“I didn’t look at all the names when I was on site, but I did notice “Janis Niedra,” which has already been decided in principle to be removed (it’s a name that can be readily researched and identified as a nazi [sic] collaborator with no ambiguity).”

The name of a Nazi collaborator believed to have participated in the massacre of Latvian Jews was engraved on Ottawa’s Monument to the Victims of Communism. Photo via Flickr.

Janis (John) Niedra was the first president of the Latvian National Federation in Canada, which he led from 1954 until his death in 1969. Niedra is alleged to have participated in the execution of Latvian Jews beginning in 1941, and was the Nazi’s top official in the Latvian city of Daugavpils. He immigrated to Canada in 1951 and quickly fell in with other Latvian collaborators, including former SS-Obersturmführer Oskars Perro (Mike Wallace of television newsmagazine 60 Minutes attempted to interview Perro at his home for a 1997 segment on war criminals living in Canada). In May of 1969 Niedra was photographed handing a medal and scroll to former Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker, for the latter’s efforts to “liberate” the Latvian people from the Soviet Union.

In case somebody feels inclined to defend this as a little mistake: VOC comes from the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and the so-called Captive Nations Lobby, both of which had numerous ties to fascism. That this rancid foundation would commemorate Axis collaborators should be unsurprising.