By Andrew Lawton
When Chrystia Freeland was a young student, she contributed to an encyclopedia that played down the 1st Galician Division’s Nazi connections.
In 1986, when she was 18, Freeland worked on the second volume of the Encyclopedia of Ukraine.
The encyclopedia covers a range of subjects through a Ukrainian lens, including the Second World War. It frequently references the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, a volunteer Nazi-commanded army established in 1943 to aid the Germans’ efforts against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front.
The 14th SS unit, which was later rebranded as the First Ukrainian Division, has been subject to renewed attention this week after one of its veterans, 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, was recognized on the floor of the House of Commons.
House Speaker Anthony Rota has apologized and resigned after lauding Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” who “fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians.”
Members of parliament gave Hunka a standing ovation, though many have later said this was because they didn’t know the details of whom they were applauding.
If there is one MP who would know this chapter of history, however, it is Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Freeland, whose mother is Ukrainian, lived and studied in Ukraine and has been researching the country since her youth.
