{"id":141,"date":"2021-09-03T17:10:42","date_gmt":"2021-09-03T17:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/virtual-exhibits.library.queensu.ca\/queens-refuge\/?page_id=141"},"modified":"2021-10-02T04:44:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T04:44:13","slug":"queens-refuge-showcase-at-the-kingston-pump-house","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/queens-refuge-showcase-at-the-kingston-pump-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen’s Refuge Showcase at the Kingston Pump House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Queen’s Refuge has partnered with the Kingston Pump House<\/a> to further explore and demonstrate forced migration<\/a> leading to Queen’s University. The exhibition at the Pump House is part of Pier 21’s Travelling Exhibitions<\/a> entitled “Refuge Canada,” which takes visitors through five different themes: life before, fear, displacement, refuge, and life in Canada. There are currently six of our stories being told at the Kingston Pump House, and included here as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Refugees from Nazi persecution reached Kingston and Queen\u2019s University throughout the 1930s and 40s, but only in small numbers. Some of their stories are told here, shedding light on aspects like internment, relief, transit, and arrival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kingston and Queen\u2019s University were no major destinations for refugees from Nazi persecution, first in Germany and later all over Europe. Immigration restrictions and prejudices on the one hand, and the lack of opportunities to cross the Atlantic Ocean on the other were the main reasons. Nevertheless, people in Kingston and at the university began to advocate for these refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest group of refugees were those interned as enemy aliens <\/a>in Britain after the outbreak of World War II and deported to Canada in 1940, among them ca. 2,000 Jewish refugees from Germany or Austria. Only 235 were granted study releases from the Canadian internment camps until the end of 1943. Some of them were accepted at Queen\u2019s University as students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few additional refugee scholars found refuge<\/a> at the university based on relief efforts of individuals, groups, or organizations: they organized travel, accommodation, fellowships, and the new beginning in Kingston. Other refugees arrived only after the war when immigration restrictions were lifted. The refugee routes to Queen\u2019s varied individually throughout the 1930 and 40s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The refugee biographies presented here are connected to various aspects: solidarity and rejection at the same time since anti-Semitism<\/a> was still an issue at Queen\u2019s University in the 1940s. To integration into the community on different levels, and onward migration when the war was over. And to relief efforts for other refugees after 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alfred Bader (1924-2018)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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