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Canadian Internment Camp for Jews in Second World War
(Toronto Star-Canada) Kevin Bissett - Internment Camp B70, located in Ripples, New Brunswick, housed more than 700 Jews in the early months of the Second World War. In the months leading up to the war, some 10,000 Jewish children were taken to the United Kingdom as part of a relief effort known as the Kindertransport. But then-British prime minister Winston Churchill was worried there could be spies among the Jews, and he asked Canada and Australia to house some of them as internees. 711 men and boys arrived by train in Ripples on Aug. 12, 1940, and were led on foot to an internment camp, one of 26 in Canada. The internees were housed in army barracks and spent their days cutting the wood required to keep the heating stoves in the camp burning. They wore denim pants with a red stripe on the leg, and denim jackets with a large red circle on the back. There were six machine-gun towers positioned around the perimeter of the camp. After a year, Britain realized that many of the internees could contribute to the war effort and were given the choice to return to England and join the military or obtain a sponsor and stay in Canada. The camp was closed in 1941 and reopened to house prisoners of war.