The Department of Canadian Heritage is being told that more than half of the 550 names on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism should be removed because of potential links to the Nazis or questions about affiliations with fascist groups, according to government records.
But concerns have been raised over the years by Jewish organizations and historians that names of eastern Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust have been put forward in an attempt to whitewash their past.
"It has come to our attention that a number of entries that have been put forward for recognition may have been affiliated in some capacity to fascist and Nazi organizations," wrote Tristan-E. Landry, a deputy director at the department. "For example, some of proposed individuals were linked to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and its military, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army….and to a lesser extent with Baltic nationalist groups (i.e. members of the Latvian SS)."