Camp Newington
CONT’D PAGE 3
were made of denim with a large red circle on the back. Griffin however, could only do so much.
After suffering from a stroke, he was replaced by Major W. J. H. Ellwood who would run the camp with the help of Sergeant Major Macintosh.
After discovering that there were actual refugees in their camps amongst those that they were told were dangerous Nazis, Ottawa was taken aback and they didn’t know what do about the situation.
They did not have the power to release them because it was Britain who had arrested them and they were only holding these prisoners for them on a temporary basis.
Eventually, London sent Alexander Paterson, the Commissioner of Prisons, over to Canada to sort through the prisoners and determine their actual status. He would carry out extensive interviews with the prisoners and visit each camp. He eventually demanded that Ottawa change the prisoner’s status from Prisoner’s of War to Refugees in order for them to be released and he would be successful in doing so.
However, there was still a fight to have some these refugees released due to the anti-semitic and anti-german feelings that ran rampant throughout the country and the appointment of Colonel R.W.S. Fordham as the new director of the Canadian Internment Camp Operations. He stated that these refugees needed to stay in these camps for their own protection. Riots would continue to take place in some of the camps in light of his decisions.
By 1942, the refugees were slowly being released. Many would stay in Canada and others would go back to Europe or head to the United States.
By November of that year, the last refugees at Camp Newington were released but it continued to run as an interment camp for actual prisoners of war, mostly German sailors, up until 1943.
At the time, Fordham threatened to arrest anyone who published anything about these internment camps but after years of silence their story was finally told in 1980 with the publishing of Eric Koch’ book called Deemed Suspect: A Wartime Blunder. He was a prisoner at Camp Newington and provided details about their experience.