I learned this completely by accident while in Newfoundland. We were having breakfast at a little cafe and CBC radio was on, running stories for Canada Day. There was a long feature (excerpts from a new documentary) about the internment of Ukrainian immigrants in Canada.
I don't know the name of the documentary CBC was featuring, and I can't seem to find it. (Someone is sure to post it in comments.) Here's a National Film Board film that tells the story.
Freedom Had a Price tells the little-known story of those Ukrainian immigrants who, described by the Canadian government as "enemy aliens" at the outbreak of World War One, found themselves subject to discriminatory and repressive measures for the next six years.
Between 1914 and 1920, about 80,000 Ukrainian immigrants were forced to register as "enemy aliens," report regularly to the police, and carry government-issued identity papers at all times.
Over 5,000 of their compatriots suffered an even more severe fate, imprisoned in internment camps across the country. Treatment was often harsh, and conditions grim. Some died in the camps, many were sick or injured, and several were killed by guards while trying to escape. By means of archival footage, vintage photographs, the compelling testimony of survivors, and the commentary of such prominent Canadian historians as Desmond Morton and Donald Avery, award-winning filmmaker Yurij Luhovy weaves a moving human story of Canadian history that has all but disappeared from public consciousness.
And as I looked up this information, I learned that a similar round-up - less harsh, but no more just - was perpetrated against Italian-Canadians in 1940.
It's vitally important that we know this history and never forget it.
And lest we become complacent, certain that such injustices could never happen again, we should be well versed in what's happening right now.
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Didn't catch it myself (I was on the Hill or at Major's Hill), but it could be a rerun of this documentary: "Flowers for Nellie" (scroll down to Part II), first heard on the Current in November last year.
The last Ukrainian refugee died recently. The CBC had a very moving radio story on the Ukrainian internees for Canada Day. I remember thinking, "Why did they jail the Ukrainians? They were on our side?" (of course I thought that the internment occurred during the Second war, but it was in fact the first.)
It still makes no sense.
The last refugee was a woman, and her two year old sister died in the camp. What harm could a two year old do?
The CBC had a very moving radio story on the Ukrainian internees for Canada Day.
That's what prompted this post, as I wrote above.
I was surprized to hear of such a thing too -- as the Russian Empire was part of the Allied Forces. I did a little reading and discovered that the Ukrainian internees were certain ethnic Ukrainians whose citizenship was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire -- those Ukrainians with citizenship in the Russian Empire were not interned (throughout its history Ukraine has been divied up amongst various countries at one time or another -- oftentimes in such a manner that there would be ethnic Ukrainians in countries/empires at war with each other).
Not that that makes it any less abhorrent, but just to explain why certain Ukrainians were considered to be on "our side" while others were considered ennemies.
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