Australia is well practiced in commemorating military history. Anzac Day and Remembrance Day both act as rituals of national memorialisation for the many Australians who have served in wars and peacekeeping missions, and the Australian War Memorial’s “places of pride” online national register provides a map of all the war memorials across Australia. Thousands of memorial projects have been funded by the federal Saluting the Service Commemorative Grants Program to date, demonstrating the state’s interest in promoting this aspect of our history.
Yet Australia has been highly selective in how it has remembered other legacies of wars. Between 1947 and 1953, the years following the Second World War, approximately 170,000 displaced persons left war ravaged Europe for Australia. They were fleeing a region which had been marked by destruction and political upheaval, where many had faced persecution, forced labour and lost everything they owned, and where ongoing oppression and discrimination was a persistent fear.
Upon arrival, the displaced persons were first taken to reception and training centres, primarily Bonegilla (the largest and longest operating), but also Greta, Bathurst and Greylands. They were then moved to other migrant camps (“holding centres”) across the nation, from where they were expected to perform mandatory two year work contracts: the price of their right of passage to Australia. Not all were able to fulfil these obligations, such as single (unsupported) mothers, but many provided labour which was fundamental to the rebuilding of post-war Australia.
Often these displaced persons remained in Australia beyond these two years, putting down roots, growing families and continuing to contribute through their labour and community service. The contribution that displaced persons made through their labour was profound. Many industries depended heavily upon them. For example, Bruck Textiles in Wangaratta (formerly known as Bruck Fabrics), was one of the “working destinations” for displaced persons whose contribution to the textile industry “spectacularly transformed” the township.
The arrival of displaced persons to Australia has had a lasting impact on our society. As many as one in 20 Australians today can trace their stories to Bonegilla, highlighting the significant role that it, and the other accommodation sites, have played in the histories of hundreds of thousands of Australians. As the first place of residence for the largest cohort of displaced persons, Bonegilla was described by Glenda Sluga in 1988 as “a powerful symbol of a whole era of ‘immigrant politics’”. In fact, it continued to play a vital role in Australia’s migration schemes even beyond the arrival of displaced persons after the Second World War, housing the waves of refugees and migrants who came to Australia in the years that followed. The centre closed in 1971. Bonegilla is certainly historically significant but it has not always been viewed in a positive light- the deaths of infants; murder of Ingeborg Radevic by her husband Milo; and riots of 1961 are a few examples of events which have tainted its name during particularly moments in time.
Today Bonegilla plays an important role in educating visitors on this important period of Australia’s history and offers an opportunity for individuals to learn more about their own family story. The site is well maintained and well resourced, having been supported by funding received from federal, state and local governments that runs into the millions. Yet, Bonegilla provides us with only a limited picture of the migration stories of these displaced persons.
No other site relating to this period has received the same level of attention as Bonegilla. Some are abandoned lots, their historic role invisible to the unknowing eye as in the case of Mildura where only a water tower remains. Then there are those that have been repurposed like Geelong (Norlane) and Somers, both in Victoria, which are now a community centre and school camp respectively. Others are not publicly accessible, such as in the case of Woodside, which was used to train light horse and infantry before being converted into a camp for 3,000 displaced persons in 1949. It is now, once again, an army barracks.
Then there are those camp sites which have been maintained and memorialised but only through community efforts. In Benalla, for example, parts of the Migrant Camp which ran from 1949-1967 have been preserved through a community project where volunteers collected photos, documents and oral histories to be displayed on a dedicated website and at Hut 11, an original camp structure. While some government funding was acquired for the project, it pales in comparison to what Bonegilla has received. Instead, Benalla’s achievements, such as being heritage listed in 2016 (almost a decade after Bonegilla received this recognition in 2007), have been the result of community action.
Other sites, such as Uranquinty (NSW), Pennington (formerly Finsbury) (SA) and Illawarra (NSW), while not heritage listed, have also been remembered through community action. In Uranquinty, a statue of a woman holding a child was erected in 2001 to remember the 28,000 displaced persons, mostly mothers and their children, who temporarily resided there. A book, Uranquinty Remembers, authored by historian Sherry Morris, has also captured Uranquinty’s history. In Pennington, life sized sculptures of a plate and cutlery act as a a nudge towards the reiterated theme of food in these camps, particularly how it was often negatively perceived. And in Illawarra (NSW), the community has initiated the “Migrant Heritage Project” which captures the region’s rich migration history, including the role of migrant hostels and camps in Wollongong.
The question becomes not whether these sites should be remembered and memorialised. It is clear that they should. The acts of communities, like those in Benalla, Illawarra, Pennington and Uranquinty, to recognise these spaces, along with the activity of the online “Migrant Hostels Forum” project (2007-2022), where families shared stories of these former camps, reveals the social, cultural and historic importance of these sites. The numbers of visitors to Bonegilla annually (over 11,500 in 2021) also make it clear that, from a public perspective, these former camps hold an important place in our collective memory.
The question is rather why has the history of this period been largely limited to Bonegilla when there is so much more to be told. One possibility is that keeping this history within one specific site allows for a particular story to be expressed, specifically that of Bonegilla as the perceived “birthplace of multiculturalism”. Yet, descendents of displaced persons should be allowed to access these other camp sites (including those which are now privately owned) and be able to publicly share their own families stories of what life was like there through funded memorials. Other Australians would also benefit from access to this aspect of our history, both through online mapping of the sites but also placed-based memoralisation processes. Such actions require community consultation and are ideally community-led.
Opening up this vault in our history allows us the opportunity to question perceptions of Australia as welcoming, generous, inclusive and a multicultural haven. It helps us trace the origin of our current migration policies which have, for the most part, prioritised migrant labour over their humanity. It allows us to ask whether Australia really has provided refugees and migrants with “a fair go”.
If we can fund the creation of war memorials across the nation and map them for easy access, there is no reason why we can not memorialise these former camp sites. Failing to do so can not be explained away by a shortage of government funding, as both the funding of Bonegilla and the Saluting the Service Grants Program make clear. Nor can it be justified by the argument that Bonegilla alone can capture the complexity and diversity of the stories of displaced persons within its borders. These other places need to be remembered too and their stories need to be told. If we continue to neglect this part of our history, we disregard both the experiences of displaced persons who lived there and their descendents who have made Australia home and contributed significantly to our nation through their under-acknowledged labour. To do so is yet another form of exclusion and erasure, these being the conditions which the displaced persons originally fled from.
Acknowledgments – I would like to thank Amy Nethery, Mia Martin Hobbs and Karen Agutter for their valuable comments on early drafts of this opinion piece which have strengthened it greatly. I would also like to thank Karen Agutter, Catherine Kevin and Alexandra Dellios for sharing their knowledge and expertise on this topic with me and acknowledge the wonderful work they have undertaken to continue to extend our understanding of the migration and settlement of Displaced Persons in Australia. I also extend my acknowledgments to other scholars who have contributed greatly to research in this area – Bruce Pennay, Glenda Sluga and Jayne Persian – and specifically to those communities and descendents of DPs who have sought to keep the memories of these camps alive.
