Wanda's War: An Untold Story of Nazi Europe, Forced Labour, and a Canadian Immigration Scandal by Marsha Faubert

A powerful and moving account of the horrors of war and exile, Wanda’s War follows Wanda and her future husband Casey through the Second World War and their subsequent journeys as Polish refugees to Canada. Displaced from her home and sent to a labor camp in Nazi Germany, Wanda eventually makes her way to Canada as one of 100 young Polish women brought to work at a Quebec textile mill. Meanwhile, Casey was imprisoned in Siberia and fought with the Polish army in Italy before immigrating to Canada. Both exiled from a home that is no longer theirs, they ultimately learn to make a new life in this unfamiliar country.

“Exile,” Faubert writes, “is not a voluntary state, born out of a conscious decision to follow a new path and make a new home. It doesn’t carry with it the hope of an immigrant, moving from home in search of opportunity yet still remaining the prospect of a return to home if one chooses. The exile who arrives in a new country, even one that is welcoming, will not immediately regard it as home or abandon memory of home and take on the cloak of another identity.”

Perhaps this is part of the reason why Wanda and Casey never discussed their experiences openly with their children, something which Faubert insightfully probes.

From the start, she skilfully positions herself as a sort of outsider, recounting the trials of her deceased in-laws. This removed familiarity from Wanda and Casey’s experiences makes Faubert the ideal author of this story. She approaches this project of remembering with respectful curiosity, knowing enough about their later years to reflect on how their wartime experiences might have impacted their lives and their relationship with their children. This book is a history lesson, but it also contains a more moving exploration of silence and the struggle of parents to reach across the divide of trauma to connect with their children.

With limited resources to track the trajectory of their displacement, Faubert relies on other sources and memoirs to paint a portrait of what likely happened to her in-laws during those unknowable years. There are moments where the narrative feels overwhelmed by the weight of her research, containing more than necessary about the broader context of war and the places they were taken. But when Faubert shifts the focus back to Wanda and Casey, the book truly shines.

Faubert reminds us that for many, the war did not end in 1945, and there were groups of people who neither won nor lost. From the horrors of the forced labour camps to the exploitation of immigrant workers in Canada, Faubert exposes a darker side of human history.

The book is a poignant exploration of the trauma of exile and the devastating impact of displacement on the lives of millions of Europeans during and after the Second World War. It is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of unspeakable adversity and a reminder of the importance of understanding and empathy in a world still marked by conflict and displacement.

Marsha Faubert is a Toronto-based lawyer with a lengthy history of public service in the administrative justice system in Ontario. She has worked as a litigator, an arbitrator, an adjudicator of appeals in workplace injury and disease claims, and as the director of a provincial tribunal. Wanda’s War is her first book.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Goose Lane Editions (Feb. 21 2023)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1773102753
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1773102757

Renée Belliveau

Renée Belliveau is a writer and archivist from the Siknikt district of Mi’kma’ki (Sackville, NB). She is the author of The Sound of Fire, a novel based on the true story of the devastating 1941 fire at Mount Allison University, and a memoir about her father’s battle with cancer entitled Les étoiles à l’aube. She is a graduate of Mount Allison University, the University of Waterloo, and the University of Toronto. When not writing about the treasures she finds in archives, Renée can be found knitting, foraging, or perusing new titles at her local library.