Freedom Had A Price
Ukrainian Internment During the First World War Representations of History Freedom Had a Price is a 1994 award winning documentary about the Canadian internment of ?enemy aliens? (as considered by the Canadian government) during the First World War. Produced and directed by Yurj Luhovy, it is a moving visual account of the atrocities perpetrated on prisoners who had committed no crimes. While a small percentage were German captives, the majority were Canadians of Ukrainian descent.
Hated and feared because of their ?alien heritage? and because they posed economic threat to a country in recession, these people were imprisoned and forced to perform back-breaking work for a few cents per day.
Freedom Had a Price contains all the elements of a modern thriller: innocent people rounded up and thrown in crowded work camps; half starved forgotten captives freezing in isolated wilderness areas: torture, desperate escape attempts, sickness and death. The climax of the movie comes when the prisoners finally revolt and achieve small victory in better food and living conditions. But unlike modern stories, there is no feeling of satisfaction when the film runs out there is no resolution to the story, not then, and not now.
In the film, frozen images stare through time, gaunt, bewildered and reproachful: men huddling around fires trying to keep from freezing in northern Ontario, groups hacking down trees along railway lines in western Canada so train tourists could get a better view, a bullet riddled body shot after an escape from the Spirit Lake camp in Quebec. Interspersed with the pictures, two survivors of the camps recall their bitter memories, still afraid of reprisals from a government that imprisoned them once before for no reason. Modern historians also add explanation and interpretation to a chapter of Canadian history many would prefer to forget.
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