Canadian judge rules Ukrainian collaborated with Nazis during war

TORONTO, June 10 (JTA) — A 76-year-old Ukrainian native living in Ontario was a Nazi collaborator who covered up his past to attain entry to Canada in 1948, a Canadian judge ruled this week. The decision clears the way for Canada’s Cabinet to revoke Serge Kisluk’s citizenship and call for a subsequent deportation hearing. The court found that Kisluk was involved in the death of a 20-year-old Jewish woman and must have known about the mass executions of Jewish civilians in a Ukranian town near Makovichi, where he worked for the Germans as a railway guard and auxiliary police officer in 1940 and 1941. Kisluk is the third suspected Nazi collaborator found to have entered Canada after World War II through deceitful means since the country’s Justice Department stepped up its campaign against suspected Nazi war criminals in 1995. The case relied upon evidence from historians as well as from witnesses in Ukraine, where court representatives traveled last year. The judge in the case characterized Kisluk’s own testimony as unreliable and contradictory. Although no appeal is possible, Kisluk’s lawyer could launch a constitutional challenge, which he did in a previous case involving Vladimir Katriuk, another Ukranian national who was also found to be a Nazi collaborator who entered Canada by concealing the truth about his wartime past. Paul Vickery, director of the federal government’s war crimes unit, said the ruling shows that the unit’s program is on the right track. “It is clear we are in a position to prove these cases before the courts,” Vickery said. In the last three and a half years, the Canadian government has initiated proceedings against 15 Nazi war crimes suspects. Three suspects have died, two have left the country voluntarily and two more have been permitted to stay. Other cases are slated to get under way soon.