HistoryPlacesWartime Internment in Canada

Canada, 1940–1942

Wartime Internment in Canada

Erwin Schild was among refugees from Nazi Germany whom Britain classified as enemy aliens and interned in Canada.

Wider Schild Story

This place is connected to a wider Schild surname story, not a confirmed part of our direct family line.

In 1940, as Nazi Germany advanced through Western Europe, Britain classified many German and Austrian nationals then in Britain as enemy aliens, regardless of why they had actually left their home countries. Erwin Schild, a refugee who had himself fled Nazi persecution, was swept into this policy and deported to Canada, arriving at Quebec City in July 1940.

He was interned there, in an account that describes an initial period in a prisoner of war style camp followed by a refugee camp, without naming a specific site in the sources consulted for this archive. He continued his religious studies while interned, and was released in February 1942 with assistance from the Canadian Jewish Congress.

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