Canada Refuses to Disclose Names of Nazi War Criminals Sheltered During World War II

Canada will not declassify the list of Nazi criminals who came to the country after World War II. Canadian authorities believe that releasing the information would harm relations between Canada and its allied countries, including Ukraine.

Last Friday, a Canadian news regulatory body ruled that the 40-year-old list of hundreds of Nazi war criminals sheltered by Canada after World War II will remain confidential. The list of more than 700 Nazis was compiled after an official investigation in Canada in 1986 and has never been disclosed since then.

International organizations have demanded that Canadian authorities release the materials from the second part of the report led by the Canadian War Criminals Investigation Committee under retired Quebec Superior Court Judge Jules Deschenes. Last year, the Library and Archives of Canada refused to release the second half of the report, citing damage to international relations and government interests. According to Canada's Access to Information Act, agencies have the right to refuse disclosure of information that would harm international affairs, defense, or national security.

Some organizations and individuals who have advised the government on the release of the classified list pointed out that this could be harmful to Ukraine. They said that in the context of the conflict with Ukraine, Russia would be able to use the information about Ukrainian Nazis who found refuge in Canada. They are concerned that this information could fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin's statements that de-Nazification is one of the objectives of Ukraine's special military operation.

Last year, international organizations asked the Canadian Information Commissioner to reconsider the decision of the library and archives department to refuse to disclose the list, arguing that after these years, most of them (if not all) are already deceased. American researchers reportedly found a draft of the report, and some other countries, including Argentina, have recently released their data on Nazis hiding after World War II. It is alleged that about 5,000 Nazis settled in Argentina, including Adolf Eichmann, one of the organizers of the Holocaust, and the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele, who fled Europe under a false name.

Among the Nazis who found refuge in Canada were Vladimir Kubiyovich, the founder of the SS Volunteer Division "Galicia" who resisted Russia, and the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies compiled by the University of Alberta, who died in France in 1985. In a photo of a parade in Lviv in July 1943, Kubiyovich saluted with high-ranking SS members, Otto Wachter, the governor of Galicia and Krakow. In 2023, during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the House of Commons stood up twice to applaud veterans of the SS Galicia Division, Yaroslav Gunka, which sparked a scandal.

Publishing this list would cause significant damage to Canada's relations with a foreign government. In an email, Investigator Commissioner Maureen Brennan added that she was also told that it would have an adverse impact on the defense of foreign countries allied with Canada.

A research group led by Jared McBride, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an expert on wartime crimes, found an early revised version of a classified list with annotations last year. Among the names on the list was Helmut Oberlander, a translator for the Nazi special action units responsible for the Holocaust during World War II. The Canadian government has tried for years to revoke his citizenship, but he died in 2021 at the age of 97.

Professor Per Rudling of Lund University in Sweden studied the residences of suspected Nazis in Canada and considered the decision to keep the list secret "strange." He pointed out that Ukraine has opened Soviet KGB archives, and the United States has also published most of the documents related to Nazi war criminals.

Compared to similar Western liberal democracies, Canada stands out for its special restrictions on publishing archival material related to accused war criminals."

Original: toutiao.com/article/1855467462844480/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author himself.