Canadian police apologize for calling anti-Nazi vandalism hate crime
The memorial was made to commemorate those who served in the unit of Ukrainian volunteers that fought for the Nazis.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFA Jewish cemetery (illustrative)(photo credit: INGIMAGE)Canadian police issued an apology after saying they launched a hate crime investigation into the vandalizing of an Ontario cemetery memorial that was linked to Nazis, CBC reported.In June, Halton Regional Police announced that someone had vandalized a monument at the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, by spray-painting "Nazi war monument" on it. The police believed the vandalism took place around June 21, and announced they were treating it as a hate-motivated crime. However, they did not release images of the vandalism in order to stop "further spreading" the message, according to the Ottawa Citizen news outlet.The images were later shown in a report from Ukrainian Kontakt TV on YouTube, according to CBC.The police's announcement that they were treating the vandalism as a hate crime met backlash after independent research Moss Robeson took to Twitter to describe the nature of the monument itself.The memorial was made to commemorate those who served in the unit of Ukrainian volunteers that fought for the Nazis. Part of the SS, its members all pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler, and debates continue to this day about their culpability in war crimes, such as killing Polish women, children and Jews during World War II.These allegations, as well as the debate over the division's allegiance to the Nazis, is arguably reflected in an anecdote from May 1944. As described by Polish-American academic Tadeusz Piotrowsk, SS leader Heinrich Himmler told the volunteers: “Your homeland has become more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – the residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name – namely the Jews.“I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles, I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”"It's ludicrous that it would be considered a hate crime to vandalize this monument," Robeson, who has written articles on Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany, told CBC, adding that describing the vandalism as a hate crime is "ridiculous."The police initially defended their decision to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime, with their spokesperson telling the Ottawa Citizen that “This incident occurred to a monument and the graffiti appeared to target an identifiable group.”However, they later backtracked on this decision, explaining that they had thought the graffiti referred to "Ukrainians in general.""At no time did the Halton Regional Police Service consider that the identifiable group targeted by the graffiti was Nazis," the Halton Regional Police said in a statement, according to CBC."We regret any hurt caused by misinformation that suggests that the Service in any way supports Nazism."Taking to Twitter, police chief Steve Tanner backed up calls to remove the monument, which was reportedly put up privately and is not an official monument."I am personally shocked and surprised that such a monument existed at all," the chief said.
