Camp Boys / Education Video
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Education
Among the internees were some of the leading intellectuals, political activists, and artists of Germany and Austria.
Using donated materials, internee teachers offered academic, technical, and religious training to the younger internees.
Dr. Gregory Baum
We were surrounded by barbed wire. We lived in huts with very little space between them. But we had an interesting life.
Dr. Ernest Poser
At Sherbrooke, the academics made themselves known and thought they could help. And they did.
Dr. Peter Ziegler
Many of the older people started a school for us youngsters and provided classes in all sorts of subjects.
Dr. Walter Kohn
The teachers were very committed, very well qualified. It was one of the best parts of the camp experience.
Edgar Lion
Each of us who was teaching had their own special subjects and people who wanted to attend the school went for the subjects which they liked.
Hon. Fred Kaufman
I went to classes in art appreciation given by Max Stern, who later became the owner of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.
Gunther Erlich
There was a class in history, and one in mathematics.
Dr. Gideon Rosenbluth
There was a guy who taught statistics. And statistics had been my special subject.
Dr. Gregory Baum
We studied Richard III, and we studied it that we know it really almost by heart. Because we took it seriously, I really learned to read English literature.
Gunter Bardeleben
For a while I tried my hand at shoemaking because there was a shoemaker from Bohemia who taught shoemaking.
Hon. Fred Kaufman
I took some lectures in English writing. I wouldn’t call it literature necessarily, but we had to write essays and that kind of thing. I picked up some writing skills.
Dr. Gregory Baum
It gave me the desire to study and to read. All of this was new to me because I was a very bad student when I was young. I was lazy. I really didn’t discover the spark that is in intellectual life.
Dr. Walter Kohn
I felt I had a huge responsibility towards my parents. I expected that as soon as this would be over, if they are alive, I would right way have to support them. I saw that education in part as a sort of practical trade school so that I could earn my living and my parents’ living. That’s what it meant to me. So I was very serious about it.