The Little Third Reich on Lake Superior: A History of Canadian Internment Camp R by Ernest Robert Zimmermann (review)

This is a posthumously edited and published history of Camp R, a mixed Second World War internment camp located on the premises of an abandoned paper and pulp mill at Red Rock in north-western Ontario. In the first part of the book Ernest Zimmermann shows how many of the victims of Nazi persecution who were initially granted refuge in Britain before the Second World War were transformed into Category A enemy aliens as a result of press-generated hysteria about mythical 'fifth columnists' during the early months of the war. They were misclassified by tribunals established by the Home Office which were often ill-informed and prejudiced. Thus Jewish and anti-Nazi refugees were wrongly incarcerated in British internment camps. During the summer of 1940 the Canadian government was persuaded to assist British home defence by agreeing to receive several thousand internees and POWs.

The latter part of the book is a detailed history of the administration of the camp and its inmates. The designated inmates of Camp R arrived at their destination on 2 July 1940. German merchant seamen made up the majority of the some 1,140 inmates. The prisoners also included at least 78 Jews. Nearly 200 of the inmates were under the age of 20 including at least 11 Jewish schoolboys. The youngest inmate was aged only 15. The German merchant seamen included a group of fervent Nazis and they made life difficult for the Jewish internees and the anti-Nazi prisoners who included a group of German Communist merchant seamen. It was fortunate that the Canadian initially in charge of the camp chose as camp leader, F. Oskar Scharf, a non-Nazi and former captain of the German luxury transatlantic liner, Europa. Scharf helped protect the Jewish and anti-Nazi inmates from the Nazi zealots. The Canadians in charge of Camp R treated the inmates well notwithstanding the limitations of the hastily repurposed mill. The food in particular was a great improvement on what they had been fed in Britain. It soon became clear that the Category A Jewish and anti-Nazi prisoners posed no threat to the security of the British Empire. The miscategorised Jewish prisoners were transferred to another camp in January 1941 and subsequently offered the opportunity of repatriation to Britain. The limitations of Camp R resulted in the relocation of other prisoners too and eventually its closure on 23 October 1941. The remaining prisoners were transferred to other camps.

This book is an important addition to an under-researched area of Canadian and British history. However, there are additional sources Zimmermann could have used to fill the gaps in his research such as for example, the fate of non-Nazi Scharf after he was repatriated to Germany during the war. In fact Scharf survived the war to become harbourmaster of Bremerhaven where he died in 1953.