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News from and about Ukraine & Ukrainians: Ukrainian Community Press Releases
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BRAMA, November 2, 2002, 1:00 am ET
Project Roll Call - Searching for the Survivors of Canada's First National Internment Operations and their Descendants
The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association is kicking of a campaign on 5 November, 2002 to find survivors of Canada's first national internment operations and their descendants. The "Roll Call" postcard (see below) will be mailed to over 37,000 Canadian households.
Over 5,000 civilians were imprisoned in 24 concentration camps, including men, women and children of Ukrainian, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Polish, Jewish, Turkish, Slovene, Slovak, Hungarian, Austrian, German and other European origins (for a list of camp locations see http://uccla.ca/issues/internment/camps/). What wealth they had was confiscated, a portion of which remains in Ottawa's coffers to this day. A further 80,000, categorized as "enemy aliens," were forced to carry identity documents, were disenfranchised and subjected to various other state sanctioned censures. Roll Call, a partial list of those interned, culled from remaining government documents, can be found at http://uccla.ca/images/Roll_Call.pdf.
Remembering this unfortunate episode in Canadian history may help ensure that no other ethnic, religious or racial minority ever suffers as Ukrainian Canadians and other Europeans once did, a message that is particularly relevant in periods of domestic and international crisis. To the best of the UCCLA's knowledge no comparable effort has ever been undertaken by any Canadian ethnocultural community.
The UCCLA supports Bill C 331 - The Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act (see http://uccla.ca/BillC-331) and are urging other Canadians to do likewise. Both UCCLA and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, as well as a number of MPs and Senators, have already endorsed this private member's bill, which will soon be reintroduced in the House of Commons by Inky Mark, MP (Dauphin-Swan River).
For more information about Canada's first national internment operations and UCCLA efforts to achieve reconciliation please go to www.uccla.ca. Look under the Issues section and click On Securing Acknowledgment And Restitution For Canada's First National Internment Operations of 1914-1920.
The UCCLA mailing list includes people from coast to coast, living in metropolitan centres like Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal to smaller communities such as St John's, Amos, Kingston, Kapuskasing, Nanaimo, Brandon, Kelowna, Saskatoon, Dauphin and Lethbridge. The UCCLA has made every effort to address its message to individuals of various ethnic, religious and racial origins who may be survivors of the internment operations or their family members.
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