by Carol Matas
Canada’s Jewish community tried their hardest to change the government’s policy and to convince political leaders that Jews were in mortal danger. But Mackenzie King’s government, supported by Blair’s tactics, made sure it never became an “issue” the government had to deal with. The Canadian population, particularly in Quebec, was not eager to see Jews come to Canada, and Mackenzie King’s government did not have the political will to change or challenge public opinion, even if there were individual politicians who were more sympathetic to the plight of Europe’s Jews. Unfortunately, the Jewish community was tiny — only around one percent of Canada’s population — and they had little political clout. They tried hard to lobby and change minds, but in the end the prime minister’s delaying tactics were too much for them, and they were able to accomplish very little.
One of the most tragic threads of Canada’s record on allowing refugees to immigrate — and there are many — is that a number of Jewish children who were “cleared” to come out of Vichy France never made it safely here because of Canada’s stalling. Most were sent east to concentration camps and died there. Only 2500 of the 77,000 Jews rounded up in France survived. A new Holocaust memorial, a “Wall of Names,” was opened in Paris’s Jewish quarter in January of 2005. It has taken over half a century for the French to fully own up to their role in sending so many Jews to their death.
Images and Documents
Image 1: Winnipeg Grenadiers march down Main Street, Winnipeg, in 1939.
Image 2: Canadian airman at the Elementary Flight Training School at Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.
Image 3: A mother saying goodbye to her son on June 5, 1940, as he and other Winnipeg Grenadiers head for the West Indies. In the train doorway (right, upper) are two brothers who survived internment in Hong Kong.
Image 4: If Day: February 19, 1942. Winnipeg stages a mock invasion by Nazi soldiers, to promote the sale of war bonds. Here, men acting as Nazi soldiers burn books outside the Carnegie Library.
Image 5: Mock Nazi soldiers give their typical salute as they ride tanks down Portage Avenue in Winnipeg during the staged invasion.
Image 6: Lieutenant-Governor R.F. McWilliams of Manitoba, and other dignitaries, are led past the buffalo monuments in the legislative building during the staged invasion of Winnipeg on If Day.
Image 7: On the home front, children knitted squares to be sewn into blankets for the troops, as part of the war effort.
Image 8: Children collected scrap metal, such as pots and pans, in aid of the war effort.
Image 9: The six-pointed Star of David, which Jews in France were obliged to wear on their clothing, with the word Juif or Juive for “Jew” spelled out. French Jews over the age of six had to wear the Star of David.
Image 10: A young Jewish boy in Prague, Czechoslovakia, wearing the obligatory Star of David sewn onto his jacket.
Image 11: The announcement by the French government detailing antisemitic legislation, Paris, December 10, 1941.
Image 12: Gendarmes in Paris round up French Jews for questioning, 1941.
Image 13: Non-French-born Jews in the Austerlitz train station in Paris, with their few possessions, awaiting deportation to internment camps.
Image 14: Mothers and children outside a building in an internment camp in France.
Image 15: Canadian prisoners of war at Sham Shui Po Camp, thin and weakened, soon after being liberated following the fall of Japan. Some POWs were used as slave labour in Japanese shipyards.
Image 16: Map of Europe in 1942, showing the Axis countries, which were at war with the Allies. Northern France was totally occupied by the Germans; southern France was not. Jews in both regions of France were severely persecuted.
Image 17: The region of Hong Kong included Hong Kong Island, as well as the New Territories north of the city of Kowloon. Many prisoners of war were held at the Sham Shui Po POW camp.
Acknowledgments
Every effort has been made to trace ownership of visual and written material used in this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent updates or editions.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following:
Cover Portrait: Detail, adapted, from the Canadian Jewish Congress Archives, Montreal.
Cover background: Detail, lightened, from photograph of a German SS soldier supervising the deportation of Jews in the Krakow ghetto, Poland; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Archiwum Documentacji Mechanicznej, 02159.
Image 1: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A0594-18674.
Image 2: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1281-38353.
Image 3: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1279-38312.
Image 4: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1290-38618.
Image 5: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1290-38624.
Image 6: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1290-38627.
Image 7: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A0025-00742.
Image 8: Western Canadian Pictorial Index, A1234-36952.
Image 9: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Claudine Cerf, N09426.
Image 10: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Czechoslovak News Agency, 77929.
Image 11: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 89793.
Image 12: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, 81034.
Image 13: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, 79929.
Image 14: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, N02830.23.
Image 15: Library and Archives Canada, PA-151738.
Images 16 and 17: Maps by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
Author’s Acknowledgments
Dr. Irving Abella, co-author of None Is Too Many, shared his expertise on the Holocaust and the Jewish refugee situation during World War II. Terry Copp, author of No Price Too High, lent us his keen military eye and generously assisted with the Historical Note. Barbara Hehner carefully checked the manuscript and particularly assisted regarding World War II pilots. Michael Nathanson and Rebecca Brask not only produced the most beautiful grandchild in the world, but also spent hours in front of microfiches, copying a year’s worth of The Winnipeg Tribune, and helping with the research. Per Brask listened to the manuscript and gave me invaluable encouragement. And finally I cannot even describe everything my editor Sandy Bogart Johnston accomplished — three weeks working with me to track down whether mail could go back and forth between Paris and Winnipeg, helping to choose and acquire pictures, and oh yes — editing the book. My heartfelt thanks to all of the above.
I would also like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for the grant which allowed me to take the necessary time to fully research this book.
For my new grandson, Zevi Joseph Nathanson. With love from your Safta.
About the Author
Carol Matas’s parents were born in Canada, but her grandparents and great-grandparents emigrated from various eastern European countries. It was fortunate for her that they were not among the thousands of Russian and European Jews seeking to come to Canada during the horrifying events of World War II — they might very well not have been able to emigrate. Carol’s father was unable to fight in the war because of health problems, but one of her uncles fought in India. One of Carol’s cousins was in the Winnipeg Grenadiers and — like Morris and Isaac in this story — was a prisoner in Hong Kong until the end of the war; another cousin, Sam Sheps, died fighting in Europe.
During the war, when Carol’s mother was sixteen, she played piano for children at a child-minding centre, while their own mothers were at work. Carol says, “Many of the events in the book are taken from stories she told me, as well as stories my cousins Mark Bernstein and Babs Asper told me about their life at school during the war years in Winnipeg.”
Carol’s first Dear Canada book, Footsteps in the Snow: The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott, was nomin
ated for the Silver Birch Award and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year for Young People Award. Turned Away won the Frances and Samuel Stein Memorial Prize in Youth Literature, the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award, the Margaret McWilliams Award for Historical Fiction, and was named a ResourceLinks Best of the Year. Carol is one of Canada’s leading writers of historical fiction, and is best known for her books about the Holocaust, such as Daniel’s Story (shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award and winner of the Silver Birch Award), After the War and The Garden (both winners of the Toronto Jewish Book Award), Lisa (a Geoffrey Bilson Award winner), Jesper, Greater Than Angels and In My Enemy’s House. She has one book in the I Am Canada series, Behind Enemy Lines, and she is working on a story about a Winnipeg girl who is a Holocaust survivor.
Carol has written books set in other historical periods too, such as Rebecca and The War Within, as well as contemporary stories like The Lost Locket, fantasy and science fiction, and thrillers such as Cloning Miranda, The Second Clone, The Dark Clone, and The Edge of When.
Carol lives with her family in Winnipeg, Manitoba. One of her resources for Turned Away — apart from regular research, personal interviews and the re-reading of numerous Agatha Christie mysteries — was the old microfiche files of The Winnipeg Tribune from the war years. That made, she says, for some interesting decisions while she was writing the book, since headlines of the day might not always accurately reflect what we know today. During World War II, ordinary citizens had to rely on newspapers and radio for news of the progress of the war. Today, individuals can also gather additional information via the Internet, but even so, stories change as more information becomes available. Now, as during World War II, claims are sometimes made, even by major news sources, that later turn out not to match up with hard fact. But the headlines of the day are what people know on that day, and Carol wanted Devorah to be responding as a twelve-year-old Winnipeg girl in 1941–42 would have.
Carol says, “When I discovered If Day, I was amazed. Winnipeg became quite famous for its re-enactment of the Nazi invasion and was emulated by other cities all over North America. It was a chilling reminder — arrests, book burnings, the seizing of all media outlets to control the truth, and even control over everything that happened in the schools.
“We owe the deepest debt of gratitude to those who gave their lives in order to defeat the worst examples of humankind. And personally I can never forget that had I lived in Europe, my voice would have been silenced along with those of two million other Jewish children. That is one reason I feel the need to give a voice to those, like Sarah in my book, who were silenced forever.”
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Devorah Bernstein is a fictional character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2005 by Carol Matas.
Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada.
ISBN: 978-1-4431-2400-3
First eBook edition: October 2012
Also Available
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Go to www.scholastic.ca/dearcanada for information on the Dear Canada Series — see inside the books, read an excerpt or a review, post a review, and more.
