ABOUT EDITH
Edith Ballantyne (née Müller) was born in 1922 to German-speaking committed social democrat parents in Sudetenland, a region of northeast Czechoslovakia. When World War II broke out, as anti-Nazi activists they were forced to flee fascism as political refugees and in 1939 were assisted to immigrate to the rural Peace River region of Canada.
Knowing neither the language nor culture they were stateless and exploited. Members of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom at a Settlement House in Toronto made it their business to follow what was happening to the Sudeten immigrants.
Edith moved to Geneva as the United Nations was just beginning and discovered the international headquarters of the women’s organization that essentially “rescued” her in Canada. In writing her life story at 100 years old Edith realized the trauma of statelessness liberated her to be a citizen of the world.