Human Rights in 20th Century Conflicts

• WWI Enemy Aliens:

  • In August 1914, the Canadian government made a law under the “War Measures Act”. 
• WWI Enemy Aliens:

  • Required the registration and the internment of aliens of "enemy nationality" (People who had immigrated from countries Canada was now at war with
• WWI Enemy Aliens:

  • Included the more than 80,000 Canadians who were formerly citizens of the Austrian-Hungarian empire. 
• WWI Enemy Aliens:

  • Report to local authorities on a regular basis. 
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • 24 internment camps were established across Canada, 
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • Housed enemy alien immigrants who had contravened regulations or who were deemed to be security threats. 
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • Other reasons given for internment included "acting in a very suspicious manner" and being "undesirable". 
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • Upon arrest, whatever money and property they had was confiscated
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • 8,579 Canadians were interned between 1914 and 1920. 
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • Denied access to newspapers and their letters were censored.
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  • 107 internees died, including several shot while trying to escape.
• WWI Internment Camps:

  • They were forced to work on maintaining the camps, road-building, railway construction, and mining. 
• INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS:

  • Following Pearl Harbour many Japanese Canadians were viewed by some as being spies and threats
• INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS:

  • 90% of Japanese Canadians, those living on the BC coast were sent to internment camps 
• INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS:

  • Families were torn apart
  • Forced labour occurred
• INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS:

  • The Japanese Canadians had to leave their belongings with a government agent called the Custodian Enemy Property
• INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE CANADIANS:

  • After the war many Japanese Canadians were forced by the government to resettle in other areas of 

  Canada or to move to Japan
• The Holocaust:

  The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. 
• The Holocaust:

  The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community.
• The Holocaust:

  Nazi laws removed their opportunities for education, work, business ownership, and even marriage

  Eventually citizenship was revoked
• The Holocaust:

  Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) saw widespread organized attacks on Jewish people, businesses and Synagogues 
• The Holocaust:

  As WWII began, Ghettos were established

  These were enclosed areas of cities where Jewish people were forced to live in tight quarters in inhumane conditions
• The Holocaust:

  Nazis moved toward what they called a “Final Solution.” This solution involved moving Jewish people to concentration camps where  they were executed

  This came to an end as the Allies liberated the camps
• The Holocaust:

  Nazis tried to hide what had happened, but it soon came to light.