The Chomiak-Freeland Connection

coat.ncf.ca

By Richard Sanders

Minister Freeland’s Grandfather, Michael Chomiak, the Nazi’s Top Ukrainian Propagandist: Fake News, Mighty Wurlizers, Historical Amensia and the Elephant (or Bear) in the Room.

“It takes a village to raise a Nazi” (old African proverb, slightly modified)

Part 1
Introduction

Canadians should not be surprised by the fact that our Liberal Foreign Minister, Chrystia Freeland, has been hiding a big Nazi skeleton in her family closet.

Like so many other ultranationalists in the Ukrainian émigré community whose forbears came to Canada soon after WWII, Freeland has covered up the truth about a close and revered family member who collaborated with the Nazi regime. In that way, Freeland’s case is not terribly unusual.

What is truly impressive about this whole story is how the ultranationalist Ukrainian diaspora, the Liberal government and the mainstream corporate media have managed to keep a lid on broader issues surrounding Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazis in executing mass murder and genocide, including the Holocaust.

Even now, after the story has been “covered” by the mainstream mass media, precious few details have actually been allowed to creep out about Freeland’s grandfather (her dido in Ukrainian). This “coverage” amounts to more “cover up” because, while it exposes some information, it falls far short of revealing far more damaging truths. It is what the “intelligence” community calls a “limited hangout.”[i]

Michael Chomiak (1905-1984) held the influential position of editor in chief for the Nazi’s leading Ukrainian-language newspaper, Krakivs’ki visti (Krakow News). As the flagship Nazi propaganda mouthpiece for Ukrainians all across Greater Germany and occupied Europe, this daily newspaper played a key role in riling up widespread support within Ukrainian community for the military efforts of Canada’s wartime enemies.

Under Chomiak’s guidance and oversight, this Nazi-empowered newspaper spouted vile antiSemitic fake news which helped Ukrainians to justify and rationalise the liquidation of some seven million Jews. The newspaper also actively promoted vile hatred towards the most powerful enemy of Nazism, namely, the Soviet Union. In case anyone has forgotten that country lost 25 to 30 million citizens as a result of the Nazi onslaught against their homeland. This incredible death toll included about 8.7 million members of the Red Army who died fighting the Nazis. The Soviets eventually repelled the Nazi military and chased them back to Germany. It is no wonder that the Soviet people called WWII, “The Great Patriotic War.”

Chomiak was officially responsible for at least one other newspaper, a weekly called Kholmska zemlia (Cholmer Land). It, like Krakivs’ki visti, contained many edited speeches by Nazi leaders including Adolph Hitler, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Governors Hans Frank and Otto Wächter, and many others. Baron von Wächter was a lawyer, Nazi politician and the SS-Gruppenführer (Major General) who oversaw the creation of the 14th Waffen SS Galician division in 1943. This Ukrainian military formation was funded, armed, controlled and led by the Nazi regime. Its members were volunteers who swore a religious oath to fight to the death for their supreme leader, Adolph Hitler. Recruitment for the Waffen SS Galicia was done by the Nazis, Ukrainian church leaders and Ukrainian newspapers, including that leading propaganda organ, with Chomiak at its helm, Krakivs’ki visti.

The many Nazi leaders whose words and deeds were so favourably promoted in the pages of Krakivs’ki visti and Kholmska zemlia, represented the master race of fake news in their day. For his part, Michael Chomiak was their faithful servant, turning out a daily whirlwind of Nazi news, and spinning war stories to suit their propaganda needs. As chief editor and office manager for these newspapers of the officially-sanctioned Ukrainian Publishing House, Michael Chomiak facilitated the largest mass media outlet by which the Nazi’s psychopathic political phobias against Judaism and communism were spread to the Ukrainian diaspora across Europe.

As we’ll see, Michael Chomiak’s direct boss was Volodomyr Kubijovych, the chief shareholder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian Publishing House, which oversaw the production, printing and distribution of newspapers, magazines, books and other propaganda materials under the Nazi regime. More importantly, Kubijovych was the president of the Ukrainian Central Committee, the main political body of Ukrainians that was coordinating their national collaboration with the Nazi’s Government which controlled German-occupied Poland. This collaborationist committee had a close relationship with the Nazi’s Abwehr (“Defence”), the German military intelligence organisation. Pawel Markiewicz, a Polish doctoral candidate now writing his PhD thesis on Kubijovych and the Ukrainian Central Committee, explains that:

“The Central Committee building at Grunestrasse … was in fact a shared building. The Ukrainians were headquartered there as well as the German military intelligence or Abwehr.”[ii]

When a German Colonel, Alfred Bisanz, was arrested near the war’s end, he gave insights into the relationship between Kubijovych’s Ukrainian Central Committee and the Nazi authorities which created, funded and controlled it. Bisantz testified that:

“Kubiyovych’s Ukrainian Central Committee [UCC] was created by the Abwehr in Krakow in 1940. From the first day of its existence, it was directly supervised by the intelligence body of Abwehrstelle-Krakow. Actually, this function was discharged by the Second Department of the Abwehrstelle-Krakow, headed by Major von Deml. As an assistant to the head of the Department, I was charged with directing UCC activity. Without the Abwehrstelle’s permission and my personal clearance, Kubiyovych had no right to include any person in the Committee or take any action…. Likewise, financing the UCC was also carried out through me. Each month throughout 1940, I personally handed Kubiyovych and UCC Secretary-General Hlibovitsky a sum of 50-60 thousand zlotys.”[iii]

This means Nazi payments to the UCC in Krakow were between 600,000 and 720,000 zlotys in 1940. (This is calculated to be the equivalent of between $2.8 and $3.36 million today.) One of the Committee’s expenses was Michael Chomiak’s salary. In an official 1946 “Military Questionnaire” (which Chomiak completed in German), he reported that his annual salary as chief editor for 1940 was 5,000 zlotys. This starting salary is calculated to be worth the equivalent $23,300 in 2017 Canadian dollars. It was increased to $35,000 the following year and by 1944, his annual salary was the equivalent of about $44,500. [iv]

Meanwhile, elsewhere, another UCC was being formed by another antiSemitic, anticommunist government. Yes, the Canadian government, like the Nazi government in Germany, formed a Ukrainian organisation with the same acronym, UCC. The UCC that the Liberal government formed in Canada was the Ukrainian Canadian Committee. Its name was changed in the 1980s to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. (Click here to learn more about the Canadian UCC, its fascist roots, and its links to both Michael Chomiak and Chrystia Freeland…