How Jewish ‘enemy aliens’ overcame a ‘traumatic’ stint in Canadian prison camps during the Second World War

Mostly Jews who had fled to England, the 2,300 internees were among the most passionate anti-Nazis, but they were treated as dangerous threats to Canadian security

Source: How Jewish ‘enemy aliens’ overcame a ‘traumatic’ stint in Canadian prison camps during the Second World War

How Jewish ‘enemy aliens’ overcame a ‘traumatic’ stint in Canadian prison camps during the Second World War

Source: How Jewish ‘enemy aliens’ overcame a ‘traumatic’ stint in Canadian prison camps during the Second World War

 

the 2,300 men of German and Austrian origin who lived for as many as three years under armed guard in the Sherbrooke camp and a handful of others in Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario were anything but enemies.

Mostly Jews who had fled to England before the Second World War broke out, the internees were among the most passionate anti-Nazis to be found on Canadian soil. At a time when anti-Semitism was the norm, when federal immigration director Frederick Blair strove to keep Jews out of the country, they were treated as dangerous threats to Canadian security.

Judge Fred Kaufman who was resc ued fro the camp, than to live with the Mittleman family in Sherbrooke and then attended Bishops