Trudeau apologises for inviting Waffen-SS Galicia Division veteran to Canadian Parliament

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised on Wednesday, 27 September, on behalf of the state for inviting a veteran of the SS Galicia division to the Canadian Parliament during the visit of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Source: European Pravda, referring to CBC

Details: In a brief statement to reporters, Trudeau said he and all those present in Canada's parliament "deeply regret having stood by and applauded" 98-year-old SS Galicia veteran Yaroslav Hunka.

"It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust," he said, adding that Yaroslav Hunka's celebration was "deeply, deeply painful" to Jews, Poles, Roma, the LGBT community, and other groups that were exterminated by the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

In addition, Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Ottawa, was pictured applauding for Hunka, and Russian propagandists have used this image to their advantage. Trudeau added that "Canada is deeply sorry" for the incident.

Earlier, Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of Canada, announced his resignation over the scandal involving the invitation of the 98-year-old veteran. 

Reference: The Waffen-SS Galicia Division was formed in 1943 by German troops who recruited Ukrainians to fight against the Red Army. The Nuremberg trials and the so-called Deschênes Commission, set up in Canada in the 1980s, did not confirm the involvement of the division's members in war crimes. Nevertheless, the division has been blamed for punitive Wehrmacht operations against Poles and Jews.

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