Captured Lives

Martin Auger. Prisoners on the Home Front: German POWs and "Enemy Aliens" in Southern Quebec, 1940-1946. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005. 240 pp. $35.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-7748-1224-5. Reviewed by Angelika E. Sauer Published on H-Canada (January, 2007) Concentration camps had come a long way excellent bibliography of published and unpub‐ since the turn of the century, when Western colo‐ lished secondary sources, integrating them into nial powers (notably Spain, the United States, and his narrative without, however, fully positioning Britain) frst started herding civilians into con‐ himself in the historiography of internment. His fined spaces in an attempt to subjugate hostile main point is that "the internment operation in populations in their overseas colonies. By the time Canada, although occasionally lacking proper or‐ Canada received its frst batch of mostly German ganization, was a positive experience overall"--a Jewish civilian internees from Britain in 1940, es‐ home front victory (pp .4, 152). Other writers have tablishing internment operations "had become questioned the legality of interning civilians and standard procedure in times of war," as Martin the positive experience that internment allegedly Auger assures us (p. 18). All belligerents used provided.[1] But Auger's point is well taken: one camps to intern not only prisoners of war but also should not, even in a casual way, equate Canada's to neutralize potential internal enemies. Designed internment camps with Nazi Germany's concen‐ by the modern state and managed by a special‐ tration camps. Growing out of the same seed of ized bureaucracy, these modernized internment extending colonial warfare to perceived civilian operations could range from the horrors of the enemies, these two types of camps had historical‐ Nazi concentration camps, Stalinist gulags, and Ja‐ ly become very different and nearly unrelated panese torture camps to the fair and humane phenomena. Nothing could illustrate this better treatment meted out by the Western Allies, Cana‐ than the story of how newly interned German da included. POWs in late 1942 complained that their lodging, The history of Canadian internment opera‐ courtesy of the Canadian government, was "primi‐ tions in World War II, both affecting civilians and tive" and "unworthy of an officer." This promptly captured members of the enemy armed forces, is led to the construction of a new and more com‐ fairly well known, and Martin Auger provides an fortable officer camp (pp. 36-37). Throughout the book, Auger shows numerous examples of Canada H-Net Reviews scrupulously following the Geneva Convention Yet he does prove throughout the book that pat‐ that regulated conditions for interned enemy terns of internment operations were established armed forces, and extending the same protections during the civilian phase, and that the experi‐ to civilian internees and merchant seamen, al‐ ences of the captives were in many cases remark‐ though their position was not defined or protect‐ ably similar. ed under international law. In the following chapters, which form the Auger's focus is on fve internment camps lo‐ core of the book, Auger attempts to reconstruct cated in southern Quebec: Île-aux-Noix, Farnham, the social history of the camps. Again, the war di‐ Sherbrooke, Grande Ligne, and Sorel. All were aries, with their wealth of daily trivia, help, and small with less than one thousand internees; all Auger supplements them with memoirs and oral were specialized, either by type of internee (for histories of the civilian internees (in particular) example, Sherbrooke was for seamen only) or by that are found at the Library and Archives Cana‐ function (Sorel was especially constructed for re- da in MG30, in the Eric Koch collection (Eric Koch education purposes); and all housed only Ger‐ was one of the internees). Life in captivity, even man-speaking internees. Auger therefore does not under the best of conditions, was marked by phys‐ offer many reference points for comparison with ical and psychological strains that affected all camps that housed Italians (such as Île Ste. Hélène civilian and military internees to various degrees. in Montreal), camps in other parts of Quebec, or The Canadian authorities were well aware that indeed any of the other twenty permanent camps boredom, privation of material comfort, resent‐ throughout the country. ment, "barbed wire psychosis" and "internitis" After a useful, concise overview of the histori‐ (pp. 52-53) could lead to various morale and disci‐ cal and legal developments that framed the way plinary problems. They opened the camp to the Canada and other Western Allies approached in‐ efforts of international relief organizations who terning POWs and civilians, Martin Auger traces introduced musical instruments and sports equip‐ the development of the southern Quebec camps ment. (Here, Auger might have consulted the and examines their administration mainly on the Boeschenstein fonds, MG30 C193, to fnd out more basis of war diaries, those indispensable logs of about the work of the YMCA in the camps.) With military units' daily activities. Three of the fve the help of relief organizations, Canadian authori‐ camps he examines were initially and hastily con‐ ties provided camp libraries (from which both structed to house civilian internees that were Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf [1925] and Karl transferred from Britain in the summer of 1940. Marx's Das Kapital [1867] were banished) and Conditions were primitive, guards inexperienced hosted movie nights, exposing German POWs to and not always scrupulously honest, and the un‐ English-speaking movie stars like Douglas Fair‐ lucky captives had a hard time convincing the au‐ banks Jr., Errol Flynn, and Ronald Reagan. They thorities that they were, in fact, not enemies of even offered English-language classes, noticing the Allies, but refugees from Nazi Germany: Ger‐ only belatedly that in order to introduce Germans man Jewish teenagers, scholars, intellectuals, and to the Canadian way of life in a Quebec environ‐ a sprinkling of Communists and other political op‐ ment, some French-language classes might be use‐ ponents of the Nazis. The remarkable story of the ful, too (p.135). "camp boys" has been told by Paula Draper and in Two of the most effective methods to prevent numerous memoirs, and Auger might have decid‐ discontent and unrest were educational programs ed to exclude it, concentrating instead on the and paid employment, both of which also served POW phase of the camps which began in 1942.[2] the purpose of preparing POWs for postwar life in 2 H-Net Reviews a democratic and capitalist society. Internees mass escape with civilian casualties and sabotage were provided with opportunities to practice or of important facilities brought the Minister of Jus‐ learn agricultural and trade skills in camp farm‐ tice and the Chiefs of the General Staff into the ing operations and industrial workshops. The picture (p. 88). While the camp authorities had wages they earned could be exchanged for con‐ found the Communists among the civilian in‐ sumer goods in the camp canteen; in one case, a ternees annoying, the threat posed by unrehabili‐ profit sharing arrangement netted Farnham in‐ tated Nazis seemed far more imminent. With the ternee farmers $10,000.00 (p. 99). Internees were approval of the Canadian war cabinet, intelli‐ also encouraged to practice democracy on a small gence officers were stationed in the camps and an scale by electing a camp spokesman or in the case effort was made to segregate all German prison‐ of Camp Farnham in 1945-46, electing a camp ers into political and ideological categories of council, and drafting and ratifying a constitution. "white," "gray," and black." The plan was to house After the war in Europe had formally ended, the them in separate camps, respectively. Reluctantly, Canadian authorities also embarked on a re-edu‐ the Canadian government also joined the Allied cation program that was to show the prisoners al‐ effort to prepare "white" (i.e. reliable and docu‐ ternatives to totalitarianism and prepare them for mented anti-Nazi) prisoners for work in post-hos‐ civilian postwar professions while they awaited tilities Germany (p. 125). repatriation. Auger's section on the re-education program Despite all these efforts to make life in captiv‐ struck this reviewer as the most interesting part ity bearable, there were mental breakdowns and of the book. Based on sources by military intelli‐ attempted break-outs, as well as riots, hunger gence, Auger shows how the camps in southern strikes, and any number of illicit activities, such Quebec were turned into laboratories for postwar as the making and consuming of alcohol, attempt‐ Germany and, in turn, taught much that was later ing to communicate with female civilians, and applied in Europe. When interviewing volunteers building radio receivers. Attempting to escape for relocation to the new re-education camp at seemed to be a sport for some internees who cut Sorel, Intelligence Officers had to develop ways to barbed wire with stolen kitchen knives and built probe a person's ideological commitment and de‐ tunnels with concealed entrances. Guards and sign methods to detect opportunists and liars; prisoners were watching each other closely in what they learnt was later applied in the security what appeared to be an elaborate game of cat- screening of immigrants. Watching their captives and-mouse. Prisoners who did escape were al‐ throughout the war years, the Canadian authori‐ ways captured within hours and returned to the ties noticed how the homogeneous body of "Ger‐ camp. man" POWs split into groupings by social class While parts of Auger's book reads as if the and military rank, by educational level and by re‐ documents were a script for a sitcom, there are gion of origin, German particularist tendencies far more serious elements of the story of intern‐ becoming oblivious in friendly football rivalries ment that eventually shine through.

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