POWs: Inside Lethbridge and southern Alberta’s Prisoner of War camps

“A lot of POW camps were established here in Canada because if the Germans were to have a POW camp in England and had an airborne invasion, it wouldn’t take that many para-troopers to help escape their fellow countrymen, then you have a whole bunch of loose Germans in the neighborhood. So, having them here in Canada eliminated that time, distance and space.”

Miller explained that the camps were run “entirely by themselves”, with oversight from the Canadian Veterans Guards of Canada.

Many of the POWs had to eventually go back to Germany as part of the camp agreement. However, many returned to Canada and became productive citizens, according to Miller.

“I was at a Legion in Calgary for an activity and I just overheard a lady behind me talking about some of those POWs [during World War Two] because she lived it – she was a young girl. A lot of the POWs were employed on the farms because a lot of the manpower was gone to war. She said there was never more of a polite person [she’s] met than the POW, so that was a compliment to him.”

He explained that in many cases, the POWs were “basically part of the family”.

“There’s an example of two POWs out by the Taber area. A farmer brought them in – he didn’t speak any German, but he wanted to look after them. He took them down to the local grocery store and let them pick whatever they needed. He just paid the bill by the cash register, but he actually dressed them up in civilian clothes. The actually had a uniform to indicate they were a prisoner,” Miller said.

“They ran the farm, did a great job and as a reward, [the farmer] too them to the movies – again, dressed in civilian clothes. Lo and behold, the place was full except for a handful of seats at the very front – that’s where they went. Ironically they ended up sitting beside the camp Commandant of the POW camp, so he had a chat with the farmer but to show the respect that they had – this particular farmer, at the end of the war, when they went to return to Germany – he gave them several hundred dollars each to start a new life.”

Notes from a Lethbridge Internment Camp (Photo courtesy Glenn Miller)

He explained that having the prisoners work locally gave them something to do that benefitted the local community, adding there was in fact a lot of trust between landowners and the POWs.

“I heard of a story where eight or nine workers were in the farm and there was one guard and he talked to one of the prisoners [and said] ‘go down, pick up the truck and bring it up here’ because they’d advanced in the field doing a lot of the sugar beets and stuff like that but f you think about it – this POW’s gone back to get the truck and in the back of the truck, there’s a weapon hanging in the back – but that was just the level of trust they had.”

On the flip side, though, Miller said each camp is different and that the level of trust seen at camps in Canada did not necessarily reflect the experiences of Canadians capture in somewhere like Hong Kong.

But Canada had signed on to treaties that affected the treatment of Canadian soldiers in foreign camps.

“If a Canadian soldier was captured in another country and that country signed that treaty, there would be a certain reasonable expectation that [the Canadian] would get two eggs or a loaf of bread or a piece of bacon every day – that was your ration. Canada honoured that agreement because the way you treat your soldiers is the way you like yours treated at their location, so we honoured that,” Miller said.

“Oftentimes, the prisoners of war ate better than the local citizens because they were on rations – so much sugar, so much flour but because we signed the agreement, we had to make sure our prisoners that were in our care were properly fed in accordance with whatever the agreement stated.”

Miller added that years earlier, during World War One, there was an internment camp in Lethbridge and noted some of the differences of that time.

“If you were the local baker and all of a sudden, we’re at war and you [have] a German name, but you make great loaves of bread, all of a sudden you’re now the enemy just because [of] the association of a name.”

The Lethbridge Military Museum and the 20^th Independent Field Battery will host a viewing of a historical documentary, “The Last Hangman” on Thursday, November 7.

The documentary details the history of the World War Two POW camps in Lethbridge and Medicine Hat. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with the film starting at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, and the museum will be open before and after the film screening.

This LNN series of stories commemorating Veterans’ Week and Remembrance Day will continue with more insight from Glenn Miller.

by Justin Goulet

POWs: Inside Lethbridge and southern Alberta’s Prisoner of War camps

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