CANADA UJPO condemns conduct of government In this year marking the 40th anni- versary of the defeat of nazi Germany and the end of World War II, outrage is rising against those intent on rewriting and denying the facts of history. The at- tempts to excuse crimes against humani- ty, and to defame the victims and heroes of that struggle, are led in Canada by self-confessed nazis. This is pointed out sharply in a recent statement by the United Jewish People’s Order of Canada, which welcomed ‘‘the appointment of former Quebec superior Court Justice, Jules Deschenes, to head a Commission of Investigation into the sorry tale of Canada’s ‘open door’ to Nazis and their collaborators. Repeated- ly, over the years,”’ says the statement approved by the UJPO’s National Resi- dent Board, *‘our organization as well as other Jewish Community institutions, submitted to the federal government facts exposing Nazi war criminals who were allowed into Canada. “Recent events,”’ it says, ‘“‘remind us that the bequest of the heroes of the War- saw Ghetto, ‘Never to Forget, Never to Forgive’, is as actual and valid today as it continued to be at any time in the past 40 years. We must categorically reject in- Vitations to forget, since, we are told ‘it all happened so long ago’.”’ (The uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto took Place on April 19, 1943.) “For weeks, Toronto newspapers were filled with the proceedings of the Zundel trial,’ the document notes. “This avowed Nazi, who after 25 years in Canada is still a German citizen and who now stands convicted, has for many years been a mass purveyor of the most _ virulent propaganda, constantly repeat- _ ing the Hitler thesis that ‘Jews, masons, LLL MT ; COC will fight for policies — _most Canadians can support bankers and communists are conspiring to rule the world’.”’ Some years ago the Post Office strip- ped Zundel of his mail privileges, but “for some unexplained reason’’, the ban was removed and the flow of ‘‘Nazi poison’’ resumed. ““While the Zundel trial exposes the persistent Nazi scourge, it has given him and his assorted ‘character witnesses’ a platform from which they desecrated the memory of the millions who perished in the death camps,” the UJPO statement asserted. (Zundel persisted, in the face of all evidence, in denying that the Holo- caust, the systematic annihilation of six million Jews, ever took place. He denied. the operation of the death camps which practises mass extermination.) Embracing Collaborators “It is a sad commentary on the ad- ministration of justice in Canada that, for the past 40 years, in spite of ample evi- dence, only one Nazi war criminal, Hel- mut Rauca, was deported to face his ac- cusers. Over the years, to our con- sternation, the leadership of the establishment in the Canadian Jewish community, motivated by their own rabid anti-Sovietism, snuggled up to one particular section of Canadian Ukrain- ians, the group which embraces those who betrayed their own people by collaborating with Hitler in his so-called ‘anti-bolshevik crusade’,’’ the UJPO charges. The statement relates that Senator Paul Yuzyk, in the Senate Jan. 22, 1985, marked the 67th anniversary of the so- called Independent Ukraine, ‘‘a short- lived, reactionary and anti-Semitic state’’ producing such organizers of anti-Jewish progroms as Petlura. Yuzyk told the senators that ‘‘The Uk- rainians have much in common with the Jews,’’ and referred to a vicious anti- Soviet statement authored by Milton Harris, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, John Nowosad, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Committee, and undersigned by Yuzyk and Senator David Croll. In it the four try to equate the life of Ukrainians and Soviet Jews with life under the Hitler nazis. Aided in ‘Final Solution’ “Progressive Ukrainian Canadians as well as progressive Jews,”’ points out the UJPO release, ‘‘have always condemned ..- ‘CO-operation’ with that section of Canadian Ukrainians who harbor and nuture people guilty of dastardly crimes against the people of the Ukraine as well as against the Jews of Europe. “Do not Mr. Croll and Mr. Harris know that it was in the days of the ‘In- dependent Ukrainian state’ that thousands of Jews were slaughtered in the Ukraine? Do Mr. Croll and Mr. Har- ris conveniently forget that thousands of ‘nationalist, anti-bolshevik’ Ukrainians joined Hitler's crusade and not only fought against the Allied cause but staf- fed extermination squads and con- centration camp administrations, playing an important role in the Nazi plans to achieve the ‘final solution’, the extermination of the Jewish people -:.. An investigation of how the henchmen of Vlasov and Bandera landed in Canada is long overdue. “We do not take second place to any- one in our appreciation of the great contribution of Ukrainian Canadians,” the statement says. But the UJPO quotes from the Toronto Star, Feb. 16, 1985: “‘In Edmonton, a Bring war criminals here to justice ‘veterans of his unit living in Edmonton ue World War II veteran, who said he joined Adolf Hitler’s Waffen S.S. to fight bol- sheviks, wants to ensure that he and 70 do not end up in a battle against Jews over war issues.’’ Another of the Waffen S.S. veterans, Mike Kucher, is quoted: “We don’t want to fight Jewish people, but we are not going to stand by while allegations of criminal activity are raised.”’ : Thousands in Canada The Nurnberg Justices, the statement points out, *‘proclaimed the Waffen S.S. a ‘criminal organization’ and Allied authorities were ordered to arrest all Waffen S.S. members on sight. It was not because they felt innocent that the Waffen S.S. cutthroats tried to eradicate the S.S. tattoo they all had under their 3.9 arms. The statement asks how many Cana- dians know that ‘‘in 1950 the Ottawa government allowed some 5,000 Ukrain- ian members of the Galicia Waffen S.S. Division into Canada. Maybe Justice Deschenes will find out why thousands of Hitler’s select killers were allowed a Canadian haven,”’ it suggests. The release concludes: “The United Jewish People’s Order of Canada, calls upon all freedom loving Canadians, among them Jews and Ukrainians, to extend the fullest co-— operation to the Deschenes inquiry. Let the entire sordid story of the activities of the Immigration authorities in the post- war be exposed to the light of day. War criminals who are still in our country must be exposed, apprehended and sent to the countries where they committed , their crimes to face their accusers.”’ OTTAWA — Expressing deep trade between Canada and the USA, and emphasizing Canadian sovereignty in the economy, for- eign affairs and cultural matters, Edmonton book publisher Mel Hurtig announced on March 11 the launching of the Council of Canadians (COC). The new organization, pat- terned on the former Committee for an Independent Canada (1970-81) but with many new par- ticipants, takes a stand on defence policy, support for Canadian businesses, research, Canadian trade union autonomy and greater Canadian ownership and control of our economy. '_ The birth of the new organiza- tion was brought about as a result of growing apprehension ‘in some sectors of the business community and in some research and economic institutions’ about the most ‘right-wing and con- tinentalist government”’ in Cana- da’s history, according to Hurtig. The COC emphasizes both geographical and political breadth. Among its members are Bob White, Grace Hartman and John Fryer from the trade union concern over the prospect of free - field; writers Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Margaret Laur- ence and Farley Mowat; politi- cians Sheila Copps, Pauline Jewett, Ottawa° mayor Marion Dewar, Eric Kierans and Walter Gordon. Other well-known names include David Zuzuki, George Ignatieff, Peter C. New- man and Mel Watkins. The COC believes that ‘“‘new policies to foster the growth of Canadian owned and controlled business” will be supported by most Canadians; it ‘‘will advocate policies to support free enterprise and also policies to support public enterprises such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Film Board, Air Cana- da, Petro-Canada and the Na- tional Arts Centre’’ as being in the public interest. On the question of trade, Hur- tig said the COC sees ‘‘dangers”’ in “‘a possible comprehensive bi- lateral trade agreement with the U.S. and potential harmful effects to the Canadian economy of such an agreement.”’ The organization intends to study the soon-to-be re- leased report of the Macdonald Royal Commission which is sus- pected of favoring free trade. It 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 20, 1985 promises to release alternate strategies for trade diversification later this year. The--COC = “is: not