In the last decade historians have focused greater attention on the Canadian home front during the Second World War. This increased scrutiny has led to studies of not only the wars impact on the nation at large, but also on specific urban communities. A weakness in all of these urban accounts, however, is that patriotism is too often taken for granted. An examination of Saskatoon between 1939 and 1945 provides a case study for how patriotism was fostered in a community thousands of kilometers away from the battlefield. Of particular interest here were the ways in which Saskatoons collective imagination, stifled for nearly a decade by the Great Depression, nourished the citys patriotic zeal. Patriotism is considered from three main perspectives. The ways in which Saskatoon re-created at home the war over there are examined first. Instrumental to this endeavour were a deep and sympathetic interest in Englands weathering of the Nazi Blitz, a fear that the Germans might attack North America, and an idolization of the Canadian soldier, both abroad and in the citys own midst. Secondly, Saskatoons vicarious experience of the Second World War in turn energized the countless patriotic initiatives in the city. Saskatonians, from women to the smallest children, were encouraged to do their bit to contribute to the war effort on the home front. Finally, there was also a darker side to the patriotic imagination: a disturbing xenophobia dominated Saskatoon during the war years. People of German and Japanese ancestry, as well as those on the left of the political spectrum, were suspected of being fifth columnists. Using the Star-Phoenix newspaper as a mirror of the community, this thesis provides new insight into patriotism, Saskatoon, and the Second World War.

In the last decade historians have focused greater attention on the Canadian home front during the Second World War. This increased scrutiny has led to studies of not only the wars impact on the nation at large, but also on specific urban communities. A weakness in all of these urban accounts, however, is that patriotism is too often taken for granted. An examination of Saskatoon between 1939 and 1945 provides a case study for how patriotism was fostered in a community thousands of kilometers away from the battlefield. Of particular interest here were the ways in which Saskatoons collective imagination, stifled for nearly a decade by the Great Depression, nourished the citys patriotic zeal. Patriotism is considered from three main perspectives. The ways in which Saskatoon re-created at home the war over there are examined first. Instrumental to this endeavour were a deep and sympathetic interest in Englands weathering of the Nazi Blitz, a fear that the Germans might attack North America, and an idolization of the Canadian soldier, both abroad and in the citys own midst. Secondly, Saskatoons vicarious experience of the Second World War in turn energized the countless patriotic initiatives in the city. Saskatonians, from women to the smallest children, were encouraged to do their bit to contribute to the war effort on the home front. Finally, there was also a darker side to the patriotic imagination: a disturbing xenophobia dominated Saskatoon during the war years. People of German and Japanese ancestry, as well as those on the left of the political spectrum, were suspected of being fifth columnists. Using the Star-Phoenix newspaper as a mirror of the community, this thesis provides new insight into patriotism, Saskatoon, and the Second World War.

This thesis brings together two disciplines—creative non-fiction memoir and literary/historical critique—that seek to open avenues of discourse with regard to the legacy of the Second World War and the Holocaust for subsequent generations. Ruth Kluger’s Holocaust memoir weiter leben: Eine Jugend and its English Language version written ten years later, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, are analyzed for their postmodernist challenge to traditional notions of testimony and genre. W. G. Sebald’s novel The Emigrants is examined for its “imagetext” constructions that act to elucidate aspects of mourning and Vergangenheitsbewältigung (dealing with the past). This thesis is a post-structuralist approach that performs, through memoir, the construction of identity/subjectivity, but it is also a journey, performed in the spirit of belated mourning, that is part of the larger historical postwar discourse regarding the inability to mourn. / Graduate / 0311 / 0298 / vbhandar@uvic.ca

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This thesis is an examination of how the Second World War has been commemorated in Northern Ireland. It seeks to explore how popular and official understandings of the war were constructed around two key moments. Primarily, it looks at the Victory celebrations to mark the end of the war in the West in May 1945. Secondly, it examines the importance of the publication of the official war history Northern Ireland in the Second World War in November 1956. By looking closely at how the Northern Irish government planned for the victory celebrations and how this ritual unfolded, we can reveal much about Northern Irish society at the end of the war. This thesis shows that the state-led, official commemoration served only to alienate the Catholic community. Exploring how the Northern Irish press recorded this event highlights the underlying tensions existing between both communities at the time. This thesis argues that the Northern Irish government used the victory celebrations to project a positive image of itself to the British government. Equally, in 1940 the Northern Irish government rather pre-emptively commissioned the writing of its own official war history, separate from the United Kingdom Official War History Series. This decision, taken by the Northern Irish government, was intended to ensure that Northern Ireland’s role in the war would never be forgotten. After 1945, the unionist government, preoccupied with securing its constitutional positioning within the United Kingdom, intended to make this official history a permanent memorial to Northern Ireland’s contribution to the war. Written, therefore, to exaggerate Northern Ireland’s part in the war, this official war history can be seen as a reflection of unionist insecurity. It is through these commemorative processes that ideas of national identity and belonging are explored.

The resistance of 1941-1944 is one of the more contested and intensively studied periods of Greek history, yet despite the profusion of work that exists in the period, none has discussed in depth the experience of the men who took part in the fighting. This thesis addresses this discrepancy, discussing the experience of Greek resistance fighters and British SOE operatives. The thesis addresses four main questions: Why did men enlist? How were discipline and cohesion retained? How was morale affected by men's experiences and in what ways did they try to address the problems posed? How did men experience combat and construct their personal and gendered identities? These questions are addressed in four separate chapters. The first chapter is concerned with enlistment, and argues that most resisters were driven to enlist either because they lacked any other choice or because of pressure and coercion. Such men were more often than not 'outside the pale': impoverished peasants; outlaws; and marginal intellectuals, who had nothing to lose by joining up. Motives among British irregulars were equally prosaic: boredom; a desire to escape the rigours of military life; or in the case of escaped POW's lack of any other choice. The second chapter discusses discipline. The radical politics of the resistance groups and their egalitarian ideology had a detrimental effect on discipline: guerrillas were hostile to the authority of the officers which they considered to be at odds both with the Resistance's proclamations and their irregular identities. The Resistance tried to address this problem by inventing new structures of command and authority. However, problems persisted and hindered its function throughout this period. The situation was similar in the SOE. Lack of communications, isolation and influences from the Resistance often led to a disregard for discipline, where men turned against each other, embezzled alms and become involved in black market rackets. The third chapter discusses morale. Guerrilla life was wanting in the extreme: deprivation; boredom; and the tedium of everyday chores took a heavy toll. The resistance authorities tried to address this through indoctrination and leisure activities that were used to bolster morale and imbue men with a sense of purpose. At the same time men also turned to what was familiar and appealing to cope with the strain: religion, superstition and drink. In the absence of a relevant support network, British irregulars turned to their immediate environment for support and affection, men formed friendly and intimate relations with the Greeks whose way of life and habits they adopted, thus demonstrating a strong identification with their cause. The fourth chapter focuses on combat and identity. Both Greek and British men saw their participation in the Resistance as a masculinising experience. The effects of hardship and tribulation were acknowledged but at the same time many saw them as necessary and even praiseworthy occurrences that enabled men to mature physically and psychologically and thus to lay claim to idealized heroic masculinities. The personalized nature of guerrilla warfare also enhanced these perceptions, since it enabled them to assert the values of traditional soldiery such as such as personal valour and initiative, rendering combat exhilarating and even pleasurable from many men.