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Resources: The Causes and Human Cost of War

For Remembrance Day, here’s a sample of our recent acquisitions: print, DVD and online, plus a wealth of personal correspondence from our Archives.

From the Archives:

Letters Home: a selection of wartime correspondence from the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections

Varpu Lindstrom fonds
There is  significant material here about post-war relief efforts from Finnish communities in Canada to support families devastated back home in Finland by the war.

Ernest Bartlett fonds
Ernest Bartlett and his two brothers were all enlisted during WWII. Ernest was a journalist for the Toronto Telegram who enlisted as a war correspondent during WWII. On 14 August 1943, the motor torpedo boat he was aboard was shelled in the Straits of Messina (between Sicily and Calabria). He and his shipmates were captured and sent to a German POW camp in Marlag und Milag Nortd. The camp was liberated 2 May 1946.

Robert Laxer fonds
We have a lovely letter written by Robert Laxer to his infant son James Laxer while he was serving overseas.

Margaret Norquay fonds
We have the correspondence of Margaret Norquay, who worked as a social worker in military bases in the Maritimes during WWII, talking about the tensions following the war with men returning home.

(with thanks to Anna St.Onge, Digital Projects and Outreach Archivist)

also see: A First World War Love Story

DVDs:

  • The Messenger
    Partnered with hard-line officer Tony Stone, Sgt. Will Montgomery is a battle-scarred war hero home om Iraq and newly assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service.
  • The Hurt Locker
    When a new sergeant, James, takes over a highly trained bomb disposal team amid violent conflict, he surprises his two subordinates, Sanborn and Eldridge, by recklessly plunging them into a deadly game of urban combat. As the men struggle to control their wild new leader, the city explodes into chaos, and James’ true character reveals itself in a way that will change each man forever.
  • 14.3 Seconds by John Greyson.
    14.3 seconds are all that is left of the Iraqui film archives, destroyed by American bombs during the 2003 war. This speculative fiction attempts (and fails) to salvage what was lost.    See it in YorkSpace: http://hdl.handle.net/10315/4214
  • Letters from Karelia
    The story of Aate Pitkänen, a Canadian of Finnish descent, who emigrated to Russia in 1931. He disappeared in 1941. Sixty years later, the discovery of his last letters – written but never mailed from a Finnish prisoner-of-war camp – reveals his fate and brings together his sister Taimi and Alfred, the son Aate never met.

Books and E-resources:

Updated on November 10th, 2010.