For the many talented artists who were interned in Canada during the Second World War, their internment provided them with opportunities to continue and hone their craft. Thanks to aid organizations like the War Prisoners’ Aid of the YMCA and the International Red Cross, prisoners had access to art supplies in internment camps and many labour projects. With nothing but time on their hands, artists busied themselves sketching and painting their new surroundings, scenes from their home, or whatever they fancied. Their work quickly caught the eyes of their comrades and soon artists began selling and trading their work within the camps.
Demand for art from fellow POWs or even guards, camp staff, and civilians forced artists to find ways to reproduce their art. This demand prompted some artists to turn to linocuts in order to reproduce multiple copies of a single work. I have briefly explored an example of a linocut from Camp 100 at Neys, Ontario, but for those unfamiliar with the process, a linocut involves carving an image or scene into a block of linoleum. Ink is then applied to the linoleum and paper pressed against the block to transfer the image. Multiple colours can be applied by using multiple blocks, carving and printing in steps, or by applying paint to single sections of a block at a time.
This is an example of a lincout print showing a scene from Camp 44 at Grande Ligne, Quebec. Camp 44 opened in June 1943 and held German combatant officers until it closed in April 1946. Before the war, the site had been home to Feller Institute, a boarding school, but it was repurposed as an internment camp with the addition of barbed wire fences, guard towers, and several new buildings.
The print itself is printed on thin paper with a single colour (black) but it shows remarkable detail. Smoke billows from the camp’s coal-powered heating plant and the four-storey building housing 500 German officers in semi-private rooms is visible in the background. Barbed wire fences separated the main enclosure from the recreation field in the foreground but the latter remained accessible by the elevated footbridge seen on the right. Two prisoners can be seen crossing the bridge while a close look reveals a guard standing on the guard tower’s catwalk and another standing watch in the upper level. A small dog laps at one of several puddles – all of which show reflections of the camp – while several POWs walk laps around the recreation field for exercise.
The artist has signed the piece under the pseudonym “befi” but, thanks to former POW Franz-Karl Stanzel, he has been identified as Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen. Tiesenhausen, the Captain of German submarine U-331, had been captured in November 1942 and settled in Vancouver after the war.
Notably the print also came with a photograph of the camp showing almost an identical scene as the print – well, at least half of it. I believe the photograph may have been used as a reference by the artist, although it is unclear how they came into possession of it. Prisoners were forbidden from having access to cameras and guards were also instructed not to take photos of internment camps, let alone pass along a photo of a camp to a POW. While such regulations were relaxed following Germany’s surrender, it remains an unusual example.
In a stroke of luck, I also discovered some insight into how the print was made. While researching POW linocuts for a previous post, I had stumbled upon the very linocut block that had been used to produce this print in the collection of the Canadian War Museum. At the time, it had been misidentified as a piece dating back to the First World War but, after getting in touch with museum staff, they corrected the item’s description.
As evident from the above photo, the block is understandably reversed from the print and has been expertly carved into a block of linoleum. The piece measures only 25.5 by 19.7 cm and, comparing to the print, has been cut down from its original size, namely omitting the footbridge connecting the main compound and the recreation field. An inscription, “MADE BY P.O.W.” has been added, perhaps by a guard or camp staff member who acquired the piece as a souvenir.
Notably, the presence of red, green, and varying shades of brown ink remaining on the block suggests at least one or more colour prints were made but it remains unclear whether this was done during or after the camp’s existence. At this time, I do not know of any surviving colour prints.
Linocuts remained a popular way for POW artists to reproduce multiple copies of their art throughout their time in Canada. As POWs generally did not have access to cameras or photographs of their camps, paintings, sketches, drawings, and prints likes these were the few souvenirs they were permitted that showed what life was like in an internment camp in Canada.
This may be the only surviving example of a POW linocut block and print but if you happen to know of any other POW linocut prints or blocks from Camp 44 or other POW camps in Canada, please leave a comment below or get in touch!
POWs in Canada 