far-right nationalists such as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/08/23/ukraine-massacre-world-war-survivor/" target=_blank>Stepan Bandera</a> allied with the Nazis in a bid to expel the Soviets and gain Ukrainian sovereignty. Some Ukrainian forces took part in Nazi atrocities, but their struggle for independence has led some modern Ukrainian troops to revere the old unit imagery and iconography. In April, for instance, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230424232213/https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1650208918302494720" target=_blank>then deleted</a>, a picture of a Ukrainian soldier with a patch bearing the <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/totenkopf" target=_blank>Totenkopf</a>, a Nazi death’s head.

Antisemitism charges swirl after Putin denigrates Zelensky’s Jewish roots

Zelensky is Jewish, and many of his relatives were killed by the Nazis. His government says it has excised extremist elements from its ranks, most notably within the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/06/ukraine-military-right-wing-militias/" target="_blank">Azov Battalion</a>.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin has used the “denazification” of Ukraine as a pretext for his invasion, part of a long-standing propaganda effort to sow disinformation, delegitimize Ukrainian nationalism and distort history for his political purposes.

The State Department has called the “denazification” claim one of the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus’s “most common disinformation narratives.”

“The Kremlin attempts to manipulate international public opinion by drawing false parallels between Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine and the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany,” the department said in a memo last year. “a source of pride and unity for many people of the former Soviet republics who made enormous sacrifices during World War II, including both Ukrainians and Russians.”

Moscow chided Canada on Monday for extending the invitation to Hunka.

“There is no expiration date, no statute of limitations on these crimes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Such untidiness in memory is outrageous. We know that many Western countries, including Canada, have raised a younger generation that doesn’t know who fought who or what happened during the Second World War. And they know nothing about the threat of fascism.”

Fascism, he added, “will appear here and there. And now we see how it is practically trying to get on its feet in the center of Europe, in Ukraine. This is what we are fighting against.”

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center called for an apology and an explanation.

“At a time of rising antisemitism and Holocaust distortion, it is incredibly disturbing to see Canada’s Parliament rise to applaud an individual who was a member of a unit in the Waffen-SS, a Nazi military branch responsible for the murder of Jews and others and that was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremberg Trials,” it said.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Rota’s apology “the right thing to do.” In a statement, spokeswoman Ann-Clara Vaillancourt sought to distance Trudeau from the incident.

“No advance notice was provided to the Prime Minister’s Office, nor the Ukrainian delegation, about the invitation or the recognition,” she said. “The Speaker had his own allotment of guest seating at Friday’s address, which were determined by the Speaker and his office alone.”

The speaker of Canada’s House of Commons is responsible for presiding over the chamber and maintaining order among members. In contrast to the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Canadian speaker is not a political party leader or a household name and plays no role in setting or marshaling support for the government’s legislative agenda.

Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.

European Union-Canada Young Journalist Award, 2015

University of Toronto: BA, History and Italian Studies; Master of Global Affairs; Fellowship in Global Journalism 

Amanda Coletta is a Toronto-based correspondent who covers Canada and the Caribbean for The Washington Post. She previously worked in London, first at the Economist and then the Wall Street Journal.

Amanda Coletta

University of California at Santa Barbara, BA in sociology

Anumita Kaur is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post, where she covers breaking news and writes of-the-moment features. She has previously reported for the Los Angeles Times and Guam Pacific Daily News. 

Anumita Kaur

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