notable
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation/
Chrystia Freeland’s granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator – so much for Russian disinformation
The news conference on Monday by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was interesting not for the announcement that Canada was extending its training mission to Ukraine but for the questions and answers about the minister’s grandfather.
There have been a number of articles circulating about Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather Michael Chomiak and his ties to the Nazis.
Some of those articles have appeared on pro-Russian websites. Freeland, who strongly supports Ukraine and is a major critic of Russia’s seizure of the Crimea, suggested to journalists that the articles about her grandfather were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. (The Russian government sees Freeland as virulently anti-Russian and has placed her on their travel ban).
“American officials have publicly said, and even Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn’t come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada,” Freeland told reporters after they raised questions about the articles about her grandfather.
The Globe and Mail also reported that an official in Freeland’s office denied the minister’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.
In addition, the claims were dismissed outright by those in the Canadian-Ukrainian community. “It is the continued Russian modus operandi that they have,” Paul Grod, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress told the Globe and Mail. “Fake news, disinformation and targeting different individuals. It is just so outlandish when you hear some of these allegations – whether they are directed at minister Freeland or others.”
Well it actually isn’t so outlandish. Michael Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator.
What are the sources for the information that Freeland’s grandfather worked for the Nazis?
For starters, The Ukraine Archival Records held by the Province of Alberta. It has a whole file on Chomiak, including his own details about his days editing the newspaper Krakivski Visti. Chomiak noted he edited the paper first in Crakow (Cracow), Poland and then in Vienna. The reason he edited the paper in Vienna was because he had to flee with his Nazis colleagues as the Russians advanced into Poland. (The Russians tended to execute collaborators well as SS members).
>https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation/
So what was the Krakivski Visti? It, like a number of publications, had been seized by the Nazis from their Jewish owners and then operated as propaganda outlets.
Here is what the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum has to say about Krakivski Visti and a similar newspaper, Lvivski Visti, both publications associated with the Nazi regime.
“The editorial boards carried out a policy of soliciting Ukrainian support for the German cause,” the Holocaust Museum noted. “It was typical, within these publications, to not to give any accounts of the German genocidal policy, and largely, the editions resorted to silencing the mass killing of Jews in Galicia. Ukrainian newspapers presented the Jewish Question in light of the official Nazi propaganda, corollary to the Jewish world conspiracy.”
“In 1943 and 1944, both Lvivski Visti and Krakivski Visti hailed the German-approved formation of the 14th Waffen SS Division Halychyna, composed of Ukrainian volunteers,” the museum pointed out.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/battle-of-billings-bridge-attracts-hundreds-of-volunteers-traps-convoy-for-hours
'Battle of Billings Bridge' attracts hundreds of volunteers, traps convoy for hours
Shortly after 10 p.m. on Saturday night, Sean Burges made a suggestion that spread like wildfire.
Burges, a senior instructor in global and international study at Carleton University, had learned that a convoy of trucks would be travelling on Riverside Drive on Sunday morning, heading west to Bronson Avenue, where the trucks would turn north and join protesters downtown.
Burges’ plan was posted on a neighbourhood Facebook page usually dedicated to arranging playdates and dog walking: a group of volunteers would block the corner of Bank Street and Riverside Drive, detaining the convoy for a short time. Just long enough to make a point: You are disrupting the lives of people in Ottawa. Please stop.
On Sunday morning at 9 a.m, about two dozen people were at the intersection.
“I just hopped on board,” said Andrea Harden. “Some people had markers and posterboard. There was some talk about whether we should bring a hockey net to block the intersection.”
They didn’t use the hockey net. There were enough volunteers to corral about 35 vehicles in the convoy, mostly pickup trucks. Local traffic was waved through.
Police arrived within minutes. Dozens more volunteers showed up, then hundreds, relieving those who were getting cold or needed a break.
Minutes turned to hours. They chanted and marched around in circles to keep warm. Supporters brought so much pizza, coffee and doughnuts that the surplus was diverted to a shelter downtown.
“People were organically engaging where we needed them,” said Harden, who has training in de-escalation techniques and non-violent civil disobedience. “It just happened. I have never seen anything like it.”
Decisions were made by consensus. As the hours rolled by, “discussion circles” were held to decide the conditions for releasing the trucks. No one wanted the trucks to be able to turn around and go downtown using some other route, or to head back to the supply base on Coventry Road, said Harden.
As the sun was going down and the temperatures dipped, the truck drivers in the convoy were permitted a “negotiated retreat” — they were allowed to leave one at a time, but only after their trucks had been stripped of flags, and “Freedom Convoy” stickers, and surrendered any jerry cans.
“The look on their faces when they were taking down their flags was one of defeat, not of pride,” said Harden.
Sean Devine went to the blockade with the intent of speaking to as many people in the convoy as possible.
“I don’t want to take away anyone’s right to protest, but I wanted them to hear that they’re having a negative impact on the citizens of Ottawa,” said Devine, who said about two-thirds of drivers in the convoy agreed to talk.
“Most of the people I spoke to were surprised at the resistance. I think the convoy is under the false impression that they have unwavering popular support. It helps them to see opposition.”
Ariel Troster, who intends to run for council in Somerset ward, said Centretown residents are living in an atmosphere of fear.
“It felt good to take back some of the power,” she said. “We’re not advocating for rubber bullets and tear gas. We just want our city back. It’s going to take citizens to block major thoroughfares, then it’s going to happen.”
By the time the blockade was over about nine hours after it began, those who were part of what some have dubbed “the Battle of Billings Bridge” were declaring victory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)#The_Canadian_Desch%C3%AAnes_Commission
The Canadian DeschĂŞnes Commission
Memorial to SS-Galizien division in Chervone, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine
The Canadian "Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes" of October 1986, by the Honourable Justice Jules DeschĂŞnes concluded that in relation to membership in the Galicia Division:
The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS) should not be indicted as a group. The members of Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission. Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.
The commission considered the International Military Tribunal's verdict at the Nuremberg Trials, at which the entire Waffen-SS organisation was declared a "criminal organization" guilty of war crimes. Also, in its conclusion, the DeschĂŞnes Commission only referred to the division as 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS but rejected such a principle.
A monument to the division stands in St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in the Canadian city of Oakville; according to the manager of the cemetery, the monument was probably erected in the 1980s. On 22 June 2020 the monument was vandalized when someone painted "Nazi war monument" on it. On 17 July of that year, it was announced by the Halton Regional Police that this was being investigated as a hate crime before being walked back soon after. There is also a monument to the division in St. Michael's Cemetery in Edmonton. In 2021 it was vandalized with "nazi monument" painted on one side and "14th Waffen SS" on the other.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/monument-vandalism-nazi-1.5654169
Police apologize for saying anti-Nazi vandalism was 'hate motivated'
Investigation continues after spray-painting of memorial to controversial military unit
Police are apologizing for saying they had launched a hate crime investigation into a vandalized memorial in an Oakville, Ont., cemetery that has been linked to the Nazis.
Halton Regional Police said last month someone had recently spray-painted a message on a monument at St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.
Investigators said it was being investigated as a "hate motivated offence." They did not share pictures or state what was painted on the memorial to avoid "further spreading the suspect's message."
But a report from Ukrainian Kontakt TV on YouTube shows it had been scrawled with the words "Nazi war monument."
Representatives for the cemetery did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The memorial in question, which is in a private cemetery, is meant to commemorate the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army, which was first known as the Waffen-SS "Galicia" Division.
The unit was created by Nazi Germany from mostly Ukrainian volunteers in 1943 and 1944, according to a study. Its involvement in war crimes is still debated today.
"It's ludicrous that it would be considered a hate crime to vandalize this monument," Moss Robeson, a self-described independent researcher on nationalist networks, told CBC News.
Controversy about how police described the investigation grew after Robeson posted about it on Twitter in early July.
He says calling the vandalism a hate crime is "ridiculous."
On Friday, Halton police walked back their original statement and apologized, saying the "initial information" indicated that the group being targeted was "Ukrainians in general," or members of this specific cultural centre.
"At no time did the Halton Regional Police Service consider that the identifiable group targeted by the graffiti was Nazis," police said in a news release.
"We regret any hurt caused by misinformation that suggests that the Service in any way supports Nazism."
>Klaus Schwab is a Rothschild
>It’s also a declaration of comfortable complacency in not investigating how much Freeland aims to revive the takeover of Polish Galicia, with Canadian money and arms, which her grandfather tried with German money and arms.
The guerrilla song "Punch the communist" came into being during World War Two. It accompanied partisans through long years of hiding. Its creator was (most probably) a member of the "Self-Defence Force of the Wołkowyjska Land (Samoobrona Ziemi Wołkowyjskiej)". Its goal was to motivate the Cursed Soldiers to fight the Red Army, which "blessings" they knew all to well, unlike western countries.
<Beat the Bolshevik
>Its goal was to motivate the Cursed Soldiers to fight the Red Army, which "blessings" they knew all to well, unlike western countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cursed_soldiers
The "cursed soldiers" or "indomitable soldiers" is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet and anti-communist Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and its aftermath by members of the Polish Underground State. This all-encompassing term for a widely heterogeneous movement was introduced in the early 1990s.
>The "cursed soldiers" or "indomitable soldiers" is a term applied to a variety of anti-Soviet and anti-communist Polish resistance movements formed in the later stages of World War II and its aftermath by members of the Polish Underground State.
In May 1945 World War II ended in Europe. But, even after Victory Day the war was not completely over: In all Soviet-occupied countries the NKVD was hunting down a variety of political opponents and freedom fighters. Stalin and Stalinism were still in place - unregenerate, as murderous as ever, and victorious.
https://twitter.com/MichelleObama/status/1493287868063748100
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1493284067898544131
https://web.archive.org/web/20170609142029/http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Canadian-Foreign-Minister-Scapegoats-Russian-Hackers-for-Exposing-Nazi-Grandfather-20170309-0015.html
Canadian Foreign Minister Scapegoats Russian Hackers for Exposing Nazi Grandfather
While Foreign Affairs Minister Chyrstia Freeland dismissed the news as Russian propaganda, it was actually Ukrainian Canadians who unearthed the information.
To say Canada’s “star diplomat,” Chyrstia Freeland, has skeletons in her closet, is a grave understatement. The country’s foreign affairs minister had a Nazi collaborator as grandfather — a fact she knew for decades, but didn't stop her from peddling her way to a top government post.
https://web.archive.org/web/20170626113820/http://www.archives.gov.ua/Eng/canada.php
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/
"Russia should stop calling my grandfather a Nazi", says Canada’s foreign minister, who's grandfather was a Nazi
https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1493289757496983558
Four years ago, an act of evil stole 17 people from us in Parkland.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-of-course-its-news-that-freelands-grampa-was-a-nazi-collaborator-even-if-the-russians-are-spreading-it
Of course it's 'news' that Freeland's grampa was a Nazi collaborator, even if the Russians are spreading it
The Russians say the Foreign Minister's grandpa was a Nazi collaborator. Which he was. Oh, those Russians! It's news, even it makes Putin laugh how late you're learning about it
Chrystia Freeland’s long-dead grandfather is the talk of the town today. And since it is 2017, most of the talk is about whether we are allowed to talk about him. On Monday, Freeland, the foreign affairs minister, warned Canadians of “efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies” while Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale talked of “Russian disinformation tactics.” It turned out that Putinist news gremlins had been circulating a crazy story about Freeland’s grandpa, Michael Chomiak, being a Nazi collaborator in Poland during the Second World War.
It also turned out that the crazy story is true — it is not “disinformation,” just information that has not been in the newspapers until now. When Chomiak died in 1984, his personal papers turned out to include copies of a Ukrainian-language newspaper he had edited, Krakivs’ki Visti, as well as its records and correspondence. The name means “Krakow News”: the paper was based in occupied Poland, and circulated with German approval and sponsorship among ethnic Ukrainians living under the cruel “Generalgouvernement” of Hans Frank.
Chomiak had been the paper’s titular boss throughout the war, and was there to wrap things up as the Red Army approached in late 1944. We know this because Chomiak’s family, upon making the surprising discovery, chose not to build a bonfire in the backyard and consign the offending evidence to the flames. Chrystia Freeland’s uncle by marriage, the son-in-law of Michael Chomiak, is J.P. Himka, a now-retired University of Alberta historian. He is a distinguished specialist on the modern history of the Slavic world, and a Holocaust scholar to boot. There is hardly anyone else who could have been better placed to interpret and make use of the remains of Krakivs’ki Visti.
Chomiak, as Himka has been struggling to explain to reporters the last few days, should not be thought of as a newspaper editor in the contemporary sense. Krakivs’ki Visti was a mouthpiece for the Nazi regime, created at the behest of Frank and the inner circle of the occupation forces. The Ukrainian nationalist society that ran it was given the press and the offices of a Jewish newspaper in Krakow that had been abandoned precipitately by its staff at the outbreak of the war.
Chomiak’s paper published official news and war reports from the Nazi point of view, putting out, for example, a special edition when the SS began to recruit its ethnically Ukrainian “Galizien” division. It gave space to anti-Semitic diatribes, ones that Chomiak had to locate suitable Ukrainian columnists to write. It pursued a culturally Germanophile line, representing the Western-facing side of the political split that still runs across modern Ukraine. Amidst the official matter and the propaganda, it was also able to produce Ukrainian cultural and political material that Himka insists is still lively and interesting.
It is probably fair, although a little sloppy, to describe Krakivs’ki Visti as a “Nazi newspaper.” (“Pro-Nazi newspaper” would be better.) It is obviously proper to call Chomiak a “Nazi collaborator”. This not some Russian contrivance, unless the Russians have learned how to forge documents and travel back in time 30 years to plant them on an old Ukrainian farmer. And I am afraid “the foreign minister’s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator” is unquestionably news, whether or not Putin laughs at how late you are hearing of it.
I doubt whether it is appropriate for almost any of us to sit in judgment on Chomiak, if you consider how the Ukraine had been treated by Soviet Russia through decades of “civil” war and engineered Stalinist famine. It was natural for Ukrainians to hope that something resembling national survival would result from the struggle between Hitler and Stalin. And individuals in the cauldron of war pursued individual survival, not always with perfect, punctilious, death-defying honour. Himka documents occasional threats by Nazi officialdom against the staff of Krakivs’ki Visti; at least once, when Chomiak ran afoul of the Generalgouvernement party line, he was warned of the possibility of being sent for “re-education.” This word signified “death in a labour camp”—under Hitler or Stalin alike.
Somehow Michael Chomiak reached far northern Alberta and lived out his days as a gentleman farmer. I am comfortable with that. Very few Western Canadians have anything like complete knowledge of their own family background: I suspect we would be astonished to learn how many have had surprises like Freeland’s, or at least received unnerving hints of them. (“This one time, our uncle got drunk and mentioned…”)
Given what we know, entirely because Freeland’s family has told us, this is not a question of “sins of the grandfather,” much less those of an innocent granddaughter. As someone who grew up knowing nothing of genocide and terror, I do not have any business attributing such sins. It is for you to decide whether you do.
looks like he was telling someone to focus on someone
who was he looking at and what was the seating arrangement?