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New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum

Name: New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum
Address: 420 Pleasant Drive # 1, Minto, NB, E4B2T3, CA
Telephone: (506) 327-3573
Price range: $

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New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum

A World War II Internment Camp Museum in Minto, New Brunswick, Canada. It is one of only 5 in all of The committee consists of fourteen members.

The New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum had its genesis as an education project by Minto teacher Ed Caissie. The goal was to construct a scale model of the 58 acre/28 hectares Internment camp and all 52 original buildings. The purpose was to educate local students about WWII history, especially the intolerance and racism that led to the Holocaust. The internment camp scale model was to serve as a

reminder to this and future generations of the fragility of civil liberties. In 1996 the museum, located in Minto, opened its doors to continue the efforts to remind the country about the importance of tolerance and understanding. It now houses nearly 600 artifacts related to the camp-all on display-in the 2000 square foot facility. Through photographs, artifacts, oral histories, and interactive exhibits, museum visitors experience life through the eyes of the internees that were confined here during WWII. There is even a discovery box where children can dig for artifacts. The museum also provides an overview of the programs of enforced wartime relocation and confinement of these individuals. The museum is managed by the New Brunswick Internment Camp Heritage Committee Inc., formed in 1997. The Committee also provides leadership for the protection and interpretation of the original site of the camp in nearby Ripples, New Brunswick. We hope to preserve the stories of these internees for present and future generations. Special emphasis is given to the experience of incarceration, constitutional issues, violations of civil liberties and civil rights, and the broader issues of race and social justice in Canada. Our goal is to stimulate dialog and a greater understanding of civil rights, democracy, and freedom through ongoing education and awareness of the consequences of a government's wartime restrictions on its citizen’s civil liberties. Camp History
The New Brunswick Internment Camp opened in August 1942 and imprisoned more than 14,000 people during its 5 year existence. Although one of twenty-six Canadian internment camps, Ripples was the only camp built in the Maritime Provinces. The camp began Phase One operations in August of 1940 and ended in June, 1941. During this time 711 German and Austrian Jewish men, some merely teenagers, were incarcerated here. Phase Two lasted from July 1941 until the last internees left the camp in September, 1945.

08/29/2026

This week's post is about a man interned in the second phase of the New Brunswick Internment Camp. His name was Nicola Germano, and he was born on March 5th, 1887, in Italy. Before coming to Canada, Germano was a militant fascist.

He ended up moving to Montreal in 1920 and began working at Canadian Tube and Steel. His wife and children stayed back in Italy, so he sent them money he earned.

On June 10th, 1940, Germano was arrested and sent to jail before going to an internment camp in Petawawa, Ontario. No one informed his family of what had happened for months - they were kept completely in the dark. The only reason they knew something had happened was that he'd stopped sending letters and money. Germano's wife became sick and, without the financial support, was unable to afford medicine. She eventually passed away.

Germano was released from the New Brunswick Internment Camp (he'd been transferred here from Petawawa) on February 9th, 1943. He was instructed that he could not change his address or leave Montreal without informing the police, and he had to make monthly check-ins with the RCMP.

The pictures below are of Nicola Germano - the first is a sketch by fellow internee Guido Casini, and the second is a photograph of Germano in an Italian military uniform.

08/22/2026

This week's post is about an Italian-Canadian internee from the New Brunswick Internment Camp. The man pictured below is Osvaldo Giacomelli. He was born on August 2nd, 1921, in Hamilton, Ontario. When he was eight, his family moved to Italy, but Giacomelli later returned to Canada in 1939. Unfortunately, in 1940, he was arrested and interned because he was suspected of being a member of a Hamilton fascist group.

Giacomelli was interned at Petawawa on June 18th, 1940, and was later transferred to the New Brunswick Internment Camp. While interned, he requested that the paycheque he was owed go to his aunt, whom he'd been living with before his arrest. This was granted, and she received $75.

Giacomelli was released on May 29th, 1945. He was one of the last Canadian-Italians to be released from internment. Giacomelli had to sign an agreement when he was released and was placed under supervision.

In 2005, he filed a case against the government for wrongful internment. When he passed away on March 4th, 2006, the case was still unresolved.

The sketch below of Osvaldo Giacomelli was done by another Italian-Canadian internee named Guido Casini.

If you want to hear more stories like this, come visit us here at the New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum in Minto, New Brunswick. Also, follow us here on Facebook to keep up with our spotlight stories!

08/17/2026

Just posting a reminder that this Wednesday, August 19th, is Todd Caissie's 3rd annual presentation in the Minto Library! He'll be telling stories of some of the veteran guards stationed at the New Brunswick Internment Camp.

The museum will open at noon, rather than 10am, but will also be open after the presentation if you want a tour or to look around.

We hope to see you Wednesday!

08/15/2026

This week's post is about an Italian-Canadian who was interned in the second phase at the New Brunswick Internment Camp. His name was Lorenzo Venditti, and he was born in Rippabottoni, Campobasso, in the Molise region of Italy, on August 8th, 1896.

When he was young, his father immigrated to Montreal to work and save money to bring over the rest of the family. Eventually, Venditti, his mother, and his two brothers immigrated to Montreal. He became a naturalized citizen automatically, since his father was already a citizen. While in Montreal, Venditti worked several jobs over the years and participated in some Italian social groups like the Order Sons of Italy, the Dante Alighieri Society and the Casacalende Group. He also co-founded La Societa di Mutuo Soccorso in 1927. In 1917, he married Concetta Frenza. They had a son, who passed away at a young age, and six daughters.

In June of 1940, Venditti was arrested in front of his family (his daughters' ages ranged from 9 to 20 at the time). He went to jail for a few months before he was sent to the Petawawa Internment Camp, and later, the New Brunswick Internment Camp. While their father was gone, the two older daughters got jobs to bring in some money for the household.

Venditti was released in July of 1942. He had to report to the RCMP once a month and couldn't move or leave Montreal without permission. He worked in Grandby, Quebec, until 1950, then returned to Montreal and started a carpet business.

Venditti eventually passed on March 13th, 1961.

The first image below is a portrait of Lorenzo Venditti, and the second is a sketch by Guido Casini.

If you want to see more about the New Brunswick Internment Camp, come visit the museum in Minto, New Brunswick, and follow us here on Facebook. We hope to see you here! And don't forget, this year's presentation by Todd Caissie is this coming Wednesday, August 19th!

08/08/2026

This week's post is about a first-phase internee from the New Brunswick Internment Camp in Ripples, New Brunswick. His name was Anton Diffring (originally Anton Pollack). Diffring was born on October 20th, 1916, in Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. His father was Jewish, and his mother was Christian.

Before Diffring fled to the UK from the N**i regime in the 1930s, he studied acting in Berlin and Vienna. He had to flee due to his Jewish heritage and being gay, both of which he would've been persecuted for. He started his acting career in the UK before, in 1940, being sent, with other "enemy aliens," to be interned in Canada. After his release, he returned to the UK and continued to act.

Diffring was quite well-known as an actor in movies from around 1950-1980, though he did have some roles before that period of time. He often played the villain in movies, most often as a N**i soldier in movies about the war. Some pretty notable roles were playing alongside Clint Eastwood in 𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘌𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘦 (1968) as Colonel Kramer, and a movie adaptation of the book 𝘍𝘢𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘵 451 (1966) as one of the firemen, Fabian, and the headmistress of the school.

Diffring eventually passed away on May 19th, 1989, in France, at the age of 72.

If you want to see more about the New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum, follow us here on Facebook and stop by to see us this summer! We hope to see you here!

08/06/2026

The 3rd Annual "Todd Talk" is just around the corner! This year's presentation will focus on some of the stories of the New Brunswick Internment Camp's guards.

Presented by Todd Caissie, "NOT TOO OLD TO SERVE: STORIES OF THE CAMP GUARDS", will be hosted at the Minto Public Library (420 Pleasant Drive, Minto) on Wednesday, August 19th at 6:30pm.

For more information, feel free to contact the museum by phone at (506) 327-3573, or by email at [email protected].

We hope to see you there!

08/01/2026

This week's post is about an artefact we've received just this summer! This item, which resembles a large pot (approximately 23"x12"x12"), was made in the camp by some of the prisoners and sold to a family on the outside. We don't know the identity of the prisoner(s) who made it or what the original intended use was, but it is assumed to have been made in the first phase of the camp when the Jewish men were interned.

The man who purchased it, Thomas Dow Thurrott, was the father of Mary Thurrott, who donated it to us. The family used it to store dry ingredients like flour and sugar, as well as bread, in their house. Mary Thurrott remembers that her family had several items around the house while she was growing up that were made by prisoners from the New Brunswick Internment Camp.

Thomas Thurrott (who went by his middle name, Dow, because he didn't want to be associated with the "Doubting Thomas" of the Bible) was born in 1909. He was the youngest of 13 children. When his daughter, the donor, Mary, was young, he worked as an electrician for the power commission, helping with the Mactaquac Dam. Thurrott may also have helped construct the New Brunswick Internment Camp, though he didn't talk much about the camp with his children. Thurrott's father was on the Supreme Court of the Foresters and was a schoolteacher.

If you want to hear more stories of artefacts and stories from the New Brunswick Internment Camp, come visit us this summer and follow us here on Facebook to keep up with our weekly posts! We hope to see you here!

07/31/2026

Happy Friday, everyone!

New Brunswick Day is coming up soon, and we will be open for our usual weekday hours. Come learn about New Brunswick history with a guided tour of the New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum! We hope to see you here and can't wait to share the area's history with you!

07/25/2026

This week's post is about a man who spent a little bit of time behind the barbed wire at the New Brunswick Internment Camp. His name was Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs. He was born on December 29th, 1911, in Rüsselsheim am Main, Germany. Fuchs attended the University of Leipzig, where his father was a professor. Later, he joined the Communist Party of Germany.

When the N**i regime began, and communists were being persecuted in Germany, Fuchs fled to the UK. There, he attended the University of Bristol and earned his PhD. When the war started, he was interned on the Isle of Man because his citizenship application hadn't been processed before the war broke out. Like many people in his situation, Fuchs was eventually sent to Canada for internment as well. Most of his time in Canada was spent in Quebec, but he also spent a short time in New Brunswick.

In 1941, he returned to Britain and worked as an assistant on "Tube Alloys", the British atomic bomb project. During this time, he passed information on the project to the Soviet Union through Ursula Kuczynski, codenamed "Sonya", a German communist and a major in Soviet military intelligence. In 1943, he worked on the Manhattan Project, another nuclear weapons project. When the war ended, he worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in the UK as head of the Theoretical Physics Division.

In 1950, he admitted to passing information to the Soviets, and he was imprisoned for 9 years and lost his British citizenship. Afterward, he moved to Germany, where he taught and worked in nuclear physics until he retired in 1979.

He eventually passed on January 28th, 1988.

If you're sitting here reading this and thinking that this name sounds familiar, you're probably right! Klaus Fuchs is a well-known name in the field of theoretical physics and in association with the atomic bomb. In fact, he even appears in the popular 2023 movie 𝘖𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘳!

07/18/2026

This week's post is about a painting on display here at the New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum. The painting features a woman named Jean L. Sweeny. She was the wife of Francis Sweeny of Newcastle, New Brunswick, who worked at the camp.

The artist's name is Vincent Poggi, and the painting was donated by Jean and Francis' daughter, Jean Dempsey.

The artistic skill that many of the men interned in these camps had is incredible - especially given the sometimes limited resources, since they were stuck in the camp.

If you want to see more paintings and other artefacts from the New Brunswick Internment Camp Museum, come visit us this summer! Also, follow us here on Facebook to keep up to date on our weekly posts. We hope to see you here!

Address

420 Pleasant Drive # 1
Minto, NB
E4B2T3

Opening Hours

Monday	10am - 5pm
Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	12pm - 5pm
Sunday	12pm - 5pm

Telephone

(506) 327-3573

Website

http://www.nbinternmentcampmuseum.ca/

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