Letters from Edmonton Journal

https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/letters/fridays-letters-lets-remember-savaryns-full-legacy

Re: “No shades of grey – Savaryn was a Nazi,” Opinion, Sept. 3

As president of the Ukrainian National Federation, Edmonton Branch, I write in response to the recent opinion piece questioning the legacy of the late Peter (Petro) Savaryn. While I acknowledge the concerns, it’s essential to view his life in its full, complex context.

Savaryn’s wartime service in the Galicia Division, at age 17, must be understood not as ideological alignment with Nazism, but as an act of tragically constrained patriotism — choosing what he believed was the lesser of two totalitarian evils. Crucially, Allied and Canadian authorities thoroughly vetted the unit and found no evidence of war crimes; membership alone was not seen as a prosecutable offense under the Deschênes Commission’s findings.

What followed in Canada was seven decades of exemplary service. As chancellor of the University of Alberta, a founding advocate of Ukrainian studies and multiculturalism, and a member of the Order of Canada, Savaryn built institutions and programs that enriched our community and country.

Erasing his name now would erase decades of contributions. Instead, we advocate for education, context, and dialogue — not erasure. Let us honour his full legacy — one shaped by survival, redemption, and steadfast civic leadership.

Yevhen Burlaka, Edmonton

No proof of Savaryn’s misconduct

During the Second World War, the Ukrainian people were caught trying to survive between the two ruthless occupying dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin. When  offered weapons and military training to protect themselves, their families and their nation, many took the offer. Seventeen-year-old Peter Savaryn was one of them — willing and now able to fight for his people and his nation, as millions of Ukrainians are again doing today.

In Edmonton, Savaryn was a model community and academic leader and his incredible accomplishments are well documented. Any accusations of wrongdoing against him without hard evidence to back them up are baseless and slanderous. Similar generalized accusations against members of Galician Division have already been disproved by Canada’s Deschênes Commission in the 1980s. Seems to me that only the genocidal Putin regime gains from attempts to again echo these false accusations.

Taras Podilsky, Edmonton

Erasing Savaryn’s name isn’t justice
Re. “Ex-chancellor’s war past centre of controversy,” Aug. 22

The article presents a distorted view of Peter Savaryn’s life and legacy. It reduces him to a wartime decision made as a teenager in 1944, while ignoring both the context of the time and the extensive investigations that cleared him of wrongdoing.

Yes, Savaryn enlisted in the Galicia Division, a Waffen SS unit under German command. Like all recruits, he swore an oath to Hitler but so did others, like Oskar Schindler and some 125,000 Jewish soldiers who served in the German army. That did not make them Nazis. To label Savaryn a Nazi without context ignores the brutal reality Ukrainians faced. Stalin’s famine had killed millions. The NKVD executed thousands. German occupation brought the Holocaust to Ukrainian soil. Ukrainians were stateless and trapped between two murderous regimes. For many, joining a German-led unit was not about ideology but about survival and the hope of a free Ukraine.

After the war, Allied officers screened the division. No war crimes were found. When Savaryn immigrated to Canada in 1950, he was vetted again. And in the 1980s, the Deschênes Commission concluded: “The Galicia Division should not be indicted as a group … charges of war crimes have never been substantiated … mere membership is insufficient to justify prosecution.”

For 70 years, no government, historian, or opponent accused Savaryn of war crimes. Instead, he built a remarkable Canadian life: co-founding the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, championing Alberta’s bilingual school program, defending Soviet political prisoners, serving as president of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party, and acting as chancellor of the University of Alberta. He was awarded the Order of Canada for his contributions.

Renaming a street will not clarify history. Education will. A plaque or forum could tell the full story — his controversial wartime service, the repeated investigations, and his decades of achievement. Erasing his name is not justice. Understanding is.

Andy J. Semotiuk, Toronto