Dear Canada: Prisoners in the Promised Land: The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk, Spirit Lake, Quebec, 1914 [Hardcover]

 

 

Marsha Skrypuch has written an absolutely lovely story in this, the newest volume of the Dear Canada series.

Prisoners in the Promised Land tells of one family's journey from their home in Austria-Hungary to a new life in the land of promise. Told through the eyes of young Anya Soloniuk, readers will find their hearts fully engaged as they read how Anya and her family's bright hopes are replaced by hardships and imprisonment.

Skrypuch manages to maintain a tone that is neither self-pitying nor judgemental. Rather, she expertly sustains the innocent, gentle voice of Anya, who wonders why her family was encouraged to come to a country only to be placed in an internment camp, though they had done nothing wrong.

Start to finish, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

Marsha Skrypuch breathes life into a little-known part of Canadian history. Young Anna's roller coaster of hope and despair in Canada's hinterland is haunting. Hard to put down.

Reason for Reading: I am reading this whole series. I picked this particular volume because I am participating in a WWI reading challenge.

I've only read a couple of Skrypuch's books so far, but she has become one of my favourite Canadian juvenile authors. Mostly, her historical fiction revolves in some way around Ukrainians as that is where her heritage comes from and her own family genealogy is always a great starting point. Skrypuch does write about other topics but this recurring theme is interesting as it is unique. Once again, I have learned something new from one of Marsha's books. I had no knowledge whatsoever of the Ukrainian internment camps in Canada during WWI; of course everybody knows of the Japanese ones during WWII but why not the earlier Ukrainian ones? Perhaps because they make very little sense at all from a political point of view.

This book is a fantastic read. While it takes place primarily in Canada, it does start with the boat trip to the new land, the WWI story is told through the newspapers and discussions of the Ukrainian people as they sit caught in the middle of this war. Their homeland is the battlefield in Eastern Europe for a long period of time and yet the Ukrainians are neither friends with the Austrians/Germans who own their land or the Russians who invade it. All news they hear is bad, because whether it is the Allies or the "enemy" winning on their homeland it means their people, friends, relatives are in danger and dying. Through the news the family receives and letters from home and friends across Canada, until letters are halted due to the War Measures Act, we get to see a side of WWI which I've never experienced before. All my WWI reading has been about the trench warfare in France/Germany. It was very different in Eastern Europe, especially there in Galicia, a Ukrainian area owned by Austria-Hungary, which became part of the USSR later on, and finally was reunited as part of present day Ukraine.

The Ukrainians were interred in camps mostly because Canadian/British citizens confused them with Austrians (the enemy) and were ignorant and intolerable of them living within their society. Anya's mother and father loose their jobs for "patriotic" reasons. She leaves school to work for the family, but eventually after the men are taken away to camps the women share rat-infested flats, have very little to eat, are not safe on the streets on their own, and are exposed to all sorts of vile, racist comments, making life a living hell. When the family is moved to the internment camp in some ways life is better for them: they are together again as a family, it's cleaner, they have nicer living quarters, are fed, don't face as much of the racism, etc. but it is a prison and therefore they have lost their freedom. Another compelling page-turner for me as we get to learn about the war in Eastern Europe, life for the Ukrainian immigrants on the homefront, and finally life inside the internment camps. Very interesting and new-to-me information. As usual the Epilogue in these books describes what happened to the characters afterwards and the Historical Note is a goldmine of true facts. These are always my favourite part of the books in this series along with the contemporary photographs in the back. This is one of my favourites in the Dear Canada series so far. And I would love to read more on this topic.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Chronicles Events Leading to the Canadian Internment of Ukrainians & Others During World War I-a School Curriculum/Library Must!
Award-winning Ukrainian-Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch once again presents a well-written, well-documented historical fiction, which is enthralling, educational, and... Read more

Published 14 months ago by Yaroslava Benko

5.0 out of 5 stars Slice of History
Marsha Skrypuch has done a very nice job of casting light on a relatively
unknown part of Canadian history.

I like her writing style. Read more

Published on Nov 23 2007 by Myron Hlynka

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