"The Camps" premieres -- video series about Canada's first national internment operations

For Immediate Release (9 September 2016) - Ottawa

A video series called "The Camps," prepared by Canadian Ukrainian film-maker and longtime UCCLA member Ryan Boyko, premiered Thursday. Illuminating the experiences of thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans unjustly confined during Canada's first national internment operations, these short videos evocatively combine archival photographs with interviews featuring internee descendants, academics and local residents, shot on location at each of the 24 internment camp sites found across Canada. 

Commenting on this project, UCCLA's chairman, Roman Zakaluzny, said: "Decades ago, UCCLA spearheaded the campaign that led, in 2008, to the Government of Canada finally acknowledging what happened during the Great War and setting up the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, which has provided the resources for this commemorative and educational film series. We are very pleased to see Ryan’s finished product, as these videos will most certainly help to remind all Canadians of what the innocents who were branded as "enemy aliens" had to endure between 1914-1920, not because of any wrong they had done but only because of who they were and where they came from. On behalf of UCCLA's members and supporters, we congratulate Ryan on his achievement."

The first video in the series dealing with the Mara Lake internment camp in British Columbia can be accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XVlDDYb8So. 

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The first video in the series dealing with the Mara Lake internment camp in British Columbia can be accessed at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XVlDDYb8So. Please like and subscribe to Armistice Films’ Youtube channel.

For more information on UCCLA, please go to: www.uccla.ca or contactmedia@uccla.ca to subscribe to our newsletters.

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (L'Association ukrainienne-canadienne des droits civils) is a non-partisan, voluntary, non-profit research and educational organization committed to the articulation and promotion of the Ukrainian Canadian community's interests and to the defence of the civil liberties and human rights of Ukrainians in Canada and elsewhere.

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