https://www.ozy.com/flashback/how-canada-imprisoned-jewish-refugees-alongside-pows/95959
As refugees make headlines in North America today, it’s worth looking back at a moment when Jewish refugees of World War II — many of them children — were mistakenly classed as enemy aliens and forced to live alongside POWs. Schild, who later wrote books about his experiences, including The Crazy Angel, had fled Nazi-controlled Europe for the U.K. with the help of his mother. He began studying at a London yeshiva in 1939. But the climate of fear surrounding German-born immigrants led to the roundup of Schild and approximately 30,000 others — some of whom had fled the Nazis — just one year later. After living in hastily constructed internment camps on the Isle of Man, detainees were offloaded to Canada and Australia.
When Schild’s ship arrived in Canada, refugees and POWs alike were classed as “enemy aliens.” As the men were being processed, one Canadian sergeant realized he was among fellow Jews and spoke to them in Yiddish. The man promised to notify his community that Jews were being interned as well. Meanwhile, the German POWs were also quick on the uptake. Schild recalls them singing Nazi songs to intimidate the men who would become their campmates. To guarantee the safety of all, Canadian wardens erected a barbed-wire barrier between Jews and non-Jews, placing them in separate camps a few weeks later. The internees would spend the next two years moving between camps, caught in a strange gray area. “We refused to be identified as German prisoners, and the authorities refused to acknowledge us as refugees,” Schild wrote.