Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Ukrainian World War II veteran, recently received not one, but two standing ovations from Canadian lawmakers during a visit by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. 

What's wrong with that, you ask?

Well, Hunka served in a Nazi SS unit.

Oops.

Canadian parliament speaker Anthony Rota buoyantly introduced Hunka as "a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians" and further branded him "a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero."  Rota later hastily issued an apology and insisted he had no idea of Hunka's past Nazi associations.  Way to vet your heroes, Tony.  Say, who fought the Russians on the Eastern front again?

Talk about an unforced error!  This handed Russia a bit of a P.R. victory.  Indeed, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the episode showed a careless disregard for historical truth.  He told reporters, "Such sloppiness of memory is outrageous." 

Worse still, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and a liberal Canadian M.P. both previously essentially called the freedom convoy truckers Nazis.  (They claimed that the "honk, honk" of the trucker's horns meant "heil Hitler."  I wish I were kidding.)  Leftists have a hard time getting their Nazis straight.  They tend to accuse those lobbying for their freedom of being Nazis, while applauding — accidentally or not — those who actually are or were Nazis.

"Arbeit macht frei"?  Nein.

Ignorance doesn't make us free, either.

Quite the opposite.

Image: paul_houle via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).