‘Canada’s dirty little secret’: Descendants demand action for 2,300 wrongfully imprisoned Jewish WWII refugees

Eight decades ago, Andrew Cassel’s father was bundled aboard a prison ship in England and sent to Canada as an “enemy alien”, where he was held behind barbed wire for two years. The elder Cassel was part of a little-known operation that in 1940 targeted about 2,300 Jewish Europeans whom the British feared were spies for Adolf Hitler. Now, Cassel—along with other descendants and some historians—are raising awareness about what he calls “Canada’s dirty little secret”. They want an apology from Canada and educational programming.

The prisoners lived in harsh conditions at nine prisoner-of-war camps in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. In some cases, they were locked up together with groups of real Nazi soldiers and German U-boat crews who’d been captured by the Allies during the Second World War. But they weren’t spies—they were doctors, professors, Yeshiva students and bankers who fled to England to escape the Holocaust. The British government soon realized their mistake, but Canada took until 1943 to release all the prisoners. Some experts blame widespread antisemitism in the Canadian government for the undue delay.

Many of those former internees later became prominent community leaders in Canada, including the late Rabbi Erwin Schild, who died in 2024 at age 103; Justice Fred Kaufman, the first Jewish judge on Quebec’s Appeal court; Alfred Bader, a chemist and philanthropist to Queen’s University; businessman Eric Exton; printer Leo Klag; philosopher Rabbi Emil Fackenheim; and two Nobel Prize winners.

On today’s episode of The CJN’s flagship North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner is joined by Andrew Cassel; Jewish historians Paula Draper, and Jennifer Cousineau of Parks Canada, who collaborated to release a new podcast spotlighting the story of one of the POW camps south of Montreal; and Blatant Injustice author Ian Darragh, who is spearheading the apology petition.

Related stories

• Learn more about the new Parks Canada podcast  spotlighting European Jews deported from Britain to Canada in 1940 as enemy aliens and held in POW camps in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick. 

• Read the petition , initiated by author Ian Darragh , sponsored by Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, asking the House of Commons for an apology and educational programming and commemorative plaques at the sites of the former POW camps.

• Read more about the Andrew Cassel’s father, Henry Cassel , and also about the late Toronto Rabbi Erwin Schild  and Dr. Walter W. Igersheimer , all former internees.

Credits

• Host and writer: Ellin Bessner ( @ebessner ) info@thecjn.ca
• Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)
• Music: Bret Higgins

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