ARMIES OF PEACE: CANADA AND THE UNRRA YEARS

by Susan Armstrong-Reid and David Murray (University of Toronto Press, 448 pages, $65 hardcover)

Established in November 1943 during the Second World War, the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was responsible for providing relief and medical services in liberated areas of Europe, the Middle East and Asia and also for the repatriation of displaced persons.

Canada was a key player. The authors of this book say the UN agency "became a test of Canada's determination and ability to play a larger role on the postwar world stage."

The first five chapters, based on Susan Armstrong-Reid's doctoral thesis, detail this diplomatic manoeuvring. Canada eventually came to have an ex-officio seat on UNRRA's directing committee when Lester Pearson, the future prime minister, became chair of the supplies committee.

The rest of Armies of Peace deals with the experiences of individual Canadians working in the field as "UNRRAIDS" and this is the most significant, original and interesting part of the book.

These Canadians faced huge challenges.

When the agency assumed responsibility for inmates of Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, for example, there were 10,000 unburied dead. Almost 50 per cent of the camp's inmates were to die in the following two months, before the agency was able to deliver adequate succour.

The military, responsible for providing transport, frequently used UNRRA as a dumping ground for vehicles only days from the scrap yard. And many displaced persons refused to be repatriated to Soviet-controlled eastern European countries, fearing persecution for their political views.

The range of problems was virtually limitless. But so was the range of solutions devised by the Canadian field workers.

Charity Grant, a supply officer at Camp Eschweg in southeast Germany, used her own ration of cigarettes and liquor for bribing a U.S. officer to get serviceable vehicles. She also over-reported the number of camp residents to get extra supplies that she saved as a reserve.

In northern Germany, Carl Hiltz, without authorization, introduced "camp money" redeemable for food and other supplies. It was paid to camp residents willing to work and provide services for the camp administration and inmates.

In providing medical and public health services, similarly unorthodox solutions were devised, including the use of psychiatric nursing, a relatively new branch of medical practice required by patients ravaged by war, displacement and detention.

In a brilliant stroke of historical methodology, the authors also turn their attention to the role later played by former UNRRAIDS in Canadian social and political life.

Former field workers such as Ethel Ostry and Elizabeth Brown played influential roles in liberalizing Canadian immigration policies, with a particular emphasis on displaced persons and refugees. Others came home convinced of the importance of sociological research and social work. Among these was Leonard Marsh, who at the University of British Columbia pioneered "studies of social inequality, based on exhaustive and systematic collection of data rather than abstract theories of human nature."

Overall, Armies of Peace is a brilliant and original analysis of Canada's postwar involvement in international aid organizations.

David Murray, now a professor emeritus, has been a member of the University of Guelph history department since 1967. Susan Armstrong-Reid is an independent scholar and a director of the Centre for Studies in Leadership at the University of Guelph.

Bob Gordon is a Guelph writer.