The Ukrainian man who sat in the gallery of Canada’s House of Commons was a “hero,” the Speaker of the House of Representatives said Friday, drawing applause from lawmakers, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who had just left the chamber addressed during his first visit to Ottawa since Russia invaded his country.
But several Jewish groups reacted with outrage, saying the man, Yaroslav Hunka, 98, had served in a Nazi unit known as the SS’s 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, which fought alongside Germany during World War II and declared allegiance to Adolf Hitler .
On Sunday, Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, issued a written apology, saying he “later became aware of more information” and took “full responsibility for my actions.”
In his remarks after Mr. Zelensky addressed the Canadian parliament on Friday, Mr. Rota introduced Mr. Hunka as a resident of his district who had fought for Ukrainian independence from Russia and later emigrated to Canada.
“He is a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero,” Mr. Rota said, “and we thank him for all his service,” prompting applause from lawmakers and a fist pump from Mr. Zelensky.
No other Canadian MP, nor members of Mr. Zelensky’s visiting Ukrainian delegation, were aware of Mr. Rota’s comments before he made them, he said Sunday.
“I would especially like to offer my deepest apologies to the Jewish communities in Canada and around the world,” Mr. Rota said. The apology was “the right thing to do,” Mr. Trudeau’s office said in a statement, adding that no prior notice was given to the Canadian prime minister or to Mr. Zelensky about Mr. Hunka’s invitation.
Jewish groups in Canada on Friday called the event painful and gruesome and demanded an explanation as to why Mr. Hunka was allowed into the gallery.
“It is beyond outrageous that Parliament has honored a former member of a Nazi unit in this way,” said Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish human rights organization.
The 14th Waffen SS unit consisted of volunteers from the Galicia region, which spanned parts of what is now southeastern Poland and western Ukraine. After the Soviet occupation of western Ukraine in 1939, the unit’s creation in 1943 attracted Ukrainians eager to fight for their independence, said Dominique Arel, chair of Ukrainian studies at the University of Ottawa.
“Because they were trained by SS officers, you can imagine what kind of political indoctrination they received,” he said. Even if their goals were independence, Mr. Arel said the unit “fought for the Nazis and was trained. There is no doubt about it.”
Speaking about the episode in Parliament, he said: “It’s clear the optics are disastrous.”
B’nai Brith Canada said the division was created by Ukrainian ultranationalist ideologues who “dreamed of an ethnically homogeneous Ukrainian state and endorsed the idea of ethnic cleansing.”
Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Canada-based group dedicated to educating about the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism, called the moment “incredibly disturbing” and said in a statement that the 14th Waffen-SS “was responsible for the mass murder on innocent civilians with a level of brutality and malice that is unimaginable.”
The unit suffered heavy losses during a 1944 Soviet offensive against German-occupied Ukraine and Poland, Mr. Arel said. Although some members of the unit were linked to a massacre of Polish civilians in 1944, the evidence that they attacked civilians was ultimately “not very developed,” he said.
For decades, critics in Canada have accused the Canadian government of being too lenient in its prosecution of people accused of being Nazi war criminals or collaborators.
A national commission established in 1985 found that former members of the 14th Waffen SS Division were living in Canada, but said serving in the unit did not constitute a war crime.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has, without providing evidence, accused the Ukrainian government and the Jewish Zelenskiy of being “neo-Nazis.” On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov criticized Canada, saying on the messaging app Telegram that “such sloppiness regarding memory is scandalous.”
Mr. Zelensky, who visited Ottawa to thank Canada for its support in the war against Russia, has not commented on the episode.
Valeria Safronova reporting contributed.