Dozens of leading scholars from around the world are urging the Canadian government to release a secret report containing the names of around 900 alleged war criminals who settled here after the Second World War.
Libraries and Archives Canada has been consulting stakeholders on whether to release Part 2 of the 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada led by retired Superior Court of Quebec judge Jules Deschênes.
The Globe and Mail and two other organizations have requested it be released under access to information laws.
Among the 900 names in the secret report are members of the Ukrainian SS Galicia division who settled in Canada. Last year, there was an outcry after a veteran of the Nazi-led division, Yaroslav Hunka, received two standing ovations in the House of Commons during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Anthony Rota, who invited Mr. Hunka and praised him as a hero, later resigned as Commons Speaker.
Those calling on Canada to declassify the report include Sir Richard Evans, former Regius professor of history at Cambridge University and author of 18 books, including Hitler’s People.
“It is very important both to the basic principles of justice and the interests of historical research that Part II of the report without suppression or redaction and including a complete list of the names of SS veterans, many of whom may well have been guilty of war crimes and atrocities, be released for general public consumption without delay,” Sir Richard said.
Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, a German-Polish historian at the Freie Universität Berlin, said the report should be published in “an unredacted form.”
“Canada took in after the war Waffen SS Galizien veterans and other Ukrainians who served in the German service in the Holocaust,” he said.
Richard Breitman, distinguished professor emeritus at the American University, editor of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies journal, and co-author of several books including US Intelligence and the Nazis, said Canada could learn from the example of the United States where, in 1998, Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. The law created an interagency working group to examine the release of records.
Prof. Breitman, who served as its director of historical research, with other historians and archivists, helped to locate classified U.S. records that cast light on Nazi war crimes and war criminals, as well as the experience of Holocaust victims and survivors.
More than eight million pages of U.S. government records, which are now available at the U.S. National Archives, were declassified, he said. They also unearthed documents that showed U.S. officials protected Nazi war criminals because they were thought to be useful during the Cold War.
“In other cases, we were able to discredit existing conspiracy theories, such as the claim that Heinrich Mueller, chief of the Gestapo during the Holocaust, had survived the war and received U.S. government protection. Our evidence indicated that Mueller died in Berlin in the final days of World War II.”
He said releasing documents can inform research and help deflate conspiracies.
“The keeping of government secrets for many decades not only prevents full understanding of history, but generates suspicion about government and belief in wild conspiracies,” he told The Globe. “It is better to release evidence that is too old to be a threat to national security and to let researchers and the public learn from tragic historical events.”
More than 70 academics from around the world have signed a petition asking Ottawa to release all documents about Nazi war criminals in Canada, including Part 2 of the Deschênes Commission report.
The petition, co-ordinated by the Canadian Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, was sent to the Prime Minister last year. Last week Catherine Chatterley, its founding director, sent it to Leslie Weir, librarian and archivist of Canada, saying it is “crucial for scholars to accurately assess this important period of history and to examine and explain the truth about Nazi war criminals living in Canada after World War II.”
“The question is not why all the files related to Nazi war criminals in Canada should be released in 2024, but why not?” Ms. Chatterley told The Globe. “It may be that this is a big embarrassment for the government of Canada. Perhaps it will be a real scandal. So be it. Let the chips fall where they may. Honesty is the best policy in life and in government and scholarship.”
Thomas Weber, professor of history at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, said releasing the report could help scholars better understand how people become radicalized and involved in war crimes.
“Ultimately it is from the report that we can learn how Canada dealt with the legacy of the Second World War,” he said.
Richard Wolin, distinguished professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, said since the Deschênes report was written, more has emerged about the war records of SS units, including the SS Galicia division and police units affiliated with it. He said publication needs “to be handled responsibly” but said full disclosure can prevent future embarrassment while doing justice to the memory of victims of awful crimes.