The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps by Sandra Semchuk (review)

To say those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it is an understatement; time and time again, governments and their people, have committed violent crimes against their fellow brothers and sisters in new yet strangely similar ways. The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps sets out to bring forth “a space to reflect on the stories of individual internees [in World War I] and their descendants and to consider how lives are shaped by stories that are suppressed” (xxix). This book, therefore, seeks to help readers better understand the dark story of Canada’s past historical injustices and the complex yet still relevant intergenerational, cross-cutting traumatic costs, while also cultivating in readers a critical mindset that asks: what don’t I want to know?

This book is organized into six parts. In the first part, Semchuk takes the opportunity to situate herself as a member of the Ukrainian community, photographer and life-long activist for reconciliation in the telling of the internees’ stories. She then introduces her unique approach to reconstructing history which combines storytelling, dialogue, land-based knowledge, photography and memory work to produce a nuanced tapestry of the past that links the “successes” of the internment camps of World War I to the wider landscape of both state control and human resilience.

Each of the remaining five parts (Chapters 1 to 5) are building blocks to the theme described above. In Chapter 1, the author sets up the context of the internments, giving some background on Canada’s position at the start of World War I and key legislation – notably, the War Measures Act – which allowed the government to “arrest, detain, exclude and deport”(3) citizens with ties to countries Canada was at war with. The success of this chapter is that it aptly describes the intricate ways in which state paranoia and deeply seated discrimination can lead to crimes against humanity, with the actual help of the law. To anchor the readers, throughout the chapter and the rest of the book, the author intersperses photographic testimony to stories recounted and at times, the larger historical context.

Chapter 2 is exclusively comprised of photographs. Often, the photos are strategically placed to contrast past and present and to highlight the importance of remembrance. On one page, for example, readers might see internees farming in Kapuskasing, Ontario, on the opposite page, the same space, now the site of modern architecture, all signs of internment gone. Similarly, half-way through the chapter, three photographs by Semchuk of barbed wire from the internment camp at Castle Mountain, Alberta, have embedded text in each photograph reading “paranoia” (photograph 1) “permeates” (photograph 2) “generations” (photograph 3) to perfectly depict the resulting fear and even distrust between internees, their descendants and their communities and the government.

Chapter 3 brings to the fore the internment and life stories of nineteen internees and their descendants. This chapter, more than any other, highlights the harsh struggles and the individual and collective resilience of the internees, their descendants and their communities. The stories are told in first person, direct testimonies from descendants or the internees themselves. Though engaged in much memory work, each storyteller brings history alive in a way that simple facts cannot hope to do so.

Chapter 4 is also comprised exclusively of photographs. Unlike Chapter 2, however, they are all photographs of the harsh conditions in the internment camps, the internees or the guards. Take away the descriptions of the photographs, and the barbed wire might make readers think of other future-to-be internment or concentration camps in World War II, reminding them how easily this could happen again.

In the last chapter, Semchuk brings herself back to speak to her own understanding of the stories told. For her, the tellings are not about victimhood but instead they are a way to reassert power over the...