When the internees were released, they expected to get back their personal items, but in many cases this did not happen. Also, while interned, the men were told that they would be paid twenty-five cents a day, the rate paid to military POWs — that is, captured enemy soldiers — for the hard labour they were forced to do. This amount was well below the daily wage of the time. Even so, some were never paid even that paltry amount. Upon their release, many internees were very bitter. Some even left Canada.
Some Germans were also interned in Canada during WWI, but while Ukrainian internees were considered “second class” and forced to do labour in often brutal conditions, the Germans were considered “first class.” They were not required to work, and some of them lived in small houses instead of barracks. They were allowed to bring servants with them and some had their own gardens. They were also given an allowance that they could use to buy tea, candy, tobacco and other luxury goods. One German internee was even able to bring in his own supply of caviar.
Of all 24 camps, it was only at Spirit Lake that Ukrainian women and children were interned. In the other camps, it was mostly single men. The internment camp at Vernon, B.C., interned some German women and children with their husbands, but because they were considered first-class prisoners they had comfortable conditions. The Ukrainian prisoners at the same camp were all male and were treated as “second-class” prisoners.
In 1917, while the war was still in progress, the government took the right to vote away from Ukrainian men who had not been naturalized by 1902, because the government feared being voted out. These men did not get the vote back until 1919.
Acknowledgment and Restitution
Many people who were interned during WWI were so ashamed and bitter about what Canada had done to them that they hid the fact from everyone — even their own children. Also, the government destroyed the internment records except for internees’ release dates. The fact of Canada’s first national internment operations was brought into the public spotlight in 1977 by Lubomyr Luciuk while he was doing research about the historical geography of Ukrainians in Kingston. Since that time, an organization called the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been asking the federal government for acknowledgment that the internment operations were unjust, and for a promise that no one in Canada will ever again be jailed because of where they came from.
For eight years, Inky Mark, the Conservative MP for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette in Manitoba, has pushed for recognition of the Ukrainian internment. In November 2005, just before the fall of the Liberal government, Inky Mark’s Private Member’s Bill C-331 became law.
This Bill “calls upon the federal government to acknowledge that thousands of Ukrainian Canadians were unjustly interned and disenfranchised in Canada during the First World War; to provide funding to commemorate the sacrifices made by these Canadians; and to develop educational materials detailing this dark period of Canada’s history.” In 2006 the Conservative government set aside two and a half million dollars for plaques and commemorative projects. The goal is to make us all aware of Canada’s first national internment operations so that never again will Canada imprison people because of where they came from.
Images and Documents
Image 1: A Canadian Department of Immigration poster, written in Ukrainian, promises 160 acres of land to immigrants who will come to Canada, saying that there are 200 million acres of land available in western Canada.
Image 2: Galician immigrants at a train station after their arrival in Quebec in 1905.
Image 3: A Ukrainian classroom in Alberta in 1920.
Image 4: The open square used as a parade ground in the centre of Spirit Lake Internment Camp. In the foreground is an ornamental stone wall made by the prisoners. In the background are buildings for the soldiers, including two barracks.
Image 5: Internees sawing wood close to Spirit Lake Internment Camp.
Image 6: A work party at an internment camp in Castle Mountain, Alberta, in 1915.
Image 7: Children interned at Spirit Lake.
Image 8: Internees standing in front of one of the dwellings in the married prisoners’ camp at Spirit Lake Internment Camp.
Image 9: Women and children interned at Spirit Lake. In the centre of the photo is one of the soldiers.
Image 10: An internee shovels snow that’s higher than he is.
Image 11: Militia Book No. 60 detailed the daily lives of the internees at Spirit Lake. Most of the government’s own records were destroyed. John Perocchio found this copy at a flea market in 1996 and purchased it for 50¢.
Image 12: Entries in Militia Book No. 60 listed internees’ ages and heights and shoe sizes, the supplies they were given, and so on. In the register above, the name of one child who has died has been crossed out.
Image 13: A grave marker written in Polish, with letters punched into a piece of tin: Here lies Jan Babi, died March 29, 1916. The marker was taken from the internees’ cemetery at Spirit Lake in 1945.
Image 14: Tents of the Pikogan community situated near Spirit Lake Internment Camp.
Image 15: A portion of the release certificate of Maksym Boyko. The second condition of release was a promise to “abstain from espionage or any acts or correspondence of a hostile nature.”
Image 16: A monument put in place at Spirit Lake to honour those who were interned there.
Image 17: Europe in 1914, as World War I began. The shaded area indicates the boundaries of Ukraine established in 1991. Galicia and Bukovyna are the areas of present-day Ukraine, then part of Austria-Hungary, where many people spoke not Russian or Austrian, but Ukrainian.
Image 18: Twenty-four internment camps across Canada held Ukrainian and other internees. Only at Spirit Lake, Quebec, and Vernon, B.C., were families also interned.
Glossaries
Ukrainian
baba: grandmother
babka: a rich, sweet egg bread traditionally baked for Easter