{"id":249883,"date":"2022-02-22T08:20:09","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T08:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249883"},"modified":"2022-02-23T08:41:59","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T08:41:59","slug":"chrystia-freelands-granddad-was-indeed-a-nazi-collaborator-so-much-for-russian-disinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=249883","title":{"rendered":"Chrystia Freeland\u2019s granddad was indeed a Nazi collaborator \u2013 so much for Russian disinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Pugliese \u2013 Ottawa Citizen March 8, 2017<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The news conference on Monday by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was interesting not for the announcement that Canada was extending its training mission to Ukraine but for the questions and answers about the minister\u2019s grandfather.<\/p>\n

There have been a number of articles circulating about Freeland\u2019s Ukrainian grandfather Michael Chomiak and his ties to the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Some of those articles have appeared on pro-Russian websites. Freeland, who strongly supports Ukraine and is a major critic of Russia\u2019s seizure of the Crimea, suggested to journalists that the articles about her grandfather were part of a Russian disinformation campaign. (The Russian government sees Freeland as virulently anti-Russian and has placed her on their travel ban).<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican officials have publicly said, and even Angela Merkel has publicly said, that there were efforts on the Russian side to destabilize Western democracies, and I think it shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise if these same efforts were used against Canada,\u201d\u00a0Freeland told reporters after they raised questions about the articles about her grandfather.<\/p>\n

The Globe and Mail also reported that an official in Freeland\u2019s office denied the minister\u2019s grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.<\/p>\n

In addition, the claims were dismissed outright by those in the Canadian-Ukrainian community. \u201cIt is the continued Russian modus operandi that they have,\u201d Paul Grod, president of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress told the Globe and Mail. \u201cFake news, disinformation and targeting different individuals. It is just so outlandish when you hear some of these allegations \u2013 whether they are directed at minister Freeland or others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well it actually isn\u2019t so outlandish. Michael Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator.<\/p>\n

What are the sources for the information that Freeland\u2019s grandfather worked for the Nazis?<\/p>\n

For starters, The Ukraine Archival Records held by the Province of Alberta. It has a whole file on Chomiak, including his own details about his days editing the newspaper\u00a0Krakivski Visti<\/em>. Chomiak noted he edited the paper first in Crakow (Cracow), Poland and then in Vienna. The reason he edited the paper in Vienna was because he had to flee with his Nazis colleagues as the Russians advanced into Poland. (The Russians tended to execute collaborators well as SS members).<\/p>\n

See archive entry below:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So what was the\u00a0Krakivski Visti<\/em>? It, like a number of publications, had been seized by the Nazis from their Jewish owners and then operated as propaganda outlets.<\/p>\n

Here is what the Los Angeles Holocaust Museum has to say about\u00a0Krakivski Visti<\/em>\u00a0and a similar newspaper,\u00a0Lvivski Visti,<\/em>\u00a0both publications associated with the Nazi regime.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe editorial boards carried out a policy of soliciting Ukrainian support for the German cause,\u201d the Holocaust Museum noted. \u201cIt was typical, within these publications, to not to give any accounts of the German genocidal policy, and largely, the editions resorted to silencing the mass killing of Jews in Galicia. Ukrainian newspapers presented the Jewish Question in light of the official Nazi propaganda, corollary to the Jewish world conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 1943 and 1944, both\u00a0Lvivski Visti<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Krakivski Visti\u00a0<\/em>hailed the German-approved formation of the 14th<\/sup>\u00a0Waffen SS Division Halychyna, composed of Ukrainian volunteers,\u201d the museum pointed out.<\/p>\n

So much for Russian disinformation.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the Globe and Mail reported that, \u201cForeign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland knew for more than two decades that her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo below shows Chomiak at a party \u2013 he is to the right of the man smoking. On the far right (right hand lower corner of the photo) in uniform is Emil Gassner, the Nazi administrator in charge of the press for the region including Cracow.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is entirely appropriate that the granddaughter of a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator is now, as deputy prime minister, helping to guide Canada\u2019 response to Covid-19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":183437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Hidden_and_Revisionist_History"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249905,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249883\/revisions\/249905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/183437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}