From apartheid SA to Canada: How US hid Nazi collaborators

When Nazis arrived in South Africa individually after World War II, seeking refuge, it seemed almost natural.

The National Party, which came to power in 1948, had openly admired Hitler and Nazi fanaticism was widespread among its supporters.

Apartheid itself drew inspiration from Nazism, targeting racial groups for discrimination – primarily black South Africans and, to a significant degree, Jews. These communities closed ranks, converging under the Congress of Democrats and the South African Communist Party to resist apartheid.

The Jewish Board of Deputies also joined the struggle, cooperating with the ANC, both established in 1912, to battle the racist system.

SA’s willingness to shelter Nazis was not unique. Across Europe, many perpetrators hid in Western and Eastern states, and neo-Nazism has continued to resurface, particularly in parts of the former Soviet bloc where extremists have infiltrated security forces and fuelled right-wing xenophobic violence.

A more recent revelation has cast a darker shadow on North America. Evidence shows that the US deliberately shielded Nazi war criminals after the war, smuggling them into Canada under false pretences.

Newly declassified sections of a report by Canadian researcher Alti Rodal, released after pressure from the Jewish community and a court ruling, confirm that in the ’50s, US Army units in Europe, working with the CIA, resettled Nazi collaborators in Canada using forged documents.

These individuals had been working as agents for Washington and were given new identities to evade justice.

The Rodal report reveals that the Americans created dossiers with falsified information to convince Canadian immigration authorities that there were no grounds to deny visas.

Today, the revelations are deeply embarrassing for Ottawa. The controversy has even touched Canada’s political elite.

Chrystia Freeland, who served as deputy prime minister, is the granddaughter of Mikhailo Chomiak, a wartime editor of a pro-Nazi Ukrainian newspaper published in Kraków and Vienna.

Critics said Canada’s strong pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia stance may have been influenced by this family connection, though Freeland has denied it.

But the evidence is clear: US intelligence not only relocated Nazis to Western nations, but also deceived allies by falsifying documents.

For South Africans, these revelations resonate uncomfortably. The US has repeated similar tactics in more recent times. After its withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington sought to relocate Afghan nationals who had worked as agents against the Taliban. A US NGO bypassed other countries and brought them into South Africa, exploiting porous borders and weak immigration laws.

From South Africa’s apartheid era embrace of Nazi sympathisers to Canada’s covert resettlement of war criminals, the pattern is unmistakable: powerful states have repeatedly manipulated borders, laws and allies to protect those who served their interests, even when those individuals carried the stain of genocide.

The revelations about US and Canadian complicity remind us that history’s darkest chapters are not always closed. They resurface when secrecy unravels, exposing how expediency often triumphed over justice.

These episodes make it clear some powerful countries hardly act on what they preach, let alone account for their sins.