Luciuk’s Ad Hominem Attack on Canada’s National Holocaust Monument is Shameful
In a recent op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen, Lubomyr Luciuk launched an ad hominem attack against Canada’s National Holocaust Monument. His call to include Ukrainians in the narrative of the National Holocaust Monument came as a Chanukah surprise to members of the Jewish community and to all those working on Holocaust remembrance. While the Citizen printed my letter to the editor, I thought I would share this longer piece as well.
Mr. Luciuk’s article ignores history, as well as the content and design of the monument. At a time when antisemitic rhetoric, harassment and violence are at levels not seen since the World War II era, he diminishes the significance of a national site of remembrance that is deeply meaningful to Canadian Jews. He also implies that he would like to vandalize the monument by throwing tomato soup at it — though reluctantly demures.
Instead of building bridges between our communities and seeking solidarity, Luciuk has sown anger and division.
The National Holocaust Monument was created by federal legislation signed into law in 2011. It took an six years to complete the monument. Its design, funding, and construction resulted from partnerships between the Government of Canada and the Jewish community. The monument was inaugurated by Prime Minister Trudeau in 2017.
While Mr. Luciuk is tragically correct that there were many and diverse victims of the Nazis — Roma, disabled people, political prisoners, Soviet prisoners of war, members of the LGBTQ2+ community, among others — what he leaves unsaid is the documented, undeniable, and determined nature of the Nazis efforts to eradicate Jews.
By the end of the War, two of every three European Jews were dead. In my country of birth, Poland, the deaths were nine out of ten. No other people faced death as a desired outcome of Nazi occupation. Not Ukrainians. Not Poles. Not Russians. No other people’s destruction was central to Nazi ideology and actions. It is the mass murder of Jews that was the principal, focused objective of the Holocaust. To say otherwise is distortion and diminishment. To the vast majority of Canada’s Jewish community — to most Canadians — that is unacceptable.
Mr. Luciuk omitted other facts from his column — which he started with the words “I am offended.” He ignored that other victims are already part of the narrative at the monument. Its interpretive plaque and website declare that the monument is to “commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators.” He fails to mention that a national monument to victims of Communism, a priority for the Ukrainian community, is under construction in the Garden of the Provinces and Territories. This is in addition to existing monuments and commemorations to the victims of the Holodomor — the genocide of Ukrainians committed by the Soviets during the 1930s.
Like Mr. Luciuk, I am offended. My offence is taken at his undermining of the central narrative of the National Holocaust Monument, one that justly centres on the Jewish experience of the Holocaust. I am shocked that a prominent member of Canada’s Ukrainian community would do so at a time when too many monuments in Canada commemorate Ukrainian collaboration with the Nazi regime, a collaboration central to Nazi Germany’s efforts to murder Jews. But I digress.
Over the past year Canada and Canadians have come to the defence of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and war crimes. We have rightly welcomed thousands of Ukrainian refugees and sent billions of dollars worth of aid — both military and humanitarian — to address the crisis. While Mr. Luciuk invokes the current tragedy and crimes in Ukraine, he without irony misses the fact that when Jews were falling victim to Nazi crimes in the 1930s and 40s, Canada had a policy of none is too many. The contrast is breathtaking in its inequity as is Mr. Luciuk’s ahistoric tonedeafness.
Jews and Ukrainians share a history of suffering at the hands of totalitarian regimes. Each narrative deserves to be told, understood, and respected. We should continue to build bridges between our communities. The National Holocaust Monument was built as a result of political consensus and goodwill. I just wish that, this holiday season, Mr. Luciuk had called upon the same before engaging in diminishment of the Holocaust.
