December nineteen forty. German prisoners of war arrived in Canada convinced the brutal winter would kill them—temperatures plunging to -40°C, winds that could freeze exposed skin in minutes, a frozen wasteland they'd been told was impossible to survive. But instead of watching them freeze to death, Canadian guards and local farmers did something that would shatter everything these men believed about strength, survival, and which side was truly civilized. What could enemy civilians possibly teach battle-hardened Wehrmacht soldiers that would make thousands of them abandon their homeland after the war and return to the country that once imprisoned them?

You Can Go for a Walk If You Want”
German POWs Couldn’t Believe Canada’s Camps Had
No Fences

June nineteen forty. Franz Weber stood at the edge of the Canadian prisoner camp and stared at nothing. There was no barbed wire. There were no tall guard towers with machine guns pointing down at him. There were just open fields that stretched out to the horizon. Green grass moved in the wind. Trees lined a road in the distance. A few wooden buildings sat behind him. And that was it.