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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: ‘Canada’s dirty little secret’: Descendants demand action for 2,300 wrongfully imprisoned Jewish WWII refugees
Description: Eight decades ago, Andrew Cassel’s father was bundled aboard a prison ship in England and sent to Canada as an “enemy alien”, where he was held behind barbed wire for two years. The elder Cassel was part of a little-known operation that in 1940 targeted about 2,300 Jewish Europeans whom the British feared were spies for Adolf Hitler. Now, Cassel—along with other descendants and some historians—are raising awareness about what he calls “Canada’s dirty little secret”. They want an apology from Canada and educational programming.
The prisoners lived in harsh conditions at nine prisoner-of-war camps in Quebec, Ontar...