And their helpers
A round of applause for an SS in Canadian Parliament calls for more than a vague apology.
Yom Kippur, which this year took place on September 25, is the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar. According to tradition, God morally examines each human being in the “days of awe” leading up to Yom Kippur and then decides their fate for the coming year. The time leading up to Yom Kippur is one of introspection, contrition and the genuine asking of forgiveness for transgressions against God and against fellow human beings.
Shortly before Yom Kippur, on September 22, Ukrainian President Zelensky visited the Canadian Parliament. Regrettably, the visit included a standing ovation from all members of the House of Commons and from (the Jewish) Zelensky for a 98-year-old guest who had been invited to be honored in Parliament. The elderly guest was Yaroslav Hunka, a Canadian originally from the Ukraine who was introduced as a hero of Ukrainian resistance against the Russians in World War 2 and as a Canadian hero. But soon after, Hunka was exposed to have been a member of the Galician 14th Waffen SS unit during World War 2:
The homepage of The Canadian Society for Yad Vashem currently has a summary of the history that has been neglected:
https://www.yadvashem.ca/
When I was growing up in Israel in the 1970’s and 80’s, Holocaust-education materials routinely referred to the perpetrators as “the Nazis and their helpers” (known in Hebrew with the phrase הנאצים ועוזריהם). As a self-centered child and teenager with only fairly general and generic knowledge of the Holocaust, I did not stop to deeply ponder the meaning of “and their helpers” (ועוזריהם). If anything, the addition “and their helpers” seemed unnecessarily wordy. Given that it was the Germans who were ultimately responsible, would it not be simpler to speak more concisely about “the Nazis?”
But when I think back to conversations with an Auschwitz survivor who was my family’s neighbor, as well as to Holocaust memories that I have read, listened to or watched (see, for example, Lanzmann’s movie Shoah)—the crucial importance of never forgetting the added term “and their helpers” screams in quiet anguish. For many Holocaust survivors, the most painful, triggering and unspeakable memories of horror, humiliation, brokenness and terror seem to be associated primarily not with Germans but with the “officers” of other collaborating nationalities who volunteered or were recruited to “help” the Nazis.
It was characteristic of the German Nazis that they often positioned themselves as the more distant “bosses” and let their fellow eastern-European recruits do the dirty work. The horror and trauma that these “helpers” inflicted is an eternally bleeding wound for Holocaust survivors and other victims of the Nazis. And we must remember the six-million Jews and other victims whose direct voices we will never hear—and who could not have been murdered so efficiently without “help” from Nazi collaborators.
The often willing agency of the “helpers” does not take away from the ultimate moral responsibility of the German Nazis—but it does help to explain why Holocaust educators insisted on the wordy expression “and their helpers” in order to accurately describe the terrifying and degrading experience of what it meant to be a victim of the Nazis.
“And their helpers” is also important as a reminder of accountability. Following its defeat in World War 2, Germany took responsibility for the Holocaust. I am not saying this as a statement of praise or as a measure of the sincerity or shallowness of the guilt expressed in Germany—but simply as statement of public fact about official German statements, policies and curricula about the Holocaust. The same, however, cannot be said about “the helpers,” many of whom never took responsibility for what they had done.
And now the Canadian Parliament became a stage for the rewriting of history. To adapt from Star Wars: so this is how accurate knowledge of history dies. . . with thunderous applause.
Most of the individuals applauding—politicians of every party—were no doubt ignorant of whom they had been called upon to elevate. But how deeply do they care about this moral error and failure of their own education? And why did they not do the mental math of figuring out that, in the context of World War 2—regardless of today’s different context—fighting against the Russians might have possibly meant being aligned with the Nazis? In his apology, Mr. Rota, the speaker of the House of Commons, said, “In my remark following the address of the president of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so.”
“An individual” and “some information” are vague terms. They hardly ascribe agency and moral responsibility to the actions of the Galician SS, of which most Canadians, myself included, would not have much substantial knowledge. As far as I read (and I did not read much), the Galician SS did not operate in concentration camps. I have read that many of their activities were against non-Jewish Polish victims. It is possible that they may not have been the typical “helpers” that haunt the psyches of Holocaust survivors and other victims of the Nazis (there were other Ukrainian soldiers who did operate in concentration camps, for example in Treblinka, but they were not from the Galician SS as far as I know). However, regardless of what they did or did not do on the ground, the Galician SS, like all SS units, volunteered their ardent loyalty to Hitler. As such, they fall under the notorious umbrella of voluntary non-German Nazi “helpers”—a category of soldiers that should not be celebrated.
Was Mr. Rota too overcome by the horrors of Nazism to put such facts into words when he resorted to generalities such as “some information”?—Or are the people responsible for the moral fail hoping that vague language can form a thick-enough smoke screen until the scandal fades into oblivion—with the accurate memory of the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities also due to fade into oblivion or universalizing metaphorization soon enough?
In “The Day Without Forgiveness,” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes a conversation he had in a concentration camp with a fellow victim, Pinhas, who before the Holocaust had been a director of a rabbinical school in Galicia, on the eve of Yom Kippur:
“Tomorrow we would present ourselves before God, who sees everything and who knows everything, and we would say: ‘Father, have pity on your children.’ Would I be capable of praying with fervor again? Pinhas shook himself abruptly. His glance plunged into mine. . . .The words Mi yihye u-mi yamut, who shall live and who shall die, had a terrible real meaning here, an immediate bearing. And all the prayers in the world could not alter the gezar din, the inexorable movement of fate.”
Pinhas, who is murdered soon after, was, like many other victims, in the process of fading as a human being and in the process of losing his faith:
“Until now, I’ve accepted everything. Without bitterness, without reservation. I have told myself: ‘God knows what He is doing.’ I have submitted to His will. Now I have had enough, I have reached my limit. If He knows what He is doing, then it is serious; and it is not any less serious if He does not. Therefore, I have decided to tell Him: ‘It is enough.’” I said nothing. How could I argue with him? I was going through the same crisis.”
But the philosophical contemplations are brought to an abrupt end for Wiesel and Pinhas by the demonic (and highly typical in Holocaust memories) omnipresence of a Nazi “helper” (in this case a Polish helper):
“The appearance of Edek put an end to our conversation. He was our master, our king. The kapo. This young Pole with rosy cheeks, with the movements of a wild animal, enjoyed catching his slaves by surprise and making them shout with fear. Still an adolescent, he enjoyed possessing such power over so many adults. We dreaded his changeable moods, his sudden fits of anger: without unclenching his teeth, his eyes half closed, he would beat his victims long after they had lost consciousness and had ceased to moan. “Well?” he said, planting himself in front of us, his arms folded. ‘Taking a litde nap? Talking over old times? You think you are at a resort? Or in the synagogue?’ A cruel flame lit his blue eyes, but it went out just as quickly. An aborted rage. We began to shovel furiously, not thinking about anything but the ground which opened up menacingly before us. Edek insulted us a few more times and then walked off. Pinhas did not feel like talking anymore, neither did I. For him the die had been cast. The break with God appeared complete.”
At another point in the narrative, the same Nazi “helper” is described as a violent presence, a recurring theme in the memories of many Holocaust survivors: “We dug for several hours without looking at each other. From far off, the shouting of the kapo reached us. He walked around hitting people relentlessly.”
In their various activities inside and outside concentration camps, the Nazis and their “helpers” tried to put themselves in the position of cruel gods over what they thought they could assert to be “inferior” humanity. Out of respect for all their victims, no aspect of their actions or activities should ever be applauded.
We do not have information about what exactly Yaroslav Hunka did compared to the sadistic “helpers” whose actions were recorded in Holocaust memories (his unit was not in a concentration camp; it was a combat division, and if I understand correctly from the little that I have read, many of its victims were non-Jewish Poles. It is possible that Hunka is a more benign personality compared to the sadists described in Holocaust memories; most individuals wearing Nazi uniforms were more benign than the worst sadists). But regardless of what Hunka did or did not do, his voluntary membership in the Waffen SS is a mark of moral disgrace that should have been flagged and should have prevented his being honored in Parliament.
On Yom Kippur, the shofar, a trumpet made of a ram’s horn, is blown in the synagogue. Its haunting sound is believed to pierce the sky to make way for the prayers of repentance and contribution to reach God.
This year, shortly before Yom Kippur, the blind, unanimous applause of the Canadian Parliament had a piercing effect.
It remains to be seen if the hole that this applause—in equal measures cruel and ignorant—made will be filled by something more substantial and more respecting of the accurate memory of the atrocities of the Nazis and their “helpers” than the generic label “more information.”
Source for Elie Wiesel’s story: Goodman, Philip. The Yom Kippur Anthology (The JPS Holiday Anthologies). The Jewish Publication Society. Kindle Edition.
Source for image of Shofar: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shofar-16-sky-Zachi-Evenor.jpg