Île-aux-Noix is a small island on the Richelieu River, southwest of Montréal, and the site of historic military fortifications. It was once home to Camp I (later, Camp No. 41), an internment camp that held Jewish internees during World War II. Housed within a 19th-century British military fortification of Fort Lennox, Camp I was part of a network of camps set up in response to the British government’s request that Canada take in “enemy aliens” and prisoners of war. Many of these detainees were young German and Austrian Jews who had fled Nazi persecution, only to be arrested under the suspicion of being Nazi spies. After a brief period of internment in England, they were deported to Canada. They were imprisoned alongside prisoners of war and, in some cases, steadfast Nazis.
Camp I on Île-aux-Noix opened on July 15, 1940, with the arrival of 273 Jewish refugees. One former internee recalls that, in the eyes of many Canadian guards, “we were all dangerous Nazis.” The Commandant, Major E.D.B. Kippen, expecting to guard fascist prisoners, was bewildered at the sight of the internees, some of whom were clearly Orthodox Jews. According to his camp diary, the men arrived in the pouring rain to a hastily prepared camp within the stone walls of Fort Lennox. “The desperation was global,” recalls another former internee.
Education was one escape from the monotony of daily camp life. The many former academics among the prisoners led to the emergence of a “people’s university,” where internees delivered lectures on their subjects of expertise. Eventually, a formal camp school was established. Queen’s University and other Canadian universities became involved in the program, and many of the inmates would later become their alumni (such as future chemist and businessman Alfred Bader). Other daily activities included learning English, playing music, and writing. Yeshiva students were able to resume their religious studies. Rabbi Harry J. Stern of Reform Temple Emanu-El and the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Montreal Zvi Hirsch Cohen each visited the camp in its early existence. Despite their circumstances, the Jewish internees even raised money to assist Jews in Poland.
Camp I was officially re-classified as a refugee camp on July 24, 1941. It closed on December 24, 1943. Since the war, these former internees have been an integral part of Canadian society. “There is hardly a field you look at,” commented a former internee, “where you don’t find one of our boys right up on top. In retrospect, I think about the incredible amount of pluses that Canada achieved by some unwanted people who have added so much to Canadian life from literary to textiles to education.”
Compiled by Alison Dringenberg
Sources
Auger, Martin F. (2005), Prisoners of the Home Front: German Pows and "Enemy Aliens" in Southern Quebec, 1940-46. Studies in Canadian Military History, 9. Vancouver: UBC Press.
Iacovetta, Franca, Roberto Perin, and Angelo Principe. (2005), Enemies Within: Italian and Other Internees in Canada and Abroad. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Chapter: Paula Draper, “The ‘Camp Boys’: Interned Refugees from Nazism.”
Koch, Eric (1980), Deemed Suspect: A Wartime Blunder. Toronto: Methuen.
