When Canada’s House of Commons gave Yaroslav Hunka two standing ovations on Sept. 22, 2023, House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced the 98-year-old as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Ottawa that day as an official guest of Parliament.
What Rota and the rest of the House had apparently missed was that Hunka fought the Red Army as part of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician). This was a volunteer division of the Nazi-German Waffen SS established in Lviv in 1943. Elements of the division not only fought against Soviet troops (then allied with Canada), but also were involved in the ethnic cleansing of Poles in the Volhynia region and atrocities against Jews.
