British / Canadian Internment

In 1940, on my 16th birthday, I was writing an English essay & looking through the window & I saw a policeman walking on the grass which we weren’t allowed to do, towards the Head Master’s house. I knew what was happening, because another German refugee, he had his birthday a short time before me, & he'd been rushed away on his 16th birthday so I knew that it meant internment.

The policeman came back with the Head Master who was very nice. He said, “I am sorry you have to go away for a few days.” The police were nice, I didn’t finish my essay. They said, “Just collect a few things to last you a few days.” My mother packed a bag for me & we went by car to Bury St Edmunds, to what must have been an army camp. After a few days we were taken by train to Liverpool. From Lime Street we had to walk, carrying our luggage to a huge TA hall, which no longer exists, & on the way there there were cat calls, “bloody, bloody, bloody Germans” etc. Not anti-Jewish but anti-German. They had no idea who we were, that we were refugees, which brings me round to another point which is that the internment policy in WW2 was just as stupid as in WW1. They hadn’t learned any lessons. It was in response to the gutter press. We had an Italian in our camp who had been in the country for 25 years & never taken out naturalisation papers & his son was serving in the British army. Things like that.

Anyway, from that TA camp we were taken to a place called Huyton, on the outskirts of Liverpool. The younger ones were put in tents in the gardens. I was hungry. There wasn’t enough food. From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal.

From Huyton we were taken to the Isle of Man. From there we were taken by train one day in July 1940, no warning of course, to Greenock, near Glasgow, onto a ship called Sobieski. From there we were taken across the Atlantic up the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal. On the ship there was a man I'd known in Cambridge, a patient of my mother’s, a very intelligent chap, a political refugee from Germany, not Jewish. He'd served on the left wing side in the Spanish Civil War & been interned in France & then come to England. Now he was interned again. He was very knowledgeable chap. Also a very much do-it-yourself chap. He found a piece of sailcloth & made me a pair of shorts on the ship which I treasured for many years. They were a bit stiff, rather like denim. But very useful during my internment in the summer. On the ship there were also German POWs. We were separated thank God.

From Montreal we were taken to a place by train to a place called Trois-Rivières, three rivers. We were accommodated in a football stadium for a day or two, & we went again by train to a huge camp which was being built amongst pine woods & birch woods of Canada, quite near the American border I believe. The camp it wasn’t quite ready yet. There was one water tap for about 600 people. If you wanted a wash you had to start queuing up at about 2 in the morning but that was soon remedied. They didn’t have the roofs on either, but it was summer & that didn’t matter. I quite enjoyed the camp. We were sent out in groups to cut down trees for firewood. The huts, later in the winter, were heated by wood burning stoves & ultimately there wasn’t enough food there. We did have the Kaiser’s grandson who was a student at Oxford, he was one of the internees. I nearly chopped my leg off once.

Then a commissioner called Hamilton was sent by the Home Office, who'd realised it had been really rather stupid in interning all these refugees, some of whom had actually been in a German concentration camp. He interviewed us all individually & offered some of us release.

So in mid January 1941 we were taken again by ship to Liverpool. I ended up at the Adelphi to make a phone call to my mother to say I was back. My voice had broken in Canada, I had no money, so I had to ask if my mother would accept a reverse charge call from Liverpool. My mother thought it was probably some poor refugee who hadn’t got any money. Of course she was quite right, but she wouldn’t believe at first it was me because my voice had broken. I told her that the next day I would be arriving in Cambridge & she did something which for her was quite unusual, she cancelled a patient so she could meet me at the station. Only one patient mind you! She met me at the station & we were both delighted."

My mother got a letter from the Home Office saying, “We regret to tell you that your son, Fred Stern, was sunk on the Arandora Star.” They had the whole business mixed up, which is not surprising. The Home Office. Right, so when you think about the Home Office, you have to think about it – or I do, anyway - with a certain reservation. Or any office. And that letter came a day after they got a telegram, which I asked my parents’ friends in New York to send immediately to my mother that I’ve arrived in Canada. And that letter to my mother came the day after she had the letter from the people in New York. Had it been the other way around…