Exhibit shows ingenuity of PoWs
By DAVE SULZ
They were the ultimate survivors, employing resourcefulness that would put the television reality show participants to shame.
They scrounged spare parts to make radios and turned barrels and tin cans into stoves.
They were inmates of Camp 133, a prisoner of war camp based in Lethbridge during the Second World War, and for the next few months, their story is being told at the Galt Museum and Archives.
ÒFor you the war is over: Second World War PoW ExperiencesÓ is an exhibit opening to the public today during Museum Community Day, running from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with free admission, at the museum located at the west end of 5 Avenue South.
The extensive exhibit, boasting an array of period artifacts, is designed to share with visitors the experiences of German PoWs in Canada as well as Canadian PoWs in Germany during the war.
ÒTo tell this story is significant,Ó said Galt Museum curator Wendy Aitkens, project manager for the PoW exhibit.
The five Alberta PoW camps housed 28,000 prisoners, Aitkens explained, and provided a labour force that was of crucial importance with so many Alberta men involved in the war effort. The Lethbridge camp, which matched Medicine HatÕs as CanadaÕs largest, extended from 5 Avenue to 18 Avenue North between 28 Street and 43 Street.
The exhibit was the result of a team effort involving the Galt, the Military Museums in Calgary, the Lord Strathcona Horse, the KingÕs Own Calgary Regiment and the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry.
The partnership was a key to creating an exhibit of such scope, said Rory Cory, senior curator at the Military Museums in Calgary who served as project curator for the Galt exhibit.
ÒI think this is the way to go for smaller and midsize museums,Ó he said. ÒItÕs an excellent way to pool human and financial resources.Ó
The result, said exhibit researcher Jill Browne, is an exhibit thatÕs greater than the sum of its parts.
Researching the project gave Browne an opportunity to spend time learning the stories of some of the people who were involved in the Alberta camps as prisoners or as guards. By sharing those stories through the exhibit, Òwe can make more people a part of this experience,Ó she said.
The stories include that of Carrie SillitoÕs late husband Arvil, who served as a guard at the Lethbridge camp.
ÒHe worked on the main gate,Ó located at what is now 5 Avenue North, Sillito said of her husband, who was a member of the regimental police and served at the camp for two years.
After the war ended, Sillito said, Arvil was among the soldiers who escorted PoWs back to Eastern Canada from which they were sent to Britain.
Many of the German PoWs later returned to settle in Canada, among them Alfred Weiss, who wound up buying the very farm near Picture Butte that he worked on while he was a PoW. His story is one of those told in an exhibit display.
TodayÕs events at the Galt include ÒThe Enemy Within,Ó a documentary about German soldiers in Lethbridge, to be shown at 11 a.m. and again at 3 p.m. At 1 p.m., a quartet of the Southern Alberta Chorus will present ÒHip Hip Hooray,Ó highlighting music of the 1930s and 1940s.
The PoW exhibit will be the focus of Saturdays at 1:00, the GaltÕs weekly program for kids running May 17-June 14, as well as Cafe Galt, running Wednesdays from June 11-Sept. 10.
The exhibit will be on display until Sept. 21
© Lethbridge Herald, Canada