Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2023.Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press
The University of Alberta is facing criticism, including from its own academics, for failing to act on more than $1-million in donations and endowments from veterans and people with links to a Ukrainian Waffen SS unit that fought for the Nazi regime in the Second World War.
The critics fear the university is stalling after promising in October to review financial endowments. The pledge came after it returned $30,000 from the family of Yaroslav Hunka, a Waffen SS veteran who received standing ovations in Parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last September.
Then-Commons Speaker Anthony Rota pointed Mr. Hunka out in the gallery and paid tribute to him saying he was a Canadian and Ukrainian hero. Mr. Rota was sharply criticized by MPs of all stripes for inviting Mr. Hunka, a constituent, and not vetting him properly. Mr. Rota stepped down, apologizing to the Jewish community and expressing “profound regret” for his error.
Karyn Ball, professor of English and film studies at the university, said she was bemused by the university’s lack of action and had written to deans and other senior university officials months ago to inquire about the progress of the review.
Prof. Ball, who teaches memory studies, which examines how people recall historical events, said she felt “humiliated” to be teaching at a university that had appointed Peter Savaryn, a former member of the Waffen SS Galicia Division, as chancellor, and had taken large donations from veterans of the division.
Mr. Savryn served as chancellor of the university from 1982 to 1986, and in 1987 was named to the Order of Canada by then-governor-general Jeanne Sauvé. Mary Simon, the current Governor-General, apologized for his appointment last year.
“The university has been acting as if the Waffen SS is just a normal group of people,” said Prof. Ball, who is Jewish and author of the book Disciplining the Holocaust.
The university’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies received endowments and donations worth more than $1-million from Ukrainians who served in the Waffen-SS Galicia division or who helped set it up, according to research by professor Per Anders Rudling of Lund University in Sweden, who used to teach at the University of Alberta.
They include a generous endowment in the name of Volodymyr Kubijovych, who played a key role in the Ukrainian SS unit’s establishment in 1943. The Volodymyr and Daria Kubijovych Memorial Endowment Fund was established in 1986 and, according to a link to a website the university has now taken down, is worth $437,757.
Prof. Rudling said Mr. Kubijovych was a “willing collaborator” with the Nazi regime. He has obtained copies of letters from Mr. Kubijovych during the Second World War to Adolf Eichmann, who managed the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and concentration camps.
Mr. Kubijovych also wrote to Hans Frank, a senior Nazi who was appointed by Hitler as governor-general of the German-occupied Polish territories, asking if property that had belonged to deported Jews could be given to Ukrainians, Prof. Rudling said.
He said Mr. Kubijovych was well-connected in Nazi circles, including attending a party to celebrate Hitler’s birthday at Wawel Castle, the residence of Mr. Frank, who was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in October, 1946.
Prof. Rudling said he has been raising the issue of funding from SS veterans for nine years with the University of Alberta.
Laurie Adkin, professor emerita in the political science department, said she had written several times to senior figures at the university asking what was happening with donations by Galicia division veterans to the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, including to the university’s provost.
“The slowness with which the university is progressing with a review of the endowments, and its silence about the direction of the CIUS, tells me that they have put the matter on the back burner,” she said.
In Canada, some members of the Ukrainian diaspora have strived to depict the SS Galicia division, which was made up of volunteers from Western Ukraine, as freedom fighters and patriots. The Galicia division was set up by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, after the German defeat at the battle of Stalingrad, to try to stem the Soviet advance. Many of its members came to Canada after the end of the war.
Ross Neitz, spokesman for the University of Alberta, said the university is reviewing its endowments, as well as its general naming policies and procedures “to ensure alignment with its values.”
“This review is ongoing and will take time and diligence,” he said. “We will not be disclosing further details while this work is under way.”
But Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said “there’s no conceivable reason that I can possibly imagine for why there would be a delay in rectifying this issue.”
“It is absolutely unacceptable to see in Canada any kind of scholarship or other award that glorifies a member of the Nazi SS. It is a grave insult to the 45,000 Canadians who lost their lives fighting the Nazis and their collaborators. It is a slap in the face to Jewish and other communities who endured the full horrors of Hitler’s plan. It is incompatible with the most basic values of our country.”