DRESDEN, ONT. — Film director Eric Philpott is hosting a memorial event in Dresden, Ont. Aug. 14 to mark the anniversary of the deaths of six construction workers in 1957.
The event will include a moment of silence at 7 p.m., the time the cave-in occurred on the site of a water pump station project. It will be held in the Olde Czech Hall, the same venue where a coroner’s inquest was held in 1957, four weeks after the cave-in. Family members of all six victims will be in attendance.
The workers were all Dutch immigrants. Philpott is producing a documentary film chronicling the event, titled Dresden 1957, which the Daily Commercial News reported on in April.
The anniversary event in Dresden will include online appearances from historian Anne van Arragon, whose book Uprooted captures the children’s experience of Dutch postwar immigration to Canada; and Michael Chappell, a retired provincial co-ordinator of occupational health and safety with the Ontario Ministry of Labour.
“Immigration is a major challenge for everyone, requiring instant immersion into a strange and unfamiliar culture,” said Anne van Arragon in a statement. “It was especially difficult for the families affected by the Dresden tragedy, who lost their fathers and breadwinners overnight.”
“We’re a nation of immigrants, and yet we have a mixed record when it comes to the treatment of newcomers entering the workforce,” said Michael Chappell. “Even today, they are vulnerable and precarious in their employment, and more likely to be injured or even lose their lives on the job, as these men did.”
The event will be livestreamed at rtmp://x.rtmp.youtube.com/live2. The Old Czech Hall is at 116 John St. E. in Dresden.
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