NEWS AND VIEWS

Cases of Odynsky and "Natasha" reveal double standards in Canada

by Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk

Canada got her from Russia, just six years ago. She was a physician, trained in Kyiv when "the Great Patriotic War" began. Readers unfamiliar with that locution should know it's what the Soviets and fellow travelers called the segment of the second world war when they stopped being Hitler's friends and became ours. Before that neither the Fall of France nor the Battle of Britain troubled them. At Hitler's side, Stalin's empire prospered, courtesy of Poland's dismemberment, the occupation of western Belarus and Ukraine, the engorgement of the Baltic states. Then came June 22, 1941. Perfidious Adolf jumped "Uncle Joe."

"Natasha" (a fictitious name - used here by the author in solidarity with the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty) was then in her twenties, well-educated, Jewish, a city girl. She retreated east and, eventually, when the Red Army forced the Nazis back to a deservedly apocalyptic defeat in Berlin's ruins, she returned with them. She joined the Communist Party. She served in SMERSH.

SMERSH is an acronym for Smert Shpionam - "Death to Spies." As the Red Army moved west, SMERSH battalions followed, killing soldiers deemed cowardly, hunting those opposed to Soviet rule. At war's end, SMERSH screened "Soviet citizens" whom British, American, French and Canadian troops had repatriated forcibly - victims of Yalta.

A Canadian Baptist, Prof. Watson Kirkconnell, protested to Prime Minister Mackenzie King that handing refugees over "to the Red Army and the NKVD is to murder them," Canadian participation in "crimes against humanity." He was ignored. Millions of former POWs and displaced persons were transported to the gulag, many executed.

How many? No one knows. But, thanks to celebrated Canadians, like Irwin Cotler, McGill University professor, civil libertarian and now a Liberal MP, we know one victim's name: Raoul Wallenberg. A savior of Hungarian Jews, this courageous diplomat was snatched by SMERSH in Budapest and murdered later.

What Natasha did for most of the war is unknown. Recently, however, in The Montreal Gazette, she recalled one of her chores - jumping into open graves to check if the shot were truly dead. What if someone was still alive? On a balance of probabilities, given SMERSH was in the murdering business, is it likely she upheld the Hippocratic oath by tending to the wounded? Or did she "do her Soviet duty," inviting an executioner in to finish the kill?

On September 15, 2000, responding to an inquiry about alleged communist war criminals in Canada, Terry Beitner, general counsel of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Section, replied, skeptically: "Given the climate in Canada in the post-second world war period (as the Cold War began) I doubt that immigration authorities would have knowingly permitted ex-KGB members into Canada." However, if credible evidence of complicity in war crimes were ever uncovered, proceedings would be initiated. Lest I be accused of misquoting what "complicity" means, he wrote: "A person is considered complicit if, while aware of the commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity the person contributes, directly or indirectly, to their occurrence. Active membership in the organization responsible for committing the atrocities is not required. An example of complicity would be the act of guarding an execution site even if one had not personally acted as executioner. Additionally, a person may be considered complicit if he was a member of an organization during a time when their activities included the carrying out of atrocities such as executing civilians."

Soon after Natasha arrived from Moscow, denaturalization and deportation proceedings began against Wasyl Odynsky. He was a 19-year-old farm boy with a sixth grade education when the Nazis press-ganged him into being an auxiliary guard near a labor camp. Government lawyers admitted, and Judge Andrew MacKay found, no evidence that he participated in a war crime. He spent not a single day capering into pits making sure the dying would die. The only negative finding was that he may have lied when screened over a half century ago. Federal officials insisted he must have been asked what he did in the war. Under oath, Odynsky swore he was not. No specific documentary evidence refutes his testimony. Ottawa destroyed those files years ago. But, on a balance of probabilities, the judge ruled Mr. Odynsky secured citizenship under false pretenses. He now faces exile, who knows where, regardless of the consequences for his wife and family.

I have no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Natasha. Yet, comparing what she claims she did with what a judge found Mr. Odynsky did not, her record surely merits further investigation. Alas, the Nazi-hunters in Justice apparently don't read the Gazette. Our ex-Soviet woman remains serene. Could be they checked Natasha's story and decided she's just a babbling babushka with a vivid, if beastly, imagination. Maybe driving the Red Army forward by shooting laggards and a few hundred thousand others along the way is acceptable? Smert Shpionam! And to you too, Raoul.

Or perhaps prohibitions against allowing NKVD, SMERSH and KGB drainage to resettle in Canada were rescinded? Certainly, Natasha is not the only ex-Red relaxing here. Joseph, a former NKVD lieutenant, and Nahum, an ex-communist partisan, both wrote books, in English, boasting of their roles in liquidating anti-Soviet Lithuanians and Ukrainians. Something they perhaps neglected to mention during screening?

Mr Beitner's note helpfully confirms that post-war regulations were intended to ensure that neither Nazi nor Soviet collaborators got in, least they befoul our fair Dominion. So, even if you believe those Ukrainian and Baltic nationalists got what they deserved, how do you explain Bolsheviks enjoying Canada Pension Plan benefits? Did they lie at our gates, perhaps claiming to be refugees? If Mr. Odynsky has to go, why don't they? They are not hard to find. These two old Reds are listed in the Montreal telephone book.

There's a lobby that squawks evermore about the "thousands of Nazis" hiding in Canada. In 1986 the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals chided those who orchestrated this "grossly exaggerated" cacophony. Yet they whine unashamedly on. They have never provided as much evidence as I just have to support their bosh. They swear denaturalization and deportation procedures are a fair means for ridding ourselves of a supposed infestation of Nazis. Yet, when some matron of massacres publicly prattles on about scrambling among the dead and the dying, ensuring the latter joined the ranks of the former, they remain remarkably dumb. Why?

Ex-Communists "hiding in our midst" should get precisely the same "fair" chance to explain what they did in the war as Mr. Odynsky did. Surely we can't remember Raoul Wallenberg but ignore who cut his throat?

Lubomyr Luciuk, Ph.D., is director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He is preparing a manuscript on Soviet war crimes in Ukraine.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 23, 2002, No. 25, Vol. LXX

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