Freedom Had A Price Essay Research Paper

Freedom Had A Price Essay, Research Paper

Ukrainian Internment During the First World War

Representations of History

Freedom Had a Price is a 1994 award winning documentary about the Canadian

internment of .enemy aliens. (as considered by the Canadian government) during

the

First World War. Produced and directed by Yurj Luhovy, it is a moving visual

account

of the atrocities perpetrated on prisoners who had committed no crimes. While a

small

percentage were German captives, the majority were Canadians of Ukrainian

descent.

Hated and feared because of their .alien heritage. and because they posed

economic

threat to a country in recession, these people were imprisoned and forced to

perform

back-breaking work for a few cents per day.

Freedom Had a Price contains all the elements of a modern thriller: innocent

people rounded up and thrown in crowded work camps; half starved forgotten

captives

freezing in isolated wilderness areas: torture, desperate escape attempts,

sickness and

death. The climax of the movie comes when the prisoners finally revolt and

achieve

small victory in better food and living conditions. But unlike modern stories,

there is no

feeling of satisfaction when the film runs out there is no resolution to the

story, not then,

and not now.

In the film, frozen images stare through time, gaunt, bewildered and

reproachful:

men huddling around fires trying to keep from freezing in northern Ontario,

groups

hacking down trees along railway lines in western Canada so train tourists could

get a

better view, a bullet riddled body shot after an escape from the Spirit Lake

camp in

Quebec. Interspersed with the pictures, two survivors of the camps recall their

bitter

memories, still afraid of reprisals from a government that imprisoned them once

before

for no reason. Modern historians also add explanation and interpretation to a

chapter of

Canadian history many would prefer to forget.

As powerful as the documentary is, its failing is in its narrow focus.

Produced in

1994 by La Maison de Montage Luhovy Inc., and the National Film Board, Freedom

Had a Price accomplishes its aim of exposing the stark horror of the camps and

the

unjust treatment of the prisoners. But because no context or balancing

viewpoints are

given, the film teeters on sensationalism. For example, the man in charge of

the

internment camps, Sir William Otter, is mentioned only once in passing. But in

the book

A Canadian General: Sir William Otter, author Desmond Morton devotes a whole

chapter to Otter.s struggle to set up and regulate the camps on government

orders. From

the account, it appears Otter was not inhumane, and tried to do the best he

could for the

prisoners. Unfortunately, most of the day-to-day operations were often left to

inept camp

commanders and government bureaucrats. As Morton explains,

Though he had a plan, Otter was very much at the mercy of decisions made

by the registrars and they were susceptible to public opinion. He was not, as

he repeatedly had to explain, Head of the Enemy Alien catchers, he was simply

responsible for those they sent him.

And Otter himself wrote:

The various complaints made to you by prisoners as to the rough conduct

of the guards, I fear is not altogether without a reason, a fact much to be

regretted, and I am sorry to say by no means an uncommon occurrence at other

stations.

Although Freedom Has a Price was made to shock and outrage-it is still

fairly

accurate. The fact and figures it presents are confirmed by a number of other

available

sources, such as a chapter on the internment camps in Ontario in a book put out

by the

Multicultural History Society of Ontario. According to the book and the film,

about five

thousand people of Ukrainian heritage, mostly unemployed men were incarcerated

in

internment camps under the War Measures Act of 1914. These workers had

previously

worked in semi-skilled areas such as mining, lumbering, and manufacturing

industries,

and had been the first to face unemployment during the recession. Government

logic

held that the camps would provide them with food, shelter and work while keeping

a

feared political and economic menace away from society. Altogether, there were

twenty-

six camps across Canada. Ontario held six, including Petawawa and the damp and

dreary

Fort Henry in Kingston. Living and working conditions were undoubtedly brutal,

and the

psychological deprivation was as hard as the physical discomfort. During the

years the

camps were in operation, from 1914-1920, one hundred and six peop

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