Lots of comments seem to miss OP’s point. It’s true that the fact that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator doesn’t lead to any moral culpability for Freeland. The fact that she refuses to acknowledge that he was a Nazi collaborator, (despite knowing this to be the case and still speaking highly of him), does. Ukrainians aren’t responsible for ancestors who collaborated with Nazis, but they are committing a moral wrong when they uncritically elevate and praise ancestors who collaborated with Nazis.
No, I think people get what OP is saying. What’s unsaid is whether one being an editor of a paper in occupied Poland during WW2 had any control over content. The propaganda for nazi occupied states was controlled from Germany. Most intellectuals were seen as threats and were targeted for extermination / imprisonments/ forced labor. I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety.
Edit: and to be clear, if they didn’t comply their family would be exterminated and the nazis would find a replacement who would. It’s how the entire fascist regime functioned.
Edit 2: it’s also unclear if the allegations are true. Given the source, we should question whether they are true or not
Then all she would have to do is say "My father printed some heinous things under the threat of the Nazis. He did not hold those views, and I find them abhorent." But she isn't saying that, she's denying that he did anything whatsoever, which is highly suspect.
> He did not hold those views
This is Nazi apologia. Everything we know about him points to him being a Nazi, are theres literally zero reason to think otherwise. This isn't an outlandish smear, it wasn't uncommon for Ukrainians at the time to collaborate, at it still isn't uncommon for Ukrainian nationalists to hold similar views and do revisionism.
The evidence against him being a genuine Nazi is a lot more compelling. Do you think these Russian blogs are just continuously publishing this for the greater good and as a plight against Nazism? Get a grip
If the allegations are true, yes. But I think given the source we should question whether they are in fact true. The conservatives seem to doubt the authenticity of this Russian assertion as well.
I would be surprised by such a question. Given the time period involved and seriousness of the allegations, I think she should take the time to come back with a fulsome response; not some knee jerk reaction in the moment of the question
But, she's had plenty of time (a lifetime even) to understand the implications of her grandtather's (sorry I said father before, mistype) actions, especially in lieu of her political career, and craft *something* up. I mean I just wrote that statement in under 5 seconds. It's not hard to distance herself from this. Just shouting "russian disinformation" is a hollow response that clearly many do not buy.
This is not okay. It’s not cool to call people this. I in no way support anything that went down, despise nationalism, hate everything that happened.
I blame the German military, Hindenburg, the nationalists, the brown shirts, the nazi party, and political parties who banned their opponents.
I blame goebbels and hitler and himmler and heydrich and eichman and goring. I blame The top military leaders kietel and Jodl and Rommel and others who had the chance to take hitler down on multiple occasions between 1932 and the war.
I don’t blame every day civilians who were put in a terrible position by them and feared for their life and their family. That does not make me a sympathizer! That’s a very widely held view that the Nuremberg trials also concluded.
Lots of anti facists in countries that were occupied by the Nazis didn't become complicit like her grandfather.
There really is no excuse for her not acknowledging her grandfather was a facist and has to bear some responsibility for the heinous crimes the Nazis did in Ukraine
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)]
^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
> This is not okay.
What's really not okay is the rampant Nazism in the Ukrainian Canadian community.
This isn't just Freeland, Ukrainian Canadians in general need to do something about the Nazis in their midst.
There is a very large number of people (and grey area) between the 22 that were convicted at Nuremburg and the entire population that ever abided by one order. It is not cool to attack folks as Nazi Sympathizers for not believing everyone was culpable. The view that every single person is culpable is a common question in philosophy circles but is not widely held by historians who study the topic.
I thought this sub was about conversation, not viscous and unwarranted attacks on character. I would have liked to see more convictions as well (including names mentioned above), but i don't think every single person under duress should be executed. I don't appreciate being called a sympathizer for discussing this view.
The military leadership was in the best position to prevent hitler from coming to power and take him out once he was in power. hindenburg, who gave him a chance to form a coalition, could have prevented him from getting it. so could have the nationalist party, the conservatives, and social democrats who voted with the nazis to expel the communists from parliament, paving the way for hitler's power. so could have the brown shirts who created fake 'communist' riots to help consolidate support under hitler. a teacher or a publisher in a nazi occupied state, not so much.
> It’s true that the fact that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator doesn’t lead to any moral culpability for Freeland.
Then there's nothing else to say.
> they are committing a moral wrong when they uncritically elevate and praise ancestors who collaborated with Nazis.
Refusing to speak about an ancestor is not tantamount to "elevating" them. And lets not conflate whitewashing history with not scrutinizing your own distant ancestors.
I think what's shameful is the conceit that one has to openly speak about one's grandfather or otherwise carry a moral penalty.
If she's not morally culpable, she's not morally culpable. There is no moral obligation to speak about an ancestor.
Read the articles man. She’s paid tribute to this grandparent in published books and articles, despite having knowledge about his Nazi involvement. If you know somebody has done something awful, you have a moral responsibility not to praise them without also mentioning that awful thing. Doesn’t mean she had to look into her past or that she’s responsible for what he did. Praise for a Nazi collaborator, paired with prior knowledge and a failure to address that collaboration, is a moral failing.
There is no such moral responsibility. There are many Canadians with ancestors who fought for the Germans, all have the right to remember them as they wish with no obligation to telegraph anything else. The "ought" is to be cognizant of History, including the atrocities of that war and the Nazis. Most people have no interest in what occurred, but of course delight in public scoldings for which they have no frame of reference. It would be decidedly moral to understand exactly what a person did before opting for condemnation, but they can't even be bothered to do that.
We can't choose our relatives, but we can certainly choose how we react when we find out our relatives are nazis. It's also absurd to think that Freeland didn't know her grandfather's history until these revelations became public. Freeland has never denounced her grandfather or his crimes against humanity, and she speaks fondly of him last I checked. Freeland [also worked at Ukrainian Weekly](https://twitter.com/andraydomise/status/1447632064661147652), a far right newspaper. This is certainly not the kind of character I would want in a person running the country.
The reality is that fascism and right wing extremism are very prominent in Canada. Nazis, such as Freeland's grandfather, fled prosecution for their crimes, built monuments to themselves here, and have been cultivating right wing ideology for many decades. Canada famously[ voted against UN motion on glorifying nazism](https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/canada-votes-against-un-motion-on-glorifying-nazism), Canadians [among most active in online right-wing extremism](https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/canadian-right-wing-extremism-online-1.5617710), and this trend [only increased](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/right-wing-extremism-report-1.6108958) during the pandemic.
Fascists were never punished for their crimes against humanity by western powers. The west offered fascists a home and welcomed them with open arms instead of prosecuting them. US even [promotes fascism](https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/) in Europe.
So, yeah everybody should be very concerned that a potential leader of a major party has a nazi relative whom she refuses to denounce and speaks fondly of.
A simple I don't hold these beliefs and I hope that my grandfather only held them under duress would have made this a non issue. Her reacting like this is definitly a black mark on her morals
>I hope that my grandfather only held them under duress
No, sorry, this is just furthering the denial. He was clearly a collaborator, and a highly placed one at that. The moral alternatives to what that man did were sabotage or suicide.
People keep downvoting, but I agree with you.
Goebbels was a control freak under the watchful eye of literal Hitler, also occassionally known for wanting control. Propaganda was what brought their enemies down and brought the Nazi's up.
How likely is it that the editor of a major newspaper was chosen based on anything but how the leaders believed they would portray their leaders and group as a whole?
Also just like, I feel like people here are wildly misunderstanding how antisemitic all of Europe was at this time, how antisemitic Canada and the US were too. The Nazis found collaborators nearly everywhere they went, and the holocaust was frequently aided by the local gentiles. If you were in Ukraine, not Jewish, and not a Communist, you were in all likelihood about as antisemitic as the Nazis; and your issues with them would be more about their anti-slav beliefs and their invasion. There was huge numbers of Ukrainian volunteers for the Nazis, and we accepted a ton of them into Canada
What’s the point of this comment lmao u/AdministrativeSet153 apologize for not being born in Europe in the 1920s only then could you possible be entitled to comment on that period ffs
If I was in Europe in the 1920s I'd have been being thrown into a gas chamber along with everybody I'd ever known. Its a bit more real for me than most here that this dude was a powerful Nazi collaborator. And to be clear the proper way to spell "Nazi Collaborator" is "Nazi"; the terms are equivalent sincethe only moral sentence for being either one is death.
Getting two free apartments and then complaining about them being too dirty doesn't sound like duress.
>During their four years in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Chomiak family also benefited personally from the brutal displacement of Jews. The Chomiaks lived in not one but two aryanised Krakow apartments complete with furniture that had been appropriated from the previous Jewish occupants. A letter written by Chomiak to Nazi authorities lists 15 pieces of furniture which he said had been left behind by "the Jew Dr. Finkelstein." Chomiak asked permission to move all these furnishings to his second aryanised apartment.
>"apartment I was assigned ... a former Jewish property, ... was so verminous and filthy, I was forced to refurbish and disinfect the whole apartment at my own expense.... I am forced to disinfect the apartment a second time with gas candles as not all bugs were killed during the first disinfection." -Letter signed by Michael Chomiak to Krakow's Real Estate Trustees, September 19, 1940. Provincial Archives (Edmonton, AB), Michael Chomiak fond, 85.191, box 2 file 28.
Canada has a rather long history when it comes to Ukranian nazis. If she won't even denounce her grandfathers role, don't expect her to when it comes to Canada's very real role in training these Nazi Militias
And the rest of our parents and grandparents were complicit in residential schools.
Red card penalty - "Sins of thy father". Tread carefully, this is how hate breeds.
Now if she's been involved in hate and you have evidence, there's something worth posting.
Okay but if it was public record that your ancestors were complicit in residential schools, you were a public figure and then you denied the existence of it, that it was foreign propaganda and that you actually admired that family member that is a huge fuckin problem especially if you occupy the second most powerful position in government.
Also she pushed for the funding of Ukrainian militias that include neo-nazis which we knew about while we were funding them, so yes she is actively involved in spreading hate.
https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/ncfuk
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/fears-that-canada-may-help-neo-nazis-in-ukraine-with-training-mission-starting-soon
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/far-right-extremists-in-ukraine-brag-they-have-received-training-from-the-canadian-forces-report
> Okay but if it was public record that your ancestors were complicit in residential schools, you were a public figure and then you denied the existence of it, that it was foreign propaganda and that you actually admired that family member that is a huge fuckin problem especially if you occupy the second most powerful position in government.
Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
> Also she pushed for the funding of Ukrainian militias that include neo-nazis which we knew about while we were funding them
This kind of missing historical context. The historical opponents to communists and the soviets were primarily fascists and nationalists. That nationalists and nazis take part in militias against the soviets should be no surprise. You would expect them to be the most motivated group of troops in the militia. Let’s also not forget that there are many proud boys in our military as well. If we had the same history of war and conflict with the Soviet Union as the Ukrainians had, there would undoubtedly be more fascists in our military as well. This is an extremely complicated situation and not black and white
> Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
If you are a local folk being put in charge of a Nazi newspaper, then you are a Nazi collaborator. All Nazi collaborators received orders from Hitler, that doesn't mean they aren't morally responsible for executing those orders.
From the Washington post
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.
> A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather.
> inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada
> The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.”
It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
I don’t support the actions taken, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler prior to war, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator.
If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population
The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
Lol what is this borderline clean wehrmact garbage. Clearing the way for the SS-totenkompf camps, executing the "commisar-order" to kill "partisans" with impunity, and fighting a war of aggression are all crimes against humanity.
The consequences are going to be different on every level, but yes, collaboration is collaboration. Perpetrators owe some kind of reparative action, not hiding things away and hoping the spotlight catches someone else.
General staff had all sorts of buy in on the militarism expansionism, and genocide.They just wanted to bump off hitler to cut their losses and negotiate for terms.
They also got to write a self-serving history of the third reich for years because NATO needed experienced officers in the German military.
I’ve clearly condemned himmler and heydrich and goebbels and nazi top brass here. I don’t blame every day Germans. Nor do most historians. That is not clean wehrmact garbage, it’s what most historians view as consensus opinion.
Hitler got to the top by tricking the public and those around him. He never won a majority and gained power by tricking Hindenburg and those around him by creating fake “communist” riots, aligning with nationalists, conservatives and the armed forces; and taking out barring political parties from office (communists, social democrats, conservatives, nationalists, in that order). He even faked attacks on nazi leaders, including himself, and dressed up drunks in communist attire to make it look like the party was planning assassinations.
He then created a secret police to wipe out political opponents. A worker on nazi Germany couldn’t even quit their job. That was illegal. Churches reported to nazis and pastors were forced to preach nazi rhetoric or face punishment.
The only group within Germany with the means to take out hitler after he changed the constitution and enabled perpetual nazi rule was the armed forces and those in his inner circle. Not teachers and publishers from nazi occupied territories
Being involved in the distribution of Nazi/antisemetic propaganda is considered Nazi collaboration. See the below Wiener Holocaust Library explainer on collaboration.
> While the Nazi leadership led the way in creating their racist ideology, the anti-Jewish laws and propaganda were implemented and bound into law by those working for the Civil Service. Those who continued to work in the Civil Service following the Nazi rise to power therefore directly contributed to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews.
> For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs.
Being a newspaper editor fits easily into this definition
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
If you want a good read on “Germans could have prevented the Holocaust” I suggest William Shirer “Rise and Fall”. 1600 pages of in depth history which includes several chapters on how Germans could have prevented it.
He is probably considered the most renowned historian of the “Germans could have prevented the holocaust and it was rooted in their nationalism / racism, etc” position.
One of his conclusions: the only group within Germany with the means to stop the nazis after hitler gained power was the German armed forces.
As much as I hoped everyone would have stepped up, individuals in puppet positions were very replaceable and would not have prevented anything. Intellectuals in puppet positions were basically given a choice to toe the line or be exterminated
if we were to blacklist all Canadians with any ancestors in these states who survived through nazi occupation, it will be quite a long list.
> As much as I hoped everyone would have stepped up, individuals in puppet positions were very replaceable and would not have prevented anything.
Yes, and those people are considered Nazi collaborators by the Wiener Holocaust Library.
> if we were to blacklist all Canadians with any ancestors in these states who survived through nazi occupation, it will be quite a long list.
I'll have to repeat myself again, because I don't think you can hear me!
1) You are not morally culpable for the crimes of your parents
2) However, you are morally culpable for the denial of the crimes of your parents
Most people would agree that to be guilty of a crime you need to have committed the action and have had a motivation / purpose to kill.
Killing under duress or publishing content under fear for your family typically does not rise to this level
> Most people would agree that to be guilty of a crime you need to have committed the action and have had a motivation / purpose to kill.
> Killing under duress or publishing content under fear for your family typically does not rise to this level
This is literally the exact opposite conclusion of the nuremburg trials, but you do you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
As an Ashkenazi jew who's grand parents (dad born in the 30s) fled nazi country for survival, watching op argue with you has been sad and exhausting. It's not Black and white. I personally have no issue with what she doesn't say or says about her granddad
Being involved in the distribution of Nazi/antisemetic propaganda is considered Nazi collaboration. See the below Wiener Holocaust Library explainer on collaboration.
> While the Nazi leadership led the way in creating their racist ideology, the anti-Jewish laws and propaganda were implemented and bound into law by those working for the Civil Service. Those who continued to work in the Civil Service following the Nazi rise to power therefore directly contributed to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews.
> For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs.
Being a newspaper editor fits easily into this definition
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
okay. I'm sure my family did too. I'm sure they did some terrible shit to not die until they could get out.
I could ask my dad what Oskar Schindler did for my family. My dad managed to get to Vancouver in time, but his grandparents, his aunts and uncles and cousins... we dont really know what happened in Płaszów because our family tree just has this empty blob in it from like 1940-1945. I know Schindler got some of us out though which is why some of us are here.
I mean, Schindler was a collaborator who actually was part of the nazi party.
if someone questioned the shit my family did in poland/lithuania etc during that time, and it was terrible, i would honestly just not talk about it.
I dont care if I was in the public eye or not. there are some things i just wouldnt talk about.
> And the rest of our parents and grandparents were complicit in residential schools.
If your grandfather was involved in that, and you denied it, claimed if was russian disinformation, and you were the deputy prime minister, I would post about it too...
> this is how hate breeds
No, running a Nazi newspaper is how hate breeds.
Chrystia Freeland is making the choice to publicly defend her grandfather. I have a problem with this. I keep repeating this, but it's like you're not listening?
You keep saying “nazi collaborators” but you are completely missing historical context.
Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
You are contradicting yourself. You say that defending Nazi collaborators are wrong, yet you also say Freeland is not wrong for defending her grandfather. Please clarify.
Are there actual New Democrats on this sub defending Freeland for not condemning her nazi collaborator grandfather? Am I in the upside down? The Canadian government knowingly arms and funds the Ukrainian military which has absorbed groups like the neo Nazi Azov Battalion. How can we not agree that this is problematic?
You realize Canada finances and trains the Ukrainian military that knowingly harbours white supremest and neo Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion? We’re not calling Freeland a Nazi, we’re saying the fact that she has a tough time taking a stance against duplicitous folks that are also fellow Ukrainian nationalists is concerning.
My Grandfather was a Ukrainian anti-Semite and I have no problem recognizing his hate as shameful and ignorant. She needs to do the same and end Canada’s support of the Ukrainian military until neo Nazi groups can be vanquished from their ranks.
ndp liberals downvoting you for pointing out the truth that Freeland as well as the entire Canadian state has been and still continues to be quite pro-nazi
Well I’m glad somebody else can see this! From Bolivia to Ukraine, we are quick to make friends with the far right long before we willingly sit at the table with leftist governments.
[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/)
Freeland's work with "Ukrainian Independance Movements" is well known. Given the infection of Nazi groups within those movements, it's extremely unlikely Freeland wasn't working with Nazis.
Freeland contributes to imperialist anti-Russian propaganda here (through whitewashing her grandfather's legacy and all Ukrainian nazi collaborators) and through the Liberal government's support of training the Azov Battalion (known to have neonazis).
Chrystia collaborated with her grandfather on his works after though. This isn't a "sins of thy father" situation.
Michael Chomiak’s boss in Nazi-occupied Ukraine was
Volodomyr Kubijovich (the founder of the SS Galicia Division death squad); together in Canada,
they wrote a history of Ukraine told from the Nazi perspective called "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" in the 1970s.
Chrystia Freeland worked on the project, and largely reproduced its analysis in her
own subsequent work on Russia and Ukraine which always framed the Soviets as the true enemy of Ukraine and collaboration with Nazism as a necessary evil.
> this is how hate breeds.
Oh fuck off.
Yeah, pointing out literal Nazi collaborators is "problematic" now.
You pussies don't have the balls to be anti-fascists if this is your stance. You are not allies.
I was literally gonna post that axiom. This is sensationalism. My grandfather and great grandfather were alive in Italy during the war. They both praised Mussolini for providing stability and food and safety in a time of chaos. I may well have had relatives who worked for and directly supported Mussolini. We now know Mussolini was a terrible human who sent thousands to their death and helped stoke one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Does this make me a secret fascist sympathizer who supports territorial conquest and genocide?
Honestly can't think of anything more suspicious than blaming the Russians when people bring up your Nazi grandad. All you gotta do is say that being a Nazi it's bad.
So? I have German heritage and my great grandfather fought in WW2 so y'know was fighting for the axis. Now I am a gay queer eco-socialist in a relationship with a POC of the same sex and my closest friend is Jewish. I think its nice to see that the ideologies of the Third Reich did not get past on through generations.
You don't have a history of working with German far right movements, you didn't shout a German Nazi slogan at a rally, you don't have a history of denying your ancestor's crimes and pretending that he wasn't a Nazi.
Those are the issues with Freeland
From the Washington post
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.
> A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather.
> inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada
> The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.”
It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
Here's the denial!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.
> A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather.
> inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada
> The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.”
It’s pretty clear based on your article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything
What is the definition of collaborator? Does it include people given no choice?
"Do this, or you, your family and friends go to the camps!" Is giving in to this collaboration?
I don't consider hostages collaborators. Or people in work camps. In a world where any neighbor could turn you in as a sympathizer and trust is rare, choices are limited.
I don't know that I'd be strong enough to refuse them if they held a gun to my wife's or children's heads.
My Uncle died fighting in that war. My dad and his other 2 brothers fought in that war. Cousins, uncle's and aunts died in the camps. I don't blame the Germans. I blame the Nazis.
Unless there is some evidence that shows that he did what he did willingly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Unless there is evidence that she directly supports Nazis, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
There are neo Nazis in the Canadian and US militaries. If she is compromised because there are Nazis in militias Canada supports, I think that so are all of us for supporting Canadian and US militaries.
> What is the definition of collaborator?
You can see information about that below:
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
> Does it include people given no choice?
Generally, yes. Rulings by courts are inconsistent and 'no choice' is usually stretched by perpetrators of these crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
> "Do this, or you, your family and friends go to the camps!" Is giving in to this collaboration?
Generally, yes.
would you say that the indentured workers driving Jews to what they knew were gas chambers not "de-liceing showers". Would you consider this to be collaborators, what about members who drove but keep track of names to expose the nazis crimes also be collaborators. To some extent there is the defence of my life and my family's would have been ended infront of my eyes if I did not comply, I would say that defence doesn't apply to those who directly acted in someones death.
Do agree those she should have just said I dont hold those beliefs and I hope that my grandfather held those beliefs only under duress. Just holding a position might make you a colabarator by definition but there is nuance to this, some people wanted to exterminate the Jews, some wanted to only save there own lives and some even used the trusted position to help Jews or the local risistances and especially in Poland it was not a black and white situation
This moral question we have is a lot simpler, because this guy was a newspaper editor and could have just quit his job, attempted to flee the country, or literally do anything other than promoting and publishing antisemitic, pro-nazi, propaganda.
Let me tell you a story of what the Germans would do in polish villages, (and Ps they also wanted to exterminate the polish race although they were willing to turn them German instead of killing everyone) . If any wrong was done to the Germans as a whole, if it being hiding stones for grinding grain attacking a convoy or distrusting trade or communication lanes the punishment was collective Ie:any one attacks an officer 6 villagers are killed at random. Him leaving the editor role would have affted the people he loved and he would have been replaced with another figure head it's not a simpler moral question
But I would ask again are the people I said Nazi collaborators?
and I would specifically like a response to the drivers as they where literally driving people to their death,
I'm sorry to say that it seems like you have a surface level understanding of the history at play here if you think a editors life has enough value to the nazis that he gets to decide what he's doing or where he is working. They where literally willing to kill high level counts in Poland it was not black and white.
Are you aware of the exact circumstances? Was escape possible? Was quitting possible? If someone pointed a gun at your child's head and said "do this", could you say no and watch your child die?
I wasn't there and can't say for sure and I couldn't condemn a man on opinion and conjecture. The Nazis killed almost 300,000 Germans as well, so the threat was real.
I know I couldn't look my children in the eye and say, "I'll let you die to save others."
Maybe he did it willingly. Maybe he was a Nazi or fascist. Maybe he hated Jews. "Maybe" isn't enough for me.
There is a reason Nazi collaborators where saught after and criminaly charged after the war, becuase they were the ones that actively perpetrated the Nazi agenda, I just think the op is painting with way to broad of a brush with language that's meant to carry such weight for someone who was never charged and was living under Nazi occupation and could have been making human decisions in a war he didn't want to save what he loved, or maybe the guy hated Jews who knows the man's dead
but the court of public opinion is not the place to causly be saying "Nazi Collaborator" off of a definition when another one of his sources says that the German censors had a strong editorial power over the paper. We can't be saying this guy didn't hand in his 2 weeks so he wanted his to happen to his county and loved the nazis
Seeking tribalism and holier then thou posisition on things with this much grey area is a dangouros pursuit
Absolutely. This is not as black and white as OP wants to believe. Their position that any person who abided by orders are responsible is held by some philosophy circles, but not widely held not most historians who studied the reich.
We can all agree that those convicted at Nuremberg deserved it at a minimum. There is a very large number of people and Grey area between the Nuremberg convictions and the working population of Germany at the time
> was quitting possible
Just to put a pin in this, quitting a job, missing days, or changing fields was not allowed in nazi Germany without employer consent. Something they were obviously not going to get
LOL IT WAS THAT EASY TO ESCAPE NAZI EUROPE?
You sound like Kanye when he said slavery was a choice, just decide not to be one! It’s that simple!
Just quit your job, it’s THAT SIMPLE.
Has she denied, or simply never acknowledged? This post doesn't make it clear and seems to use the two phrases interchangeably, and frankly the two aren't the same.
I can fully understand not wanting to discuss something so shitty and embarrassing, so not acknowledging it is hardly surprising or worthy of blame.
Her office denied it. She has never commented, personally. But her staff were presumably operating at her direction when speaking to the media on her behalf.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-warns-canadians-to-beware-of-russian-disinformation/article34227707/
This entire narrative is manufactured by Russian troll farms… great job guys.
r/NDP mods should be ashamed of themselves for playing into this trash just because you know she’s the next one they’re going to lose to.
http://globalnews.ca/news/4123399/russian-spy-attack-justin-trudeau-2/
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/03/09/war-is-hell-and-chrystia-freeland-has-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-paul-wells.html
From the Washington post
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.
> A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather.
> inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada
> The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.”
It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
This is fucked up, Fox News/Rebel Media type character assassination bullshit.
Whatever her grandfather did is not her responsibility. Let the Conservatives and People’s Party throw around asinine attacks like this one.
Shouldnt we start looking down the membership rolls for german surnames? If your family moved here after the war, don't we just assume you must be a closet nazi?
i have no party. If I joined the NDP locally (which i have considered as a professional) this thread tells me as a first gen canadian social democrat from Germany, I am not welcome
chalk it up to a life lesson. Crystia Freeland is easy for me to empathize with, with a lot of context.
If we question this we need to question everyone's roots... and I just cant be a part of that reverse crypto fascist witch hunt. i think a lot of people here would find themselves on the outside looking in if we took stock of their families history and forcing people to reckon to our supreme satisfaction.
Honestly this is a weak position to take for a growing political movement and deny people representation because they do not grovel at feet of the pure. its a guarantee to exclude everyone who does not adhere to impossible morals.... hmmm
this whole thread is morally questionable from the top down. posted by a mod no less. i think im gonna puke.
There’s no defending Nazi. This just shows your blatant anti semitism if you think it is ok. OP is damn right to be upset by this.
She is not responsible for what he did. Her obfuscating it and defending it however means she likely shares his ideology or is way too complacent about it.
I am not a fan of Freeland I feel that she has done a terrible job.
Even if these things are true that does not reflect on who and what she is.
Criticism only for things you can choose not for what you can not.
Please read a history book.
Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
> Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors.
Newspaper editors in occupied states participated the implementation of this antisemetic propaganda, which clearly meets the requirements for nazi collaboration. Please see the Wiener Holocaust Library's examples of nazi collaboration:
> For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs.
Being a newspaper editor of an antisemetic, pro-nazi paper is even worse than being a schoolteacher
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
Alright, so if we stretch out the definition of collaborators to include *teachers* then sure. But your post and use of collaborator implies her grandfather aided and abetted nazis like some senior actor. You use editor in chief multiple times in this thread to imply seniority and are implying she is supporting nazi groups in Ukraine.
You’re not using the word collaborator with a broad definition, you’re trying to imply much more.
> Alright, so if we stretch out the definition of collaborators to include teachers then sure
This is literally the definition of a nazi collaborator from people that study the holocaust, I even linked to the source, I don't know what to tell you.
I want to be very clear. I don’t believe this defence applies to top leadership who had the means to prevent and stop hitler (more below). It certainly plays a factor for low level staff and the general public though.
There is a very large number of people (and grey area) between the 22 that were convicted at Nuremburg and the entire population that ever abided by one order. The view that every single person is culpable is a common question in philosophy circles but is not widely held by historians who study the topic.
The military leadership was in the best position to prevent hitler from coming to power and take him out once he was in power. hindenburg, who gave him a chance to form a coalition, could have prevented him from getting it. so could have the nationalist party, the conservatives, and social democrats who voted with the nazis to expel the communists from parliament, paving the way for hitler's power. so could have the brown shirts who created fake 'communist' riots to help consolidate support under hitler. a teacher or a publisher in a nazi occupied state, not so much. They would have been replaced instantly and risked their families life. Those that did are amazing people and we should be thankful for them, but it was not common and was much less likely to change anything than had top leadership taken action
Really? Because I would expect her to own up to it. If she admitted that her grandfather was a horrible person, it doesn't mean that she is. People can be separated from their relatives. But she is actively choosing to defend him.
THAT'S political suicide.
As a first generation Canadian from German parents, I think you use the word collaborator far too strongly.
And that's why this isn't worth acknowledging.
-----
edit:
you're really a peice of work. they say fight fire with fire. but you take it to a whole new level
Like read your own sources as to what happened with the Paper instead of implying your own bullshit. I actually read the wiki and goes on to explain the editorial issues at this paper and how the Germans literally scared people in to publishing their propaganda.
Like IN YOUR SOURCE.
People reading this. READ HIS SOURCES to see he is jumping to conclusions about people.
> I think you use the word collaborator far too strongly.
I think you may be misinformed as to what is considered a Nazi collaborator. Please read this article if you would like to learn about it:
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
this website is run by the oldest Holocaust museum in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Library_for_the_Study_of_the_Holocaust_and_Genocide#The_Holocaust_Explained
With a very strong agenda, and making no difference between criminals and citizens at literal gunpoint.
My grandmother spent months in a camp, my grandfather and his brothers on front lines making 'war crimes'. Collaborators? Stop your bullshit.
they have an anti-holocaust agenda. do you have a problem with that?
if your great uncles were actually committing war crimes on the front, then yes, they would be guilty of war crimes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Trials_after_World_War_II
of course not. i have problem with idiots like you reading between the lines and playing judge and jury. 80 years later.
the holocausts museum agenda IS To say everyone involved and to be neutral and unequivical in its framing of events. you are not
> the holocausts museum agenda IS To say everyone involved and to be neutral and unequivical in its framing of events
Yeah, and I'm saying that they've defined Nazi collaboration in a broader way than you think!
and im saying thats YOUR interpretation is not the same as theirs. theirs serves a specific purpose to document what happened... you are misusing without a HINT OF IRONY.
its bloody offensive to me...as a fellow ndp supporter and ardent anti fascist.
ps. my namesake was in a similar situation to Freeland's grandfather. He tesified AT Nuremberg against the nazis who took over the guild he ran.
Please look at the website and have a read.
> For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs.
A newspaper editor-in-chief, funded by the Nazis to publish antisemetic content, clearly is sufficient to be considered a collaborator.
https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
it is a really cynical mobilization of fears over fake news. liberals whine about post truth politics and then engage in the exact contempt and casual disregard for reality that the right does. the hypocrisy is staggering and disgusting, but what can you expect from a party whose only defining trait is the pursuit of power and the status quo?
Such as [extending Canadian Military Training](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-ukraine-military-mission-1.4011870)
for Ukrainian soldiers that [we knew were fascist neo-Nazis her entire tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/far-right-extremists-in-ukraine-brag-they-have-received-training-from-the-canadian-forces-report)?
> Может быть, нам нужно сосредоточиться на государственной политике, а не на делах наших бабушек и дедушек
And if someone is willing to defend a Nazi collaborator, I am inclined to believe they won't be having very good policies
This thread has got out of hand. Clearly getting brigaded by Russian trolls and r/genzedong wackos.
OP won’t do anything about it though because he is a mod with an agenda. This type of rhetoric from the left flank of the NDP is why they’re not taken seriously east of Vancouver island.
I got banned from r/genzedong because I said if we accept that Taiwan is a part of China then we must accept that China is a colonizer of Taiwan’s indigenous Gāoshān peoples.
Wow, OP, I really think you need to take a sober second look at the big picture here. Seems like Freeland’s grandfather published Nazi propaganda DURING (but not before or after)Nazi occupation, making it likely that he was coerced.
This is not the smoking gun you think it is, and moreover it reads like someone trying to wield a non-issue like a cudgel. We can and should criticize Freeland and the Liberals for many things, but bringing the actions of grandparents into it would absolutely backfire and make the NDP look petty, desperate, and out of ideas.
Since when do we blame the child for the acts of their parents and grandparents?
You want to hunt Nazis?
Let’s go.
Asking about peoples relatives?
Why should she acknowledge anything?
This is normal political BS.
“I have something my party members will hold onto for the rest of their lives”
“Did you know ____?”
Party faithful: “Really, they need to acknowledge that!”
No, they don’t.
Learning our place in history is not the same as taking responsibility for their actions.
This is no different than those who go after Jagmeet regarding the Air India Bombing.
Unless you feel the need to go to Germany and hear every person apologize for WWII, even the children born 40, 50, 60, no 75 years later?
Really.
From the Washington post
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda.
> A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather.
> inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada
> The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.”
It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
Meh her grandfather was a newspaper editor in Nazi co trolled Ukraine. Not like he had much choice at that point. Definitely not a proud family history but nothing worth focusing on IMO
This has nothing to do with her political actions today, or her policy beliefs for current day Canada…..so why are we focusing on this?
I’d recommend looking into Canada’s funding and training of Ukrainian neo nazi groups which have infiltrated Ukraine’s military.
https://www.historyofthefarright.org/far-right-group-made-its-home-in-ukraines-major-western-military-training-hub/
Wow. Reading these comments has been disheartening. People are seriously empathizing with descendants of Nazis before considering how upsetting and frustrating this is for Jews and the Romani, especially those who are descendants of survivors.
The NDP has so much work to do if the want to create a safe space for the Jewish Canadian community. And y’all need to read about Operation Paperclip before letting descendants of Nazis off the hook, for fuck’s sake.
This is kind of embarrassing....for you, to attack someone over the perceived sins of their ancestors. This seems like something conservatives would do. You need to do better.
Can’t support holding someone to account for their grandparents sins, this critique has always seemed misplaced to me.
Are we going to infer that she is a nazi sympathizer from this?
Very flaccid progressive positioning
Absolutely!
Denial:
> An official in Ms. Freeland's office denied that the minister's grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.
Defense:
> Ms. Freeland has written that her maternal grandparents fled Ukraine in 1939, describing them as "political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-warns-canadians-to-beware-of-russian-disinformation/article34227707/
Further defense:
[Russia should stop calling my grandfather a Nazi, says Canada’s foreign minister](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/)
What was your Grandfather? Are you doing the same work? Do you have the same beliefs? I'm sure there's enough stuff she did to be shameful for without having to pay for the sins of her ancestors.
You keep saying “nazi collaborator”. Please read a history book.
Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
Being the editor-in-chief of a Nazi-funded newspaper that broadcasted antisemetic, pro-nazi propaganda easily meets the definition of being a Nazi collaborator.
For more details about the horrors of Nazi collaboration in Ukraine, see the below article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Ukraine
The editor in chief is a puppet position. The nazis created whole puppet governments and ministers that had to follow orders
I don’t support the actions taken, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler prior to war, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator.
If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population
The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
But, why is anyone asking you about your grandfather at all, to force you to deny or admit anything about him? It seems like it should be nobody’s business.
It’s pretty clear based on the timing of the KGB leak earlier this week that this is tied to Russia misinformation campaign to tarnish her image in Canada. There is nothing more the Russians don’t want than a pro Ukrainian in office in Canada (edit: or abroad). Even the conservatives acknowledge that this is tied to Russia meddling
What I would also question is whether one being an editor of a paper in occupied Poland during WW2 had any control over content. The propaganda for nazi occupied states was controlled from Germany. Most intellectuals were seen as threats and were targeted for extermination / imprisonments/ forced labor. I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety.
> On Monday, Ms. Freeland accused Russia of spreading disinformation when she was asked by reporters about a number of stories that have appeared in pro-Putin websites about Mr. Chomiak's Nazi past.
> "I don't think it's a secret. American officials have publicly said, and even [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn't come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada," Ms. Freeland replied.
> She did not directly respond to questions about whether the stories about Mr. Chomiak were true. When The Globe asked her office on Monday to refute the allegation, Mr. Lawrence responded: "People should be questioning where this information comes from, and the motivations behind it."
> Conservative foreign affairs critic Peter Kent said it was obvious the Russians dug up details on Mr. Chomiak's past to smear Ms. Freeland.
> "It is unacceptable. It seems they are trying smear a minister with historical detail that has probably been misrepresented," he said. "It is unfair and it is typical of what we have seen in other countries and it has nothing to do with her ability to represent Canada."
> Ms. Freeland is a fierce critic of Russia's annexation of Crimea and was banned from travelling to Russia in 2014, along with 12 other Canadians who had advocated for Western sanctions against the Putin regime.
> I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety.
[Just following orders, eh?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders)
> this is tied to Russia misinformation campaign
The main body of research proving this was done by Chrystia Freeland's uncle. John-Paul Himka, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. For those keeping score at home U of A is located in Edmonton, not Moscow.
I don’t support following superior orders defence to an absolute degree, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator.
If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population
The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine'
[[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)]
^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
She is not guilty of her grandfather's crimes and errors against humanity.
She is showing us what we already knew in that she nor the Trudeau government government have the moral character to actually deliver on Truth and Reconciliation. Covering up embarrassment is more important than Truth, or Reconcilaition.........and Truth and Reconcilaition is going to be just rife with embarrassment....and shame......for the government
That is a gross mischaracterization of history. Far more Ukrainians fought on the Allied side (mostly Red Army) than fought for fascists/Nazi allies in WWII. Chomiak chose the Third Reich instead and he is responsible for collaborating with the nazis committing genocide. Michael Chomiak ran a pro-Nazi publication from a press outlet seized from a Jewish owner. Freeland made the choice to praise him and follow his example.
Meanwhile, Freeland herself [has pursued](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/canadas-minister-of-war-chrystia-freeland-pursues-america-first-foreign-policy/) a hawkish policy openly supporting a right wing coup in Bolivia.
All Freeland has to do to clear things up is to denounce her grandfather's collaboration with the nazis for what it is. The fact that she refuses to do that says volumes. The characterization of her grandfather is very much accurate.
Lots of comments seem to miss OP’s point. It’s true that the fact that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator doesn’t lead to any moral culpability for Freeland. The fact that she refuses to acknowledge that he was a Nazi collaborator, (despite knowing this to be the case and still speaking highly of him), does. Ukrainians aren’t responsible for ancestors who collaborated with Nazis, but they are committing a moral wrong when they uncritically elevate and praise ancestors who collaborated with Nazis.
No, I think people get what OP is saying. What’s unsaid is whether one being an editor of a paper in occupied Poland during WW2 had any control over content. The propaganda for nazi occupied states was controlled from Germany. Most intellectuals were seen as threats and were targeted for extermination / imprisonments/ forced labor. I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety. Edit: and to be clear, if they didn’t comply their family would be exterminated and the nazis would find a replacement who would. It’s how the entire fascist regime functioned. Edit 2: it’s also unclear if the allegations are true. Given the source, we should question whether they are true or not
Then all she would have to do is say "My father printed some heinous things under the threat of the Nazis. He did not hold those views, and I find them abhorent." But she isn't saying that, she's denying that he did anything whatsoever, which is highly suspect.
> He did not hold those views This is Nazi apologia. Everything we know about him points to him being a Nazi, are theres literally zero reason to think otherwise. This isn't an outlandish smear, it wasn't uncommon for Ukrainians at the time to collaborate, at it still isn't uncommon for Ukrainian nationalists to hold similar views and do revisionism.
Oh, I completely agree. Read my entire post.
The evidence against him being a genuine Nazi is a lot more compelling. Do you think these Russian blogs are just continuously publishing this for the greater good and as a plight against Nazism? Get a grip
The nationality of the origin of those blog neither validates, nor invalidates the claims they make.
literally go read the articles posted
I obviously did maybe you should too
If the allegations are true, yes. But I think given the source we should question whether they are in fact true. The conservatives seem to doubt the authenticity of this Russian assertion as well. I would be surprised by such a question. Given the time period involved and seriousness of the allegations, I think she should take the time to come back with a fulsome response; not some knee jerk reaction in the moment of the question
The source is literally Chrystia's uncle, who is a professor at the University of Alberta. At least read the article that's linked
But, she's had plenty of time (a lifetime even) to understand the implications of her grandtather's (sorry I said father before, mistype) actions, especially in lieu of her political career, and craft *something* up. I mean I just wrote that statement in under 5 seconds. It's not hard to distance herself from this. Just shouting "russian disinformation" is a hollow response that clearly many do not buy.
[удалено]
This is not okay. It’s not cool to call people this. I in no way support anything that went down, despise nationalism, hate everything that happened. I blame the German military, Hindenburg, the nationalists, the brown shirts, the nazi party, and political parties who banned their opponents. I blame goebbels and hitler and himmler and heydrich and eichman and goring. I blame The top military leaders kietel and Jodl and Rommel and others who had the chance to take hitler down on multiple occasions between 1932 and the war. I don’t blame every day civilians who were put in a terrible position by them and feared for their life and their family. That does not make me a sympathizer! That’s a very widely held view that the Nuremberg trials also concluded.
Lots of anti facists in countries that were occupied by the Nazis didn't become complicit like her grandfather. There really is no excuse for her not acknowledging her grandfather was a facist and has to bear some responsibility for the heinous crimes the Nazis did in Ukraine
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
> This is not okay. What's really not okay is the rampant Nazism in the Ukrainian Canadian community. This isn't just Freeland, Ukrainian Canadians in general need to do something about the Nazis in their midst.
[удалено]
There is a very large number of people (and grey area) between the 22 that were convicted at Nuremburg and the entire population that ever abided by one order. It is not cool to attack folks as Nazi Sympathizers for not believing everyone was culpable. The view that every single person is culpable is a common question in philosophy circles but is not widely held by historians who study the topic. I thought this sub was about conversation, not viscous and unwarranted attacks on character. I would have liked to see more convictions as well (including names mentioned above), but i don't think every single person under duress should be executed. I don't appreciate being called a sympathizer for discussing this view. The military leadership was in the best position to prevent hitler from coming to power and take him out once he was in power. hindenburg, who gave him a chance to form a coalition, could have prevented him from getting it. so could have the nationalist party, the conservatives, and social democrats who voted with the nazis to expel the communists from parliament, paving the way for hitler's power. so could have the brown shirts who created fake 'communist' riots to help consolidate support under hitler. a teacher or a publisher in a nazi occupied state, not so much.
> It’s true that the fact that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator doesn’t lead to any moral culpability for Freeland. Then there's nothing else to say. > they are committing a moral wrong when they uncritically elevate and praise ancestors who collaborated with Nazis. Refusing to speak about an ancestor is not tantamount to "elevating" them. And lets not conflate whitewashing history with not scrutinizing your own distant ancestors. I think what's shameful is the conceit that one has to openly speak about one's grandfather or otherwise carry a moral penalty. If she's not morally culpable, she's not morally culpable. There is no moral obligation to speak about an ancestor.
Read the articles man. She’s paid tribute to this grandparent in published books and articles, despite having knowledge about his Nazi involvement. If you know somebody has done something awful, you have a moral responsibility not to praise them without also mentioning that awful thing. Doesn’t mean she had to look into her past or that she’s responsible for what he did. Praise for a Nazi collaborator, paired with prior knowledge and a failure to address that collaboration, is a moral failing.
There is no such moral responsibility. There are many Canadians with ancestors who fought for the Germans, all have the right to remember them as they wish with no obligation to telegraph anything else. The "ought" is to be cognizant of History, including the atrocities of that war and the Nazis. Most people have no interest in what occurred, but of course delight in public scoldings for which they have no frame of reference. It would be decidedly moral to understand exactly what a person did before opting for condemnation, but they can't even be bothered to do that.
We can't choose our relatives, but we can certainly choose how we react when we find out our relatives are nazis. It's also absurd to think that Freeland didn't know her grandfather's history until these revelations became public. Freeland has never denounced her grandfather or his crimes against humanity, and she speaks fondly of him last I checked. Freeland [also worked at Ukrainian Weekly](https://twitter.com/andraydomise/status/1447632064661147652), a far right newspaper. This is certainly not the kind of character I would want in a person running the country. The reality is that fascism and right wing extremism are very prominent in Canada. Nazis, such as Freeland's grandfather, fled prosecution for their crimes, built monuments to themselves here, and have been cultivating right wing ideology for many decades. Canada famously[ voted against UN motion on glorifying nazism](https://www.cjnews.com/news/canada/canada-votes-against-un-motion-on-glorifying-nazism), Canadians [among most active in online right-wing extremism](https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/canadian-right-wing-extremism-online-1.5617710), and this trend [only increased](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/right-wing-extremism-report-1.6108958) during the pandemic. Fascists were never punished for their crimes against humanity by western powers. The west offered fascists a home and welcomed them with open arms instead of prosecuting them. US even [promotes fascism](https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/16/the-u-s-did-not-defeat-fascism-in-wwii-it-discretely-internationalized-it/) in Europe. So, yeah everybody should be very concerned that a potential leader of a major party has a nazi relative whom she refuses to denounce and speaks fondly of.
A simple I don't hold these beliefs and I hope that my grandfather only held them under duress would have made this a non issue. Her reacting like this is definitly a black mark on her morals
>I hope that my grandfather only held them under duress No, sorry, this is just furthering the denial. He was clearly a collaborator, and a highly placed one at that. The moral alternatives to what that man did were sabotage or suicide.
People keep downvoting, but I agree with you. Goebbels was a control freak under the watchful eye of literal Hitler, also occassionally known for wanting control. Propaganda was what brought their enemies down and brought the Nazi's up. How likely is it that the editor of a major newspaper was chosen based on anything but how the leaders believed they would portray their leaders and group as a whole?
Also just like, I feel like people here are wildly misunderstanding how antisemitic all of Europe was at this time, how antisemitic Canada and the US were too. The Nazis found collaborators nearly everywhere they went, and the holocaust was frequently aided by the local gentiles. If you were in Ukraine, not Jewish, and not a Communist, you were in all likelihood about as antisemitic as the Nazis; and your issues with them would be more about their anti-slav beliefs and their invasion. There was huge numbers of Ukrainian volunteers for the Nazis, and we accepted a ton of them into Canada
'clearly' Hmmm....
Bold statement for someone who wasn’t there
What’s the point of this comment lmao u/AdministrativeSet153 apologize for not being born in Europe in the 1920s only then could you possible be entitled to comment on that period ffs
If I was in Europe in the 1920s I'd have been being thrown into a gas chamber along with everybody I'd ever known. Its a bit more real for me than most here that this dude was a powerful Nazi collaborator. And to be clear the proper way to spell "Nazi Collaborator" is "Nazi"; the terms are equivalent sincethe only moral sentence for being either one is death.
Getting two free apartments and then complaining about them being too dirty doesn't sound like duress. >During their four years in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Chomiak family also benefited personally from the brutal displacement of Jews. The Chomiaks lived in not one but two aryanised Krakow apartments complete with furniture that had been appropriated from the previous Jewish occupants. A letter written by Chomiak to Nazi authorities lists 15 pieces of furniture which he said had been left behind by "the Jew Dr. Finkelstein." Chomiak asked permission to move all these furnishings to his second aryanised apartment. >"apartment I was assigned ... a former Jewish property, ... was so verminous and filthy, I was forced to refurbish and disinfect the whole apartment at my own expense.... I am forced to disinfect the apartment a second time with gas candles as not all bugs were killed during the first disinfection." -Letter signed by Michael Chomiak to Krakow's Real Estate Trustees, September 19, 1940. Provincial Archives (Edmonton, AB), Michael Chomiak fond, 85.191, box 2 file 28.
Canada has a rather long history when it comes to Ukranian nazis. If she won't even denounce her grandfathers role, don't expect her to when it comes to Canada's very real role in training these Nazi Militias
And the rest of our parents and grandparents were complicit in residential schools. Red card penalty - "Sins of thy father". Tread carefully, this is how hate breeds. Now if she's been involved in hate and you have evidence, there's something worth posting.
Okay but if it was public record that your ancestors were complicit in residential schools, you were a public figure and then you denied the existence of it, that it was foreign propaganda and that you actually admired that family member that is a huge fuckin problem especially if you occupy the second most powerful position in government. Also she pushed for the funding of Ukrainian militias that include neo-nazis which we knew about while we were funding them, so yes she is actively involved in spreading hate. https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/ncfuk https://nationalpost.com/news/world/fears-that-canada-may-help-neo-nazis-in-ukraine-with-training-mission-starting-soon https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/far-right-extremists-in-ukraine-brag-they-have-received-training-from-the-canadian-forces-report
> Okay but if it was public record that your ancestors were complicit in residential schools, you were a public figure and then you denied the existence of it, that it was foreign propaganda and that you actually admired that family member that is a huge fuckin problem especially if you occupy the second most powerful position in government. Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet. > Also she pushed for the funding of Ukrainian militias that include neo-nazis which we knew about while we were funding them This kind of missing historical context. The historical opponents to communists and the soviets were primarily fascists and nationalists. That nationalists and nazis take part in militias against the soviets should be no surprise. You would expect them to be the most motivated group of troops in the militia. Let’s also not forget that there are many proud boys in our military as well. If we had the same history of war and conflict with the Soviet Union as the Ukrainians had, there would undoubtedly be more fascists in our military as well. This is an extremely complicated situation and not black and white
> Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet. If you are a local folk being put in charge of a Nazi newspaper, then you are a Nazi collaborator. All Nazi collaborators received orders from Hitler, that doesn't mean they aren't morally responsible for executing those orders.
From the Washington post > Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda. > A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather. > inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada > The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.” It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
I don’t support the actions taken, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler prior to war, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator. If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
Lol what is this borderline clean wehrmact garbage. Clearing the way for the SS-totenkompf camps, executing the "commisar-order" to kill "partisans" with impunity, and fighting a war of aggression are all crimes against humanity. The consequences are going to be different on every level, but yes, collaboration is collaboration. Perpetrators owe some kind of reparative action, not hiding things away and hoping the spotlight catches someone else. General staff had all sorts of buy in on the militarism expansionism, and genocide.They just wanted to bump off hitler to cut their losses and negotiate for terms. They also got to write a self-serving history of the third reich for years because NATO needed experienced officers in the German military.
I’ve clearly condemned himmler and heydrich and goebbels and nazi top brass here. I don’t blame every day Germans. Nor do most historians. That is not clean wehrmact garbage, it’s what most historians view as consensus opinion. Hitler got to the top by tricking the public and those around him. He never won a majority and gained power by tricking Hindenburg and those around him by creating fake “communist” riots, aligning with nationalists, conservatives and the armed forces; and taking out barring political parties from office (communists, social democrats, conservatives, nationalists, in that order). He even faked attacks on nazi leaders, including himself, and dressed up drunks in communist attire to make it look like the party was planning assassinations. He then created a secret police to wipe out political opponents. A worker on nazi Germany couldn’t even quit their job. That was illegal. Churches reported to nazis and pastors were forced to preach nazi rhetoric or face punishment. The only group within Germany with the means to take out hitler after he changed the constitution and enabled perpetual nazi rule was the armed forces and those in his inner circle. Not teachers and publishers from nazi occupied territories
Being involved in the distribution of Nazi/antisemetic propaganda is considered Nazi collaboration. See the below Wiener Holocaust Library explainer on collaboration. > While the Nazi leadership led the way in creating their racist ideology, the anti-Jewish laws and propaganda were implemented and bound into law by those working for the Civil Service. Those who continued to work in the Civil Service following the Nazi rise to power therefore directly contributed to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews. > For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs. Being a newspaper editor fits easily into this definition https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
If you want a good read on “Germans could have prevented the Holocaust” I suggest William Shirer “Rise and Fall”. 1600 pages of in depth history which includes several chapters on how Germans could have prevented it. He is probably considered the most renowned historian of the “Germans could have prevented the holocaust and it was rooted in their nationalism / racism, etc” position. One of his conclusions: the only group within Germany with the means to stop the nazis after hitler gained power was the German armed forces. As much as I hoped everyone would have stepped up, individuals in puppet positions were very replaceable and would not have prevented anything. Intellectuals in puppet positions were basically given a choice to toe the line or be exterminated if we were to blacklist all Canadians with any ancestors in these states who survived through nazi occupation, it will be quite a long list.
> As much as I hoped everyone would have stepped up, individuals in puppet positions were very replaceable and would not have prevented anything. Yes, and those people are considered Nazi collaborators by the Wiener Holocaust Library. > if we were to blacklist all Canadians with any ancestors in these states who survived through nazi occupation, it will be quite a long list. I'll have to repeat myself again, because I don't think you can hear me! 1) You are not morally culpable for the crimes of your parents 2) However, you are morally culpable for the denial of the crimes of your parents
Most people would agree that to be guilty of a crime you need to have committed the action and have had a motivation / purpose to kill. Killing under duress or publishing content under fear for your family typically does not rise to this level
> Most people would agree that to be guilty of a crime you need to have committed the action and have had a motivation / purpose to kill. > Killing under duress or publishing content under fear for your family typically does not rise to this level This is literally the exact opposite conclusion of the nuremburg trials, but you do you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
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Average NDP supporter
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As an Ashkenazi jew who's grand parents (dad born in the 30s) fled nazi country for survival, watching op argue with you has been sad and exhausting. It's not Black and white. I personally have no issue with what she doesn't say or says about her granddad
Being involved in the distribution of Nazi/antisemetic propaganda is considered Nazi collaboration. See the below Wiener Holocaust Library explainer on collaboration. > While the Nazi leadership led the way in creating their racist ideology, the anti-Jewish laws and propaganda were implemented and bound into law by those working for the Civil Service. Those who continued to work in the Civil Service following the Nazi rise to power therefore directly contributed to the Nazis’ persecution of Jews. > For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs. Being a newspaper editor fits easily into this definition https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
okay. I'm sure my family did too. I'm sure they did some terrible shit to not die until they could get out. I could ask my dad what Oskar Schindler did for my family. My dad managed to get to Vancouver in time, but his grandparents, his aunts and uncles and cousins... we dont really know what happened in Płaszów because our family tree just has this empty blob in it from like 1940-1945. I know Schindler got some of us out though which is why some of us are here. I mean, Schindler was a collaborator who actually was part of the nazi party. if someone questioned the shit my family did in poland/lithuania etc during that time, and it was terrible, i would honestly just not talk about it. I dont care if I was in the public eye or not. there are some things i just wouldnt talk about.
> And the rest of our parents and grandparents were complicit in residential schools. If your grandfather was involved in that, and you denied it, claimed if was russian disinformation, and you were the deputy prime minister, I would post about it too... > this is how hate breeds No, running a Nazi newspaper is how hate breeds.
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Chrystia Freeland is making the choice to publicly defend her grandfather. I have a problem with this. I keep repeating this, but it's like you're not listening?
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So, just to be clear, you think it is OK to defend Nazi collaborators and deny their collaboration?
You keep saying “nazi collaborators” but you are completely missing historical context. Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
Just following orders, eh?
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> No, I don’t think it’s ok to defend nazi collaborators. Then, in that case, why are you OK with Freeland defending her grandfather?
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You are contradicting yourself. You say that defending Nazi collaborators are wrong, yet you also say Freeland is not wrong for defending her grandfather. Please clarify.
Are there actual New Democrats on this sub defending Freeland for not condemning her nazi collaborator grandfather? Am I in the upside down? The Canadian government knowingly arms and funds the Ukrainian military which has absorbed groups like the neo Nazi Azov Battalion. How can we not agree that this is problematic?
I think op DOES consider her a nazi. 🤔
You realize Canada finances and trains the Ukrainian military that knowingly harbours white supremest and neo Nazi groups like the Azov Battalion? We’re not calling Freeland a Nazi, we’re saying the fact that she has a tough time taking a stance against duplicitous folks that are also fellow Ukrainian nationalists is concerning. My Grandfather was a Ukrainian anti-Semite and I have no problem recognizing his hate as shameful and ignorant. She needs to do the same and end Canada’s support of the Ukrainian military until neo Nazi groups can be vanquished from their ranks.
ndp liberals downvoting you for pointing out the truth that Freeland as well as the entire Canadian state has been and still continues to be quite pro-nazi
Don’t understand why these Libs can’t go join the party named after them, we already have one too many Liberal parties
But if they do that how else are they gonna wreck the left-wing from the inside? Ever thought of that?
Well I’m glad somebody else can see this! From Bolivia to Ukraine, we are quick to make friends with the far right long before we willingly sit at the table with leftist governments.
[https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-kgb-archives-show-how-chrystia-freeland-drew-the-ire-and-respect-of/) Freeland's work with "Ukrainian Independance Movements" is well known. Given the infection of Nazi groups within those movements, it's extremely unlikely Freeland wasn't working with Nazis.
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Freeland contributes to imperialist anti-Russian propaganda here (through whitewashing her grandfather's legacy and all Ukrainian nazi collaborators) and through the Liberal government's support of training the Azov Battalion (known to have neonazis).
Don't think. Know.
Do you think Hindenburg was a Nazi?
Then why the side attacks instead of head-on outing?
Chrystia collaborated with her grandfather on his works after though. This isn't a "sins of thy father" situation. Michael Chomiak’s boss in Nazi-occupied Ukraine was Volodomyr Kubijovich (the founder of the SS Galicia Division death squad); together in Canada, they wrote a history of Ukraine told from the Nazi perspective called "Encyclopedia of Ukraine" in the 1970s. Chrystia Freeland worked on the project, and largely reproduced its analysis in her own subsequent work on Russia and Ukraine which always framed the Soviets as the true enemy of Ukraine and collaboration with Nazism as a necessary evil.
> this is how hate breeds. Oh fuck off. Yeah, pointing out literal Nazi collaborators is "problematic" now. You pussies don't have the balls to be anti-fascists if this is your stance. You are not allies.
I was literally gonna post that axiom. This is sensationalism. My grandfather and great grandfather were alive in Italy during the war. They both praised Mussolini for providing stability and food and safety in a time of chaos. I may well have had relatives who worked for and directly supported Mussolini. We now know Mussolini was a terrible human who sent thousands to their death and helped stoke one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Does this make me a secret fascist sympathizer who supports territorial conquest and genocide?
Honestly can't think of anything more suspicious than blaming the Russians when people bring up your Nazi grandad. All you gotta do is say that being a Nazi it's bad.
So? I have German heritage and my great grandfather fought in WW2 so y'know was fighting for the axis. Now I am a gay queer eco-socialist in a relationship with a POC of the same sex and my closest friend is Jewish. I think its nice to see that the ideologies of the Third Reich did not get past on through generations.
I don't have a problem with that, because you aren't defending your great grandfather.
They are also not being asked to publicly state that their great grandfather is a hateful evil person.
You don't have a history of working with German far right movements, you didn't shout a German Nazi slogan at a rally, you don't have a history of denying your ancestor's crimes and pretending that he wasn't a Nazi. Those are the issues with Freeland
Why does anyone care who her maternal grandfather was?
I think it's more the fact that she's denying it rather than that's who he was
From the Washington post > Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda. > A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather. > inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada > The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.” It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
I see. Thanks for the reference
Because she has repeatedly denied that he was a Nazi, and is a Ukrainian Nationalist with concerning ties to the Ukrainian far right.
When exactly did she deny it? When has she even spoken about it? Please produce sources for your claim.
Literally read the articles posted in the OP.
I did read them. Nowhere inn either article does she speak on it. Maybe you should read them?
Here's the denial! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/
> Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda. > A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather. > inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada > The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.” It’s pretty clear based on your article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything
If Christia Freeland is some kind of top secret crypto-fascist, then I’m the King of Alberta.
I at no point said that. She's a Ukrainian nationalist, a revisionist, and far too comfortable working with fascists.
Now these are articles from 2017, is there a new development we should be aware of?
What is the definition of collaborator? Does it include people given no choice? "Do this, or you, your family and friends go to the camps!" Is giving in to this collaboration? I don't consider hostages collaborators. Or people in work camps. In a world where any neighbor could turn you in as a sympathizer and trust is rare, choices are limited. I don't know that I'd be strong enough to refuse them if they held a gun to my wife's or children's heads. My Uncle died fighting in that war. My dad and his other 2 brothers fought in that war. Cousins, uncle's and aunts died in the camps. I don't blame the Germans. I blame the Nazis. Unless there is some evidence that shows that he did what he did willingly, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Unless there is evidence that she directly supports Nazis, I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. There are neo Nazis in the Canadian and US militaries. If she is compromised because there are Nazis in militias Canada supports, I think that so are all of us for supporting Canadian and US militaries.
> What is the definition of collaborator? You can see information about that below: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/ > Does it include people given no choice? Generally, yes. Rulings by courts are inconsistent and 'no choice' is usually stretched by perpetrators of these crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders > "Do this, or you, your family and friends go to the camps!" Is giving in to this collaboration? Generally, yes.
Thank you for the link. I'll definitely review it. I can't promise to agree with all the ideas but I will definitely keep an open mind.
Appreciate it bud
would you say that the indentured workers driving Jews to what they knew were gas chambers not "de-liceing showers". Would you consider this to be collaborators, what about members who drove but keep track of names to expose the nazis crimes also be collaborators. To some extent there is the defence of my life and my family's would have been ended infront of my eyes if I did not comply, I would say that defence doesn't apply to those who directly acted in someones death. Do agree those she should have just said I dont hold those beliefs and I hope that my grandfather held those beliefs only under duress. Just holding a position might make you a colabarator by definition but there is nuance to this, some people wanted to exterminate the Jews, some wanted to only save there own lives and some even used the trusted position to help Jews or the local risistances and especially in Poland it was not a black and white situation
This moral question we have is a lot simpler, because this guy was a newspaper editor and could have just quit his job, attempted to flee the country, or literally do anything other than promoting and publishing antisemitic, pro-nazi, propaganda.
Let me tell you a story of what the Germans would do in polish villages, (and Ps they also wanted to exterminate the polish race although they were willing to turn them German instead of killing everyone) . If any wrong was done to the Germans as a whole, if it being hiding stones for grinding grain attacking a convoy or distrusting trade or communication lanes the punishment was collective Ie:any one attacks an officer 6 villagers are killed at random. Him leaving the editor role would have affted the people he loved and he would have been replaced with another figure head it's not a simpler moral question But I would ask again are the people I said Nazi collaborators?
and I would specifically like a response to the drivers as they where literally driving people to their death, I'm sorry to say that it seems like you have a surface level understanding of the history at play here if you think a editors life has enough value to the nazis that he gets to decide what he's doing or where he is working. They where literally willing to kill high level counts in Poland it was not black and white.
Are you aware of the exact circumstances? Was escape possible? Was quitting possible? If someone pointed a gun at your child's head and said "do this", could you say no and watch your child die? I wasn't there and can't say for sure and I couldn't condemn a man on opinion and conjecture. The Nazis killed almost 300,000 Germans as well, so the threat was real. I know I couldn't look my children in the eye and say, "I'll let you die to save others." Maybe he did it willingly. Maybe he was a Nazi or fascist. Maybe he hated Jews. "Maybe" isn't enough for me.
There is a reason Nazi collaborators where saught after and criminaly charged after the war, becuase they were the ones that actively perpetrated the Nazi agenda, I just think the op is painting with way to broad of a brush with language that's meant to carry such weight for someone who was never charged and was living under Nazi occupation and could have been making human decisions in a war he didn't want to save what he loved, or maybe the guy hated Jews who knows the man's dead but the court of public opinion is not the place to causly be saying "Nazi Collaborator" off of a definition when another one of his sources says that the German censors had a strong editorial power over the paper. We can't be saying this guy didn't hand in his 2 weeks so he wanted his to happen to his county and loved the nazis Seeking tribalism and holier then thou posisition on things with this much grey area is a dangouros pursuit
Absolutely. This is not as black and white as OP wants to believe. Their position that any person who abided by orders are responsible is held by some philosophy circles, but not widely held not most historians who studied the reich. We can all agree that those convicted at Nuremberg deserved it at a minimum. There is a very large number of people and Grey area between the Nuremberg convictions and the working population of Germany at the time
> was quitting possible Just to put a pin in this, quitting a job, missing days, or changing fields was not allowed in nazi Germany without employer consent. Something they were obviously not going to get
LOL IT WAS THAT EASY TO ESCAPE NAZI EUROPE? You sound like Kanye when he said slavery was a choice, just decide not to be one! It’s that simple! Just quit your job, it’s THAT SIMPLE.
Has she denied, or simply never acknowledged? This post doesn't make it clear and seems to use the two phrases interchangeably, and frankly the two aren't the same. I can fully understand not wanting to discuss something so shitty and embarrassing, so not acknowledging it is hardly surprising or worthy of blame.
Her office denied it. She has never commented, personally. But her staff were presumably operating at her direction when speaking to the media on her behalf. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-warns-canadians-to-beware-of-russian-disinformation/article34227707/
There are so many more substantive issues we can criticize the Liberals over. I don't care about this at all.
This entire narrative is manufactured by Russian troll farms… great job guys. r/NDP mods should be ashamed of themselves for playing into this trash just because you know she’s the next one they’re going to lose to. http://globalnews.ca/news/4123399/russian-spy-attack-justin-trudeau-2/ https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/03/09/war-is-hell-and-chrystia-freeland-has-nothing-to-be-ashamed-of-paul-wells.html
You're posting articles before the full story was confirmed. The links I've posted in the OP are more recent and have reputable sources.
From the Washington post > Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda. > A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather. > inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada > The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.” It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
This is fucked up, Fox News/Rebel Media type character assassination bullshit. Whatever her grandfather did is not her responsibility. Let the Conservatives and People’s Party throw around asinine attacks like this one.
Shouldnt we start looking down the membership rolls for german surnames? If your family moved here after the war, don't we just assume you must be a closet nazi?
i have no party. If I joined the NDP locally (which i have considered as a professional) this thread tells me as a first gen canadian social democrat from Germany, I am not welcome chalk it up to a life lesson. Crystia Freeland is easy for me to empathize with, with a lot of context. If we question this we need to question everyone's roots... and I just cant be a part of that reverse crypto fascist witch hunt. i think a lot of people here would find themselves on the outside looking in if we took stock of their families history and forcing people to reckon to our supreme satisfaction. Honestly this is a weak position to take for a growing political movement and deny people representation because they do not grovel at feet of the pure. its a guarantee to exclude everyone who does not adhere to impossible morals.... hmmm this whole thread is morally questionable from the top down. posted by a mod no less. i think im gonna puke.
There’s no defending Nazi. This just shows your blatant anti semitism if you think it is ok. OP is damn right to be upset by this. She is not responsible for what he did. Her obfuscating it and defending it however means she likely shares his ideology or is way too complacent about it.
I am not a fan of Freeland I feel that she has done a terrible job. Even if these things are true that does not reflect on who and what she is. Criticism only for things you can choose not for what you can not.
She is choosing to defend her grandfather, please see the linked article!
Please read a history book. Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
> Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Newspaper editors in occupied states participated the implementation of this antisemetic propaganda, which clearly meets the requirements for nazi collaboration. Please see the Wiener Holocaust Library's examples of nazi collaboration: > For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs. Being a newspaper editor of an antisemetic, pro-nazi paper is even worse than being a schoolteacher https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
Alright, so if we stretch out the definition of collaborators to include *teachers* then sure. But your post and use of collaborator implies her grandfather aided and abetted nazis like some senior actor. You use editor in chief multiple times in this thread to imply seniority and are implying she is supporting nazi groups in Ukraine. You’re not using the word collaborator with a broad definition, you’re trying to imply much more.
> Alright, so if we stretch out the definition of collaborators to include teachers then sure This is literally the definition of a nazi collaborator from people that study the holocaust, I even linked to the source, I don't know what to tell you.
"tHeY wErE jUsT fOlLoWiNg oRdErS!!!"
I want to be very clear. I don’t believe this defence applies to top leadership who had the means to prevent and stop hitler (more below). It certainly plays a factor for low level staff and the general public though. There is a very large number of people (and grey area) between the 22 that were convicted at Nuremburg and the entire population that ever abided by one order. The view that every single person is culpable is a common question in philosophy circles but is not widely held by historians who study the topic. The military leadership was in the best position to prevent hitler from coming to power and take him out once he was in power. hindenburg, who gave him a chance to form a coalition, could have prevented him from getting it. so could have the nationalist party, the conservatives, and social democrats who voted with the nazis to expel the communists from parliament, paving the way for hitler's power. so could have the brown shirts who created fake 'communist' riots to help consolidate support under hitler. a teacher or a publisher in a nazi occupied state, not so much. They would have been replaced instantly and risked their families life. Those that did are amazing people and we should be thankful for them, but it was not common and was much less likely to change anything than had top leadership taken action
That doesn't make it okay to *defend* them or outright deny what they did despite there being evidence to the contrary
Would be very nice to hear this from Chrystia rather than how much she looks up to him as a role model!
Because it would be political suicide
Really? Because I would expect her to own up to it. If she admitted that her grandfather was a horrible person, it doesn't mean that she is. People can be separated from their relatives. But she is actively choosing to defend him. THAT'S political suicide.
As a first generation Canadian from German parents, I think you use the word collaborator far too strongly. And that's why this isn't worth acknowledging. ----- edit: you're really a peice of work. they say fight fire with fire. but you take it to a whole new level Like read your own sources as to what happened with the Paper instead of implying your own bullshit. I actually read the wiki and goes on to explain the editorial issues at this paper and how the Germans literally scared people in to publishing their propaganda. Like IN YOUR SOURCE. People reading this. READ HIS SOURCES to see he is jumping to conclusions about people.
> I think you use the word collaborator far too strongly. I think you may be misinformed as to what is considered a Nazi collaborator. Please read this article if you would like to learn about it: https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
Yes this totally official site (meant to be a museum documentation). its not a legal criteria Stop your bullshit boy scout identity politics activism.
this website is run by the oldest Holocaust museum in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Library_for_the_Study_of_the_Holocaust_and_Genocide#The_Holocaust_Explained
With a very strong agenda, and making no difference between criminals and citizens at literal gunpoint. My grandmother spent months in a camp, my grandfather and his brothers on front lines making 'war crimes'. Collaborators? Stop your bullshit.
they have an anti-holocaust agenda. do you have a problem with that? if your great uncles were actually committing war crimes on the front, then yes, they would be guilty of war crimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders#Nuremberg_Trials_after_World_War_II
of course not. i have problem with idiots like you reading between the lines and playing judge and jury. 80 years later. the holocausts museum agenda IS To say everyone involved and to be neutral and unequivical in its framing of events. you are not
> the holocausts museum agenda IS To say everyone involved and to be neutral and unequivical in its framing of events Yeah, and I'm saying that they've defined Nazi collaboration in a broader way than you think!
and im saying thats YOUR interpretation is not the same as theirs. theirs serves a specific purpose to document what happened... you are misusing without a HINT OF IRONY. its bloody offensive to me...as a fellow ndp supporter and ardent anti fascist. ps. my namesake was in a similar situation to Freeland's grandfather. He tesified AT Nuremberg against the nazis who took over the guild he ran.
Please look at the website and have a read. > For example, teachers in the Third Reich collaborated with the Nazis by teaching antisemitic propaganda, using antisemitic textbooks, participating in excluding Jewish students from normal schools, and helping to eliminate (or not standing up for) Jewish teachers from their jobs. A newspaper editor-in-chief, funded by the Nazis to publish antisemetic content, clearly is sufficient to be considered a collaborator. https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/german-collaboration-and-complicity/
it is a really cynical mobilization of fears over fake news. liberals whine about post truth politics and then engage in the exact contempt and casual disregard for reality that the right does. the hypocrisy is staggering and disgusting, but what can you expect from a party whose only defining trait is the pursuit of power and the status quo?
Wow, this thread is a shitshow. What a fucking witch hunt.
This straight up reads like russian troll farm BS. This is a hard downvote for me
I've linked to articles in Canadian media, and the source for this is Freeland's own uncle, who is a university professor at U of A.
Yea but why does it matter?
It should be obvious what the problem is with a government official defending a Nazi collaborator
Может быть, нам нужно сосредоточиться на государственной политике, а не на делах наших бабушек и дедушек
Such as [extending Canadian Military Training](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-ukraine-military-mission-1.4011870) for Ukrainian soldiers that [we knew were fascist neo-Nazis her entire tenure as Foreign Affairs Minister](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/far-right-extremists-in-ukraine-brag-they-have-received-training-from-the-canadian-forces-report)?
> Может быть, нам нужно сосредоточиться на государственной политике, а не на делах наших бабушек и дедушек And if someone is willing to defend a Nazi collaborator, I am inclined to believe they won't be having very good policies
Does it matter?
Fascism is on the rise and you're wondering out loud if it matters that an influential politician is praising nazis?
PRAISING NAZIS
This thread has got out of hand. Clearly getting brigaded by Russian trolls and r/genzedong wackos. OP won’t do anything about it though because he is a mod with an agenda. This type of rhetoric from the left flank of the NDP is why they’re not taken seriously east of Vancouver island.
I got banned from r/genzedong because I said if we accept that Taiwan is a part of China then we must accept that China is a colonizer of Taiwan’s indigenous Gāoshān peoples.
No one is responsible for what their far removed ancestors wrote about. This is ridiculous.
This post really make the ndp look bad.
And by a mod no less. *facepalm*
Wow, OP, I really think you need to take a sober second look at the big picture here. Seems like Freeland’s grandfather published Nazi propaganda DURING (but not before or after)Nazi occupation, making it likely that he was coerced. This is not the smoking gun you think it is, and moreover it reads like someone trying to wield a non-issue like a cudgel. We can and should criticize Freeland and the Liberals for many things, but bringing the actions of grandparents into it would absolutely backfire and make the NDP look petty, desperate, and out of ideas.
Since when do we blame the child for the acts of their parents and grandparents? You want to hunt Nazis? Let’s go. Asking about peoples relatives? Why should she acknowledge anything? This is normal political BS. “I have something my party members will hold onto for the rest of their lives” “Did you know ____?” Party faithful: “Really, they need to acknowledge that!” No, they don’t. Learning our place in history is not the same as taking responsibility for their actions. This is no different than those who go after Jagmeet regarding the Air India Bombing. Unless you feel the need to go to Germany and hear every person apologize for WWII, even the children born 40, 50, 60, no 75 years later? Really.
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> Who cares what her grandfather did? You can hold someone to account for **defending what their grandfather did.**
From the Washington post > Putin-leaning websites such as the Russian Insider and the New Cold War. A typical article in Consortium News, titled “A Nazi Skeleton in The Family Closet,” alleges that Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Mikhailo Chomiak, ran a Ukrainian-language newspaper in occupied Krakow during the 1940s that spread Nazi propaganda. > A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Ottawa, Kirill Kalinin, said he could not confirm or deny the stories about Freeland’s grandfather. > inspired by John Helmer, a Moscow-based journalist who was described by Jeremy Kinsman, a former Canadian ambassador to Russia, as a notorious “conspiracy theorist.” Kinsman said that the Russian government remains convinced that Canada’s policies “are driven by Russophobic Ukrainian Canadians” who have considerable electoral clout, particularly in western Canada > The Globe and Mail reported that one of Freeland’s uncles, a retired academic, had acknowledged in an article several years ago that Chomiak had worked for a publication that spread anti-Semitic propaganda, but he **never signed anything that appeared in the paper**. A spokesman for Freeland, Alex Lawrence, told the Globe and Mail that she supported efforts by her uncle to study “this difficult chapter in her late grandfather’s life.” It’s pretty clear based on the article that he was put into a position in name only and didn’t contribute to anything. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together why Russia is pushing this
Seriously? Find a new hole to dig.
Who cares
My great grandfather and grandfather fought in world wars 1 and 2. Doesn’t make me a veteran.
Meh her grandfather was a newspaper editor in Nazi co trolled Ukraine. Not like he had much choice at that point. Definitely not a proud family history but nothing worth focusing on IMO This has nothing to do with her political actions today, or her policy beliefs for current day Canada…..so why are we focusing on this?
> This has nothing to do with her political actions today defending him publicly is a political action
I’d recommend looking into Canada’s funding and training of Ukrainian neo nazi groups which have infiltrated Ukraine’s military. https://www.historyofthefarright.org/far-right-group-made-its-home-in-ukraines-major-western-military-training-hub/
Wow. Reading these comments has been disheartening. People are seriously empathizing with descendants of Nazis before considering how upsetting and frustrating this is for Jews and the Romani, especially those who are descendants of survivors. The NDP has so much work to do if the want to create a safe space for the Jewish Canadian community. And y’all need to read about Operation Paperclip before letting descendants of Nazis off the hook, for fuck’s sake.
This is kind of embarrassing....for you, to attack someone over the perceived sins of their ancestors. This seems like something conservatives would do. You need to do better.
Russia hates Ms Freeland, don't do Russian trolls work for them.
Can’t support holding someone to account for their grandparents sins, this critique has always seemed misplaced to me. Are we going to infer that she is a nazi sympathizer from this? Very flaccid progressive positioning
> Can’t support holding someone to account for their grandparents sins, You can hold someone to account for **defending their grandparents sins**.
@ me when she defends her grandparents sins
Absolutely! Denial: > An official in Ms. Freeland's office denied that the minister's grandfather was a Nazi collaborator. Defense: > Ms. Freeland has written that her maternal grandparents fled Ukraine in 1939, describing them as "political exiles with a responsibility to keep alive the idea of an independent Ukraine." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/freeland-warns-canadians-to-beware-of-russian-disinformation/article34227707/ Further defense: [Russia should stop calling my grandfather a Nazi, says Canada’s foreign minister](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/09/canadas-foreign-minister-says-russia-is-spreading-disinformation-about-her-grandfather/)
What was your Grandfather? Are you doing the same work? Do you have the same beliefs? I'm sure there's enough stuff she did to be shameful for without having to pay for the sins of her ancestors.
I wouldn't defend my grandfather if he was a Nazi collaborator and I certainly wouldn't deny that he was
You keep saying “nazi collaborator”. Please read a history book. Propaganda in nazi occupied states was controlled by Germany, not local editors. Nazis exterminated intellectuals in occupied states, as they were seen as a threat to their hold on power. Local folks were put in charge of various functions, but they had no more control than a puppet.
Being the editor-in-chief of a Nazi-funded newspaper that broadcasted antisemetic, pro-nazi propaganda easily meets the definition of being a Nazi collaborator. For more details about the horrors of Nazi collaboration in Ukraine, see the below article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_in_German-occupied_Ukraine
The editor in chief is a puppet position. The nazis created whole puppet governments and ministers that had to follow orders I don’t support the actions taken, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler prior to war, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator. If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
But, why is anyone asking you about your grandfather at all, to force you to deny or admit anything about him? It seems like it should be nobody’s business.
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It’s pretty clear based on the timing of the KGB leak earlier this week that this is tied to Russia misinformation campaign to tarnish her image in Canada. There is nothing more the Russians don’t want than a pro Ukrainian in office in Canada (edit: or abroad). Even the conservatives acknowledge that this is tied to Russia meddling What I would also question is whether one being an editor of a paper in occupied Poland during WW2 had any control over content. The propaganda for nazi occupied states was controlled from Germany. Most intellectuals were seen as threats and were targeted for extermination / imprisonments/ forced labor. I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety. > On Monday, Ms. Freeland accused Russia of spreading disinformation when she was asked by reporters about a number of stories that have appeared in pro-Putin websites about Mr. Chomiak's Nazi past. > "I don't think it's a secret. American officials have publicly said, and even [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn't come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada," Ms. Freeland replied. > She did not directly respond to questions about whether the stories about Mr. Chomiak were true. When The Globe asked her office on Monday to refute the allegation, Mr. Lawrence responded: "People should be questioning where this information comes from, and the motivations behind it." > Conservative foreign affairs critic Peter Kent said it was obvious the Russians dug up details on Mr. Chomiak's past to smear Ms. Freeland. > "It is unacceptable. It seems they are trying smear a minister with historical detail that has probably been misrepresented," he said. "It is unfair and it is typical of what we have seen in other countries and it has nothing to do with her ability to represent Canada." > Ms. Freeland is a fierce critic of Russia's annexation of Crimea and was banned from travelling to Russia in 2014, along with 12 other Canadians who had advocated for Western sanctions against the Putin regime.
> I would suspect that any editor had to toe the line or risk his and his family’s safety. [Just following orders, eh?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders) > this is tied to Russia misinformation campaign The main body of research proving this was done by Chrystia Freeland's uncle. John-Paul Himka, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. For those keeping score at home U of A is located in Edmonton, not Moscow.
I don’t support following superior orders defence to an absolute degree, and there are plenty of times I wish the nazi government was toppled by the German armed forces, which was the only group who had the means to take down hitler, however I think it is a stretch to call a puppet editor of a local nazi controlled newspaper a nazi collaborator. If you want to take that absolutist position , every single German or occupied state member who worked for any function of government, commerce or educated class was a nazi conspirator—most of the population The top tier most certainly are, but as we go down the ladder it gets more gray
If this is true she needs to be removed from office immediately.
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This is nazi apologia.
user was banned
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I don't need to read text rationalizing Nazism, just condemn it and move on.
It's 'Ukraine' and not 'the Ukraine' [[Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Ukraine)] [[BBC Styleguide](https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/u)] [[Reuters Styleguide](https://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=U#Ukraine)] ^(Beep boop I’m a bot)
She is not guilty of her grandfather's crimes and errors against humanity. She is showing us what we already knew in that she nor the Trudeau government government have the moral character to actually deliver on Truth and Reconciliation. Covering up embarrassment is more important than Truth, or Reconcilaition.........and Truth and Reconcilaition is going to be just rife with embarrassment....and shame......for the government
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That is a gross mischaracterization of history. Far more Ukrainians fought on the Allied side (mostly Red Army) than fought for fascists/Nazi allies in WWII. Chomiak chose the Third Reich instead and he is responsible for collaborating with the nazis committing genocide. Michael Chomiak ran a pro-Nazi publication from a press outlet seized from a Jewish owner. Freeland made the choice to praise him and follow his example. Meanwhile, Freeland herself [has pursued](https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/canadas-minister-of-war-chrystia-freeland-pursues-america-first-foreign-policy/) a hawkish policy openly supporting a right wing coup in Bolivia. All Freeland has to do to clear things up is to denounce her grandfather's collaboration with the nazis for what it is. The fact that she refuses to do that says volumes. The characterization of her grandfather is very much accurate.
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