An Estonian summer camp in Ontario has removed the names of Nazi officials and an SS insignia from a monument located at the camp, after Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) raised awareness about the issue.

The monument, which is in the shape of two swords, had the names of four Estonian leaders of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, which was the military wing of the Nazi party. It also included an emblem of the division, which is also known as the 1st Estonian Division.

One of the names on the monument was Harald Riipalu, who was also the commander of the 36th Police Battalion in Estonia that participated in themassacre of almost all of the remaining Jews in the town of Nowogrodek in Belarus, on Aug. 7, 1942, FSWC said in a press release calling attention to the monument on July 26. 

“We have photos as recent as two weeks ago showing children laying flowers at the monument. For generations this has now been going on, and this sheds light on what is a stain on Canada’s history,” said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy at FSWC.

A representative from Camp Seedrioru, which is near Elora, Ont., says the decision to remove the names and insignia was made because of conversations internal to the community.

“The memorial was erected in the 1970s during the period of Soviet occupation. It was initiated and installed by Estonian war veterans who came to Canada as refugees in the late 1940s and 1950s. All have passed away. It is our understanding that the purpose of a monument was to remember our homeland and the fallen who died in those battles defending Estonia,” Lia Hess, chair of the Estonian Summer Camp Society, wrote in an emailed statement on behalf of the camp’s board of directors.

“Over the years other members of our Estonian community had begun to question its relevance and the names on it. Since this leftover relic has no association to the Camp, the decision to remove the names and symbols faced no objection. We remember and honour what was taken: our country, our freedom and thousands of innocent lives… Estonians in Canada will always appreciate the freedom we have in Canada.”

In her email, Hess also shared more context about the camp’s purpose, Estonian history and the values of her community.

“Estonians will always condemn all war crimes and acts of terror perpetrated by both the Nazi and Soviet regimes,” she wrote.

“Estonians were caught up in a war they did not start or want and had no control over. Tiny Estonia was run over and occupied first by the Soviet Red Army, then Nazi Germany and finally again by the Soviets, who occupied Estonia for the next 50 years, until 1991.”

She also wrote that Estonian Children’s Camp, which has operated for close to 70 years, “has always focused solely on the preservation and teaching of the Estonian language, customs, and traditions, together with typical mostly outdoor summer camp activities like sports, swimming, and campfires. Estonian history or global politics have never been part of the camp’s programming.”

She added, “We reiterate that the Estonian Summer Camp does not now and has never honored Nazi collaborators and our children have never been indoctrinated into worshipping Nazi leaders as alleged.”

For Kirzner-Roberts, the images of campers laying wreaths at the monument seems to undermine Hess’s statement.

“There’s a statue in this children’s camp that has the name of four leaders of the SS. If the camp director says that nobody in their camp has ever honored Nazi veterans, then I think the realities on the ground suggest otherwise,” Kirzner-Roberts said.

“She says that the statue has nothing to do with the camp. So, why is it in the middle of the camp?”

FSWC’s research into the camp revealed a total of 15 men who were founders or leaders of the camp were members of the SS. Much of the information about the camp’s history has since been removed from the camp’s website.

She also said that although she is aware of other similar monuments in Canada, finding out about this one was “a shocking discovery.”

“For years, Canada had a policy of lenience and laxity towards Nazis who wanted to immigrate here. Many more of them came here than is known. Many, many more. Whole communities that came here, that have been totally under the radar even for Holocaust researchers. There was not only a lenience with respect to allowing them to immigrate here, but with respect to drawing lines around the glorification of Nazi ideals here in Canada.

“This is a stain not only because it is such a profound insult and disrespect to our Jewish community, of course, who have suffered genocide at the hands of these people, but also a really disturbing insult to the 45,000 Canadians who lost their lives in Europe to defeat these people.”

In her statement on behalf of the camp’s board of directors, Hess mentioned another piece of the camp’s history that she hoped would provide a better example of the values of the Estonian-Canadian community: former camper Markus Hess, who attended the camp in the 1960s. In 1985, he initiated the observation of Black Ribbon Day, which is a global day of remembrance for victims of Stalinist and Nazi regimes. 

Both Kirzner-Roberts and Hess say they are open to dialogue around this issue. 

“The Estonian-Canadian community always encourages dialogue and ongoing communication between all other communities to come to a better understanding of who we are and what we value,” wrote Hess.

Kirzner-Roberts is also hopeful about the prospect of dialogue, but says there needs to be enough common ground around the facts for dialogue to be productive. She says it’s not enough to remove the names from the statue and the camp’s website and pretend the incident never happened. She wants a process that’s geared more towards openness. To that end, she elaborated on what she sees as the minimum needed to make that process successful.

She would like the camp owners “to admit that that was a very dark phase in Estonia’s history and that the Nazi roots of the camp were a dark part of the camp’s history, that the camp dedicated itself to ridding itself of the chains of that history and to reconciling with the Jewish community… I suggested a lot of different ideas, but the baseline, of course, is that they have to admit the facts of the situation.”

Monuments honouring members of the Waffen SS have been a contentious issue for years in Canada.

In March, a monument to a Ukrainian military unit that fought with the Nazis was removed from a private cemetery in Oakville, Ont., following years of controversy.

The monument to the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS, sometimes called SS Galizien and SS Galichina or Galicia, was erected in 1988 at West Oak Memorial Gardens, an Oakville property owned and managed by St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery.