Book on alleged war criminals creates controversy in Canada (02/18/96)

Book on alleged war criminals creates controversy in Canada

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - A new book on alleged Canadian war criminals is creating some controversy in the Ukrainian Canadian community.

"War Criminals in Canada," written by University of Regina journalism professor James McKenzie and published by Calgary's Detselig Enterprises Ltd., looks at 50 years of accusations and rumors surrounding the presence of war criminals in Canada.

Prof. McKenzie, a former reporter with Canada's national daily newspaper, The Globe and Mail, starts his examination with the trial of German SS Maj.-Gen. Kurt Meyer, accused of killing 23 Canadian prisoners of war, who became the first war criminal to be tried by Canadian military authorities.

Though sentenced to be shot in 1946, the guilty Nazi ended up serving nine years in prison, part of it in a New Brunswick penitentiary, before he died in 1961.

Prof. McKenzie's book also includes chapters devoted to the 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers who served in the German-allied Galicia Division and were allowed to enter Canada; Dmytro Kupyak, accused by the Soviets as a vicious Nazi-friendly murderer, who died shortly after his 1994 interview with the book's author; and the 1985-1986 Deschenes Commission in which 20 war criminal suspects were identified but whose identities were never revealed.

Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, who joined the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (under its former name as the Ukrainian Canadian Committee's Civil Liberties Commission) during the Deschenes hearings, accuses Mr. McKenzie's book of "reintroducing all the old bug bears" of alleged war criminals in the Ukrainian Canadian community.

So far, the federal government has never prosecuted a Ukrainian Canadian under the 1987 crimes against humanity or war crimes provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada.

"He's just stirring up some unpleasantness," said Dr. Luciuk, who teaches political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston. "This is not a good piece of journalism."

However, in a telephone interview from his office in Regina, Prof. McKenzie denied he had an axe to grind against anyone in writing the book. "It was the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war, and I realized that no book existed which detailed all the allegations of war criminals taking refuge in Canada," he explained. "I had no idea there were so many people and I hadn't heard of some before, such as Kupyak."

Mr. Kupyak, who unsuccessfully ran for the Progressive Conservatives in the 1972 federal election, appears to be the only man accused of war crimes to have been interviewed by Prof. McKenzie. No charges were ever laid against him.

But Dr. Luciuk told The Weekly he found the book's portrayal of Mr. Kupyak offensive. "There is a caricature of Mr. Kupyak holding a sheaf of wheat in [his left] hand and a stick of dynamite in his other. What's that all about?" Artist Portia Reese's interpretation, responded Prof. McKenzie.

But the Saskatchewan author admits he found some of the information he encountered skewed and biased. Prof. McKenzie cited two examples: one by Winnipeg-based human rights lawyer David Matas's 1987 book, "Justice Delayed: Nazi War Criminals in Canada;" the other, by former Canadian Jewish Congress president Irving Abella's 1983 offering, "None Is Too Many."

Though he said he did not have direct contact with members of the organized Ukrainian Canadian community, Prof. McKenzie relied on Supreme Court of Canada Justice John Sopinka's 1986 book, "Ukrainian-Canadian Committee Submissions to the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals," published in 1986.

"My intent with the book was to tell Canadians about a story many of them no little about," said the author. "I'll bet few know who Imre Finta is."

Mr. Finta was the first suspect to be arrested in 1987 following the Deschenes report. At the age of 77, the Hungarian Canadian was accused of Nazi war crimes and put on trial two years later in Toronto. Mr. Finta was later acquitted.

Dr. Luciuk said he doesn't take exception to the right Mr. McKenzie had to write the book. "What bothers me is that the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Alberta Foundation for the Arts is funding this sort of thing. They wouldn't look at a book proposal from me on the subject, saying it would be too biased," he explained.

But Prof. McKenzie denied he received any money from either group, and a spokesperson for the distributor of "War Criminals in Canada," Temeron Books Inc., said the book's publishers, Detselig Enterprises, received a "small amount" of money for its entire 1995 publishing program.

Nevertheless, Dr. Luciuk takes exception to the fact that Mr. McKenzie's work is being sold in one of Canada's major book stores, Coles. "Once again, we are seeing more Ukrainianophobic reactions," he said.

For his part, Prof. McKenzie is surprised by the reaction his book is receiving. "I have no vested interest and tried to remain as objective as is humanly possible," he said.

Meantime, the federal departments of Justice and Immigration continue to actively seek out suspected war criminals finding refuge in Canada.

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