Nazi Escapes to Canada – Part I

By Lucas Lelardoux Oliger

At the end of September 2023, scandal erupted when the House of Commons gave two standing ovations to Yaroslav Hunka, a war criminal who had fought for the Nazis during the Second World War. The message that Commons Speaker Anthony Rota wanted to convey was commendable: honor Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression in front of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Hunka had indeed fought the Russians – but as a member of the Waffen-SS, the Nazi Party’s military wing.

Misunderstanding Ukrainian nationalism proved to be a fatal error of judgement for Rota, who resigned as Speaker soon afterward. This debacle was used by Russian propagandists.

The Hunka Affair has brought to light the phenomenon of Nazis coming to Canada. For decades, other Nazis in Canada have made headlines: Imre Finta, Helmut Rauca, Michael Seifert and Helmut Oberlander. How did these people, responsible for cruel war crimes, participants in the Holocaust, end up settling in Canada?

Nazis established alliances with other fascist groups in Europe. Some of these groups fought the Russians in the Second World War, all the while espousing violent and racist ideals. That was true for collaborators in France, Yugoslavia, Greece and Scandinavia. Outside of Germany, Nazism was considered the lesser threat by the extreme right.

Nazi Germany’s conquest of Europe triggered complex processes. Many men were forced to fight with the Germans in order to assure their survival and that of their families. The French “Malgré-Nous” (despite ourselves) and the Belgian “Zwangsoldaten” are examples of this widespread practice.

The profiles of many immigrants linked with the Nazis after the war are complex. Soldiers, scientists, intellectuals and artists responsible for war crimes fled Europe.

Several factors played in to the acceptance of Nazi immigrants into Canada. First off, there was worldwide disorganization in immigration services. The war forced the displacement of millions of people. The Red Cross was swamped, as were national immigration departments. Numerous war criminals slipped through the netting by lying about their names or their pasts, allowing them to get into countries like Canada.

And many western authorities willingly accepted Nazis who could be useful to them. As tensions exploded between capitalist and communist blocks, these Nazis had skills and knowledge that could be put to use against the Soviets. Coupled with a certain antisemitism and a distancing from the horrors committed in the Old World, the west welcomed Nazis.

Even more troubling, the immigration of fascists into Canada was sometimes justified by ideology. Jacques de Bernonville was a long-time French right wing extremist. When France was occupied by Germany, he joined several pro-Nazi groups, such as La Milice, a brutal paramilitary outfit. Bernonville was responsible for the torture and murder of hundreds of resistance fighters. He became the right arm of Klaus Barbie, a heartless Nazi butcher.

After an eventful flight when France was liberated, he got into Quebec on false papers. But when his true identity was discovered in 1948, it triggered a debate between conservative and liberals in this province.

France demanded his extradition. But the battle of public opinion saw Quebec nationalists defend him. They cited Bernonville’s ardent Catholicism, calling him a “political refugee” in danger of being tossed out of the country by “English Canadians”.  The debate was characteristic of the Duplessis era. Victims of the Holocaust were largely ignored. Fearing extradition by the federal government, Bernonville left Quebec for Brazil in 1951. He died in obscurity 20 years later.

Indifference to Nazi atrocities didn’t stop there. In 1976, Leni Riefenstahl was an “invitee of honor” to the Montreal Olympics. She was well knows as one of Hitler’s most prominent propagandists. Her films The Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) were essential cogs in the Nazi propaganda machine. She was also accused of using concentration camp prisoners to work for her just before they were exterminated.

Despite the protests of letter writers to Le Devoir, her presence in Montreal didn’t seem to alarm the authorities. She was even interviewed by journalist and future PQ politician Lise Payette on Radio-Canada.