Canada won’t reveal names of 900 alleged Nazis who arrived after war

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Hedy Bohm, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor from Toronto, “wasn’t surprised” when news broke earlier this month that Library and Archives Canada, a federal agency, refused to release the names of 900 suspected Nazi war criminals who sought refuge in Canada after World War II.

“They let in those Nazis, even at that time when they refused Jewish survivors, but even right now to protect them? Wow. Whose interest is it?” she told JNS. “Justice doesn’t seem to have much success.”

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Born in Transylvania, she and her family were forced into a ghetto and then deported to Auschwitz in May 1944, when she was 16. At Auschwitz, Bohm was separated from her parents, whom she never saw again. She survived and was freed in August 1944.

Bohm testified against Oskar Gröning, the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz,” in 2015, and a year later against Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at Auschwitz who was found to be an accessory to the murder of at least 170,000 Jews, including Bohm’s parents.

In 1986, the initial findings of the Deschênes Commission report were made public, confirming that suspected Nazi war criminals had indeed settled in Canada. The Canadian government has kept the second part of the report, which names names, confidential for nearly 40 years.

Several individuals and organizations that requested freedom of information access to the report documents were notified on Nov. 5 that their requests had been denied. Holocaust survivors and scholars, who advocated for the release of the names, noted that they were not consulted ahead of the Library and Archives Canada decision.

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Joseph Gottdenker was born in Nazi-occupied Poland. His parents, grandparents and most of his extended family perished in the Holocaust, but he survived because a Polish Catholic family hid him as an infant.

The 82-year-old Torontonian told JNS that he is “just incredulous” that the government would not release the names — a decision that he suspects is partisan.

“I don’t know what the reason behind it is, but it’s obviously political. What could be the political ramifications of putting out those names? I just don’t get it, unless there’s someone well-connected,” he said. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

He added that the decision not to publicize the names is “exceptionally hurtful” news that came just after Holocaust Education Week, an annual event presented by the Toronto Holocaust Museum that takes place the first week of November.

“It’s hypocritical. It’s not anything more than empty words,” he said, of government officials who say “never again” in public speeches.

‘Addressing the dark chapters of the Holocaust’

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, stated that the “government has the opportunity to right past wrongs by being honest and transparent about the many Nazis who were welcomed with open arms to settle in this country.”

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“By opting to protect their identities instead, the government not only insults those who suffered at the hands of these criminals but also dishonours, just ahead of Remembrance Day, our brave veterans,” Kirzner-Roberts added. “Canadians deserve transparency and to know the full truth of our country’s history, and they deserve a government that has the courage to confront the darker chapters of our past.”

Simmy Allen, a spokesman for Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, told JNS that “historical information such as this must be made accessible to the public.

“A decision to withhold undermines the principles of historical transparency and accountability that are essential in addressing the dark chapters of the Holocaust,” Allen said. “Documentation and research pertaining to the crimes of the Holocaust must remain accessible to ensure that the memory of the millions of victims is honored and that the atrocities committed are never forgotten.”

In February, the Canadian government declassified parts of the Rodal Report, a 618-page document written by historian Alti Rodal as part of the Deschênes Commission’s work.

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Canada has “waited until every single mass murderer of Jews residing in Canada was literally or functionally beyond Canadian justice before releasing redacted documents,” Steven Rambam, a noted Nazi hunter, told JNS at the time.

Rambam said Canada has a notoriously long record for its complicity and complacency around bringing its Nazis to justice. He also told JNS at the time that it was “the worst-kept secret” that thousands of war criminals came into Canada with Jewish blood on their hands.

The issue gained renewed attention and sparked international controversy in 2023, when the Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to a Ukrainian veteran with Nazi ties, whom Anthony Rota, then-speaker of the House of Commons, had invited.

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