When Toronto Rushed To Stalingrad's Aid
Plus pizza, spies, an update on the battle over Osgoode Hall, and more...
This week marks 80 years since the Battle of Stalingrad came to an end. And while the fighting took place on the other side of the planet, it has an unexpected connection to the history of our own city. Toronto was deeply touched by the suffering of the Russian people during that harrowing siege — and leapt into action. So I thought for this edition of the newsletter, I’d share a story from The Toronto Book of the Dead:
Things were looking good for Hitler. It was the summer of 1942: the Nazis had already swept across Europe; now they were pushing on into Russia, marching toward Stalingrad. The Russians were in deep trouble. In the first year of fighting, the Red Army had lost half of their men. And Stalin — a bloodthirsty lunatic of a dictator at the best of times — was starting to get a little bit desperate.
Stalingrad was a city teeming with people. It was a major metropolis before the war began; since then, refugees had doubled the population. But as the Germans prepared to attack, Stalin refused to organize an evacuation. While food and supplies were shipped away to safety, the human beings were left behind. His soldiers, he figured, would fight more passionately to defend a city full of innocent civilians. And in case that wasn’t enough to guarantee victory, he ordered that any officer found retreating should be put on trial or shot on the spot — “Not one step back!” — and that anyone who could carry a rifle should fight. Men, women, and children would all be part of one of the bloodiest battles in history.
People in Toronto and all over the world watched as two of the most powerful empires on Earth brought their military fury down upon the city. Stalingrad was turned into a living hell. The planes of the German Luftwaffe began by dropping more than a thousand tons of bombs, reducing most of the city to a burning pile of rubble. The fighting on the ground that followed was brutal, even by the horrifying standards of the Second World War.
“The entire city became an inferno,” the Toronto Daily Star reported, “but it put up the fiercest fight in modern warfare. The fight for each building lasted for days, even weeks, at a time. Each room, each floor, constituted a separate front within a front. Every structure became a fortress.”
Civilians who tried to flee by foot or by ferry were bombed, massacred by the hundreds. Corpses piled up in the streets.
Meanwhile, thousands of orphaned children were left on their own in the middle of the destruction; they lived in the rubble for months on end, starving and freezing to death, terrified, and easy targets for snipers. “Under constant bombardment, life went on;” the Star wrote, “the people clung to the ruins of the city, children were fed in the shadows of broken buildings, put to bed in dugouts, nursed in cellars when sick.”
The bloodbath raged on for five straight months, through the autumn and on into the harsh Russian winter. At times, it seemed as if the Nazis were on the verge of winning, but they could never quite kill the last few Soviet soldiers.
By February, the tide had turned. The Red Army retook the city and in doing so they helped to shift the momentum of the entire war. Hitler’s army was deeply wounded. The Nazis would never again win an important battle on the Eastern Front. The following year, the Allies would land at Normandy. The year after that, the war would finally be over.
But victory at Stalingrad in 1943 came at a terrible price. Nearly two million people had been killed or wounded in that one battle. Two million. And the suffering wasn’t over yet. The city was a smouldering ruin. It would take years to rebuild. “Stalingrad, city of heroes, still shivers in the icy Russian winter,” the Star told its readers in Toronto, half a world away. There were orphans who needed help, the newspaper reported. “Many of them had been living for months during the siege in holes in the ground, and when they were found they were swollen with hunger and their limbs were frozen.” Some estimates say fifteen million Russian children lost their parents during the war.
Toronto had plenty of its own dead to mourn. More than four thousand men and women from the city would lose their lives during the Second World War. But the staggering death toll in Stalingrad struck a chord with Torontonians worried about their own loved ones who were fighting and dying on the other side of the ocean.
So Toronto decided to help.
A few months after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, Toronto City Council declared “Friendship With Russia Week” and then “Stalingrad Day.” They followed that up by officially “adopting” Stalingrad. The next two winters in Toronto produced a massive outpouring of support for the Russians living in their ruined city more than eight thousand kilometres away.
The City of Toronto Stalingrad Committee was created. And a Stalingrad Fund, too. The mayor was made honorary chairman. “Citizens of Toronto could not support a more worthy cause than the noble people of Stalingrad,” he declared. “These people have shown us the way to be real heroes. We must give thanks to the Soviet armies and the brave Russian people who gave us those armies. I sincerely hope that all Toronto will get behind this great cause in the name of humanity.”
And they did. Millions of dollars were raised in donations. More than 150 organizations came together to organize an ambitious clothing drive, going door to door asking for whatever spare clothing and knitted goods they could find. They collected thirty tons of it, which was stored at a depot on Yonge Street and then shipped off to the USSR.
Many of the most powerful people in Canada worked hard to improve the relationship with “our gallant allies” in Russia. A National Council for Canadian-Soviet Friendship was formed, with the active support of wealthy businessmen, premiers, lieutenant governors, and justices of the Supreme Court. Prime Minister King served as chair.
In 1943, thanks in part to the Eaton family and the heir to the Maple Leaf Foods fortune, there was a three-day Congress of Canadian-Soviet Friendship at the swanky Royal York Hotel. In 1944, there was a second. The event ended with a rally at Maple Leaf Gardens: seventeen thousand people showed up. The Congress was billed as an exchange of information. Torontonians had the chance to learn all about Soviet advances in agriculture, science, education, and art. Delegates urged every university in Canada to start its own Russian Department. The free flow and exchange of ideas with the Communists was hailed as a vital part of Canada’s future.
At Maple Leaf Gardens, a representative from the Soviet embassy in Ottawa thanked Torontonians for their support of Stalingrad. “Your gifts are cementing the post-war relations of Canada and Russia,” she said.
Of course, that’s not exactly how things turned out.
In fact, some of the seeds of the Cold War could already be found at that rally. For one thing, there was still plenty of anti-communist suspicion in Canada. Being a member of the Canadian Communist Party was illegal. It had been for most of the twentieth century. Back in the 1920s, R.B. Bennett’s Conservative government had arrested the Communist leader; some believe they tried to assassinate him while they had him in jail. Even now, while Mackenzie King was heading up the Friendship Committee, his government was keeping tabs. The RCMP kept a close eye on the Friendship Congress and the rally at Maple Leaf Gardens, including a detailed assessment in their Monthly Intelligence Report, taking care to note that 80 percent of the audience was “of foreign extraction.”
But they did have some legitimate reasons to be suspicious — reasons like Colonel Nikolai Zabotin. He worked at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa and was one of the Russian representatives who attended the Congress. He was also a spy. He had been sent to Canada to collect secrets about the Allied attempts to build a nuclear bomb. And he was getting them. He used his position at the embassy to gain access to the Canadian government, charming officials into spilling the beans. One naive army officer even took him in a canoe up the Ottawa River, where Zabotin snapped photos of the construction of the Chalk River nuclear facility. Most important, he had an operative inside the British scientific team trying to build a bomb in Canada, who also slipped him secrets about the Manhattan Project in the United States.
It was only a month after the Americans dropped their bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that Zabotin’s spy ring was uncovered. With the war over, one of his cipher clerks at the Soviet embassy defected, bringing Mackenzie King’s government proof of the espionage. At first, the Canadians were reluctant to listen; it would risk damaging their relationship with the Communists. But after they whisked the defector away to be interviewed at Camp X — the secret base just outside Toronto (on the border between Whitby and Oshawa) — they began to believe the things he was telling them. When the information finally became public, people were shocked. Those old anti-Communist feelings were stirred up once again. Many historians consider the Zabotin episode to be “the spark that ignited the Cold War.”
That spark caught fire quickly. Soon, the Communists were testing their own bomb and, with Hitler defeated, people were remembering the true brutality of Stalin’s regime: the purges, the gulags, the Soviet famine. At Stalingrad, the Russians took 110,000 German prisoners; only six thousand survived Stalin’s camps.
In North America, the attitude toward Russia suddenly swung hard the other way. The hatred wasn’t reserved just for Stalin and the Soviet leadership, but for every Communist or Communist sympathizer or supposed Communist sympathizer anywhere in the world. After the war, some of the same experts who had been asked to speak at the Friendship Congress were denounced as radicals and investigated as traitors. At least one of them would be dragged in front of Joseph McCarthy’s infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities. Just a few years earlier, Canadian leaders were hailing the people of Stalingrad as the saviours of democracy and the entire free world. Now, those very same leaders were demonizing those very same people as the gravest threat to democracy the world had ever known.
And in Toronto, the city whose citizens had once held the dead of Stalingrad dear in their hearts, the fact that it had ever happened at all was quickly and conveniently forgotten.
If you’re interested in more stories about death and the history of our city, you can learn more about The Toronto Book of the Dead here.
And if you’re interested in more about that Soviet spy ring in Ottawa and how it sparked the Cold War, we’ve got a whole episode of our Canadian documentary series about it. You can watch “How The Cold War Started… In Ottawa” for free here.
Just a quick reminder that The Toronto History Weekly takes a silly amount of work to put together. I’ll only be able to convince my loved ones I should be spending this much time on it if enough of you are willing to switch to a paid subscription. With a few dollars a month, you’ll be supporting all my work in sharing the history of the city! You can make the switch by clicking here:
AN UPDATE ON THE BATTLE AT OSGOODE HALL
This is a big week for the history of Osgoode Hall. You might have heard me on CBC Radio’s Hear And Now this Friday talking about the history of the site’s famous iron fence — and the Metrolinx plan to punch a hole through it while chopping down eleven of the old trees on the property. I’ve written about the story in the newsletter a couple of times (here and here) and since things seem to be coming to a head this week, I figured I should give you a little update.
To recap: Metrolinx claims they need to tear down part of the fence while removing the trees as part of the construction of the Ontario Line. The new subway is, of course, vitally important. But Critics suggest there may be another way forward. There are hopes the intersection is going to be redesigned anyway, part of a plan to create more green space along University Avenue:
So, perhaps the trees and maybe even that section of fence could be saved as part of those wider plans. Both, after all, have been standing on that corner since the 1800s, providing a rare patch of green space right in the heart of the city. Meanwhile, a report on the issue has been making the rounds, but doesn’t really seem to have cleared things up — some point to it as evidence the trees must come down, others point to the part of the report that says Metrolinx hasn’t shared enough information to know one way or another.
On Friday night, a protest vigil was held. The crowd that gathered on the coldest night in four years included plenty of familiar faces: city councillors Ausma Malik and Josh Matlow, MPP Mary-Margaret McMahon, former MP Adam Vaughan, and philosopher John Ralston Saul among others. Even Mayor Tory has come out against the plan — “hands off,” he warned many months ago, while adding more recently that he is still “very concerned.” But since that corner is owned by the province, he suggests there’s little the City can do.
On Saturday morning, the work started — mere hours before a court was expected to rule on a potential injunction. Some have suggested it was an attempt to get the trees down before they could be saved. But now work is on hold. It seems that protesters who confronted the workers managed to convince them to pause until the court made its decision. And now, the interim injunction has indeed been granted. The work will stop until at least Friday, when the court has a chance to make a further ruling on the future of the site.
It’s the Law Society of Ontario, who calls Osgoode Hall home, that’s behind the court case. You can follow them on Twitter for updates, as well as the BOLD Community Coalition, who I believe organized the protest vigil. You can read the Toronto Star piece about the granting of the injunction here.
QUICK LINKS
The best of everything else that’s new in Toronto’s past…
SPY NEWS — Speaking of the Soviet spy ring, it’s related to the new episode of the Curious Canadian History podcast. “Our Man in Toronto: Sam Carr and a Soviet Spy Ring in Canada” explores one of the story’s connections to our own city. And if you’re a fan of the podcast, make extra sure to subscribe because it looks like I’ll be popping up on an episode next month to talk about a big new project I’ve been working on! Listen.
PIZZA NEWS — The Archives of Ontario share some eye-opening stats about how recently pizza has become a staple in our city:
MORE PIZZA NEWS — Meanwhile, Danielle Sinopoli takes a look at what Italian cuisine has meant to the history of our city. Read more.
EVEN MORE PIZZA NEWS — And I also recently learned about Alexander Travis Hughes’ dissertation, which “examines the history of pizza in Toronto, Ontario and Buffalo, New York, spanning a period from 1950 through to the early 1990s. Pizza, far more than its constituent parts of dough, sauce, and cheese, is used as a lens to explore the history of immigration, business, labour, urbanization, gender, culture, economics, consumption, and food in Toronto and Buffalo.” Read more.
MODERN NEWS — Josh Greenblatt offers “A patriotic ranking of the most iconic items in the ROM’s new Canadian Modern exhibition, featuring the homegrown design innovations that put us on the map.” Read more.
TORONTO HISTORY EVENTS
Various times throughout February — Mackenzie House
“In 2023, we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first Black woman to publish a newspaper in North America! In 1854, Mary Ann published The Provincial Freeman from King Street in Toronto. Visit the Mackenzie House printshop to print a customized copy of Mary Ann's newspaper, and a bookmark featuring one of her most famous quotes! Printing workshops are free. Pre-registration is required.”
Free with registration!
A GLIMPSE OF BLACK LIFE IN VICTORIAN TORONTO
Until February 23 — 9am to 8pm on weekdays; 9am to 5pm on weekends — Etobicoke Civic Centre Art Gallery
“Despite the prejudices imposed upon Black individuals from 1800s, their communities made significant contributions to Toronto. This exhibition recognizes how Black residents enriched our city. Presented in partnership with the City of Toronto’s Museum Services.”
Free!
TORONTO ANNUAL VINTAGE POSTCARD SHOW
February 26 — 10am to 5pm — Japanese Cultural Centre
“Canada’s largest vintage postcard sale. As many as 1 million postcards! Hundreds of topics. Find your town, country, interest (from sports, to politics, tto flowers, animals, Disney and many more).”
$7; free for members of the Toronto Postcard Club.
CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES: RESOURCES FOR THE GENEALOGIST
February 27 — 7:30pm — Both online & at Lansing United Church — Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society
“Do you have family tree roots in Toronto? You can discover a lot about a person by researching where they lived. Jessica Algie, from the City of Toronto Archives, will demonstrate, step-by-step, how to find your ancestors in municipal archival records. We’ll start with online resources including maps, city directories and photos, before diving into local tax assessment rolls, which can be treasure troves of information.
“Finally, archivist John Dirks, will give you a sneak peek at an exciting, newly processed collection, Fonds 602, First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto, now available for research at the City of Toronto Archives. This collection is of particular interest to genealogists as it includes vital statistics registers of marriages, child dedications and memorial services.”
Free, I believe!
TORONTO IN LITERATURE BOOK CLUB: THE BEATLE BANDIT
March 9 — 2pm — Online — Toronto Public Library
& March 16 — 7pm — Toronto Reference Library
“The Toronto in Literature Book Club meets monthly to discuss literature set in, or near, the city of Toronto. Join us for a discussion of The Beatle Bandit: A Serial Bank Robber's Deadly Heist, a cross-Country Manhunt, and the Insanity Plea that Shook the Nation by Nate Hendley. The sensational true story of how a bank robber killed a man in a wild shootout, sparking a national debate around gun control and the death penalty.”
Free!
BY THE LAKE BOOK CLUB: THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
March 14 — 7pm — Online and at Assembly Hall in Etobicoke
“Join Adrienne Shadd for a conversation about her book. Meticulously researched and based on never-before-published information on the African-Canadian community of Toronto, this book recounts the journeys of brave travellers, and the network of clandestine routes and safe houses they traversed on the underground railroad seeking freedom in Toronto, and their captivating life after they arrive.”
$10–$28, I believe.
WRITING FAMILY HISTORY — SHAPING GENEALOGY INTO SHAREABLE STORIES
March 27 — 7:30pm — Both online & at Lansing United Church — Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society
“Here’s the problem; your family, they don’t want your stuff. No one is stepping forward to say I’ll take your endless boxes of genealogy files. There’s a couple of reasons for that. First, it appears at least on the surface, they’re not interested in your family history. They’ve rolled their eyes every time you attempted to show them new-found document. ... But a book with a collection of family stories they can put on their coffee table or display on a bookshelf is much more likely to appeal to them. It’s also more likely to get read and shared. Lynn Palermo will take you on a storytelling journey demonstrating for you how to turn your research into entertaining and shareable stories. Leave this presentation armed with the first steps to starting a family history narrative and motivated to turn your boxes of documents into an expressive and lasting legacy for future generations.”
Free, I believe!
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