Finding Bruno

The Lohses, in Winnipeg, circa 1924.
Emma and Bruno Lohse with Alfred (standing) and Ernest. Bruno had completed his apprenticeship as a tailor. I bet he made Emma's dress.

This all started with me spitting into a cup.

Then I left a message on 23andMe, asking for help in finding information about my mysterious grandfather, Bruno Oswald (or Otto) Lohse.

Then a stranger sent me a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day.

Here's the rest of the story.

Emma Schmidt and Bruno Lohse married in February 1920. They were both born, in Poland, in 1892. Bruno's family, ethnic Germans, had lived for three generations in Alexandroff in Poland/Russia, since about 1800. Bruno's father ran a textile mill, where Bruno worked before the first World War. 

Although German by blood, Bruno fought for Russia against the Germans in WWI. The war destroyed the Lohse family business.

After they married, Bruno and Emma emigrated to Canada in September 1920. They joined Emma's older sister and brother-in-law in Prairie Rose Saskatchewan.

Two years later, after the birth of their first son Alfred, they moved to Winnipeg, where Bruno pursued odd jobs for a time and then apprenticed as a tailor.

Emma spent the 1920's pregnant with and caring for her five children: Alfred, born in 1921, Ernest, born in 1923 and, after several miscarriages, Ruth in 1927, Hilda in 1928 and Lillian (my mother) in 1929.

Emma died in 1933, at the age of 42. That left Bruno with five children, aged 4 to 12, and not much else.

Perhaps because of his desperate situation, after the death of his wife, Bruno fell in with a bad crowd, a local "bund" associated with Winnipeg's Nazi community. 

As anti-German sentiment grew inside Canada in the run up to the second world war, Bruno's situation became even more precarious.

The RCMP had been monitoring Nazi activity in the country, including Bruno's "bund." 

By August 1939 the Mounted Police had assembled lists of the pro-Nazis to be arrested and arrangements had been made for internment camps at Petawawa and Kananaskis. 

The arrests which began in early September concentrated on those German nationals with clear Nazi affiliations and on "a number of naturalized Canadians of German birth or racial origin who had so identified themselves with Nazi propagandist activities ... that they could not be regarded as loyal citizens of Canada." Credit: Manitoba Historical Society

Bruno was arrested and shipped to Kananaskis in October, 1939, around the time of my mother's 10th birthday.

When Kananaskis was expanded to hold German POWs, Bruno was sent to Fredericton, NB, where he remained until June 1945.

Bruno returned to his embittered, angry, unforgiving family, continued his trade as a tailor and lived the rest of his days in Winnipeg, until May 13, 1954, when he died from heart disease at the age of 62.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen