Olya Odynsky recounts her family's ordeal, makes a civic appeal to Ukrainian students (02/22/98)

Olya Odynsky recounts her family's ordeal, makes a civic appeal to Ukrainian students

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Olya Odynsky appeared at the St. Vladimir Institute as the special guest speaker on February 3, the second day of the annual "Ukrainian Week" organized by the Ukrainian Students Club at the University of Toronto, and shared what it is like to be staring down the barrel of a high profile judicial proceeding.

Her 74-year-old father Wasyl, a resident of the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, was recently named as the 13th Canadian citizen to be the object of denaturalization and deportation proceedings as part of the Canadian Justice Department's war crimes effort.

According to documents filed with the Federal Court of Canada (file number T-2669-97), the government alleges that Mr. Odynsky failed to divulge his alleged collaboration with German authorities, to wit, his alleged service as a guard at the Trawniki training camp and later at the Poniatowa labor camp during the period 1943-1944.

The experience

"When the RCMP arrived at my father's house on August 26 [1997], he let them in, without legal counsel present ... I didn't even know my legal rights as a Canadian citizen," Ms. Odynsky recalled. "I needed to call a lawyer to find out if we had to let the RCMP return the next day, as they said they had to come back. My family, like yours in all likelihood, has had no 'politsiini spravy' [matters with the police]."

"On December 11, my father received an anonymous phone call saying that his situation would be reported in the Toronto Star [Canada's largest circulation daily newspaper] the next day. That night, my husband and I sat down with our daughters to tell them what was about to happen, but we could hardly understand it ourselves. What to say?"

"Rogers Cable in Scarborough and Shaw Cable ran a story every hour on the hour for a whole day [on December 17], saying: 'Did you know there is an alleged war criminal living in a quiet Scarborough neighborhood?' They came to my mother's door with hidden microphones and cameras, then showed her picture and played her comments, every hour, on the hour."

"They showed photos of Nazi soldiers and made horrible associations," Ms. Odynsky continued, "They announced my parents' street address and telephone number on the air."

Echoing Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's accounts of the feelings of those arrested by the Soviet police, Ms. Odynsky said she thought: "Things like this don't happen in Canada. It's a mistake. The government, when it realizes that it's all a mistake, will just have to drop the proceedings."

Ms. Odynsky that said when she and her family (she has a sister and a brother) wrote to the newspapers and called Rogers Cable, "we were shocked by their lack of compassion, by their ignorance of the historical era and of the Ukrainian situation during the second world war."

She said Don Sellar, the ombudsman at the Toronto Star, told her: "We used the word 'alleged,' so really, Ms. Odynsky, what's the problem?"

Coincidentally, Ms. Odynsky's member of Parliament is Allan Rock, now the minister of health and formerly the justice minister on whose watch the decision was made to pursue the civil "denaturalization and deportation" option against suspected war criminals after four cases brought by the government ended in acquittals in the criminal courts.

While Ms. Odynsky's first two calls to MP Rock's constituency office in Etobicoke-Centre requesting an appointment brought no response other than a perfunctory "we'll you back," a third brought out what she described as "a tirade of condescension" from a certain Tom Allinson. She said Mr. Allinson informed her of Mr. Rock's change of portfolio and quoted him as saying that "the Canadian government is inordinately proud of our war crimes policy."

Calls to the offices of Scarborough-Centre MP John Cannis (Mr. Odynsky's riding) and Etobicoke-Lakeshore MP Dr. Jean Augustine (that of Ms. Odynsky's sister) were not returned, Ms. Odynsky said.

On a positive note, Ms. Odynsky said she has been in close contact with the local branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, as well as the national body's Judicial Committee on Denaturalization and Deportation, and has received strong support.

She had high praise for the Globe and Mail's decision to run her letter headlined "Canada plans to deport my father without a fair trial" in its January 5 issue, and the newspaper's editorial of January 14 titled "Will Nazi hunters misfire?"

Ms. Odynsky also commended the fairness of Michael Coren, who runs a talk show on CFRB radio in Toronto, in which she participated the following evening.

The civics lesson

For Ms. Odynsky, however, her speech before the Ukrainian Students' Club was primarily an opportunity not to spin a tale of woe, but to call for civic responsibility among her small student audience (there were 12 students in attendance, plus another eight members of the general public).

"My father is fighting to stay in Canada," she said, "If it affected only my family, I wouldn't be here. It affects all Canadians ... All of us are on trial. Public opinion is being shaped against our community as 'harboring war criminals' and as 'circling the wagons.'"

"Today, I'm the daughter of an alleged war criminal," Ms. Odynsky said, "Tomorrow, you will be spoken of as the offspring of war criminals, just as glibly as the Globe reporter who wrote recently that the members of the Shumka dance ensemble were the 'offspring of prairie farmers.'"

"If you're here," she continued, "you've got heart. Now get your mind ready." Ms. Odynsky enjoined students to support chairs of Ukrainian studies, courses in Ukrainian literature, history and other disciplines, Ukrainian institutions such as the Children of Chornobyl Fund and the Canadian Ukrainian Immigrant Aid Services, to read books on Ukrainian subjects and the Ukrainian press, to keep their eyes on the news and to join debating clubs.

Ms. Odynsky said students need to be aware of the efforts of Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association Chairman John Gregorovich, a champion of those interned by the Canadian government during World War I, who was in Ottawa that day presenting a brief seeking to ensure proper depiction of Ukrainians in the exhibits of the proposed Holocaust museum.

She reminded the audience that the option currently being pursued by the government in her father's case was one of three considered by the Deschenes Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals, which handed down its proposals in 1986, and is not the original prefered option.

She said students of all ages can play a part, mentioning a campaign conducted on the issue in western Canada involving 16- and 17-year-olds. Ms. Odynsky said the letters read: "I will be voting in the next election and, as a potential voter, I'd like to know your position on denaturalization and deportation."

"We've got to shut it down and put it to rest, because you don't want to be standing where I am in 10 years," she added.

Ms. Odynsky said Ukrainian Canadians need to get past the general apathy that leaves most ignorant of who their MPs are. "We should have political affiliations with all parties," she added.

"But don't threaten the government," Ms. Odynsky said. "Be law-abiding." Her voice breaking, she added, "I want to live in a just society."

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