“He is a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”
MPs cheered and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy raised his fist in acknowledgment as the man, named Yaroslav Hunka, saluted from the gallery during two separate standing ovations.
The First Ukrainian Division was also known as the Waffen-SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis.
The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies issued a statement Sunday explaining that the division “was responsible for the mass murder of innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
