The Stories Were Not Told

Book launch and reading
April 4, 1pm
Nanaimo Art Gallery
150 Commercial St.

In addition to her work as an artist, Sandra Semchuk has recently published The Stories Were Not Told, a book of writing and photographs that brings to light the experiences of enemy aliens during the First World War. Join us in the gallery for a special reading and book signing.

From 1914 to 1920, thousands of men who had immigrated to Canada from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire were unjustly imprisoned as “enemy aliens,” some with their families. Many communities in Canada where internees originated do not know these stories of Ukrainians, Germans, Bulgarians, Croatians, Czechs, Hungarians, Italians, Jews, Alevi Kurds, Armenians, Ottoman Turks, Poles, Romanians, Russians, Serbians, Slovaks, and Slovenes, amongst others. While most internees were Ukrainians, almost all were civilians.

The Stories Were Not Told presents this largely unrecognized event through photography, cultural theory, and personal testimony, including stories told at last by internees and their descendants. Semchuk describes how lives and society have been shaped by acts of legislated discrimination and how to move toward greater reconciliation, remembrance, and healing. This is necessary reading for anyone seeking to understand the cross-cultural and inter-generational consequences of Canada’s first national internment operations.

The Stories Were Not Told is published by University of Alberta Press. It has been made possible by a grant from the Endowment Council of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund.