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But Kalinin, who sent photos and links to the stories about Freeland’s grandfather to Canadian news outlets, said the material was already in the public domain, thanks to the work of Ukrainian Canadians who objected to the man’s Nazi past.

Photo by Justin Tang/CP

“Trying to silence an official spokesman of the embassy doesn’t mean you are right,” Kalinin said in an interview. “Expelling someone for voicing an alternative opinion or giving a different analysis of a situation is very un-Canadian.”

Last year, a Polish history magazine and a number of pro-Russian media sites revealed Chomiak’s role as a Nazi collaborator during the Second World War. At first, Freeland suggested she was the victim of a Russian disinformation campaign. Her office later claimed Chomiak, a Ukrainian nationalist who came to Canada in 1948, didn’t collaborate with the Germans.

However, it soon became clear that Chomiak had indeed worked with the Nazis, editing an anti-Semitic newspaper in Poland. Photos showed him partying with senior Nazi leaders and files from the newspaper revealed pro-Nazi propaganda and cartoons aimed at denigrating Jews.

The newspaper’s office and printing presses had originally been seized from a Jewish family who had been sent to a concentration camp, where they were murdered.

As Russian forces advanced into Poland, Chomiak fled to Nazi Germany, where he continued to edit the newspaper.

The Los Angeles Holocaust Museum noted that the newspaper also promoted the Nazi-approved formation of the 14th Waffen SS Division, which was composed of Ukrainian volunteers.