Sandra Semchuk’s book is a major step in addressing internment secrets kept by the Ukrainian-Canadian community for generations.
From 1914 to 1920, thousands of individuals who had immigrated to Canada from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany and the Ottoman Empire were unjustly imprisoned as enemy aliens. Many of them were Ukrainian. Semchuk helps readers understand the social and emotional effects of these tragic events.
In The Stories Were Not Told – Canada’s First World War Internment Camps, Sandra Semchuk combines her exquisite photography with historical documents, cultural theory, and poignant personal testimony from internees and their descendants.
While Semchuk’s book is not a scholarly examination of internment camps, the inclusion of personal accounts, historical documents, and photographs - both current and historical - makes it a groundbreaking work in the history of Canada’s First World War Internment camps. Her insightful commentary makes connections between Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples, and later Canada’s treatment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II to the internment of Ukrainians during World War I.
The Stories Were Not Told combines Sandra’s unique storytelling skills with photographs and historical documents. This book is necessary reading for anyone interested in Ukrainian-Canadian history and the internment during the First World War.
Her book has been shortlisted for the 2020 Kobzar Literary Award.
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