“Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison” : The Internment of Ukrainians During WWI - A personal Tale

“Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison”: Norman Nawrocki’s Ongoing Creative and Learning Process

Norman Nawrocki in character
as Prisoner #158 with his shovel

PHOTO CREDIT: Joyce Valbuena

The Internment of Ukrainians during WWI took place in Canada due to legislation which was passed on August 22, 1914. It was known as the War Measures Act and gave the Governor in Council extraordinary powers, “during time of war, invasion, and insurrection, real or apprehended [feared].” The Cabinet would be able to pass laws without going through the Parliament, technically, Canada’s lower house, commonly known as the House of Commons, or just the commons.

One of these powers was was for “arrest, detention, exclusion and deportation.” It was that effected so many Ukrainians and others who were feared by the government of the the day. “Approximately 80,000 people had to register as “enemy aliens” and were compelled to report regularly to the police. Their freedom of speech, movement and association were also restricted” ["Ukrainian Internment in Canada." The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published May 24, 2018; Last Edited June 05, 2018.]

Throughout my university years in the 1980s academic papers began to appear on the subject of internment. I followed these and there were other mediums telling the story of many who had become victims due to the War Measures Act. During the Second World War it was used to intern Italians, Japanese and German Canadians and I lived through implications of the this act as a young boy seeing troops in combat gear and heavy military vehicles on the streets of Montreal during the October Crisis in 1970.

Last Meeting and Reconnect

While studying and working at McGill University in the late 19980s and early 1990s I met many different people. One of them was Norman Nawrocki, originally from Vancouver but living in the student ghetto in Montreal when we met. At the time I recall Nawrocki had told me that he was just discovering his Ukrainian roots. It had been the Ukrainian Students’ Club at McGill which had brought us together. We had gotten together a few times at club meetings and afterwards socially. I stayed in touch with him until the summer of 1991 and they lost contact with him for over three decades. Often the alliteration of his name, first and family, would pop into my head and I would think: “I wonder where Norman Nawrocki is today?”

On December 2^nd of this year an announcement from a common friend of ours, I found out that he was leading a very active and creative life. So I reached out to him as he had been CC’d in the email I received. A few days later I asked him when we last saw one another he wrote me: “We met on June 25th, 1991. I found a piece of paper with notes I took during our meeting, references to the "UCC (Ukrainian Canadian Congress) Parliamentary Interns, the Uke Info Bureau in Ottawa, ... and Przenechaya, the Ukrainian Wheat Vodka.” I’m a bit of an archivist!” Hence, I was not surprised to see just how prolific Nawrocki has been when I received the notice about his one person play entitled “Run Nawrocki Run: Escape from Banff Prison”, and some of the thought-provoking works he has produced and published in the past.

From the announcement and link to the Facebook event I’d been sent, I learnt “Nawrocki has written, staged & toured over 20 theatre & cabaret creations since 1986, authored 14 books of poetry, short fiction & a novel (with translations in French & Italian), & released over 60 albums of music & spoken word, solo & with his diverse bands.” I think his self-proclaimed being “a bit of an archivist!” Has served him well in his creative endeavours.

I had pitched this story idea to The Ukrainian Weekly, and wrote it but it never ran, as we know that everyone is very closely following events in Ukraine.

From Saturday December 11th @ 9am EST until Friday December 17th, 9pm EST his one person play will be available on his YouTube channel for free: https://bit.ly/3oy0tvO . The trailer is already available on his Facebook [ www.facebook.com/norman.nawrocki ] and YouTube pages.

Learning More About Nawrocki

I contacted Nawrocki to learn a little more about him, his rediscovery of his Ukrainian heritage, his creative process, accolades and the intrinsic reason of why he wrote this play, the music and performed together with his sister Vivian.

 

Uamuzik: Norman, you and I met many years ago before Ukraine's independence. We often discussed some of our personal histories, though at the time I believe you had really only started to discover your roots. When and how did it all begin?

As a child, I learned that I was Ukrainian (and Polish), but that I should never speak about it because I might be discriminated against. This had been the experience of my mother growing up Ukrainian-Canadian in Manitoba. So, I hid my Ukrainian self, and only explored it on annual family visits with my mother’s family in rural western Manitoba. This had been the experience of my mother growing up Ukrainian-Canadian in Manitoba. So, I hid my Ukrainian self, and only explored it on annual family visits with my mother’s family in rural western Manitoba.

We were never part of the ‘Ukrainian’ community growing up in Vancouver; only our so very distant Manitoba family one. We were never encouraged to learn or speak Ukrainian, because it was considered more important for us to simply blend in and be accepted by ‘white people, the English,’ as my mom would say.

Many, many years later, I realized it was time for me to honour my culture, to honour my family, and to honour myself by exploring my Ukrainian roots. This was prompted by music – re-discovering the Ukrainian-Canadian music I had grown up with as a child, hearing at Manitoba family functions and occasionally sung and played at home by my Mom. By 1985, I had formed a ‘cabaret rock ’n roll' band in Montreal. As a violinist, I wanted to learn how to play this crazy, wild, magical Ukrainian folk music that was buried somewhere deep inside me. Melodies that would play in my head. Tunes that I knew but didn’t know. I started to dig out old family LPs, I transcribed the music, and learned how to play Kolomeykas, Arkan and more. And I realized, this was a big part of who I was.

I wanted to know more. So I started doing the research, interviewing family members, reading about Ukrainians in Canada, Ukrainian history. I visited the Ukrainian gifts and books shop on Boulevard St-Laurent in Montreal, buying bargain old LPs, newer cassettes, and even Ukrainian plates and bowls to place on my kitchen table. I had none of this stuff growing up.

Norman and his sister Vivian Nawrocki,
in Vancouver, BC.

PHOTO CREDIT: a passing stranger :)

I learned the music, shared it with my band members, and we recorded it, released it, and toured Canada, the US and Europe with it, and met people who wanted to know, ‘what is this crazy, wild, totally dance-able music you are playing for us, we love it!’ We played it in Montreal for St-Jean Baptiste Day celebrations, and local Quebecois people went nuts over it, demanding more.

I kept reading: ‘Men in Sheepskin Coats;’ ‘The Ukrainians in Manitoba;’ ‘The Ukrainian Canadians, A History;’ Ivan Franko’s short stories, etc.

This rediscovering my roots process continues to today, 2021.

 

Uamuzik: Your works are base on a great deal of personal experience, reflection and contemplation. What drives your process?

I want to know more and I want to share what I know, what I consider significant, valuable, worth knowing, with others. If I decide to do a play based in history, I do a lot of background research, online, library books, interviews with those who know more. Once I have all the facts, I pour them into the sifter/blender and push the start button. I attempt to discover the focal point, the essence, the core spirit for the work, and do the ‘onion thing,’ but backwards: I construct the onion from the centre out, adding layers, but being selective: this is creative, this is engaging, this belongs, fits in this piece. This doesn’t. This can be discarded or set aside for a future longer work. This has to go back into the blender, and be reconsidered.

I fill notebooks with ideas, lines, visions, then review, review, review, write, write and re-write.

The script for my current Banff play, for example, has gone through about 20 revisions, 20 versions easily, maybe more.

 

Uamuzik: How do you react to commentary of Canadian playwrights like David Fennario about your earlier productions?

It is so heartwarming, so gratifying, so humbling to hear someone like the great Canadian playwright, David Fennario, praise my work. Even more humbling when he follows that up asking me to act in one of his plays! I was thrilled to read his comments. I am such a scattered artist – I do many things – I write, I compose, play & record music, I act, I publish poetry, short stories, a novel, I produce shows, I tour with my work – I am a bit of this, a bit of that. Someone like David is an accomplished playwright. I’m a guy who likes to write, perform and produce plays. So when someone of his stature says something about my work, it’s inspiring, really inspiring. But it’s also equally heartwarming to hear the words of others in the audiences, of people I don’t even know who thank me for sharing the stories, the history they never heard of, never learned in school.

 

Uamuzik: As a story teller I am always fascinated by the process of others. When you uncovered this personal history, how did it hit you?

It hit me in the gut: three possibly distant family members were imprisoned and forced to do slave labour by Canada simply because they were poor, unemployed and Ukrainian? Like WTF? I had heard so many stories growing up about the endless prejudice, discrimination and outright racism that older family members endured when they came to Canada and tried to "fit in,” to just lead ordinary lives like other Canadians. I heard about the jokes, the slurs, the second class treatment on the job, if they could get a job, the attempts to change their accents, their names, their way of being to try to be more ‘white, more English,’ knowing they could never wash out the ‘Bohunk’ tattooed onto their skin, their tongues, their mannerisms, their way of living.

I heard about my relatives always dealing with lying, cheating, abusive bosses, because they were considered ‘just dumb Ukrainians,’ good for nothing but hard labour, always underpaid.

I heard about these forced labour camps, about being forced to report to the Mounties.

So I did the research and uncovered the truths, the hidden history, the repressed stories, the pain and suffering that my own family members lived with, and now, these distant family members probably suffered as well, only it was more intense behind the barbed wire prisons for them.

It made me sad and angry, but also inspired me to tell their stories, to tell this story as best I could with the means I have : words, music, theatre, visuals. I wanted to honour their memories, their struggles, their hopes and dreams for a better life. This was what my ancestors always wanted when they came to Canada, it’s why they came here, like so many other immigrants, yesterday and today: for a better life. They didn’t deserved to be treated like dogs. None of them.