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Christine Schlechta was a 10-year-old German immigrant at the time of what she recalled as a magical quarantine Christmas. “It was Christmas Eve, 1951, when we arrived in Halifax at Pier 21,” Christine remembered. “We were led into the large assembly hall lined with benches where we had to wait …
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Canada would have lost Margarita Bruehler nee Sosnowsky to Paraguay if her brother hadn’t come down with the chickenpox. Margarita’s early childhood memories are dominated by her family’s escape from Russia in 1943 and life in the battleground of German occupied Europe. The family crossed many …
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A brave little boy named Peep Aljas spent his first days in Canada under quarantine. He was born in Estonia in 1941 during the first Soviet occupation. He and his mother fled to Germany in 1944, just ahead of the Russian re-occupation. By 1949 things looked bad with the Berlin Blockade, so his …
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Herman Blom had secured a job as a welder in Saskatoon and the family was on their way, but their brief quarantine left him jobless. His daughter, Gysje Koenderink, recalled an exciting crossing in which she and her five brothers and sisters saw icebergs and whales and were treated to daily …
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Being quarantined while travelling to Halifax with her baby was frightening for British war bride Audrey (Hawes) Doyle Ash. Audrey was onboard the Queen Mary when she and Patrick were put into isolation with others. “We were a day and a half out to sea when a little girl got meningitis,” wrote …
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Being quarantined at Pier 21 meant a rough start to their Canadian adventure for the Blom family. Shelly Blom was born in the Netherlands and in the spring of 1953 her parents decided to move. “My parents had decided to leave our home in Apeldoorn to seek out new opportunities for their young …
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In the Canadian Immigration Hall, we have a great interactive element where we ask visitors to share with us their family traditions and customs. The point of this activity is to get people to think about where these traditions come from and the intangible culture that immigrants bring with them …
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I have had the pleasure of attending quite a few citizenship ceremonies in my life. If you have not been to one, I suggest you look into it. The excitement, the joy, the pride, you can feel them in the air like electricity. Many immigrants feel like they really belong in Canada after receiving …
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Tell us about your customs and traditions: In the Canadian Immigration Hall at our Museum, the exhibition is divided into four important themes: journey, arrival, belonging and impact. My favorite place to take visitors is the impact section. Here, we tell the amazing story of the contributions …
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