Skip to content

Camp Boys / Morale Video

Former internees discuss morale.

Former internees discuss morale.

Video: 5:47 20.3 MB Download

Adobe Flash Player and Javascript are required to view videos. The transcript is below.

Transcript

Morale

Individual responses to internment varied. What follows are the reflections of former internees interviewed for this project.

Eric Koch
Close-up photo of Erich Koch being interviewed
I was in fact very talented as an internee. Unlike others. There were some people who found this unendurable.

Dr. Walter Igesrheimer
Close-up photo of Dr Walter Igersheimer being interviewed
We fell into many states of despondency, and some people were very desperate. Because there was nothing to do.

Dr. Walter Kohn
Close-up photo of Dr. Walter Kohn being interviewed
We felt tossed like leaves like leaves in the fall. We have no control over our lives, but felt generally optimistic.

Gunter Ehrlich
Close-up photo of Gunther Erlich being interviewed
I had been involved in a lot of sad events. When people were complaining about the camp, I told them that I had been in Buchenwald, and for me this is a holiday compared to Buchenwald.

Dr. Ernest Poser
Close-up photo of Dr Ernest Poser being interviewed
It was nothing compared to the concentration camps. Our essential needs were taken care of. And most of us were young and adaptable.

Dr. Walter Kohn
Close-up photo of Dr. Walter Kohn being interviewed
Once we were in Canada, unlike Britain, we were very well taken care of. We had clothing. We had shelter. We had wonderful, plentiful food.

Rabbi Erwin Schild
Close-up photo of Rabbi Erwin Schild being interviewed
Physically it was not a terrible experience. Our suffering was mentally, psychologically, spiritually.

Dr. Peter Ziegler
Close-up photo of Dr Peter Ziegler being interviewed
It was a relatively healthy life, actually. Then again, at that age – I think it was much harder on the older people.

Gunther Bardeleben
Close-up photo of Gunter Bardeleben being interviewed
The older people, for sure. They really lost something. We students, did we lose something? We got interrupted.

Hon. Fred Kaufman
Close-up photo of Hon. Fred Kaufman being interviewed
Hard as it was it was to leave home at 15, for other people they left families behind. It would be much more difficult. It would have been much more difficult for me. I mean, if I put myself in that situation – let’s say, married with a couple of kids at home – it wouldn’t be so easy.

Gregory Baum
Close-up photo of Dr Gregory Baum being interviewed
In my life it was a blessing. I only had good things happen to it – not in other peoples’ lives. And for people who were older than I, it was much more difficult – married people, people with children. But even a little older – people who had careers. This was broken. I had no career. We at the age of 17, for us this was the beginning.

Ernest Poser
Close-up photo of Dr Ernest Poser being interviewed
It was a new experience. It was a new continent, a new country. We had a lot to learn. In those first three months, living the camp life in tents, it wasn’t all that unwelcome – at least to the younger ones.

Gunter Bardeleben
Close-up photo of Gunter Bardeleben being interviewed
Being in camp, and being in Canada – of course I had guilt feelings of being nice and safe while my parents were being bombed in London. That part wasn’t enjoyable, otherwise camp was quite enjoyable.

Ernest Poser
Close-up photo of Dr Ernest Poser being interviewed
We had very limited links with the past, and total insecurity about the future. However, we made the best of a bad situation.

Hon. Fred Kaufman
Close-up photo of Hon. Fred Kaufman being interviewed
I’m in a bad situation, but I’m in a better situation than if I’d stayed behind in Vienna, so I’m going to make the best of it. It’s not going to get me down. I mean, I don’t think I ever got to the point where I ever felt sorry myself. There were lots of things I didn’t like, but I sort of said, “That’s life” – and it’s a better life than I would have had.

Edgar Lion
Close-up photo of Edgar Lion being interviewed
We knew that we were lucky. We didn’t end up in a concentration camp. So, from that point of view, we knew that we were safe. The question was: what would happen to us some time in the future.

Rabbi Erwin Schild
Close-up photo of Rabbi Erwin Schild being interviewed
It was a new dimension of Jewish suffering, actually. Because when you were in Dachau, you knew you had fallen into the hands of your enemy. You knew what to expect, but here you were incarcerated by people who want the same as you. They want to defeat Germany. We wanted it even more than them. I’m sure every one of us hated Germany – the Nazis – much more than the Quebecers or the soldiers had a reason to hate them. For them, it was an enemy in the war. For us it was an existential enemy, and here we are supposed to be incarcerated for being suspected to be the people that we hated. That was a really difficult thing.