![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Object16_Palette_Photo2-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/bieler-1024x832.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>Object: Andr\u00e9 Bi\u00e9ler\u2019s Palette, undated, The Agnes Etherington Art Centre
Picture: Andr\u00e9 Bi\u00e9ler at the first conference of Canadian artists in Kingston, June 1941, Andr\u00e9 Bi\u00e9ler paper, 2050-3-63-3, Queen\u2019s University Archives<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nWhile not a refugee himself, Andr\u00e9 Charles Bi\u00e9ler had a significant impact on refugee relief efforts in Kingston, as well as at Queen\u2019s University. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, his family moved to Montreal when he was 12. After serving in World War One, he studied art in Paris, New York, and Switzerland, and lived in Quebec from 1927 on. In 1936, Bi\u00e9ler became artist-in-residence at Queen\u2019s University and taught as a Professor of Art until his retirement in 1964, at which time he also received an Honorary Degree of Laws from the University. From 1957 to 1963, Bi\u00e9ler was the founding director of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre and the first President of the Federation of Canadian Artists, founded in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In October of 1940 the Ottawa Branch of the Canadian National Refugee Committee organized an exhibition with an auction to raise money for relief work. A variety of artists donated their artworks, with Bi\u00e9ler contributing an oil painting, \u201cThe Sunny Market\u201d, and a pencil drawing, \u201c\u00c9tude du nu.\u201d While this exhibition was important for Canadian art in general, it also points to the variety and creativity of relief efforts that the Queen\u2019s community was involved in at this time \u2013 ranging from fellowships and accommodation to the \u201cquilts for refugee children\u201d that the Levana Society collected in 1941.The exhibition and auction in 1940 also points to the networks beyond the University and Kingston that Bi\u00e9ler was part of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alongside religious and other organizations, the Canadian National Committee on Refugees played an important role in relief efforts. From 1938 to 1948, the committee was chaired by Cairine Wilson who received an Honorary Degree of Laws from Queen\u2019s in 1943. In October 1941, she was in contact with the Dean of Medicine, Frederick Etherington \u2013 husband of Agnes Etherington \u2013 and advocated for more \u201crefugee medical men\u201d and \u201cforeign physicians.\u201d But Etherington could only report a \u201chopeless minority\u201d in favour at a vote of the Medical Council of Canada. Local or individual openness toward refugee relief efforts which Andr\u00e9 Charles Bi\u00e9ler represented, at the same time as general disapproval inspired by prejudice or immigration law, illustrate a simultaneity apparent in other periods and refugee contexts too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n(17)<\/span> Edith A. Ferguson (1903-1993)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Object17_NewcomersAndNewLearning.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Edith_A._Ferguson.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>Object: Edith A. Ferguson, Newcomers and New Learning<\/em> (Toronto: International Institute of Metropolitan Toronto, 1966), Joseph S. Stauffer Library, Queen\u2019s University Library
Picture: Edith A. Ferguson in the Tricolor \u201930 <\/em>(Kingston: Alma Mater Society 1930), p. 41, Queen\u2019s University Archives<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nEdith A. Ferguson was born in 1903 within Glengarry County, Ontario. She always had an interest in other cultures despite or perhaps because of her rural upbringing. She completed her BA at Queen\u2019s in 1931. While she additionally later obtained an MA from Columbia University, this was not until 1949. It is this space in between her two degrees that detail her commitment to refugee support, education, and relief that inspired and gripped her for decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the conclusion of the Second World War, Ferguson joined the United Nations Refugee and Relief Administration and travelled to Germany where she worked as a Welfare Officer helping to support refugees and other displaced individuals. These experiences strengthened her interest in refugee and immigrant integration into Canadian society, the field in which she wrote and studied for forty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ferguson conducted several studies on the challenges immigrants faced regarding integration, had her publications used as textbooks in the field, and served on federal task forces studying services to immigrants. From 1951 to 1976 she worked for the Ontario Citizenship Bureau, organizing and conducting intercultural seminars. She was honoured by the Province of Ontario in 1975 along with twenty\u2013four other women for \u201coutstanding contributions they have made over the years to their community or country,\u201d and was inducted into The Order of Canada in 1976 \u201cin recognition for her work in the area of immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Ferguson achieved much and was recognized countlessly by various entities, she represents something else for our showcase, the silence of women from historical record. Though different texts and electronic sources exist that detail her works, the amount of photos that were located of her in our research was close to nil. This is not entirely unexpected though as this uncanny silence is a pattern that plays out in the majority across historical landscapes and in different forms: pictures, words, familial objects \u2013 we can both count ourselves lucky and also reflect somberly on Ferguson\u2019s embodiment of existence now mainly in texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n(18)<\/span> Hans Skoutajan (1929-2015)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Object18-Skoutajan-841x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Skoutajan-2.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>Object: Honorary degree file 1986, Secretariat file, 1001.12-63-38, Queen’s University Archives
Picture: Hanns Skoutajan in the Tricolor \u201956 <\/em>(Kingston: Alma Mater Society 1956), p. 45, Queen\u2019s University Archives<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nHanns Skoutajan was a refugee who came to Canada in April 1939 when he was ten years old from Nazi occupied Aussig (Usti nad Labem), Czechoslovakia. He and his parents had been deprived of their home the previous October with the signing of the Munich Agreement that ceded Sudetenland to Germany to pacify Nazi Germany. His family were known to be socialists and anti-fascists, and managed to flee in time to avoid being arrested. They first went to Britain, but the government did not allow them to stay, so they went to Canada instead. The Skoutajans arrived as \u201cresettlers\u201d in Batawa near Kingston, a village founded by Czech refugee entrepreneur Thomas J. Bata who brought his shoe production and some of his workers to Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skoutajan attended Queen\u2019s University, completing BA and BD degrees in 1954-6. In the fall of 1957 he was assigned by the United Church of Canada to assist in welcoming and helping immigrants at Pier 21. He helped locate lost baggage, looked after babies, helped with interpretation, and reassured worried immigrants. One of the refugee groups Skoutajan helped during this time were Hungarian refugees from the 1956 Revolution, including the students that came to Queen\u2019s like Thomas Fahidy. He was also involved in organizing relief in the 1980s when refugees from Southeast Asia arrived in Canada. The honorary Doctor of Divinity degree Skoutajan received from Queen\u2019s University in 1986 explicitly mentioned these relief activities. Skoutajan held pastorates at several churches including Cooke\u2019s United Church in Kingston where he continued to work as a social activist and organized community fundraisers for refugee efforts; he was a member of the Council of Canadians, an organization that organizes strategic campaigns to improve social programs in Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skoutajan wrote a biography called Uprooted and Transplanted<\/em>, outlining his refugee journey. One of his beliefs was that \u201cendings bring new beginnings\u201d and as such, his support of refugees did not stop upon his death. Skoutajan requested that memorial donations be made to the United Church of Canada\u2019s Emergency Response for Syrian Refugees to keep supporting refugees after his passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n(19)<\/span> Mostapha Zahir (born 1964)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Object19-Zahir-new-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/li>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/localhost:8080\/wp-content\/uploads\/Zahir_with_a_teen_patient_in_Kingston_1987.png\")
<\/figure><\/li><\/ul>Object: Hemoclip automatic applier for wound closure, c. 1975-1985, Museum of Health Care at Kingston, 997034615
Picture: Mostapha Zahir (r) with one of the Afghan patients he brought to Kingston for medical treatment in 1987, Queen\u2019s University Alumni Review<\/em> 76,1 (2002), p. 9, Queen\u2019s University Archives<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMostapha Zahir was born in Kabul in 1964 as the grandson of former Afghan King, Mohammad Zahir Shah. Zahir Shah was exiled from Afghanistan in 1973 in a palace coup, so Zahir had to leave with him at nine years old. The forced move led to much turmoil in both Afghanistan and Zahir\u2019s life. Zahir later remarked that Afghanistan \u201chas always been poor but was then stable and moving toward democracy when [Zahir Shah] ended the absolute monarchy in 1964\u201d, which would have made Afghanistan a modern democratic state by introducing free elections, women’s rights and universal suffrage. However, this progress came to a halt with the coup. Zahir moved to many different cities (Rome, Vienna, London) before continuing his education at Queen\u2019s University in 1987. He received a Bachelor of Arts Honours from the Department of Political Science in 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Kingston, Zahir became active as co-founder of the Afghan Medical Relief Organization (AMRO) in the late 1980s; as of 2002, the organization had sent medical supplies and other relief to Afghanistan to a value of $250,000. AMRO also brought 15 wounded, mainly young Afghans to Kingston for medical treatment of wounds from the Soviet-Afghan war. In a 2003 newspaper article, Zahir mentioned that AMRO was \u201conly permitted by the government to bring them in, treat them, and send them back.\u201d Such relief work was only possible with the help of people from Kingston and beyond campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through the experience of being a refugee and observing a lack of progress in his country, Zahir has been a strong advocate for change and sustainability. His success comes from the fact that most people in Afghanistan want to rebuild the country as it was devastated via the Afghanistan war. Before returning to Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in the early 2000s, Mustafa served as his grandfather\u2019s diplomatic assistant (1991-2000). In 2000, he became the former King\u2019s chief of staff until he was chosen to be the ambassador to Italy in 2002. He served in that role until becoming the Director General of Afghanistan\u2019s National Environmental Protection Agency in 2005. NEPA serves as Afghanistan\u2019s environmental policy-making and regulatory institution to regulate, monitor and enforce environmental laws. As of the current Taliban takeover of the capital city Kabul, it is unknown whether there will be a federal ministry for the environment; as a result of this uncertainty, many climate officials are in hiding. Zahir\u2019s fate is unknown as of the finalization of this text, but he may have unfortunately become a refugee again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n