More on Internments

By the spring of 1917, so much of Canada's workforce had entered the armed forces that industry and agriculture were severely short of labour. As a result, all able-bodied internees were paroled from the internment camps to work in factories, railway camps and mines. Parole conditions included travel restrictions and required parolees to carry identity cards and report regularly to local authorities. Those assigned to railway labour in northern Ontario experienced conditions as hard as in the camps. Some 1,300 prisoners were paroled from Kapuskasing that spring. Approximately 60 men remained in camp for health or security reasons. They were soon joined by 400 prisoners of war transferred from the Fort Henry internment station. To hold these more dangerous inmates, high barbed-wire fences were erected around the camp and a stricter regime was instituted. Soon the camp's population again rose to over 1,200 prisoners. The majority now were German prisoners of war, mostly sailors and merchant seamen taken from German ships in the Caribbean.

Why was Fredrich Gerull considered "dangerous"?   Most likely he was just a merchant seaman like Grandpa who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Update:  Fredrich was most likely in the German military and was captured and interred on behalf of England in Canada.

D-Day

Today is D-Day, the longest day for Allied Soldiers.  When visiting Normandy not too long ago, I was taken by the impossibility of success.  Looking at that hill that they had to climb in order to defeat the Germans looked insurmountable by itself.

Happy Mother's Day Past and Present

Delia Beaulieu Thibault

Nana Gerull, Mom, Nana Thibault

Catherine Roche Reynolds

Mary Ester Donovan Reynolds

Photos from Germany

Greatgranpa&GreatGrandma 

German Solders M.W. Class April 18 (1918?)

GreatGranpa

The postcard

The depicted person, Heinz Gerull, sent this card to his brother Friedrich. The post card was written on 12 November 1916 in the town Ruß or vicinity (presumably). The card was postmarked on 13 November 1916 in RU.. (OSTPREUSSEN). The Canadian 2-Cents stamp was stuck on it later. I think that Friedrich and Heinz came from the area of the town Ruß.

Ruß, d. 12.11.16

Lieber Bruder!

Send Dir hiermit meine Photographie 
und wünsch gleichzeitig eine 
frohe Weihnacht.
Dein treuer Bruder Heinz.

Schönen Gruß von Vater u. Mutter.

Rusne, d. 12.11.16

Dear Brother,
Send you here withwith my photograph
and wish the same time Merry Christmas.
Your faithful brother Heinz.

Best wishes of father and mother.

Friedrich Gerull

Between 1914 and 1920, thousands of Canadians of Ukrainian and Eastern European descent were imprisoned in internment camps across Canada, simply on the basis of their origins. For decades, their stories were buried under fear and shame

  Friedrich Gerull was one of these thousands. Who was Friedrich?   The first we learn of Friedrich being interred is by a post card that was sent to him in 1917 to Fort Henry Kingston Ontario that was in my grandfather's possession.  Was Friedrich a brother or Uncle?  He was obviously much cared about because family wrote to him.

  Internees at Fort Henry were removed by the end of 1917; however, it seems Friedrich was not released and instead ended up at another camp in Kapuskasing.  On October 27, 1919 he was Repatriated and sent back to Germany on the ship Pretorian.   His journey to come to the Americas for a better life came to a disheartening end.


If Friedrich was grandpa's brother they kept in touch up until WWII after which he heard nothing about anyone in his family.  What happened to Friedrich and the rest of the family?

click on image to take you to newspaper archive

What it was like for Internee's

Internments

When one speaks of Internment Camps they think of WWII and Japanese Americans but Internment Camps existed before. In WWI, Canada interred Ukrainians and others considered a threat including Germans, women weren't interred. One of those interred was a relative named Friedrich Gerull. We do not know who Friedrick was to my grandfather but he was a relative because a post card sent to Friedrich while interred is currently in our possession as well as other photos we thought didn't exist. Photos to follow soon.




Most of the POWs of German nationality and German-speaking Austrians were separated from the other internees and placed into a "first-class" category. This meant that they were generally kept in relatively more comfortable camps, such as the one established in Fort Henry, near Kingston, Ontario However, the majority of those described as "Austrians" (on lists of prisoners these men were often more precisely categorized as "Galicians" of "Greek [Ukrainian] Catholic" religious affiliation or as "Ruthenians", although the word Ukrainian was also used in some official reports) were sent to work sites in Canada's hinterland, to places like Spirit Lake, Quebec; Castle Mountain, Alberta; and Otter Creek, British Columbia There they were obliged not only to construct the internment camps but to work on road-building, land-clearing, wood-cutting, and railway construction projects As the need for soldiers overseas led to a shortage of workers in Canada, many of these "Austrian" internees were released on parole to work for private companies, the federal and provincial governments, and the railway companies. Their pay was fixed at a rate equivalent to that of a soldier, which was less than what they might have expected to make if they had been able to offer their labour in the marketplace. As General Otter dryly noted, this "system proved a great advantage to the organizations short of labour". Thus, the internment operations not only uprooted families but also allowed for exploitation of many of the internees' labour.