[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] World War 1 internment camps in Canada

Lloyd Friedrick lloydfriedrick at telus.net
Thu Sep 11 12:50:32 PDT 2014


It was just as bad in Canada when WW ll  was declared.  Our German church 
and two Mennonite churches were burnt down during one night just north of 
Lashburn Saskatchewan. We were part of a small Volhynian German community 
located amidst a very British community.
The following week, an RCMP officer came to our farm and told my father he 
had to remove the large radio aerial from the top of our horse barn.
Neighbours had complained that they were certain that father was 
broadcasting directly to German submarines.
The Mountie also recorded in his report that we had an $8.00 Cooey .22 rifle 
and an old double barreled shotgun.
Father mentioned the mysterious burning of our churches, but it was never 
investigated or reported in newspapers.
As a very young boy, I was frightened, father instructed us to never speak 
German in public.
We lived under considerable stress of persecution for a time, but as many 
German farmers produced a lot of pork, bacon and diary products, the 
community realized that we were sort of supporting the War effort.
There is much more to the story during these times and I plan to write about 
it before my memory fails.

lloyd friedrick

-----Original Message----- 
From: Allyn Brosz
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 12:31 PM
To: ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org
Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] World War 1 internment camps in Canada

In the United States, the anti-German paranoia/hysteria was fairly
widespread and affected many first, second, and third generation American
residents, both citizens and aliens, simply because of their origin and
their accents. In addition to the internments mentioned in previous
messages, my GR ancestors in the Dakotas were subjected to extreme
pressures to purchase "Liberty Bonds" to finance the war. Speaking the
German language was banned in public and over the telephone, and my
ancestors resorted to secret church services held in farmers' haylofts and
other venues because German-language services were prohibited.

Here are a couple of excellent links:

http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/yockel.htm

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/us-confiscated-half-billion-dollars-private-property-during-wwi-180952144/?no-ist

Allyn Brosz
Washington, DC

On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 3:00 PM, <ger-poland-volhynia-request at sggee.org>
wrote:

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Bob Frederking <robert.frederking at gmail.com>
> To: ger-poland-volhynia at sggee.org
> Cc:
> Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 21:41:32 -0400
> Subject: Re: [Ger-Poland-Volhynia] World War 1 internment camps in Canada
> Russia was an Ally of Great Britain during WW1, so our ancestors who came
> from Volhynia were on Russian passports and generally were not bothered.
>
> Bob Frederking
>
> On 10/09/2014 8:41 PM, Helen Gillespie wrote:
>
>> The August issue of a Toronto area German newspaper called ECHO GERMANICA
>> outlined a story on  "enemy aliens" - mainly Ukrainian, Polish, Croatian
>> and German immigrants who were interned during the First War -  even if
>> they were naturalized citizens - or, if not interned, compelled to
>> register
>> with the local authorities on a regular basis.
>>
>> Perhaps your ancestor was one of these?
>>
>> A website about these 24 Canadian internment camps has been created and
>> plaques will be dedicated in remembrance.  The Ukrainian Civil Liberties
>> Union has been the main force behind the website found at
>> http://www.internmentcanada.ca/
>>
>> A list of internees - mostly Ukrainian, but some German - is found in a
>> publication called Roll Call - plus a number of other books on the 
>> subject
>> - see  the bibliography
>> http://www.internmentcanada.ca/resources-bibliography.cfm
>>
>>
>> Helen
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ger-Poland-Volhynia site list
>> Ger-Poland-Volhynia at sggee.org
>> https://www.sggee.org/mailman/listinfo/ger-poland-volhynia
>>
>
>
>
>
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