Camp L – Cove Fields

Date Opened: July 1940
Date Closed: November 1940
Capacity: 750
Type of POW: Civilian Internees and Refugees

Description:

On July 13, 1940, the SS Ettrick arrived in Quebec City, bringing with it over 2,000 German combatant POWs and civilian internees. Of these, some 800 of the civilian internees were transferred to the new, temporary internment camp known as Camp L at Cove Fields, Quebec.

After France surrendered and the Allies evacuated from Continental Europe in June 1940, it became apparent that the United Kingdom would likely be the next target of a German invasion. But with thousands of civilian internees and enemy combatants interned on British soil, the British Government needed to move them to a safer location and turned to Canada for help. Canada agreed to accept custody of these individuals and the Department of National Defence quickly set up new internment camps sprung up across Quebec and Ontario. Among them was Camp L at Cove Fields.

Located on the Plains of Abraham, Camp L, like many of Canada’s early internment camps, was hastily converted from existing facilities. The camp made use of military barracks just recently built to house Canadian soldiers preparing to ship overseas. Barbed wire fences, sentry boxes, and sentry walkways were quickly erected and the camp was ready for the internees’ arrival on July 13.

The status of the 793 internees transferred to Camp L prompted some surprise from Canadian authorities. British tribunals had classified them all as Category B – individuals of unknown loyalty – or Category C – those not likely to be suspect – internees, yet camp staff discovered that 60% of the internees were Jewish and, after further investigation, all the internees were refugees with the exception of 90 pro-Nazis. In an inspection, Commissioner of Internment Operations Brigadier-General E. de B. Panet reported, “[the refugees] resent so much being spoken of as prisoners of war that when they were first given official note paper to write with, they erased the words ‘prisoners of war’ and inserted ‘Civilian internees’.”¹ A British intelligence officer assigned to the camp worked to identify the pro-Nazis and they were soon transferred to Camp M at Mimico.

Camp L was guarded by the Three Rivers Regiment, an active army regiment waiting to be posted overseas, but security was a significant concern; although the camp was surrounded by double layers of barbed wire fencing, most of the staff buildings were within the enclosure, separated from the prisoners’ area by a single barbed wire fence. Panet reported:

‘L’ cannot be considered a satisfactory camp, and, for prisoners of the pro-Nazi type, would be a very dangerous Camp. It is in the middle of the City, civilians can approach the Camp in many directions, and can overlook it from various points. There is no space for recreation and the opportunity for work is very limited after the Camp has been put into good shape from the point of view of tidiness, etc.

Brigadier-General E. de B. Panet to Secretary of State, August 12, 1940, HQS 7236-9 – Treatment of Enemy Aliens – Accommodation – Cove Fields, C5377, RG24, LAC.

With Panet concluding Camp L was “decidedly not suitable for Internment purposes,” it was clear the camp was to be short-lived.²

Despite security concerns, there was only one incident during the camp’s existence. Only days after arriving, internee Ernest Scheinberger was shot and killed during an apparent escape attempt. Scheinberger, who was suffering from some form of psychological distress, had been confined to the guard hut after attacking a fellow internee. During the night of July 14th and 15th, he tried forcing his way out through a window and quickly caught the guards’ attention. The guards ordered him to stop, but, after he redoubled his efforts, the guard opened fire. Scheinberger died shortly after, with the cause being deemed traumatic shock, and was buried in Quebec’s Jewish cemetery.

In September 1940, following a British request, the Category B and C internees at Camp L were reclassified as Refugees. While they remained in camp under guard, the reclassification resulted in the transfer of the Jewish refugees to Camp N (Sherbrooke) and the remaining refugees to Camp A (Farnham) in October 1940.

Camp L closed shortly after and the site resumed its original purpose as military barracks. After the war, the buildings were repurposed as civilian housing due to a housing shortage but, in the following decades, all of the former buildings of Camp L were removed. Today, the site is part of the Battlefields Park, managed by the National Battlefields Commission.

1. Brigadier-General E. de B. Panet to Secretary of State, August 12, 1940, HQS 7236-9 – Treatment of Enemy Aliens – Accommodation – Cove Fields, C5377, RG24, LAC. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎

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