Michael Chomiak

Michael Chomiak, born as Mykhailo Khomiak (Ukrainian: Михайло Хом'як; August 12, 1905 – April 16, 1984) was a Ukrainian lawyer, journalist, and Nazi collaborator.

Khomiak was born in 1905 in the village of Stroniatyn, then part of Austria-Hungary. Graduated from gymnasium in Lviv in 1926, followed by a law degree from Jan Kazimierz University in 1930 and a year later a jurisprudence degree from the Academy of Foreign Trade.^[1] Until the outbreak of war, he worked as a lawyer in Lviv and Sanok, and as a court correspondent for the Ukrainian-language newspaper Dilo.^[1] He was not affiliated with any political party; instead, as a firm believer in Greek Catholicism, he was an ardent supporter of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and the moderate Ukrainian nationalism he advocated.^[1]

After the outbreak of war, he left Lviv and settled in Kraków, where in late 1939 he received an apartment previously seized from Jewish owners.^[2] The first apartment was on Kommandanturstraße (Stradomska Street), and the next was on Stanislaugasse (St. Stanislaus Street), near the Jewish quarter.^[2] Because of his political non-involvement, he became an acceptable candidate for the Germans as editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian newspaper Krakivs'ki Visti, published in Kraków since January 1940.^[1] He became one in 1940 and held the position until 1945, when the newspaper ceased publication.^[1] His deputy was Lev Lepky, brother of the scholar Bohdan Lepky.^[3] In fact, the magazine was an organ of the Ukrainian Central Committee, which had a great deal of influence over the published content, primarily on the part of committee chairman Volodymyr Kubiyovych.^[4]

Khomiak changed his name to Michael Chomiak when he emigrated to Canada after World War II. After his death in 1984, his son-in-law, John-Paul Himka, accessed his papers, which are now held in the Provincial Archives of Alberta.^[5] According to Himka, the anti-Jewish materials published in Krakiws'ki Visti contributed to the mass murder of Jews.^[6]

Khomiak's granddaughter, Chrystia Freeland, was the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs (and current Minster of Finance) when news about his work began circulating in 2017. Though Chomiak's connection to Nazism was known, the timing of the spread of that information in Western media led to suggestions by Freeland herself that it was orchestrated by Russian intelligence.^{[7][8][9][10]} Freeland's claim was never substantiated.

• Markiewicz, Paweł (2018). The Ukrainian Central Committee, 1940-1945: A Case of Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Poland (PDF). Kraków: Jagiellonian University.