Canada’s First National Internment Operations, 1914-1920: The Serbian experience

An extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Treasury Board
held in Ottawa 5 March 1954 supports Professor Thompson’s claim.
The letter addressed to the Secretary of State on the recommendation
of the Public Records Committee granted authority for the destruction
of all archival records pertaining to the operations of the Custodian of
Enemy Property during World War I. These included: files and ledgers
related to the internment, settled claims for damages arising out of act
of illegal warfare committed by the enemy, records covering claims for
property located in enemy countries and debts owing by Canadians to
creditors in enemy countries, files dealing with applications for release
of property vested in the Custodian, and files pertaining to the administration
and liquidation of enemy property in Canada. 13) Although the
amount deposited with the Custodian was a meager amount even by
standards of the period, a professional assessment conducted in 1992
assessed its value today would be in the millions.
Confined behind barbed wire with nowhere to escape, the internees
were mistreated by the guards and their mail was censored. Internees
were used as forced labour to develop Banff National Park and
Parks Canada; in logging, steel & mining industries; and for Government
and private companies. Exposed to the extreme cold and isolation,
internees suffered frozen limbs, tuberculosis, insanity, depression
and other illnesses. Many emerged from the camps broken in health
and psyche.
The human costs were immeasurable. Isolated by vast geographic
distances, camp living conditions were substandard. In a letter to his
wife, Nick Olinyk, internee #98 at Castle Mountain camp in Alberta
wrote: “The conditions here are very poor, so that we cannot go on
much longer, we are not getting enough to eat – we are hungry as dogs.” 14)
For both the internees and their families life was painful and harsh
on either side of the barbed wire fence, each enduring this injustice in
their own way. Little Katie Domytryk, a 9-year old Ukrainian child,
wrote these painful words to her father, internee #1100 arrested in Edmonton,
interned initially at Lethbridge and later incarcerated in the
Spirit Lake camp in northern Quebec far, far away from home: “My
dear father. We haven’t nothing to eat and they do not want to give
us no wood. My mother has to go four times to get something to eat.
It is better with you, because we had everything to eat. This shack is
no good, my mother is going down town every day and I have to go
with her and I don’t go to school at winter. It is cold in that shack. We
your small children kiss your hands my dear father. Goodby my dear
father. Come home right away. Katie.” 15) With the arrest, departure and
internment of their husbands and breadwinners, with the loss of their
residence and jobs, the women were left to raise children alone with no
language or labour skills and no infrastructure to assist them. Indeed,
the reality for entire families was very grim.

Recognition, restitution and reconciliation
In 1978, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, a Ukrainian Canadian professor, literally
tripped over the story of the internment in a chance conversation
with the elderly Nick Sakaliuk. Dr. Luciuk and other Ukrainian
scholars started combing through archives and newspapers to solve
this missing piece of Canadian history. In 1987, the Ukrainian community
initiated a campaign to have the Government acknowledge the
internment. Nothing happened for 18 years until Member of Parliament
Inky Mark proposed a Private Member’s Bill C-331 to acknowledge
the Ukrainian internment, although research began to show that
other ethnic groups were affected too. In May 2008, the Ukrainian
Canadian community represented by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil
Liberties Association, the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras
Shevchenko and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress negotiated an
agreement with the Government of Canada for the creation of an
endowment fund named the Canadian First World War Internment
Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF ) for the period 2008-2023. Its mandate
is to support commemorative, educational, scholarly and cultural
projects related to the internment operations of 1914 to 1920 utilizing
the interest earned on the ten million dollars allocated to fulfill this
objective. The work of the CFWWIRF is overseen by the Endowment
Council comprised of representatives from the three Ukrainian organizations,
representatives from three other affected groups, an appointed
Chair and one internee descendent. Draga Dragašević was
selected to represent the Serbian National Shield Society of Canada
(Srpska Narodna Odbrana u Kanadi) on the Endowment Council for
the period 2008-2012.

Endowment Council’s work
Since its inception in 2008, the Endowment Council has worked diligently
to meet its objective. Over the first six years of its mandate it
has awarded more than one million dollars 16) in grants for a variety of
projects to educate Canadians about the internment: the Spirit Lake
Interpretive Centre in Quebec and the National Internment Exhibit
in Banff, both open to the public; the renewal of the Kapuskasing
cemetery; archaeological work at camp sites; academic books, novels,
photojournalism, artistic projects; National Education Project whose
goal is to include the internment in curricula across Canada; development
of resources for students and teachers; commemorative stamp
unveiling at a cancellation ceremony in the Senate; research on affected
communities; and media outreach with articles and promotional
announcements.
To further preserve the memory of the internees, the Endowment
Council has hosted symposia; apprised museums, libraries, media
and boards of education; initiated the establishment of internment archives
at Queen’s University in Kingston; sought artifacts of internees;
and advocated for an internment gallery at the Canadian Museum for
Human Rights in Winnipeg.

Serbian research
The Ukrainian community has been researching the internment of its
community members for more than 30 years. However, research on
the Serbian experience has only just begun. At this point in time, the
little we know about the Serbian experience stems from evidence left
by Božidar M. Markovich in a series of articles published in 1938 in the
newspaper Glas Kanade, 17) mention of Serbs in Ukrainian Canadian
research and now the ongoing work of Dr. Marinel Mandreš.
Božidar M. Markovich, one-time president and secretary of the
Serbian National Shield Society of Canada (Srpska Narodna Odbrana
u Kanadi), owner and editor of Voice of Canada (Glas Kanade) which
later became Voice of Canadian Serbs (Glas Kanadskih Srba), longtime
president of the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Toronto,
and one of the founders of Radio Šumadija, had a very direct and significant
connection with Serbian internees.
In 1919, one year after the Armistice, Consul General Antun Seferović
of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes sent Božidar M.
Markovich to Kapuskasing. 18) Acting on behalf of the Serbian National
Shield Society of Canada which had been established in Toronto in
1916, Mr. Markovich interviewed several hundred 19) Serbian internees
during the course of two days in the presence of camp authorities. His
goal was to facilitate the liberation of Serbs interned in the Kapuskasing
camp. “One by one, escorted by armed soldiers, all the Serbs in
that camp were brought before Markovich to be interviewed. Downcast
men with long beards said their name, place of birth, year of birth,
when they had arrived in Canada, where they were when they were arrested
and why they were arrested… During the interview many cried
like babies, describing their oppression which had lasted three or four
years and which was without reason or need.” 20)
Odbrana membership cards confirmed the members’ identity and
loyalty to Canada and accelerated their release. In fact, many Serbs
who were not interned had been protected by their membership in the
Odbrana. 21) During the course of two days, Mr. Markovich expedited
the release of 264 Serbian internees. 22)
The only other known fact about the Serbs was that they were interned
in many of the camps, but mainly at Mara Lake in British Columbia
and Kapuskasing where some may be buried in the restored
cemetery there. 23)
_______________
13) Luciuk 48.
14) CFWWIRF . Brochure.
15) CFWWIRF . Brochure.
16) CFWWIRF . Recalling Canada’s First National Internment Operations:
Annual Report 2014 (Winnipeg: CFWWIRF , 2014): 4.
17) Olga B. Markovich, Doseljavanje Srba u Kanadu i njihova aktivnost
(Windsor: Avala Printing and Publishing, 1965): 101-103.
18) Bora Dragašević, Stopama predaka: autobiografija (Beograd: Institut za
savremenu istoriju, 2012): 361.
19) Marinel Mandreš, Loyal Enemy Aliens: The Internment of Ethnic Serbs
and Romanians in Canada during the Great War (1914-1920). Powerpoint
presentation. 22 August 2014.
20) Markovich 102.
21) Mandreš 22 August 2014.
22) Markovich 103.
23) Mandreš 22 August 2014.