UCCLA releases listing of interned 'enemy aliens' (11/28/99)

UCCLA releases listing of interned 'enemy aliens'

CALGARY, Alberta - Canada's Ukrainian community on November 11 released a document, titled "Roll Call," which provides the names of some 4,000 Ukrainians and other Europeans unjustly imprisoned as "enemy aliens" during Canada's first national internment operations of 1914-1920.

Twenty-four concentration camps set up across Canada were used to house the internees, whose labor was exploited by government and big business, and some of whom had their property and valuables confiscated - a portion of which remains in Ottawa's coffers to this day.

Other indignities experienced by the Ukrainian Canadian community's members included restrictions on their freedom of assembly, movement and speech, and disenfranchisement in 1917.

Since 1986 the Ukrainian Canadian community has spearheaded a campaign intended to secure an official acknowledgment of this injustice and a reconciliation through the restitution of the internees' wealth to be used for educational purposes.

Based on the work of two researchers who reviewed the remaining archives of the Office of Internment Operations (National Archives of Canada), and complemented by additional names taken from surviving archives in the U.S. Department of State, British Foreign Office records and other published materials, "Roll Call" represents the first attempt to identify these internees.

While it is incomplete, given the destruction of many of the relevant documents, Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, observed: "Until today we were unable to answer questions from Canadians of many different ethnic, religious and racial heritages who came to us wondering if members of their families, relatives or friends had been among those who were interned. Finally, we have a partial list, which confirms that many ethnocultural communities were exposed to these needless and harsh internal security measures, whose crippling legacy continues to affect our community to this day."

He added, "We intend to make 'Roll Call' available to all Canadians by placing it on the website of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and through complimentary distribution to selected libraries, MPs and research institutes. This relatively unknown episode in Canadian history is slowly being recovered and returned to the collective memory of Canada, which these internees, many of them Ukrainians but many representing other cultures and faiths, helped build."

"By releasing this document on Remembrance Day, when all Canadians should hallow the memory of those who gave their lives so that we can enjoy our freedoms," Dr. Luciuk said, "we are paying a tribute to those who fell in defense of liberty while recalling those who fell victim to this injustice, 85 years ago."

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