"April 28 is when Ukraine's Galicia SS Division was established," the new National Labor Party said. "It is our national holiday. For the first time in many years, we must celebrate it in an appropriate way."
The SS division, which derived its name from a region in Western Ukraine, was comprised of people who saw the Third Reich as a force to topple the Bolsheviks and gain independence for the republic. The division has been accused of participating in several atrocities during the war.
The party that appeared in 2006 is inviting "patriots" to take part in a torch-lit march in central Kiev April 28 "to pay tribute to our forgotten heroes." The party has applied for official permission to stage the event.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Tabachnik said Wednesday the government was opposed to the march.
"Any marches honoring SS troops or divisions connected to the Hitler regime are an insult to the millions of Ukrainian citizens killed during the Great Patriotic War," the Party of Regions quoted him as saying. "It would mean humiliating the memory of war veterans and their families."
Ukraine's civilian losses in WWII and under German occupation are estimated at seven million, including over a million Jews. Many civilians died in atrocities, from forced labor and in reprisal massacres of whole villages for attacks against Nazi troops.
Appeals to honor former Nazi collaborators as liberators, including by building monuments to some of them, have been heard occasionally, mainly from the western regions, since Ukraine became independent following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
