Holocaust survivor urges University of Alberta to reject ‘dirty’ money from Nazi soldiers

An archive photo of Heinrich Himmler in the company of German officers in front of the unit of the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen SS "Galizien." Photo by National Archive of Poland /Handout

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A Holocaust survivor and a Holocaust education centre are denouncing an Alberta university’s decision to keep endowments honouring members of the Nazi’s Waffen SS.

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The University of Alberta in Edmonton says it will keep the eight endowments that are in the names of veterans of the 14th Waffen SS Galicia.

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The Polish government and Jewish groups have denounced Waffen SS Galicia for its role in killing civilians and its involvement in massacres during the Second World War. The division was also used by the Nazis to crush a national uprising in Slovakia, again prompting allegations of war crimes.

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The university received legal approval Aug. 7 to dissolve a research trust named after Ukrainian SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka over the protests from the 101-year-old’s family.

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But in an Aug. 10 statement, the university noted it would keep eight other endowments from Waffen SS soldiers as it would cost too much in time and legal fees to seek court approval to terminate or alter those.

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An academic who testified for Hunka said the U of A’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies’ endowments were worth $1.1 million.

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But researchers with the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust research organization in Toronto, put together a list of 12 endowments at U of A linked to individuals involved with the Nazis. Those totalled $2.2 million.

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Andy Reti, a child survivor of the Holocaust now living in Toronto, said he was appalled by the university’s decision to keep the money from the Nazi soldiers.

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“This is dirty money and it’s unconscionable they are continuing with this,” said Reti, 84. “It’s beyond despicable.”

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Reti’s father was murdered during the Holocaust. Reti, his mother and grandmother were sent to a ghetto in Hungary, where they faced starvation before eventually being freed by Soviet troops.

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He said the university’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies should donate the Waffen SS endowment money to either the Salvation Army or the poor so some good could come from the tainted funds.

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Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, a senior director at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that organization had repeatedly called on the university to divest itself of all of the endowments. She said that included one named after Peter Savaryn, who later became Chancellor of the University of Alberta. In 2023, the Governor General’s office expressed deep regret for awarding Savaryn the Order of Canada in 1987, given revelations about his past service in the Waffen SS.

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“Such endowments have no place at the University of Alberta or any other institution of higher learning in this country,” Kirzner-Roberts said.

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In its statement, the U of A noted it would spend $100,000 to “deepen scholarship and education about the Galicia Division and other complex and difficult aspects of twentieth-century history.”

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The university made the decision to distance itself from the endowment in Hunka’s name after he was honoured with a standing ovation in the House of Commons from all MPs in 2023. That incident became an international embarrassment for Canada after it was revealed Hunka had been a Waffen SS soldier who had sworn allegiance to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.