By SETH J. FRANTZMAN

I’ve been watching the fallout from the invitation of a man to Canada’s House of Commons. Reports say now that “Liberal MP Anthony Rota is stepping down as House of Commons Speaker after inviting a former Ukrainian soldier who fought in a Nazi division to Parliament — a dramatic turn of events that will be welcomed by MPs on all sides who said the embarrassing incident was unforgivable.”

This is an interesting and bizarre turn of events. Canada was supposed to be honoring the Ukrainian president and it appears that this man was invited because he has been active in supporting Ukraine and is from Rota’s constituency. The reports say that “Rota invited Ukrainian veteran Yaroslav Hunka, a constituent of his from North Bay, Ont., to sit in the parliamentary gallery during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to Parliament. Over the weekend, it emerged that Hunka was part of the First Ukrainian Division, also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division — a voluntary unit under the command of the Nazis.”

It’s interesting that Mr. Hunka apparently lived a quiet life without much attention since 1945 until now and then was catapulted into the spotlight and now has returned back out of the spotlight…and while this has become a scandal for Canada a bit, it has not so far led to any real discussion about the subjects this raised.

It’s easy to say that Canada hosted a “Nazi soldier” in its parliament but that’s not the whole story. What was the division he joined and what is its context? First of all the unit was recruited in 1943 and proposed by the German governor of District Galicia. This is an area that has passed from control of Austria-Hungary to Poland and Ukraine and back and forth and had a Polish and Jewish and diverse population. Over the last 100 years the population had changed, usually due to war and persecution. But the unit, when it was recruited, was told not to describe itself as “Ukrainian.”

Ukrainian nationalists such as Bandera opposed the creation of the division, according to what I have read. Of interest, the church played a cynical role here; the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church demanded the presence of its chaplains in the division and when the division was demobilized at the end of the war it appears the church helped its members flee to the West.

The division itself was shattered on the eastern front, which is unsurprising. It was one of many Nazi attempts to use local cannon fodder to plug the gaps in their lines. By 1943 it was all over for Germany; and as the end closed in these units were probably seen as meat for the grinder.

What else do we know? The unit was recruited after most of the genocide and Holocaust had been carried out in these areas. Its members were not charged as a group in the West and Canada previously looked into members of the unit who went to Canada and screened them. Now one could argue that Western countries in general didn’t screen sufficiently these types of people and many extremists got through, while their victims stayed in IDP camps in Europe in 1945-1950.

But I think when we talk about this unit and those in it, it’s actually not so helpful to just trot out some guy in his 90s and give him a standing ovation and then trot him back into the closet and say “well, a Nazi soldier was invited.” This is not educational. Excuses in Canada include members of parliament saying they met him and just didn’t know who he was and it is now being used for “politics.”

But there is no education here. What can we learn from units like this. Young men were recruited across Europe for various SS units. In areas that are now Ukraine many thousands joined. But many of them came from areas the Nazis did not see as Ukrainian. There is the role of the church and it’s important to not let the church off the hook here.

But let’s do some math. More people joined the SS in Netherlands and Belgium; around 50,000 or more, than in Ukraine. In fact more western Europeans ran to join the SS than in places like Poland or Serbia where people resisted. This is the real story of the SS divisions. It was westerners who ran to join them. Not people from Ukraine.

In any discussion it’s worth noting these facts: The role of the Church, and the fact that western countries created more Nazis than eastern European countries. Neighbors of those hiding Anne Frank produced more Nazis than people in the East. But we don’t talk about that. Because what happened to the 14 different SS divisions and units recruited from Netherlands and Belgium?

Do you know where those volunteers went? They quietly returned home after the war and remained completely respectable in their western societies. Some of those people even went on to work at the UN and one of those from Austria led the UN.

So before we get too focused on the bizarre story of how this guy ended up in Canada’s parliament, let’s take a broader look. How did the church help members of the SS get to the West? How did the West produce so many Nazis. What actually happened in Ukraine?

I think it’s strange they trotted this old man out and gave him a standing ovation and then kind of trot him away without any real discussions. It shows kind of what the West is. The West applauds one moment and then quietly hides something the next. They never really educate anyone. What about youth today who want to know what was Nazism? Are they learning now about Galicia and also the complexities of how the Nazis recruited and exploited local disputes? Did we learn from this story anything about the Holocaust? Did we learn about how the Shoah unfolded in what is now Ukraine?

I don’t think we did. And I also think accusing the old man they brought to parliament of being a “Nazi soldier” likely obscures more than it educates. We might look deeper. What role did Catholic chaplains have in the division? Let’s ask some questions.