War criminals have found warm welcome in Canada
Germany’s continuing prosecution of Nazi war criminals contrasts sharply with Canada’s abject failure in bringing to justice Holocaust perpetrators granted refuge on our shores. Just last week in Brandenburg, the trial opened of a German centenarian, charged with 3,518 counts of accessory to murder while serving as a Nazi SS guard at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin during the Second World War.
German prosecutors spent 18 months investigating the man, collecting evidence from multiple sources, including a global search for witnesses. In Canada, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (the Toronto-based non-profit, human rights organization I run) conducted a national effort to identify survivors of Sachsenhausen to come forward to give testimony. We spoke with dozens of Canadians with relatives held captive or murdered there.
Invariably, when such cases make the news, some people take pity on the accused, insisting it’s inhumane to make elderly suspects stand trial. Strangely, such critics wouldn’t express such compassion for others accused of murder, for which there’s no statute of limitations.
Longtime Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff says those suffering from what he calls “misplaced sympathy syndrome” focus primarily on the perpetrators instead of the tragic fate of their innocent victims. They also forget that Hitler’s henchmen showed no mercy for those of old age when rounding up and killing Jews.
While Germany actively pursues those responsible for the Holocaust who are still alive today, the topic remains a sore point for Canadians dismayed by Ottawa’s shameful record in holding Nazi perpetrators accountable for their atrocities.
With Helmut Oberlander’s demise last month, Canada’s most well-known Nazi death squad member may now be gone but there are still many important lessons for us to learn from this travesty of justice and Canada’s dereliction of duty involving war criminals on our soil.
Originally from Ukraine, Oberlander served in the Nazis’ notorious Einsatzkommando unit that carried out mass murder, mostly against Jews, throughout the Second World War. In 1954, he immigrated to Canada, concealing his Nazi past from officials.
Since then, he lived in Waterloo, Ont. where he ran a successful construction business and even gained the support of many in his local community. Oberlander enjoyed a long and comfortable existence, growing old while surrounded by family — a stark contrast to the six million Jews robbed of their freedom, dignity and lives by the Nazis. That he and so many others complicit in such barbarity could live happily ever after in Canada is a searing indictment of our justice system and the lack of political will to prosecute them. Their continued presence here over the past 75 years is an affront to our values as Canadians.
While Oberlander’s passing may have ended Ottawa’s protracted and feeble effort to deport him, it will remain a long-standing and salient reminder of how Canada served as a refuge for an estimated 2,000 accused war criminals linked to the Holocaust. Like many before him, Oberlander evaded justice by cynically running out the clock.
On learning of Oberlander’s death, Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and combating Antisemitism and former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler lamented that Oberlander was never held accountable and he called on the newly re-elected Trudeau government to review the whole process of bringing war criminals to justice.
To that end, he recommended that Ottawa create an inter-ministerial panel to streamline legal processes so modern-day war criminals who enter Canada are swiftly held accountable, unable to repeat Oberlander’s legal machinations that clogged up the wheels of justice for decades.
In addition, I would urge Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to undertake a study to thoroughly review the Oberlander debacle and make recommendations to ensure that what occurred in his case over the past 25 years never reoccurs.
Canada must not allow itself to again become a sanctuary and place of impunity for those linked to war crimes, gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity. As a country committed to upholding human rights as a core value, we must do better.