Kassandra Luciuk

I've read multiple accounts of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, but this is the first I have ever heard of Ukrainians being imprisoned in Canada during World War I along with other immigrants who bore Austro Hungarian passports. The Canadian government used them as forced labor to build their own prison and clear forest land that was developed after the war for agricultural and other commercial purposes by third parties.

This adaptation of an anonymous personal narrative by one of the internees written in the 1940s is full of prisoner strikes and reactionary brutality by the police and guards. It's ironic that this occurred partly due to the Red Scare, but the poor treatment radicalized some of the prisoners and/or motivated them to join labor unions and engage in strikes after leaving the camps.

I am always freshly amazed by the amount of evil and darkness hidden in history's nooks and crannies.… (mehr)