Dr Lubomyr Luciuk 

A trilingual historical plaque will be unveiled on Saturday, 22 September 2001, 11:30 a.m. (Atlantic) at the site of the Amherst internment camp, on what is today the property of Casey Concrete Limited. The internment camp at Amherst operated from 17 April 1915 to 27 September 1919.

Between 1914-1920, during Canada’s first national internment operations, thousands of Ukrainians and other Europeans were needlessly imprisoned as “enemy aliens” in 24 concentration camps located across the country, their properties and valuables confiscated, their labour exploited, their freedom of speech, association and movement severely curtailed.

Since 1987 the Ukrainian Canadian community has requested that the Government of Canada acknowledge this episode in Canadian history and provide for an accounting and restitution of that portion of the internees’ confiscated wealth that still remains in government coffers. Those funds should then be distributed for educational purposes, to help ensure that no other ethnic, religious or racial minority ever suffers as Ukrainian Canadians once did.

UCCLA has placed 17 trilingual plaques and 3 statues at various internment camps across Canada.

Financial support for this plaque was provided by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Ukrainian Canadian community in the Maritimes.