Davin News Server

https://subscription.ukrweekly.com/2024/09/the-flapdoodle-surrounding-canadas-commission-of-inquiry-on-war-criminals-continues/


Much flapdoodle has been published about the proposed release by Library 
and Archives Canada of a list prepared by the Commission of Inquiry on 
War Criminals, headed by Justice Jules Deschênes. Supposedly, this 
document identifies “Nazi war criminals.” In truth, it provides 
information about persons investigated by the commission but against 
whom no evidence of wartime criminality was found.

Mr. Deschênes’s public report is available online and has been for 
years. Let’s consider a few cases.

Take, for example, case No. 190, which deals with Winnipeg’s David 
Matas, representing B’nai Brith Canada. The commission tabled the names 
of a couple denounced in an unsigned letter. Its author insisted they be 
investigated. They were “recluses.” The Commission determined that “no 
persons of an age that could conceivably have participated in World War 
II war crimes” resided at the address that Mr. Matas provided.

Another anonymous denunciation resulted in two persons (case No. 179 and 
case No. 180) being scrutinized. These shop owners were reported because 
they “behaved curiously regarding the sources of the store’s goods.” On 
page 249, they were further described as “bearing a German name, living 
in a secluded place under the protection of two black dogs and offering 
old European furniture for sale.”

Investigators determined the gentleman had died by 1977. And when the 
commission’s sleuths checked out the shop, they concluded that the 
complaint was “entirely spurious and unfounded.” Similarly, Case No. 599 
involved a man said to be “a war criminal because he was an eccentric 
and suspicious person of German background,” yet another charge examined 
thoroughly, then closed.

Then there was case No. 417, submitted by the Royal Canadian Mounted 
Police (RCMP), involving a man who bragged about how he had served in a 
“Nazi Death’s Head Unit.” This confession was voiced when the fellow was 
being arrested for impaired driving. Case closed.

Case No. 186, also tabled by the RCMP, was based on information provided 
by a private individual, about a subject who “admitted … he had been a 
doctor in a Nazi war camp.” It turned out the man was not a physician, 
“… indeed it would not be reasonable to believe that an individual born 
in 1928 could have been a doctor between 1939 and 1945.”

Another probe initiated by the RCMP, case No. 303, involved “grave 
allegations” about a person condemned for involvement in “numerous 
executions in a town in an Eastern European country.” It turned out that 
he came to Canada in 1926, when he was about 2 years old.

Or what about case No. 588, tabled by the Canadian Jewish Congress? It 
was based on a phone tip about an individual “rumored” to have a “Nazi 
past and a swastika tattoo.” Whoever submitted the subject’s name could 
not be found, nor was “a suspicion of involvement in a particular war 
crime” even uncovered.

Case No. 589 was that of a man another tipster alleged “was a Nazi who 
had contact with people from a South American country.” This European 
citizen certainly visited Canada but his birthyear, 1928, made 
“involvement in war crimes doubtful.”

Case No. 671 involved a man whom Canadian police identified as having 
“bragged about his supposed involvement in war crimes in an Eastern 
European country.” Investigators determined that “the subject is 
mentally deranged and that his self-incriminations are false.” Likewise, 
case No. 541 began after it was alleged a man had been an SS official in 
a West European country who “boasted of killing Jews and others.” The 
citizen who submitted this subject’s name proved to be “of an advanced 
age and for some time had been in a state of confusion.”

Over 80 cases were initiated by Simon Wiesenthal about veterans of the 
“Galicia Division,” often through correspondence with the Honorable 
Robert Kaplan. Almost monotonously, and in dozens of these cases, Mr. 
Deschênes noted that “no specific allegation or evidence that the 
subject had been involved in war crimes, apart from Mr. Wiesenthal’s 
assertion that [the person] was a member of the Galicia Division of the 
Waffen-SS,” was submitted. He also remarked: “The Commission requested 
Mr. Wiesenthal to provide additional information …  [but] he was unable 
to do so.”

As for the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, Mr. Deschênes 
observed (on page 58) that there was “a source of names of individuals 
alleged to be war criminals. … However, it must be stated that the 
center’s information was long on allegations and generalities, and short 
on evidence and specifics.”

And what about this one, the rather morbid case No. 732, based on a 
Canadian Jewish Congress claim that a man “admitted killing Jewish girls 
and eating and selling human flesh.” The snitch remained incognito. No 
“cannibal” in Canada was found.

As Mr. Deschênes remarked (on pages 248-249), a detailed examination of 
each of the 774 names on the commission’s “Master List” had brought 
about a “dramatic decrease” in the number of alleged war criminals 
because, “for many of them, the allegations on the surface could not 
bear scrutiny.” Indeed, he publicly excoriated those who, like Sol 
Littman, “grossly exaggerated” the alleged numbers of “Nazi war 
criminals” purportedly in Canada.

Reviewing the cases found in the commission’s “Part 1: Public Report” 
demonstrates that many Canadians were surreptitiously proscribed by 
purveyors of hearsay and prejudice. Yet, while the commission took the 
information it received seriously, most files were closed for lack of 
proof. If Alti Rodal, the commission’s director of historical research, 
today claims that these cases were “not well researched,” then one has 
to wonder what she was paid for.

Most of the commission’s subjects are long dead. They cannot defend 
themselves. Of those who came under official scrutiny, 96 percent had no 
idea they were even under investigation. Any disclosure of their names 
would expose family members and descendants to unwanted and unwarranted 
obloquy. Mr. Deschênes understood what was at stake when he wrote the 
following: “The Commission has not been created to revive old hatred 
that once existed abroad between communities which should now live in 
peace in Canada.” That is why he ordered the names be kept confidential. 
This was not a cover-up. It is evidence of Mr. Deschênes’s judiciousness 
and good sense.



Lubomyr Luciuk is a professor of political geography at the Royal 
Military College of Canada.




-- 
Dr. Auric D. Hellman
adhellman1@gmail.com