'To Me, It Was A Prison': Children Held In Doukhobor Camp In 1950s Set To Receive Apology From B.C. Government | CBC News

British Columbia

Up to 200 children of members of the Sons of Freedom religious sect were forcibly taken by the province, with many held in a camp in the B.C. Interior in the 1950s.

Up to 200 children of members of the Sons of Freedom religious sect were forcibly taken by provinceCBC News

· Posted: Feb 01, 2024 9:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

It is estimated 200 Doukhobor children were removed from their families, with many being placed at a facility in New Denver, about 280 kilometres east of Kelowna. Survivors have described it as a ‘prison.’ (Royal B.C. Museum/Office of the B.C. Ombudsperson)People taken from their homes as children 70 years ago due largely to the religious beliefs of their parents are set to receive formal apologies from B.C.’s Attorney General Niki Sharma at private meetings in the province’s Interior this week.

Sharma is travelling to the communities of Castlegar and Grand Forks Thursday and Friday to meet with members and relatives of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, who were forcibly removed from their parents in the 1950s.

Many were placed in a former tuberculosis sanatorium in New Denver, B.C., about 280 kilometres east of Kelowna, between 1953 and 1959, where they have testified they received physical and psychological abuse.

The Sons of Freedom were a small group within the Doukhobor community, an exiled Russian Christian group that was once known for naked protests and periodically burning down their own homes as a rejection of materialism.

WATCH | B.C. government agrees to apology following ombudsperson report: 

B.C. to make a formal apology to DoukhoborsThe provincial government will be making a formal apology later this year for its treatment of children from the Doukhobor community in the Kootenays. But the apology is not seen as an entirely positive development.

There may be up to 100 survivors from the Sons of Freedom group, who are now in their 70s or 80s.

Walter Swetlishoff, 77, told CBC News he plans to attend the apology, which he has waited for for years.

He said he lived in hiding for four years until he was caught by RCMP officers at the age of 11. 

He spent four months at a camp for Doukhobor children in the 1950s.

“To me, it was a prison,” he said in a 2023 interview with CBC.

WATCH |  A clip from a 1958 CBC News documentary about the Doukhobor children: 

From the Archives: Doukhobor children taken from familiesIn this 1958 clip from the CBC program Close-Up, members of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors visit their children, who were forcibly removed from their parents in the 1950s and placed in a former tuberculosis sanatorium in New Denver, B.C.

Swetlishoff was only allowed to see his parents twice a month, for an hour. He says his experience in the camp and earlier of being hidden away by his parents for four years, have led to lifelong scars.

“It’s just the only pain that I have, is that I’m fearful of everything,” the Crescent Valley resident said through tears.

In a followup interview on Wednesday, Swetlishoff said it was hard, but that he’s glad there will be an apology “after so many years.”

“I’m happy it’s finally being done.”

Apology comes after 2023 reportThe apology was agreed to after B.C. Ombudsperson Jay Chalke filed a July 2023 report titled Time to Right the Wrong.

The ombudsperson is an independent officer of the legislature who investigates complaints of unfair or unreasonable treatment at the hands of provincial or local officials.

Time to Right the Wrong was itself a follow-up to a 1999 review by the Office of the Ombudsperson that called for a formal apology to the interned Doukhobors and compensation, neither of which were delivered in the ensuing years.

A graphic produced by B.C.’s Office of the Ombudsperson shares first-hand testimony from children who were taken from their Doukhobor families in B.C. in the 1950s. (B.C. Office of the Ombudsperson)The report said the children were often taken under cover of the night, and “apprehended, institutionalized and maltreated,” adding that up to 200 children were removed at government direction from parents who were members of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors, a group within the community in the West Kootenay known for acts against government regulations.

About half of the removed children were seized after their parents staged a nude protest near a school in Perry Sidings, B.C., on Sept. 9, 1953.

Many of the children reported being mistreated physically and psychologically at the New Denver facility, which they described as a prison-like institution bordered by a fence they were forced to build.

Children gather along a fence to meet their parents in a still from a 1958 CBC News documentary on the Sons of Freedom in New Denver, B.C., about 280 kilometres east of Kelowna. (CBC News)”Our parents could not have too much contact with us,” a survivor told the ombudsperson in 1999 for the first report calling for an apology and compensation.

“The fence was in the way. To kiss us we would kiss through the loops in the fence. To touch us, we would stick our fingers through the fence.”

Calls for compensationWhen issuing his report last year, Chalke said while the commitment to an apology was an important step forward, financial compensation should also be involved and that he was “deeply disappointed,” it was not happening.

The provincial government said at the time it was preparing a “recognition package,” but has not provided any more details of what it will entail.

CorrectionsThe title of the 2023 report from the ombudsperson is Time to Right the Wrong, not Time to Write the Wrong as originally stated.

Feb 01, 2024 10:06 AM PT

With files from The Canadian Press, Brady Strachan and Matt Allen

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