Shortly after Newfoundland's confederation with Canada in 1949, about 70 Baltic Germans and Latvians immigrated to the island as part of then Premier Joseph R. Smallwood’s industrialization and economic diversification strategy, the New Industries Program. Their expertise in cement and gypsum had contributed to Germany's reconstruction after the war, and it enabled them to participate in building Newfoundland's infrastructure after Confederation.

Origins

The adults in these Latvian and the Baltic German families, born in Latvia between 1896 and 1920, came from families of landowners, the intelligentsia, or the merchant and professional classes. Their children were born in Latvia, Poland and Germany. During their lives, they experienced, endured – and made the best of – highly eventful times. Even though, in their young lives, they had already experienced the turmoil and uncertainty of the Russian Revolution, the liberation of Latvia, changes in landownership, new technologies, and the Great Depression, they lived ordinary lives. They grew up within families; they knew their city, Riga; they went to school and university; they partied and had friends; they spent summers at the beach (Jūrmala); they fell in love, got married and started families – all in the full expectation of continuing to live where they had been born, in the society they knew. But this was not to be because war and conflict were changing the political map of Europe.

As a result of changing relations between Communist Russia and Nazi Germany during World War II, these Baltic people had to leave Latvia (just as they were beginning their careers and families) in their twenties and thirties. The ethnic Germans were resettled to Poland in 1939 and fled the advancing Russian army into Germany in 1944 or early 1945. The Latvians remained in Latvia during the war and fled to Germany also ahead of the Russian army in 1944. Five or six years later, they left Germany for Corner Brook, an industrial town on the west coast of Newfoundland. Corner Brook was a great distance, geographically and culturally, from everything they had known in their lives.

Ernests Leja

Ernests Leja was a Latvian engineer who played a significant role in their lives. Educated in Riga, he specialized in cement and the use of prestressed concrete in construction. During his career in Latvia and Germany, he developed professional and personal connections with Latvian, German, Russian, British, and Newfoundland communities.

Many in the group who emigrated to Corner Brook would have met Leja through their social and business lives in Riga. They renewed their connection with him in Lower Saxony and, largely because of this, made the decision to emigrate to Newfoundland.

Baltic Germans in Poland and World War II In November 1939, the Baltic Germans were forced to leave Latvia under the terms of a German-Soviet neutrality pact. (The pact was signed on August 23, 1939, by Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop, variously called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Hitler-Stalin Pact, or the Nazi-Soviet Pact).  They were given some support by the German government, were allowed to take some belongings with them, and were resettled in the Reichsgau Wartheland (Warthegau) in Poland. Ethnic Germans were given German citizenship and the men were expected to serve in the war.

The German war effort required cement and gypsum; a group of Baltic Germans, who had gained relevant expertise in Latvia, gathered to produce these products in the Warthegau. Those active in this industry (the engineers, entrepreneurs and mining managers) were considered essential to the war effort; other men were conscripted into, or volunteered to join, the Wehrmacht.

The women and essential workers set up new homes in houses that had belonged to the Nazi-evicted Polish population. Some women worked in offices or ran the businesses their husbands had to leave when they began service in the Wehrmacht. They all established what they considered normal lives, raising their children and taking care of their relatives. But after four years, when it became clear that Germany was losing the war, they began to plan for escape to Germany. The Baltic Germans greatly feared the Russian army and thought their best chance for survival was in the defeated German territories.

In early 1945, they fled just ahead of the Russians however they could, in wagons, on the last train out, walking, in the rush of people fleeing west ahead of the Russian army. They took only their loved ones and what they could carry with them. (Flight and Expulsion of Germans from Poland during and after World War II) (Evacuation and Flight into areas in Germany)

Refugees in West Germany By circuitous routes, these refugees made their way to Lower Saxony. The refugees settled in a small mid-German town, Stadtoldendorf, and the nearby towns of Bodenwerder and Bielefeld. The common threads that led them there were their expertise in cement and gypsum (essential to rebuilding Germany) and their connection to Ernests Leja. Working with some other German experts (Karl Jericho and Friedrich Kreiser, see Escape Hatch, G. Bassler) they designed and built a gypsum plant in Bodenwerder.

Allied occupied Germany was desperately trying to accommodate about 7 million displaced persons and refugees while providing for its own population after losing the war. The ethnic German Balts were not eligible for any support from the United Nations or the Allies because they had received German citizenship. They had to survive along with the local German population, competing with them for very scarce resources. They spoke German with a pronounced accent and were easily identified. They were, in fact, outsiders, refugees from another place and largely they were not accepted by the local population.

At first, the Baltic refugees were billeted in rooms in local homes. Food rationing and a lack of consumer goods meant that people often went hungry, clothes were worn until they fell apart and shoes with holes in the soles were common. The children started school, the fathers got work and the mothers did their best to provide food and a stable environment for the children. There was a certain post-war euphoria; massive relief that the men had returned having survived the war and prisoner of war camps. They loved to picnic and partied among themselves. Gradually, they were able to obtain their own accommodations and earn enough to provide food and clothing for their now growing families.

As mentioned earlier, the Latvians had a very different experience during the war years. In Germany, they were considered refugees or displaced persons. Many were housed in United Nations-sponsored DP camps. There the school age children attended school while their parents did their best to plan for their futures. The greatest hope was that Latvia would be liberated by the Allies. Barring this, they looked to emigrate to North America or Australia.  Through their connection with people in the gypsum or cement industry, and through Ernest Leja, a small group made their way to Lower Saxony where they connected with Baltic Germans who shared the same geographic homeland.  

These people had no homeland to return to in the post-war years. They were discriminated against, were impatient with the lack of opportunity in a slowly recovering Germany, and were concerned about the threat posed by communist Russia. They were by now in early middle age with growing families and sought the opportunity to live in a safe and prosperous land far from the communists.

Newfoundland and Joseph R. Smallwood Newfoundland joined Canada as its tenth province in April 1949 (Commission of Government and Confederation with Canada). At that time, the Newfoundland economy was based largely on fishing and was woefully deficient in infrastructure. Joseph Smallwood, its first premier, established the New Industries Program to provide employment, infrastructure and consumer goods. Two of the key elements for this infrastructure were cement and gypsum to build bridges, roads, schools and hospitals. The required expertise was not available locally and could not be attracted in nearby mainland Canada or in the United States.

Smallwood recognized that the experts he needed were among the many unemployed or underemployed refugees in early post-war Germany. Following on the advice of his then-director of economic development, Alfred Valdmanis, a Latvian refugee himself, Smallwood travelled to Germany to meet with industrialists, including Ernest Leja. Through Leja, Valdmanis also visited Bodenwerder gypsum plant.

Corner Brook

This group of Latvians and Baltic Germans made its way to Corner Brook between late 1949 and 1954. In some cases, the men came first and brought their wives and children later; in others families came together. Some flew over the Atlantic to Gander and then travelled by train, the Newfie Bullet, to Corner Brook; others crossed the North Atlantic in ships. A selection of first person recollections of arriving is available in an article in the Newfoundland Quarterly, Spring 2019, p. 24-27.

In Germany, these people had been unable to get much information about Newfoundland. They could see on a map that Corner Brook was geographically well south of Riga and they knew that English was the spoken language. They all experienced culture shock when they arrived on the island at the eastern edge of North America in an isolated town of 12,000 people. Corner Brook was connected to the world by ship and to the rest of the island by train; however, there were no roads that led more than a few miles out of town and no accessible airport. The local language, foods, world-view, customs and life-style were all very different from their own. The climate was much more severe than they expected with very long winters and short cool summers. What the immigrants shared with local Corner Brookers, though, was the post-war boom time with its expectation for a prosperous future. They were happy to have found a place that offered a peaceful life under a democratic government system that provided hope, freedom, education, and health care.

Finding lodgings in Corner Brook was a challenge. Some Balts were first housed in the barracks on Fern Street, very basic housing that had been erected to house construction workers building a tuberculosis sanatorium. Some, not only the men who came alone but also families, were boarded in homes. A few stayed for a time in the local hotel, the Glynmill Inn. Eventually several families lived at 11 East Valley Road or on Reid Street.  Four homes at the upper end of Caribou Road were built specifically for their immigrant workers by W. J. Lundrigan's.  A number of managers and workers of North Star Cement and Atlantic Gypsum built homes near the cement plant on Ingrid Lane, referred to by locals as Little Berlin.

Learning enough English to get along was key. The children started school immediately and learned English quickly; they were placed in classrooms with the local children and expected to learn as if by osmosis. Most tell the same story: in their first set of exams, they excelled in math and failed in all courses that required the English language. A few months later, they had caught up and were doing well in all subjects. The men learned English quickly, mostly on the job, but also by going to movies, reading dime store novels and taking instruction given by a couple of local teachers. Some of the women who stayed at home didn't ever master the English language; however, most became fluent, though retaining definite accents.