One hundred years ago, 8,579 Canadian residents were sent to First World War internment camps across the country.
A new Canadian War Museum exhibit, “Enemy Aliens – Internment in Canada, 1914-1920,” explores how this detainment policy impacted Canadians with Ukrainian, German and other European backgrounds.
The exhibit opened at the museum last week and will remain on display until March. It features 33 photographs from First World War internment camps. These pictures are presented on large red and white boards hanging along the North Corridor of the museum.
One photo captures four internees carrying a coffin on their shoulders, while a large group watches from behind barbed wire fences. The caption explains that 107 political prisoners died in these camps, usually from diseases.
Museum historian John Maker researched internment camps and wrote the text for this exhibit.
“This exhibition helps us today, understand what happened 100 years ago,” Maker says. “It highlights the experiences of the internees, whose rights were suspended at that time.”
There were 24 internment camps set up across Canada during the First World War. Six of the camps were in Ontario, including Kingston, Petawawa and Kapuskasing. Many of the internees were forced into unpaid or low-paid physical labour.
“The exhibition takes a broad look at the experiences of individuals from the range of countries who were interned,” Maker says, “which includes citizens of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria.”
Robert Borden, prime minister at the time, got the War Measures Act passed without opposition in 1914. This meant Canadian immigrants from countries at war with Canada, and citizens with a connection to these countries, could be arrested without cause.
Since Ukrainian-Canadians were the largest group interned, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation partnered with the museum to create the Enemy Aliens exhibit.
“People who would have gladly served as soldiers were instead put in work camps in Canada,” says Roman Zakaluzny, a Ukrainian-Canadian who is involved with the foundation.
Zakaluzny says some Ukrainians who were sent to internment camps were actually born in Canada. He says that overnight they were denied their right to a lawyer and were not given any specific reason for being arrested.
“What the internment operations tells us,” says Zakaluzny, “is it’s possible for a government, even the Canadian government, to suspend all the rights and liberties that a citizen of this country may have.”
Zakaluzny says he thinks this exhibit will appeal to “descendants of the internment operations, whether they’re of the First World War internment operations or the Second World War internment.”
During the Second World War, five Italian-Canadians from Ottawa were sent to internment camps in Ontario and New Brunswick. There were over 30,000 people interned after the War Measures Act was invoked in 1939.