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They weren't allied to the Nazis, they were members of the Nazi SS, and murdered Jewish & Polish women and children.
I think the monument was able to be created in the first place because anti-semitism was much much higher than it is today in Canada. Canada wasn't that sympathetic to European Jews in that time period and wasn't as opposed to Nazi ideology as we like to think today. In fact Canada basically told Britain that we did our service and WWII and Canada went 50% in WWII in comparison. Hence the much lower casualty rate despite WWII a more deadly conflict.
In Quebec especially Nazi-sympathizers were widespread and part of the provincial government.
This isn't even new news. Wars are dirtier than victors think and many people see an opportunity to advance their interests. There has long been controversy over Ukrainian participation in anti Jewish atrocities during the war which Ukrainians have been reluctant to face. It's also simplifying the past not to recognize that Acajack is right in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Our recent wars have not been different, in that at one point the Taliban was the ally of the Americans because it suited their agenda.
My grandparents were refugees who came to Canada from Ukraine in 1924. And they cheered on the Germans in the second world war until my grandfather's Jewish friend shared the contents of letters he had received from relatives in Germany. My grandparents' thoughts, like those of everyone coming as a refugee from that area, were focused only on getting the communists out.
That being said, there should be no monument to the SS.
One of Canada's several Nazi monuments, this one honoring the Nazi Waffen SS, has had graffiti sprayed on it. The Nazi Waffen SS was notorious group of volunteers who specialized in rounding up and brutally murdering Jews, gays, the handicapped, Polish, and all other undesirable untermenschen (subhumans). This monument is in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Obviously if it was in America it would be torn down already (if even erected in the first place) but being Canada the government was labelled this act a "hate-crime" against heritage but has been lowered to an act of vandalization and is under investigation by local police.
Different times, different rules. Preserve history and make it mean something, or destroy it and hope it doesn't happen again?
"Someone painted “Nazi war monument” on a stone cenotaph commemorating those who served with the 14th SS Division in the Second World War. The monument is located in Oakville in the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.
...
But after researchers pointed out on social media that the monument honours the 14th Waffen SS and this newspaper published an article Friday detailing the history of the controversial unit, Halton Regional Police issued a clarification. “The initial information collected by investigators indicated that the graffiti may have been hate-motivated, targeting the identifiable group of Ukrainians in general, or Ukrainian members of this cultural centre,” the police said in a statement. “At no time did the Halton Regional Police Service consider that the identifiable group targeted by the graffiti was Nazis.”
Yea, i will put a monument of Hitler up because it is just about his love of dogs, not the other things he did.
Or you can put up a monument of George Washington because he liberated his country from the British, not because he was a slave owner.
By the way, I don't support the existence of this or any other monument dedicated to an SS division, regardless of what good it may be claimed they have done for their homeland. I was simply replying to someone who claimed that the monument only existed because Canada was a fairly anti-Semitic place in generations past. I was pointing out that the monument was actually erected relatively recently and the reason it was able to be erected is because it is ostensibly dedicated to Ukrainians fighting against Russian invaders of their homeland.
One of Canada's several Nazi monuments, this one honoring the Nazi Waffen SS, has had graffiti sprayed on it. The Nazi Waffen SS was notorious group of volunteers who specialized in rounding up and brutally murdering Jews, gays, the handicapped, Polish, and all other undesirable untermenschen (subhumans). This monument is in Oakville, Ontario, Canada. Obviously if it was in America it would be torn down already (if even erected in the first place) but being Canada the government was labelled this act a "hate-crime" against heritage but has been lowered to an act of vandalization and is under investigation by local police.
This isn't even new news. Wars are dirtier than victors think and many people see an opportunity to advance their interests. There has long been controversy over Ukrainian participation in anti Jewish atrocities during the war which Ukrainians have been reluctant to face. It's also simplifying the past not to recognize that Acajack is right in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Our recent wars have not been different, in that at one point the Taliban was the ally of the Americans because it suited their agenda.
My grandparents were refugees who came to Canada from Ukraine in 1924. And they cheered on the Germans in the second world war until my grandfather's Jewish friend shared the contents of letters he had received from relatives in Germany. My grandparents' thoughts, like those of everyone coming as a refugee from that area, were focused only on getting the communists out.
That being said, there should be no monument to the SS.
Like the police chief said, the real question is, why a monument dedicated to a group of Nazi SS storm troopers has been allowed to exist in Canada in the first place? Kudos to the "vandals" because had it not been for their "vandalism", the Canadian public would have never known about this farce.
This "monument" should've been removed years ago. At the very least, it should be refurbished to honor the victims of Nazi SS brutality, or to the heroic deeds of Canadian troops in their liberation of Nazi SS death camps in western Europe in 1945. This isn't just a "war monument" - the SS has been universally categorized as a criminal organization by the Nuremburg War Trials, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations.
Yeah, obviously I don't think there should be monuments to Nazis.
But we are living in an era that is intolerant of nuance.
We want a world where you can instantly tell the good guys apart from the bad guys by the colour of their cowboy hats.
People these days live for "gotcha!" moments where someone's alleged evil side is brought to light.
At the very least, monuments such as these should be refurbished to provide additional context around why the existed in the first place, by providing proper historical context, similar to what we now do at history museums when displaying artifacts of past atrocities. It just wouldn't be right to leave these things as they are, all in the name of "freedom of speech" or "honoring our ancestors."
Also, there's a difference between a monument or painting of Washington or Louis XVI vs. a monument dedicated to the "heroic" deeds of the SS / Gestapo or Hitler or Stalin. The latter is a criminal organization that still impacts the memories and lives of many survivors to this day that has committed crimes against humanity on an unprecedented scale, plain and simple.
Last edited by bostonkid123; 07-28-2020 at 10:22 AM..
Like the police chief said, the real question is, why a monument dedicated to a group of Nazi SS storm troopers has been allowed to exist in Canada in the first place? Kudos to the "vandals" because had it not been for their "vandalism", the Canadian public would have never known about this farce.
This "monument" should've been removed years ago. At the very least, it should be refurbished to honor the victims of Nazi SS brutality, or to the heroic deeds of Canadian troops in their liberation of Nazi SS death camps in western Europe in 1945. This isn't just a "war monument" - the SS has been universally categorized as a criminal organization by the Nuremburg War Trials, the International Court of Justice, and the United Nations.
I am hesitant about giving kudos to vandals, but it's true that it wasn't really intuitive to most of us that this monument had a Nazi affiliation. I don't believe the swastika or SS logo is on it, and also most of the writing is in cyrillic so only a small number of people in the community can understand.
What's odd is that it was erected around 1980 so presumably most of the nasty aspects of it would have come to light by that time.
Does everyone know the difference between the Nazi SS and resistance fighters?
"Resistance fighters" who were semi-organized units of ordinary people defending their homeland.
Then there was the German Wehrmacht which was the German standard army who was mostly involved in military action. Lots of of them were conscripts.
Then lastly we have the Nazi Waffen SS, these are people who passed a number of exams and tests to join Germany's elite death squads. They also were fervent believers who went out of their way to track down Jews and others and murder them. They took personal oaths to Hitler and the Nazi ideology and were fanatical. You didn't accidentally become part of the SS. You jumped through a number of hoops in order to prove you could handle murdering women and children.
This monument honours the SS. Not resistance fighters or even the Wehrmacht, but men of the death squads who specifically sought to commit genocide against a variety of people, including children and ethnically cleanse regions in line with Nazi ideology.
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