Ormstown, Quebec – Report: Suspected Nazi War Criminal Works As Beekeeper In Canada

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    Vladimir Katriuk points at his honeybee farm in Ormstown, Que., Wednesday. Katriuk, alleged to be one of the world's most-wanted Nazi war criminals, is living a quiet life keeping bees and selling honey in rural Quebec. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)Ormstown, Quebec – Propped up by a shovel that acts as his cane, Vladimir Katriuk putters about his wooded lot in rural Quebec, lovingly caring for his bees and appearing to have few worries other than this season’s honey yield.

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    But a prominent Jewish human-rights organization insists there’s much more to the cordial 91-year-old beekeeper — whom they allege is of the world’s most-wanted Nazi war criminals.

    The Simon Wiesenthal Center recently ranked Katriuk No. 4 on its top-10 list of suspected former Nazis, after a new study alleged he was a key participant in a village massacre during the Second World War.

    An academic article alleged that, in 1943, a man with his name lay in wait outside a barn that had been set ablaze, operating a stationary machine gun and firing on civilians as they tried to escape. The same article said the man took a watch, bracelet and gun from the body of a woman found nearby.

    Katriuk spoke with The Canadian Press this week at his small farm in Ormstown, just under an hour’s drive from Montreal.

    He has denied any involvement in war crimes in the past. This week he repeatedly refused to discuss anything about himself — other than his passion: the honey bees.

    “I have nothing to say,” Katriuk said of the accusations, after putting down a beekeeper’s smoker and replacing a mesh veil for a floppy ball cap.

    “When we talk about bees, that’s different. When we talk about my own affairs, that’s something else. I’m sorry.”

    Asked how he felt about having his name on the list of worst surviving Nazis, Katriuk paused. He reached into a box and pulled out a piece of a beehive: “You see?” he said. “Here they have started to make the royal cell (for a queen bee).”

    The otherwise chatty Ukrainian-Canadian, who moved to Canada in 1951, claimed he wasn’t aware his name was added to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list.

    When pressed again about the allegations, he replied: “Let people talk.”

    Katriuk has faced accusations that he was a Nazi collaborator before, but this week Katriuk seemed fixated only on his bees, and their well-being.

    He even rushed to one bee’s defence.

    “Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move,” Katriuk shouted at a news photographer who tried to swat a bee that had landed on his lapel.

    “Stay still and that’s it.”


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    15 Comments
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    shredready
    shredready
    11 years ago

    I hope he will be taken to trial to see if he is who he is accused of being and done . and if found guilty executed even after all these years . If found not quilty let him go on his merry way.

    But from the way he acts he does seem guilty of something

    yosefben
    yosefben
    11 years ago

    “Asked how he felt about having his name on the list of worst surviving Nazis, Katriuk paused. He reached into a box and pulled out a piece of a beehive: ‘You see?’ he said. ‘Here they have started to make the royal cell (for a queen bee).’

    Interesting answer…still focussed on the idea of royal blood.

    bennyt
    bennyt
    11 years ago

    I hope that his bees turn on him and devour him up so that no trace of this human filth remains.

    concerned_Jew
    concerned_Jew
    11 years ago

    How should he act if he were innocent? I don’t believe for a minute that he is but his guilt will have to be proven. How longs before they arrest this guy and put him on trial now that he is a known commodity. We will see how much he talks about bees when he is on the stand. They will charge him with contempt of court if he refuses to talk. I say arrest him and let him tell his story to the judge. Seems like he is hiding something. Been living guilt free all these years in Canada, what a life for a suspected murderer.

    basmelech
    basmelech
    11 years ago

    Justice is in Hashem’s hands. For some reason many of these Nazi war criminals are living long lives. Hashem must have his reasons.

    elizimm
    elizimm
    11 years ago

    I think there are some Statute of limitations issues – I am not sure what Canada’s policy is, but if there is clear proof that he was indeed a monster and he is not prosecuted, people should harass him, setup a mock machine gun outside his house and every time he walks out start making machine gun noises.

    Let pigs run wild near him, pigs like each other…

    Tzi_Bar_David
    Tzi_Bar_David
    11 years ago

    There is no statute of limitations on murder.

    11 years ago

    lock him up and then ask questions

    The-Logician
    The-Logician
    11 years ago

    “Let them talk.”

    An innocent person would never react that way! Which sane person wouldn’t react with outrage and firm denial when being accused of crimes against humanity?! He is as guilty as can be.

    11 years ago

    Canada had been most uncooperative when it comes to hunting Nazis. The only country with more Nazi criminals than Canada is Argentina. The Catholic Francophone Quebecites are a bunch of Anti Semites.

    11 years ago

    My father is now 89 years old. This story is particularly creepy for me because of how similar it sounds to what my father several times described happened to his extended family, in a barn somewhere near Sandomierz/Klimontow in southern Poland. His story was that the barn in which they were all hiding (about 40 relatives) was surrounded by a group of armed Ukrainians, and torched.

    Only my father and two of his cousins survived. My father told me how he jumped out of a window, his clothes burning, and deciding to run AT and through the Ukrainians. He told me that he tripped and fell, and rolled in the dirt, which ended up having the effect of extinguishing his clothes.

    The really ‘weird’ part of my father’s story was what happened next. The Ukrainians decided to ‘barbecue’ my father and his two cousins. My father described to me how they were tied to poles, and how the Ukrainians were gathering wood when . . .

    a few large black cars drove up; a bunch of Germans in uniforms got out, and had an argument with the Ukrainians, at the end of which my father and his two cousins were untied and put in the cars, and taken to a German base for a few weeks of torture and interrogation.