One of several photos on a blog by an SS Galichina veterans’ group that shows Yaroslav Hunka, the Ukrainian immigrant honored by the Canadian Parliament during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Hunka is in the front row, middle. Courtesy of Combatant News

By Beth Harpaz September 27, 2023

The University of Alberta is returning an endowment fund that had been donated by the family of a Ukrainian man who fought with a Nazi unit during World War II.

The university’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies said late Wednesday that the donation — CA$30,000, or about $22,237 — would be returned to the family of Yaroslav Hunka.

Hunka is the 98-year-old veteran whose celebration by the Canadian Parliament became an international scandal after an article in the Forward revealed that the unit he had served in was the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, also known as SS Galichina.

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Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, had invited Hunka and introduced him as a “Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Rota resigned his leadership post Tuesday under pressure from fellow lawmakers and Jewish groups.

Created by the Third Reich in 1943, Hunka’s unit was composed of soldiers from the Galicia region who were trained and armed by Germany and under command of SS officers. The unit is believed responsible for war crimes including the Huta Pieniacka massacre in 1944, in which 500 to 1,000 Polish villagers were burned alive.

In a statement provided to the Forward Wednesday night, Verna Yiu, interim provost and vice president for the University of Alberta, said: “After careful consideration of the complexities, experiences, and circumstances of those impacted by the situation, we have made the decision to close the endowment and return the funds to the donor. The university recognizes and regrets the unintended harm caused.”

The money was donated in 2019 by Hunka’s sons, Martin and Peter, “to honor the memory of their parents Yaroslav and Margaret Hunka,” according to a 2020 newsletter published by the institute. The fund was designated for research on two “leaders of the underground Ukrainian Catholic Church,” Cardinal Josyf Slipyj and Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. (A metropolitan is akin to a bishop.)

A short biography of Hunka in the newsletter said that he was an active church member, including serving as president of the parish council of St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Thornhill, near Toronto. 

Yiu, the interim provost, said that on behalf of the university, she wanted to “express our commitment to address antisemitism in any of its manifestations, including the ways in which the Holocaust continues to resonate in the present.”

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