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Chapter Fourteen
BC’s Internment Camps: Behind the Barbed Wire
The internment of so-called enemy aliens during the Great War was one of British Columbia’s darker chapters. Compared to the Japanese internments of World War II it has been almost forgotten. But through the work of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, the Ukrainian Canadian community and members of the Croatian, Serbian, Polish, Hungarian and German communities, what happened in camps around British Columbia is becoming better known. (In Ontario, subjects of the Ottoman Empire were also interned.)
As the war broke out in 1914, Prime Minister Borden promised that all loyal Canadians would be protected from persecution. “We have no quarrel with the German people,” Borden told the House of Commons in mid-August, after war had been declared. “Nearly half a million of the very best citizens of Canada are of German origin, and I am sure that no one would for one moment desire to utter any word or use any expression in debate which would wound the self-respect or hurt the feelings of our fellow citizens of German descent.”
The same respect, said Borden, applied to those with ties to the Austro-Hungarian Empire:
We have declared by Order in Council and by proclamation under the authority of His Royal Highness the Governor General that those people who were born in Germany or in Austria-Hungary and have come to Canada as adopted citizens of this country, whether they have become naturalized or not, are entitled to the protection of the law in Canada and shall receive it, that they shall not be molested or interfered with, unless any among them should desire to aid or abet the enemy or leave this country for the purpose of fighting against Great Britain and her allies. If any of them should be so minded we shall be obliged to follow the laws and usages of war in that regard with all the humanity that may be possible. But up to the present, we have seen no disposition among these people to do anything of the kind. They are pursuing their usual avocations and behaving themselves as good citizens of Canada. We honour and respect them for it, and have every confidence that they will pursue that course throughout this crisis, however long it may continue.
So things started out with good intentions. But that didn’t last for long. When it became clear that the war was not going to end overnight, moves were quickly under way to intern not only potential combatants, but also working people and their families.
“All subjects of enemy states were designated enemy aliens regardless of ethnicity,” says Ukrainian heritage professor Bohdan Kordan. “But there is a unique BC story to internment that is neither widely understood nor told.”
That history includes the grim truth that the province was in the depths of a depression in 1914. Jobs were scarce, and recent immigrants were resented. including hard-working Ukrainians and Croatians, who were considered subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire even though the links were tenuous.
“Anti-immigrant sentiment was very strong within both the court of public opinion and the political leadership in British Columbia,” says Professor Kordan.
Over five thousand Ukrainians were interned, not because they were a threat to the security of the province, but because they were considered a threat to the economic prosperity of more established workers. The thinking was that by removing them from the mines, mills and logging camps of the province, there would be more and better paying jobs for others.
But having removed these men from the general workforce, the province of British Columbia then decided that it would save some money by putting them to work on some rather dubious mountain road projects.
“Use of prisoners as a source of labour was routine practice,” says Professor Kordan. “The principle was simple. There was work that needed doing and cheap prisoner labour, which was suddenly available and seen as an opportunity, would be utilized.”
In 1915 a businessman wrote to Premier McBride: “Regarding my interview today on the subject of employment of alien prisoners at Vernon...There now appears to be an opportunity to link up the Okanagan with the Kootenays at little or no expense to the province. Surely this is an opportunity that should be made use of.”
BC Minister of Public Works Thomas Taylor read the letter and advised the premier: “Regarding the employment of alien prisoners interned at Vernon on the Edgewood–Vernon road. May I say that the proposal contained in [the] letter meets with my strongest approval.”
And so it turned out. Internees were pushed hard, paid twenty-five cents a day, and deprived of food when they didn’t co-operate. They lived in a shadow world where there didn’t seem to be any established rules governing how they would be treated. The use of force to get prisoners to work was supposed to be prohibited by international law. But despite protests, the practice continued.
Camps were dispersed around the province: Vernon, Nanaimo, Edgewood, Monashee– Mara Lake, Revelstoke, Field–Otter and Fernie–Morrissey. One camp in Montreal opened on August 13, even before Prime Minister Borden delivered his speech on tolerance to the House of Commons. Camps at Vernon and Nanaimo opened in September 1914. Vernon was the second-last of the twenty-four internment camps to close in February 1920.
The camps were something families did not want to talk about. Not only were men interned, but wives and children were also put behind barbed wire. Escapes were not uncommon. Escapees in Canada were shot at and at least one was killed.
With assistance from Professor Bohdan Kordan, director of the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage, St. Thomas More College / University of Saskatchewan, and Andrea Malysh in Vernon, program manager for the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.
Contents
Sharing Internment Stories for Future Generations
Article: The Spy Scare—Truth or Fiction?
Article: The Spy at Baron’s Manor
Scorned at Home—Serving Canada at the Front
How the Newspapers Reported the Internment Camps
The Conservative Party Speaks Out
Sidebar: From Our Listeners
Sharing Internment Stories for Future Generations
From a visit with Andrea Malysh, program manager, Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund
Canada’s World War I “concentration camps” were not something that families who were interned talked about. For most, it was a painful memory, better forgotten. But now that the internment is widely seen as an injustice, many families are learning about what happened to their parents and grandparents and why.
Andrea Malysh of Vernon is of Ukrainian descent and has been working on the First World War Internment Recognition issue since 1997. She went to school in Vernon but did not learn until much later that the playing fields at her school were actually the site of one of BC’s largest prison camps.
Today, a small Ukrainian Orthodox Church sits across the street and there is a memorial plaque beside the playing field so that people can understand a bit better what happened there between 1914 and 1920.
“I never could have imagined that Ukrainian and others of Eastern European descent were held here,” says Andrea. “This is where the government sent families, and some were still behind barbed wire here in 1920 when the camp was finally closed.”
In June of 1997, when the memorial plaque was unveiled, one of those internees was able to attend the ceremony. Fred Kohse was just a child when he entered the camp with his parents. He spent six years there.
“The Kohse story is quite amazing,” says Andrea. “Fred’s father was German (Prussian) and his mother was English. When his father was interned at Nanaimo, his English mother put her baby into a rowboat and rowed up the gorge to the detaining centre where her husband was held and asked to be with him.”
At first the authorities told her the camp was no place for an Englishwoman. But she told them she had nowhere else to go as the government had confiscated their property and wealth. So she eventually joined her husband behind the barbed wire.
“The Kohses were first sent to Nanaimo internment camp until the government decided that Vernon would be the facility that would house men, women and children,” says Andrea. “But the war dragged on for years, and Mrs. Kohse realized she had to find a way out.”
At first, she appealed to the camp staff. She wrote letters and made appeals based on her English ancestry.
“Camp authorities left her with little doubt that her request to be released would be ignored,” says Andrea. “They tore up her letters right in front of her.”
Gradually she befriended an Englishwoman who lived on the other side of the camp fence and who agreed to smuggle out a letter. It was sent to the House of Lords in England, who took their time in processing the request. When they finally did act, the war had been over for almost two years.
Fred Kohse (internee #5019) and his mother and father were finally free. The family later moved to northern Vancouver Island and settled near Kelsey Bay, where Fred learned farming and logging. Fred became a fisherman and captain of trollers. He spent sixty years in the fishing industry before he passed on in July 2001.
“If Fred had not come forward, his story would have been lost,” says Andrea. “It was a special moment for me when he came to Vernon to be part of our ceremony. He told me that so much had changed, but he still remembered the dry hills around the camp from the days when he was interned there.”
Today, finding stories like this one is a big part of Andrea’s work. So it was a big surprise just last year when her sister was searching through some family papers and found their grandfather’s old passport and some other documents.
“It turned out to be the Austro-Hungarian passport that he entered Canada with,” says Andrea. “That was really the beginning of his problems when the war broke out. He was Ukrainian but he came from the part of the Ukraine that was under the Austro-Hungarian Empire and that made him an enemy alien.”
The other papers included registration cards for both him and his wife that had to be presented every month to the local authorities. A lot of Ukrainian farmers were allowed to stay on the land to provide food for the war effort. But if they stepped out of line and didn’t present their documents, they could quickly join those behind the barbed wire.
“The strange part of this story is that I had been telling people since 1997 to hunt through their family papers to find out if their parents were subject to internment,” says Andrea. “When my sister found these papers, it was the first time I realized that my own grandparents were caught up in the internment too. After further searching through Library and Archives Canada, I found my great-grandfather, Wasyl Luchak, listed as being interned in Spirit Lake, Quebec, POW #864. Now this was a shock to our family.”
Many documents like these have disappeared. Government archival records of the camps were systematically destroyed in the 1950s, making it difficult for historians to piece together all the details. But as more personal stories are found, the true history is gradually emerging.
"Most people now know about what happened to Japanese Canadians during World War II,” says Andrea. “But educating people about internment during the Great War is even tougher because the survivors are all gone. They came to this country to escape tyranny in Europe and ended up victims of that same tyranny right here in Canada.”
[Click here for The Spy Scare—Truth or Fiction?]
[Click here for The Spy at the Baron’s Manor]
Scorned at Home—Serving Canada at the Front
Despite this harsh treatment, Ukrainian men who were still at liberty and others who were considered enemy aliens attempted to sign up to fight for Canada.
“As enemy aliens, they were prevented from enlisting. Naturalized citizens, however, could enlist and many did so,” says Professor Bohdan Kordan. “The reason for their enlistment differed very little from the general population. Military service offered them relief from the difficult employment situation in the country.”
Some changed their names or enlisted as Russian subjects. And, yes, it was not unusual to find individuals who were serving overseas but whose relations were interned back in Canada.
The story of Sergeant Filip Konowal stands out as an illustration of service in the face of discrimination. Konowal was born in the Ukraine in 1888 and served in the Russian Imperial Army. It’s believed he came to Canada around 1913 and joined up with the 77th Battalion in July 1915, listing his place of birth as Russia. A declaration of his Ukrainian heritage might have had a different result. His wife and daughter were still in the old country.
Konowal transferred to the 47th Battalion (New Westminster) in the summer of 1916 and was made a lance corporal. In August 1917 near Lens, France, he was wounded in the neck and face while attacking and capturing a series of German machine-gun posts. Konowal was deadly with a bayonet and killed at least sixteen of the enemy. He kept fighting even after he was wounded and that caught the attention of his superiors. After he was evacuated back to Britain for medical care, he received a Victoria Cross from the King for “one of the most daring and heroic [exploits] in the history of the army.”
Konowal was made a military attaché at the Russian Embassy and promoted to sergeant. He returned to Canada briefly in late 1918 but his military service was not yet over. He was assigned to the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force and left Vancouver for Vladivostok. In June 1919 he returned to Canada and was finally discharged.
The postwar years were difficult for Konowal. He suffered from what we now know as post-traumatic stress disorder. His wife and daughter were lost in the Stalinist purges that followed the revolution. During the Depression, Konowal found work as a junior caretaker in the House of Commons after another VC recipient came to his aid. Prime Minister Mackenzie King discovered that he was washing floors and made him a special custodian in his office.
Speaking of his experiences, Konowal once told a newspaperman, “I mopped up overseas with a rifle, and here I must mop up with a mop.” But there were bright spots. When the royal family visited Ottawa in 1939, Konowal was again honoured at the National War Memorial. He tried to enlist in World War II but was too old. Then in 1956, he went overseas again with other VC winners to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Eden and the Queen. He died in 1959.
(See Chapter 3 for more about Victoria Cross recipient Filip Konowal.)
How the Newspapers Reported the Internment Camps
With thanks to Lorne Adamson at the Vernon Museum Archives for transcriptions.
Here is some of the reporting from the Vernon News during the war years. The editorial position of the paper was that internees were much better treated than those held in German prisons.
There is some evidence that a class system developed at the Vernon camp. Aristocratic German civilians, who were members of the pre-war German immigrant elite of Vancouver, were treated differently. They were granted special favours ostensibly in order to observe the Hague Regulations, which called for a better quartering and subsistence for those of the officer class or its equivalent.
The Germans brought maids and hired cooks. They had concerts and tended gardens. The Austro-Hungarian (Ukrainian and Croatian) prisoners could expect hard labour on work crews in the bush and in the national parks.
September 17, 1914. Will Bring War Prisoners to Vernon for Safe Keeping
German prisoners of war are likely to be brought to Vernon in the near future, the military authorities having taken over the large building fronting on Lorne Street, just west of Mara Avenue, to be used as a military prison.
The building, which was originally a provincial jail, but until last autumn was used as a branch of the Provincial Hospital for the Insane, is well suited to the purposes for which it will be used.
A force of men is already at work, making alterations and repairs, but as yet it is not known when the prisoners of war will reach Vernon, nor how many will be kept here.
January 7, 1915
There are now 57 German and Austrian prisoners in the Vernon Internment prison…We are asked to mention the fact that a skating rink which has been formed on the grounds is not for the use of the general public as some seem to imagine, but is reserved for prisoners and members of the BC Horse who are acting as guards.
June 6, 1915
A special train on Sunday brought in eighty more alien prisoners from the coast for the local internment camp. This brings the number now interned here up to about four hundred and thirty. It is expected that about 200 of these will leave shortly for Monashee to engage in work on the road to Edgewood.
April 6, 1916
A German prisoner named Forseller was “found missing” when the roll was called at the Internment Camp on Sunday night, and is still at large, though every effort is being made to locate him. This man is said to be a particularly dangerous alien and served for some time last year in the 54th Battalion, where he had enlisted as a Belgian. Suspicion was aroused and he was arrested as a spy, and found to be a German. It is not known how he affected his escape and apparently there is no clue as to his present whereabouts.
April 13, 1916. Editorial: Interned Prisoners
Perhaps we in Canada err just a little in the treatment accorded to interned aliens. It seems just possible that in our desire to give these imprisoned enemies a “square deal” that we lean too much to the side of clemency. At any rate, nobody acquainted with conditions in the Vernon Internment Camp will accuse the local authorities of undue severity. That kindness and consideration are by no means appreciated by the Germans held in durance here was made amply plain last week when it was found necessary to remove half a dozen of these men who had been guilty of rank insubordination, from the camp to the city jail. Their removal was the signal for a volley of abuse from their compatriots in the camp, who hurled all manner of foul insults at the officers and police, while they loudly cheered the departing prisoners.
We make no comment upon this incident, as the Censor does not encourage criticism of this nature, and we agree in the wisdom of his restrictions. It is permitted, however, to indicate how British prisoners are treated in Germany, and by way of contrast to the manner in which we handle our foes in this country we need do no more than call attention to the following press dispatch. We do not for a moment advocate reprisals in kind. Indeed it would be impossible to conceive of British or Canadian authorities acting in such a manner no matter how sore might be the provocation. But when we have the horrible plight of our countrymen in German prisons brought so forcibly to our notice it is hard to keep one’s feelings under control.
September 7, 1916. Prisoners Escape From Internment Camp: Sensational Get-away of Twelve Aliens on Saturday Night
By digging a tunnel nearly one hundred feet in length which started under the kitchen in the Internment Camp and came out on the premises of a nearby German resident named Frank Scherle, twelve alien prisoners at the Vernon Camp of Detention made their escape on Saturday night.
The work has evidently been carried on for some time as the tunnel was carefully prepared and must have taken a long time in getting it through.
The 30th BC Horse has had parties out scouring the country for the fugitives since Sunday morning, but so far without locating any of them.
Scherle was arrested on Tuesday by Chief Clerke, of the city police, who has been active in this investigation. We do not know what punishment may be given him if he is found guilty, but it will hardly, we imagine, be as severe as that accorded to Nurse Cavell who was shot on the charge of assisting prisoners to escape from German clutches in Belgium.
The tunnel through which the prisoners escaped was not discovered until a large bread box was moved in the kitchen, when the opening beneath it was disclosed. The earth was distributed under the floor of the kitchen which stands some height from the ground.
September 21, 1916
Three of the twelve alien prisoners who escaped from the Internment Camp were captured last week by details of the 30th BC Horse and the 172nd Battalion, and were brought in on Monday. They had worked their way down Kalamalka Lake and across the divide back of Kelowna, to a point near Midway where they were rounded up. The other nine are still at large, though search parties are scouring the country in all directions. It is said that three other men answering the description of the escaped prisoners were recently seen near the Indian reserve at the head of Okanagan Lake, and parties of the 30th BC Horse are now on their trail. The three men brought in say that the escape was made by different parties of prisoners at intervals between 11 o’clock and 3 o’clock, and that they separated as they left the tunnel. No great degree of reliance is placed upon their statements, but it seems evident that they did not hang together after leaving the camp, and it is thought that one party took the direction of the Nicola district.
March 28, 1918
A prisoner escaped from the Alien Internment Camp on Tuesday night. He appears to have climbed the fence between nine and ten o’clock and made his getaway. One is at a loss to know why any German should wish to change the salubrious atmosphere of our model camp for the hostile and unsympathetic environment outside its kindly walls. It appears, however, that even the ties of love fail sometimes to bind the erratic temperament of some of those whose liberty it has been found necessary to curtail.
The Conservative Party Speaks Out
A Conservative prime minister and a Conservative British Columbia premier were among those behind the internment of Ukrainians and other Canadians in 1914. But in 2005, Conservative leader Stephen Harper rose in the House of Commons to call for restitution for those who were interned:
Between 1914 and 1920 Canada witnessed its first internment operations under the War Measures Act. Thousands of loyal Canadians were systematically arrested and interned in 24 camps throughout the country simply because of their national origin. Nearly 9,000 Canadians were interned, the vast majority of Ukrainian origin.
At the outset of the First World War, western Ukraine was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Canada was of course at war with Austria-Hungary. In the midst of wartime hysteria, everyone with a connection to Austria-Hungary was deemed a threat to our country. Often of course this was simply incorrect. Ironically, in this case many thousands of Ukrainian Canadians had actually fled the occupying power in their homeland. A knowledgeable assessment of the situation could have led to only one conclusion: these refugees of Canada’s wartime enemy were not enemies of Canada. They were new, loyal British subjects and allies of our wartime cause.
In fact, in 1915, I should mention that the British foreign office twice instructed Ottawa to grant Ukrainians “preferential treatment,” arguing that they were to be considered “friendly aliens” rather than “enemy aliens.” Yet the federal government of the time simply would not listen and would not change course.
Throughout the internment operation the civilian internees were transported to Canada’s frontier hinterlands where they were forced to perform hard labour under trying circumstances. Some sites that we all know well today, including Banff and Jasper national parks and the experimental farms at Kapuskasing, were first developed by this pool of forced labour. Again ironically, as Ukrainian Canadians were being interned for having been unfortunate enough to enter this country with Austro-Hungarian passports, other Ukrainian Canadians who had entered Canada on different foreign documents were serving Canada loyally in overseas battle.
Let us not forget Ukrainian-Canadian war veteran Philip Konowal, who was awarded the Victoria Cross by King George V for his brave wartime service. He was a Ukrainian Canadian honoured, while at the very same time his fellow neighbours and descendants of Ukraine were wondering why they had chosen Canada to be their new home while they were being interned.
From Our Listeners
Dr. T.B.R. Westgate, POW: A short stay ended up to be much longer than anticipated as war travel restrictions began in the summer of 1914. His wife and three children—aged ten, nine and four—were left to find their own living in England. [Read more]
Wilderness to the Trenches: He made his way across the country to what is now Alberta, where he had adventures that young men in England could only dream about. He was good with his hands and willing to take on just about any job he was asked to do. [Read more]