MINORITIES AND WWII Their Commitment Sacrifice CANADAS TREATMENT

MINORITIES AND WWII Their Commitment + Sacrifice

CANADA’S TREATMENT OF MINORITIES Canada’s treatment of ethnic minorities during the Second World War leaves one with the sense that Canada was a divided nation whose federal leaders frequently battled episodes of prejudice and racism spawned by regionalism, ignorance and intolerance.

RACISM + PREJUDICE Yet, racism and prejudice were dominant motifs in existence well before WWII; they were deeply imbedded within the various levels of government and were key factors in federal decisions regarding immigration and wartime planning.

ABORIGINALS CANADIANS + WWII 1939 -1945

Photo: Recruits from the Saskatchewan's File Hills community pose with elders, family members, and representative from the Department of Indian Affairs before departing for Great Britain. National Archives of Canada/PA-66815. National Archives of Canada/PA 6681

ABORIGINAL SOLDIERS POEM How proudly the flag waved overhead, the bands played and the troops marched away from the reserves, the isolated villages, the city streets. We were Canadian Native soldiers. . . warriors in a proud tradition stretching back over the thousands of years into the dim past. We travelled by ship, by plane. . . and mostly on foot. In a dozen places France, Germany, Italy. . . Japan - we raised our flags, and were buried in those foreign soils.

ABORIGINAL SOLDIER’S SERVICE Aboriginal peoples from every region of Canada served in the Armed Forces during WWII, fighting in every major battle and campaign. Their courage, sacrifices and accomplishments are a source of pride to their families, communities and all Canadians.

NUMBERS SERVED At least 3, 000 status (treaty) Indians, including 72 women, enlisted as well as an unknown number of other Aboriginal people. Among this small number of identified Aboriginal members of the forces, at least 17 decorations for bravery in action were earned.

CHIEF JOE DREAVER

DAVID GREYEYES

OLIVER MILTON

TOMMY PRINCE

TOMMY PRINCE: CANADIAN HERO OF WAR The most decorated Canadian First Nations soldier of all time. http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v= gyvr. BOGor. NA (4: 16)

CREE CODE TALKERS Code talkers (Windtalkers) in the United States have been storied, honored and lauded for their military contributions, but much less known, and barely recognized for their service by the Canadian and USA governments, were Cree Code Talkers from Canada who assisted the Allies in World War II.

CREE CODE TALKERS Several Aboriginals (Cree and Métis) from western Canada - Alberta and Saskatchewan - had joined the army and were given a very secret assignment of communications.

CREE CODE TALKERS The Aboriginal language speakers would translate vital messages into Cree and transmit them to another Cree speaker at the other end who would translate the message back into English.

CREE CODE TALKERS Because many military terms didn’t exist in native languages, new terms had to be made up for things like tanks, and machine guns and bombers = a machine gun might be called for example, a “little gun that shoots fast”, while a Mosquito fighter-bomber would use the cree word for mosquito- “sakimes”.

CREE CODE TALKERS Many Aboriginals from Canada went to work in the USA military sworn to absolute secrecy. Canadian Code Talkers have never been honoured by either the Canadian or USA governments.

CREE CODE TALKERS Code Talkers were never officially recognized or commended partly because their work was considered so covert that they were sworn to secrecy even long after the war was over = the program was not declassified until 1963, but even then most did not speak of their work.

CREE CODE TALKERS A great many people are unaware that Aboriginals in Canada played a vital role in secret communications for the Allies in the Second World War using their language to completely confound the enemy who were never able to break the "code“.

CREE CODE TALKERS Charles “Checker” Tomkins, a Métis Cree soldier from Grouard, Alberta, Canada enlisted to escape the Great Depression but ended up with a career in the military, serving 25 years with the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps and the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.

CREE CODE TALKERS During World War II, Tomkins was stationed in Britain and was one of hundreds called upon to use his Cree language to code talk - he grew up hearing it from his grandparents on the Pine Acres Reserve in Saskatchewan.

CREE CODE TALKERS The Code Talkers in Canada have now entirely died out. Tomkins died in August 2003 at age 85, but not before beginning to talk a little about his experiences with family members.

CREE CODE TALKERS New documentary film on Canada’s Code Talkers coming soon = Alexandra Lazarowich, a documentary film producer, will be teaming up with director Cowboy Smithx to create a documentary short about Cree code talkers as part of the National Screen Institute of Canada’s Aboriginal Documentary Training Course.

HONOURING ABORIGINAL VETERANS Aboriginal veterans' contributions, achievements and sacrifices, as well as those of all veterans and currently serving members, are formally recognized on Remembrance Day, November 11, each year. http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=h. U 9 v 8 o 71 Uic (1: 31)

CHINESE CANADIANS + WWII 1939 -1945

CONTRIBUTIONS Chinese contribution to the Canadian war effort was exemplary. They bought millions of dollars worth of government war bonds. More than five hundred were called into military service, some as officers.

CONTRIBUTIONS They did war work in shipyards and factories, exerted themselves to produce more food on their farms for Canadian troops, and served as air raid wardens (many were women). They also donated millions of dollars to the Chinese resistance against Japan.

CHINESE CANADIANS: THE UNWANTED SOLDIERS http: //video. kcts 9. org/video/1479265166 (5: 09)

INDIAN CANADIANS + WWII 1939 -1945

INDIANS SERVICE Indian soldiers fought valiantly in World War 2 most with the Indian Army which began in 1939 and some with the Canadian military. In the Indian Army, Sikh and Ghurka troops were among the fiercest of any war - they wore turbans instead of helmets in battle.

INDIANS SERVICE Most of their stories have never been told.

BLACK CANADIANS + WWII 1939 -1945

BLACKS ACCEPTED INTO CANADIAN SERVICES Initially, the Canadian military rejected Black volunteers, but as the war continued, many Blacks were accepted into the Regular Army and officer corps.

BLACKS ACCEPTED INTO CANADIAN SERVICES While there was still some segregation in the Canadian Forces until the end of the war, hundreds of Black Canadians served alongside Whites in Canada and Europe. Although many Black soldiers went overseas to fight for their country when they returned home they were denied their old jobs.

CONDITIONS ON THE HOME FRONT Blacks at home assumed the responsibilities of the men and women serving overseas, working alongside Whites in jobs across the country. During World War II, hundreds of Black workers joined labour unions for the first time.

Paratroopers of the 1 st Canadian Parachute battalion on a Churchill tank; 1945.

One of two Black Canadian men in the Radar Division, a highly secret operation of the Allied Forces.

CANADA’S FIRST BLACK AIRMAN: GERRY BELL

JEWISH SOLDIERS + IMMIGRANTS & WWII 1939 -1945

JEWISH SOLDIERS Out of a Canadian Jewish population of approximately 167, 000 Jewish men, women and children, over 16, 880 volunteered for active service in the army, air force, and navy. There were an additional 2, 000 Jews who enlisted, but who did not declare their Jewish identity in order to avert danger if captured by the Nazi forces.

JEWISH SOLDIERS Of the 16, 880 who served, which constituted more than one-fifth of the entire Jewish male population in the country, 10, 440 served in the army, 5, 870 in the air force, and 570 in the navy.

JEWISH SACRIFICE 1, 971 Jewish soldiers received military awards. Over 420 were buried with the Star of David engraved on graves scattered in 125 cemeteries. Thousands returned home with serious physical and mental wounds.

Captain Samuel Cass, a rabbi, conducting the first worship service celebrated on German territory by Jewish personnel of the 1 st Canadian Army near Cleve, Germany

JEWISH IMMIGRANTS The Canadian government justified its stingy position against accepting Jewish refugees by arguing that Canada had a high unemployment rate and therefore could not let in Jews, who might take jobs away from Canadians.

ANTI-SEMITISM An overlay of anti-Semitism was the nail in the coffin that limited any chance Jews had of emigrating to Canada. Regardless of any public support the Jewish organizations were able to garner, the government refused to budge.

JEWISH REFUGEES: CANADA’S RESPONSE Canada took in proportionately fewer Jews than any western country. Canada accepted fewer than 4000 before the war. The U. S accepted 240 000 and Britain 85 000.

JEWS AS ENEMY ALIENS In New Brunswick, 711 Jews, refugees from the holocaust, were interned at the request of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill because he thought there might be spies in the group.

ST. LOUIS INCIDENT In June of 1939, the St. Louis Ocean Liner arrived off the East Coast of Canada carrying 907 Jews. These refugees had been denied entry into Cuba and other Latin-American countries and had turned to Canada in hopes of finding somewhere to live.

ST. LOUIS INCIDENT Earlier in 1939, Canada had allowed nearly 3000 Jews into Canada, but now refused to allow these Jews enter Canada. It was believed that Jewish refugees would not make good settlers.

ST. LOUIS INCIDENT They were forced to return to Europe and many died in the Nazi concentration + death camps.

IMMIGRATION POST WWII About 40 000 survivors of the Holocaust came in the late 1940 s, seeking a peaceful country, a place where they might have a chance at rebuilding their lives, or simply coming because they had relatives here.

ENEMY ALIENS IN CANADA DURING WWII 1939 -1945

ENEMY ALIENS During World War II the War Measures Act was used again to intern Canadians, and 26 internment camps were set up across Canada. In 1940 an Order in Council was passed that defined enemy aliens as "all persons of German or Italian racial origin who have become naturalized British subjects since September 1, 1922".

ENEMY ALIENS A further Order in Council outlawed the Communist Party. Estimates suggest that some 30, 000 individuals were affected by these Orders; that is, they were forced to register with the RCMP and to report to them on a monthly basis.

ENEMY ALIENS: ITALIAN CANADIANS The loyalties of Italian Canadians were questioned = 31, 000 Italian Canadians were placed on ‘enemy alien’ lists. They were considered to be fascist sympathizers and potential terrorists and were put under surveillance.

ITALIAN CANADIAN INTERNMENT The government interned approximately 600 Italians and over 100 communists. They were taken from their families and held in prisons and remote camps (Petawawa, Ontario; Kananaskis, Alberta) or told to join the Canadian military.

Kananaskis, Alberta

Memorabilia collected from the camps include a shirt with a red circle indicating a prisoner, a German Army buckle and a homemade knife discovered in Camp 133 at Lethbridge.

A member of the Veterans Guard of Canada mans his position at a guard tower in Monteith, Ont.

ENEMY ALIENS: GERMAN + AUSTRIAN CANADIANS Around 850 German-Canadians were interned and over 66, 000 German and Austrian nationals and naturalized citizens, who had arrived in Canada after 1922, were forced to report to police regularly. Internment operations in Canada were notably small considering that there were over 600, 000 Germans living in Canada.

ENEMY ALIENS: GERMAN CANADIANS Leniency was a product of the fact that most German Canadians did not demonstrate any concern for, let alone affiliation with German political interests. Most had left Germany to flee the hostile climate that was developing or, they had been born in Canada.

ENEMY ALIENS: GERMAN CANADIANS In 1939, the only camps that were open were in Kananaskis, Alberta, and Petawawa, Ontario. It was not until the British started sending their prisoners of war to Canada, that major operations in Quebec opened in order to accommodate German POWs.

Petawawa, Ontario

Petawawa, Ontario

IN WAR THERE ARE NO UNWOUNDED SOLDIERS

JAPANESE CANADIAN INTERNMENT IN WWII Up Next