Toronto the Good

"We're trying to honour those young Toronto Jews and young Toronto Italians who came together to say 'no' to the Nazi sympathizers who tried to always attack the new immigrants."

"So this is why we think it's important to mark this day [on August 16, 2023 at Christie Pits]."

Toronto city Councillor Mike Colle, August 2023

"The repeated and systematic disturbances in which the swastika emblem figures provocatively, must be investigated and dealt with firmly."

"The responsibility is now on the citizens to conduct themselves in a lawful manner."

Toronto Mayor William Stewart, August, 1933

"When we got to the Pits [Christie Pits], it seemed to me that half of the Jews and half of the goyim [non-Jews] of the city were there."

"There were a lot of heads broken. There was a tremendous confrontation, and I would definitely say that we won."

"We were proud. I think for a week we were higher than a kite."

Joe Goldstein quoted in The Riot At Christie Pits

Harbord Midgets Softball. Playground and City Champs 1933. Source: City of Toronto Archives Photo by City of Toronto Archives

Toronto is set to commemorate the 90th anniversary of an episode of pre-WWII ethnic violence, in a display of pure antisemitic savagery. The event is known as the Christie Pits Riot, that took place on August 16, 1933 during a softball game where fans of the St.Peter's team playing against rival Harbord Playground team comprised of Jews, unfurled swastika banners, hurling antisemitic slurs against the Jewish players.

(On a personal note, I passed Harbord Collegiate every day on my walking tour to an after-hours school located across from Christie Pits at the Morris Winchevsky secular school I attended. Each day when I passed Harbord, I glimpsed the statue at the front of the school with the poem "In Flanders Field" engraved on its plinth. I repeated the words of the poem to myself as I passed the school 80 years ago on my way to parochial school for Jewish kids.)

Ninety years ago the city of Toronto was not exactly a paragon city of tolerance. Nor was Canada itself. Where antisemitism was part of normal life, and where signage such as "No Jews Allowed" and "Gentiles Only" would be hung on country club properties, restaurants and shops everywhere and anywhere. Swastika Clubs became popular in Canada weeks after the 1933 German election that brought Hitler's National Socialist Party to power.

The Nazi flag and swastika banners were waved at competitive team events. On August 14, 1933 over eleven thousand people sat on the hillsides of Christie Pits to watch a game between Jewish ballplayers representing Harbord Collegiate and the Gentile boys of St. Peter's for a three-game softball playoff. "Every time you went to watch a ball game, these guys with swastikas would yell 'Heil Hitler' and all this", commented a Harbord fan, in recall.

In the early morning hours of August 14 locals championing swastikas brought ladders, brushes and white paint to the park where they painted a huge swastika above the words 'Hail Hitler', on the roof of the communal clubhouse in the centre of Christie Pits. Toronto's police chief of the time dispatched two officers to the diamond for the second game, the first of which had gone off without incident despite the appearance of swastikas.

On the roof of the communal clubhouse, in the centre of Christie Pits, a huge swastika was painted above the words ‘Hail Hitler.’, 1933.

 

At the second inning, a group of swastika champions approached an area full of Jewish Harbord supporters where they began shouting "Heil Hitler" in unison. A group of Harbord supporters lunged at them. When the swastika lovers kept inciting the crowd of an estimated thousand Jews, members of the hate group were confronted with a lead pipe striking them followed by a brawl where batons, pipes and an assortment of other concealed weapons were being used.

 

Image source: Toronto Daily Star/Toronto Public Library

 

The brawl moved from the Pits to nearby backyards, cries of "Heil Hitler" ringing out everywhere. Another three police officers arrived and joined the original two to help diffuse the crowd so the softball game could continue in the tense atmosphere. After the game which went to St. Peter's, the crowd of thousands saw two  young men unfurl a large white blanket with a startling black swastika causing "a mild form of pandemonium broke loose" as Jewish youths rushed their antagonists.

As the fighting spread, Jewish backup arrived as pickup trucks and cars from areas southeast near Spadina Avenue began to appear. Soon, carloads of Italian Catholics arrived from south of the Pits on College Street and brawling continued before mounted and motorcycle police arrived. By the time 10:30 p.m. arrived, a sufficient number of police were present to end the assaults. Injuries were aplenty but no fatalities had occurred.

On August 23 the third and final game, moved to Conboy Soccer Station was played where an admission fee was charged and 70 local spectators only paid to watch the match. The series went to St. Peter's by a score of 4-3. The Harbord team "like true sportsmen" according to the Daily Star, "shook hands with the winners and wished them good luck in their future games".

 

The city, in 2008, installed a plaque close to the Bloor Street entrance to Christie Pits, reading in part: "On August 16, 1933, at the end of a playoff game for the Toronto junior softball championship, one of the city's most violent ethnic clashes broke out in this park". Toronto is now considered to be the most multi-ethnic, multilingual city on the planet.