Wartime Internment in the World Practice

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Internment is the act of confining people in isolated places on the basis of their ethnic origin, political ideology, or enemy aliens’ status. It has been taking place in society since ancient times when certain populations were resettled to gain control over the territory. With time the meaning of the concept slightly changed, though ‘resettlement’ is still associated with it. In the 20th century, internment was carried out in Canada during wartime; it took place in the course of World War I and World War II. The main reasons for it were the maintenance of national security, which demanded separating people of a certain ethnicity, as well as political beliefs, from the rest of the society. This process had certain advantages from the political perspective for it allowed the government to keep the countries safe. Taking this into account, the internment can be totally justified because any government “has the strictest duty to act in the most rigorous manner required by circumstances to protect the order and security of the whole nation which is asked to give copiously of its money and blood”. [1]However, internment was inhumane with respect to the internees most of who suffered undeservedly only because of their ethnic origin or political ideologies which they followed. State internment can not be regarded as a process beneficial for society for it has led to ethnic discrimination, resulted in sending innocent people to the internment camps, destroyed a number of families, and affected health and welfare of interned women and men who have been kept in poor conditions when interned.

To begin with, the internment affected a number of ethnic communities with their interests being largely neglected, which with time led to ethnic discrimination. The Canadian internment of civilians which took place during World War II had purely political goals for its main focus was the wartime bureaucracies. Back then, “the social and economic repercussions affected the communities’ relationship with the host society and their very sense of identity as ‘ethnic communities’”.[2] Italian Canadians were the target of internment in the 1950s-Canada. They stopped being perceived as a part of the society, which led to worsening of relations between them and the host society. Though the Italian Canadians managed to avoid ardent prosecution which the Japanese Canadians have experienced, they still were discriminated against their ethnicity and interned, in particular those who have been pro-Fascist (a number of people, however, were sent to internment camps by false accusation). Italian fascists were especially persecuted since the Canadian government was convinced that they could “adapt to Canada only by abandoning their Italian and Catholic identity”.[3] The reasons for sending people to these camps were debatable for sometimes the real fascist leaders remained free, while those who had almost no relation to fascistic organizations were sent into internment camps:

Some people argued that Fascists were left free while innocent individuals were apprehended. Leading fascists such as A.D. Sebastiani and A.S. Biffi of Montreal had not been interned. The first was a friend of Italy’s highest Fascist leader […]. The second had been one of the founders of the fashion Luperini Volpi. [4]

This creates an idea that it was not fascism that was the main ground for sending the Canadian Italians into internment camps, but namely ethnicity. Even though the prosecutions of Italian Canadians began as the government’s fight with this political ideology, sending the Italians to the internment camps turned into ethnic discrimination and resulted in forming the prejudices of the population towards these particular nations. In this way, “ethnicity was replaced by ideology as grounds for internment”,[5] which later was used by the internees as a reason for demanding apologies from the government. Therefore, state internment, though it helped to maintain national security or fight with dangerous political ideologies, was completely non-beneficial for the society because it promoted ethnic discrimination within it.

While some Canadian citizens were mostly interned because of their ethnicity, there was a group of people interned on the basis of namely their ideology, Communism; though this was in accordance with the then governmental policies, this internment should also be criticized for it was not organized, which resulted in random imprisonment of the citizens. The group of the interned Communists consisted of around 100 citizens most of who have been Canadian-born and, thus, could not have been interned on the basis of their origin. Driven by Communist ideas, namely, criticism of the state power, the internees expressed their indignation with the situation in the country and with labeling people as ‘enemy aliens. From the beginning of internment, the Communists realized that they were likely to become the target for internment, though this did not disturb them much. The supporters of this ideology were proud to become political prisoners who have been bold enough to express their indignation and dissatisfaction with the state power. Since the Communists presented a hazard for the country’s peaceful existence, they also started to be interned, though rather randomly, since the government could not decide which of them were indeed dangerous for the society:

Most party members escaped internment, even many of those individuals known to the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] as Communists. Among those arrested were a few people whose detention seems curious indeed. One Ukrainian Canadian, who evidently had not had any political connections for years, was interned on the charge that he had belonged to the banned ULFTA in 1918! Police appear to have acted on the advice of a police informant who happened to be the man’s vindictive ex-son-in-law. [6]

This shows that the internment of innocent people took place in Canada with the criteria for interning people being “completely arbitrary and based largely on incomplete information”.[7] This testifies to the fact that this process, though it was aimed at establishing peace and maintaining safety in the Canadian society, was unfair with respect to some of the country’s citizens.

What else should be mentioned is that a number of families have been broken as a result of state internment with the society being characterized by panic and the lack of trust, which does not allow considering this process as beneficial in any way. The families of the internees have been separated; some of the internees were unaware of what happened to their children, while the others were deprived of husbands who kept their families:

The absence of a chief breadwinner resulted in economic hardship. This was compounded by the family’s inability to retrieve savings, as all assets were legally frozen and held by the dominion Custodian of Enemy Property […] Under these circumstances, livelihoods were lost and businesses sold of […] The amounts in lost wages, property loss, and legal and other costs … ranged from $2,500 to $66,500 per family. [8]

Since the bank accounts were frozen, the wives of incarcerated men had no access to them. This is why “valued assets had to be sold, often at below-market values, so as to clothe and feed families”.[9] The greatest losses suffered by the internee families, however, were not economic, but psychological. Shortly after the persecution of the Italians (and everything connected with Italian culture) started, the panic based on fear for the welfare of one’s own family emerged within the population. In Canada, all the Italian books have been burned; the part of the population who has hardly spoken any English before started speaking it fluently. This shows that people were trying to pass themselves off as another nationality being ready to refuse of their origin for the sake of their families; this further points at the fact that the values of the host culture were imposed on those who had no other choice but accept them. Thus, not only the social life of the Italian Canadians was affected, but their dignity and their pride for their nation; they had to sacrifice these values in order to be accepted by the society which did not want them. What is even more resentful, this has been done because of fear, not because of the Italian Canadians’ sincere desire to become integrated into the Canadian society.

Moreover, Italian Canadians’ interrelations worsened with people being afraid to speak in public about the events which were taking place in the country, let alone mentioning the names of those who had been arrested. State internment led to depriving this society of trust; Italian Canadians lived by the principle “say the wrong thing to the wrong person and you could be next”.[10] This means that people were deprived of not only the freedom of choice but the freedom of speech as well. Moreover, suspicion developed within the population with those who have been interned believing that “others had avoided imprisonment by fingering their compatriots”.[11] In addition to this, even the lives of the families within the enclaves underwent certain changes. The internees’ desire to survive was immense and most of them agreed to merge businesses with other families trying to salvage what they could. This often resulted in shifting family roles: “In most instances, the internees’ wives took on additional responsibilities and gained familial respect as the effective heads of household”.[12] Some modern feminists can regard this as a benefit of internment for the women got access to the family business and could even manage the property; in reality, however, women were forced to do this since they were left alone with their children and had to look for the means to keep their families. Thus, state internment turned out to be destructive for the lives of Italian Canadian families, as well as for the families of other countries where internment was practiced; people’s families were destroyed, their businesses ruined, and their rights neglected. This does not allow considering state internment as favorable in any sense.

One more repulsive fact about the state internment is the way women were treated in internment camps. For the period of three years (from 1939 till 1942) twenty-one women were interned in Kingston Penitentiary for Women in Canada, let alone those who were detained and arrested. The grounds for accusation were the violations of Canada’s Defence of Canada Regulations (DOC) under which a number of Japanese Canadians were interned and Italian and German Canadians detained. These regulations made no distinctions between male and female detainees; their primary purpose was to ensure the country with a proper level of national security. To do this effectively, the officials were given “the state power to arrest and intern anyone deemed to be acting contrary or in a manner prejudicial to public safety or safety of the state”.[13] Consequently, the officials were entitled to decide which actions on the part of the citizens should be considered prejudicial. Quite an interesting fact, however, was that the detention of women, though it took place in accordance with these regulations, was carried out in a haphazard manner. It was rarely that the women were arrested for political reasons or for their being hazardous for the country’s security:

There seems to be no rational explanation for the fact that some women were interned and others left at large. The IDC [Inter-Departmental Committee on Internment] claimed it was interning only women who flagrantly violated the DOC and who were a danger to the state. But this category included women who had the venereal disease or ran a successful business. Rather, it would appear that women were interned for a variety of reasons, very few of which were solely political. [14]

Just like in the case with arresting Italian fascist leaders, some women were simply warned or detained and interrogated and then released, while the others were interned for the same activities as those who were released. Rather often, the female leaders of the fascistic organizations were not interned, while those who were simply the members of such organizations were sent to the internment camps: “Several of those interned met the same criteria as that left at liberty – they were married and naturalized Canadians – hence it becomes difficult to pinpoint any real differences between those interned and those simply warned”.[15] This testifies to the fact that some women had to abandon their children and families only because the officials would consider them dangerous for the country, though at this time those who indeed threatened its safety would enjoy their freedom.

Even more disturbing was the women’s confinement in jail were the conditions in which they were kept were not the worst of what they had to experience. It is natural that general treatment and food were complained of because the penitentiary where the women were kept had to survive on $1.50 a day per internee[16], but the fact that women could not avoid contact with criminals who were also kept in this penitentiary was more concerning. The jail administration was also preoccupied with this issue, but there was hardly anything to do to improve the situation. The idea of building a separate internment camp for women was not even discussed due to such construction being cost-taking. This is why the women were kept in Kingston Penitentiary together with the convict population. Such a treatment was unfair with respect to female internees for two reasons. Firstly, they were kept in one place with those who committed real crimes; thus, the internees were exposed not only to the risk of attack on the part of the criminals but to the criminal environment which could turn them into lawbreakers. And secondly, the fact that no separate premises to keep the internees was found shows the government’s careless attitude to them, people who have been convicted for their political ideology or simply ethnic origin. This is especially resentful taking into account the fact that some women had been falsely accused. Taking this into consideration, it can be stated that state internment cannot be regarded as positive for it resulted in unfair treatment of the interned women.

Finally, state internment, no matter how good it could have been for the governments of the countries that practiced it, led to the development of anti-social behaviors in internees due to poor conditions they were kept in. One of the worst things about state internment was that it bred cruelty in the internees; the conditions in which they were kept in the internment camps made them violent and revengeful. Most people who have gone through wartime internment have borne this feeling of grudge throughout their lives. Anti-social behaviors have often been exhibited by the internees in the camps for they suffered from the lack of food and unfair treatment on the part of the others. The camps in which the internees were kept were desolate and their uniform only made they’re being there harder:

Enclosed by thick barbed wire and surrounded by towers equipped with machine guns, huts holding twenty-eight men became their home for endless months. A British observer described the uniforms issued to all the internees – ‘a circular flat-topped hat, strangely reminiscent of that worn by habitual criminals in England, a jacket on whose back was emblazoned a huge red circle, and a pair of bright blue trousers seamed by a broad red band. The whole effect,’ he noted, ‘was derogatory and ridiculous’.[17]

This is how the Canadian internment camps looked like, this is why there is no wonder that the internees developed a violent attitude towards life after spending months in such places. This attitude was often expressed during the interaction between the internees: “Little things, like having a little extra butter, or jam for breakfast in the morning … could easily lead to a fight … It was a very sore point if anyone got a little more than anyone else”.[18] The reason of those fights lies much deeper than a mere desire of internet to get more food. Each of them harbored resentment against other people, and this resentment was rooted in the society’s unwillingness to accept those who were different.

In addition to becoming violent, some of the internees even developed mental diseases. This is another reason why internment cannot be considered a beneficial process. The number of nervous breakdowns was immense, which led to sending some of the internees to mental institutions. One of the factors which contributed most of all to the internees’ becoming mentally disturbed was isolation. Unlike the situation in the ordinary army where isolation leads to the unity of soldiers and to their developing attachment and loyalty to other soldiers and the native country, the internees developed only hatred and grudge since they had nothing to hope for; their native country has exiled and repudiated them, their ‘commandment’ treated them with disrespect, and the connection with their families was lost. Thus, state internment deserves criticism due to the fact that, apart from the troubles it brought to the internees, it has significantly deteriorated their health.

Drawing a conclusion, it is worth stating that internment had nothing positive in itself for a number of people suffered as a result of it. Carrying out of the internment in Canada during wartime promoted ethnic discrimination, destroyed numerous families, made people suffer, and led to the development of mental diseases in the internees. Italian and German Canadians, as well as those who were of Canadian origin but followed certain political ideologies, have gone through persecution, arrests, imprisonment, and isolation either because of their origin or due to their political ideologies. They were marked as ‘aliens’ by society and were ready to reject their culture and origin to keep their families safe. Most of them managed to escape the prosecution; those who have been found were sent to the internment camps. These places were equally terrible for men and women. The former had to suffer from violence as a result of which they themselves turned into relentless people who have developed mental diseases and who have borne hatred in their hearts throughout the rest of their lives; the latter were kept together with criminals and sometimes interned by falsely accuse. All in all, state internment simply could not be positive because it changed the society for worse and resulted in ethnic discrimination which is impossible to eradicate even at present; moreover, it has ruined the lives of some of those people who have been interned once by turning them into violent individuals.

References

Franco Iacovetta, Roberto Perin, Angelo Principe, Enemies within: Italian and other internees in Canada and abroad, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

Ian Radforth, Ethnic Minorities and Wartime Injustices: Redress Campaigns and Historical Narratives in Late Twentieth-Century Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Wartime Internment in the World Practice

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