14 Bonegilla 'A Place o/ No

Hope'
The actual joumey began after the ships had docked at Port Melboume.
Immigration authorities were there waiting to greet, to register the 800 or
more migrants destined for Bonegilla, and to escort them. The migrants,
without really knowing where they were going, were then shepherded on to
special traíns and, eight hours or so later, they would arrive at Bonegilla
siding.
Misha was 30 years old when he arrived in Australia in January 1951
with his wife. They both spoke fluent English; he had been an accountant in
his native Slovenia, and then an interpreter in the British army for three
years in Padova. Although they arrived under the auspices of the
lntemational Refugee Organisation Settlement Scheme, they had not spent
any time in Displaced Persons' camps in Europe, and 'chose' to come to
Australia 'as a
Western democracy based on the Westminster system of govemment' -the
Slovenia they had left behind was now govemed by a 'communist regime':

As we docked in Melbourne, we were pul on a train and most

probably we were told that we were going to Bonegilla but we
certainly did not know where Bonegilla was or what it
represented.
On the voyage by train from Melboume we had our first glimpse
of what the Australian cities and towns looked like and
particularly the countryside. The day of our arrival was extremely
hot, or so it seemed to us, and we were amazed at the number of
Iittle cottages when the train was pulling out of Melboume and
then the vast cowtryside with hardly any villages or townships.
We were ali keen to see the new country and nobody knew how
long we would stay in Bonegilla.

Frank and Lydia left Europe for 'political reasons'. They had spent no
time in DP camps and arrived in l949. Holding a Dutch Economics degree
Frank had been commandeered into the US Army because he spoke four
languages, including bis native Czech. At the end of the war he was in
Austria. Frank's own anival experience was constantly replayed far him in
the three years that he was there wod::ing as a Block Supervisor:

1 received every train that carne in, if it carne at four o'clock in

the moming or two in the moming 1 was there . . . the flaw of
putting people at four in the moming on a very cold night at a
railway siding with nothing but grass . . . and then pul them in a
bus and then take them to a hut . . . with twenty-five beds, no
partitions, nothing at ali . . .
 My wife went. into one hut and the men into another hut in the
middle of the bush . . . to us the bush is a diffcrent story, we
were people who carne from very urbanised societies . . . and to
be dumped in the bush with trees and the stories of snakes and
things like that . . . was a bit of a shock to people's systcms.
And that was perhaps one of the psychological mistakes.

Nina arrived in Bonegilla in 1950, spending only a few weeks there.

From a well-educated, comfortable Gennan background, she carne as a DP
bccause she was married to a Serbian who was 'Displaced'. She recalls her
experiences with humour, and a sensitivity to her circumstances, the
cultural m isunderstandings, and inh ibiting social system into which she
was transported:

it was getting dark, George had the luggage. When we arrived in

Bonegilla it was already sunset. We gol out, men all this side,
women all that side. Sorne people panicked because they had
heard [at] concentration camp too, men one side, women other
side. We were separated, and it was getting dark and we didn't
know. We were just like cattle, here follow us - men were
more than one kilometre away. We were not told. We were just
treated like stupid sheep. If they had said look, this is just a
processing centre, this is temporary, tomorrow we will sort it
out . . .

For the newly arrived migrant with few preconceived notions, except
those their imaginations could afford them, lhese first impressions remain as
vivid memories of a new and very strange land. As the Italian writer Pino
Bosi pondcrs:

Sometimes 1 wonder why it didn't work out. See if 1 can go

back and discover the reason. Sunny aftemoons at Bonegilla.
Light blue skies. Strange smells of gum trees. Strange smells of
sheep meat . . . . Dry grass, rolling hills, dead trees, parched
land . . . . I thought of Africa. Strange sense of adventure. One
thought was fixed in my mind: 1 must master English. 2

Pino Bosi's recollections of his first years in Australia were written in a

mood of resigned disappointment, and often bitter bewilderment. That initial
and crucial impression of Bonegilla was tied not only to the strange and
inhibiting new landscape, but aU that landscape personified. Homesickness as
well as any pioneering spirit.
16 Bonegilla 'A Place o/ No
Hope'
Recollections by staff of the process of reception are more precise and
lack the disoriented sense of the migrant being directed into an alíen world.
For them, the process was one of well-organised stages repeated endlessly in
the long history of the Reception Centre: sandwiches and tea, a welcoming
speech and allocation to huts. The whole procedure could be reduced to a
number of consecutively ordered and organised stages: of assembly and
grading, social services' registration for special benefit, X-rays, medica}
exams, CES registration, issue of alien registration certificates, issue of
luggage from Customs and allocation to employment3 In theory it seemed
very straightforward and ordered. For the migrants, their confrontation with
official conceptions of how their time there was to be routinised, began the
day after their arrival.
A more formal address was given by the Camp Commandant the next
morning. Like most of the administrative staff, the Commandant had been
recruited from excess army personnel. The first Commandant (renamed
Director in late 1948) at Bonegilla_was Major Kershaw. While service ranks
were no longer an indicator of a person's place in the administrative structure,
military titles, ranging from ex-Brigadier to ex-Sergeant, were retained.
Garbed in his military unifonn, Major Kershaw approached tasks such as the
welcoming of migrants with ali the verve of an army leader addressing his
troops. These early arrivals found themselves at Bonegilla siding only to be
reminded of how lucky they, the DPs were, because, they were told,
Kershaw's grandmother had not had the Iuxury of travelling the countryside in
trains, but had to walk. Many of them were either too tired, lacked
proficiency in the English language or an understanding of Australian accents,
to make much of what was said. For those who did, what they heard was not
always very promising or welcoming. Even H.B.M. Murphy, an eminent
United Nations' social worker, who followed the refugees from Europe to
Bonegilla and Bathurst, sensed that certain official attitudes may have lcft a
bad laste in many a hc.,efut migrant's mouth:

The group that 1 travelled with, containing two doctors, a

veterinarian, several lawyers and other professional people were
given a reception address by the camp commandant in which it
was stated that it was of no use their showing diplomas to
employers etc. because everyone (in Australia) knew that they
had been bought on the blackmarket in Europe.4

After such a welcome there was the actual confrontation with lhe facilities:
Dymtro Chubb, a Ukrainian who anived in 1949 at lhc peak of lhe refugee
intake, has written his account of 'The Advenwres of a Ukrainian migrant in
Australia' in So This Is Australia? He worked through his own employment
contract at Bancliana, the arrny camp a1most adjacent to Bonegil1a, and spent
the rest of his working life as a storeman for the SEC in Melbourne. In his
record of those early years, Bonegilla has left a 1asting impression:

. . . in the camp theatre we were assigned our accommodation,

and soon after 1 entered one of the tin bungalows, which
contained two rows of beds, on each of which were a mattress,
four blankets, sheets, a pillow, and towels. 0n the ceiling near
the light bulb sat two enonnous moths . . . The married men were
assigned one set of bungalows, the wives and children another,
and the single adult mem bers of families yet another.
Immediately people began to seek each other out. Husbands
searched for their families. The women's quarters were similar to
the men's. There ºwere no stoves, no dividing partitions, and the
outside walls had a half metre wide gap all the way around
covered in wire neuing. Tears filled the eyes of well-bred Jadies
unaccustomed to such luxury. It was cold and miserable. 5

Sylvana, aged 16 when she arrived with her family from Fiume, and
speaking no English, remembers little of the reception procedure except that
she was given a piece of paper 'on which sorne numbers had been written'.
Her mother's reaction was one of joy, certain that they had come to a Jand of
good fortune, for these numbers were certainly those of a telephone, a Juxury
they had never been able to afford in Italy. Instead they spelt out TENT
'0000'. That night, squatting on a stretcher squeezed into a sma11 anny issue
tent with no flooring, with only grass beneath their feet, incessant rain
outside and drowning in darkness, since no-one could work the kerosene lamp
they had been issued, her mother broke down and cried. It is difficult lo
reconcile this picture with Misha's memories. He arrived in the summer of
1950, after having spent no time in DP camps in Europe, and was from a
fairly prosperous background in Slovenia:

My wife and I consider the time we lived in Bonegilla as our best

holidays. We were there for nearly three months and the main
reason was that 1 did not want to accept a job offered by the
camp authority, namely grape and fruit picking in the Riverina
district. lt was not that 1 did not want to do that kind of work,
but the fact that 1 would have to leave my wife and son behind.
While we were in Bonegilla, we had plenty of opportunity to
swirn in the lake, walk around, play all kinds of sports, attend
18 Bonegilla 'APlace of No
. Hope'
films at night and in one word, a perfect holiday. The facilities
in the camp could have been described as primitive, bu t in my
opinion were 100 per cent improvement on the facilities in the
camp in Bagnoli, where we spent a couple of weeks before
embarking for Australia.

There are as many different stories to be told about these early first
impressions as there were migrants. For those DPs who had arrived in
Australia after having already spent a few years in camps in Europe, the
usual pattern was one of over-expectation followed by dísappointment
or disillusion. But as well as expectations there were uncertainties about
the form of employment and when it would be receíved, about provisions
for the family, and fears of separation.
Pino arrived with his family early in 1952 as a DP from Fiume/R.ijeka.
In Europe they had been in a camp for four years, but their reasons for
coming to Australia were political rather than economic. Many Italians were
fleeing their port city since its political cession to Yugoslavia in 1947. Aged
15 Pino was too young to be contracted, but his father and sister met the
Australian employment requirements. His family was separated; his older
sister was Ieft behind in Bonegilla and bis father was sent to work in Swan
Hill, while he and his mother went off to a Holding Centte:

When we arrived in the bay of Melboume, it was King George

Day and we were so happy finally that we lef t European camp
behind that we didn't even think about it. We thought we
disembark at ten o'clock in the moming. There was a train, we
did not know where to go, what to say. 1 think they only told me
we were going to a Reception Centre and we didn't know what a
Reception Centre was. Bonegilta we didn't worry, it was just
another camp, it didn't hit us. A few days after it kit s. when 1
apply for a certain job and he say no, you go whatever come
around, then slowly it took us quite a while to register really. 1
start to register properly when 1 went on to Mildura really, me,
mother and younger sister in the camp there and very hot day,
then mother start to say, we carry the cross, Jook where we are.

If Bonegilla was not Australia, then there must have been sorne confusion
about what Australia was like. Conditions did not always Jive up to
expectations of the 'lucky country'. nor did work placement and the non
recognition of qualifications.
 Passíng Through 1947-1951 19

Processing

The first group of migrants, as the Border Morning Mail informed the
citizens of Albury, included 'attractive girls', 'healthy, handsome, with
surprisingly good complexions and figures', and young men who were, to
complete the stereotype, 'suntanned, strong and particularly good-
humoured'. There were approxímately 839 of them. and their average age
was 24, lhe maximum 32; they wcre either single or widowed, and with
no families. Originally from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, the
newspapers, and the Albury community, knew thcm as 'Balts'. Farmers,
teachers, office workers, students, stenographers, accountants, an architect,
and would-be waitresses. Re-classified, they appeared on the nominal
rolls as 514 labourers, 75 builders' labourers, 140 agricultura] workers,
and the women as domestics, waitresses, housemaids, and typists. They
were depicted as enth usiastic and optimistic, raving about the food and
the landscape. Even Departmental representatives were astonished by the
social 'calibre' of this híghl y scrutinised and screened group of DP
migrants.l
Within the camp sorne of the migrants were given duties to perform,
being rostered for routine camp maintenance. 1f they had a substantial
command of English, there were also jobs such as answering the telephone
and clerical work. lf not, there was always a shortage of 'hygiene workers',
the camp's residcnt cleaners. Little news was offered as to the progress of
their 'education'. The community was more curious about the 'looks' of the
new arrivals and their behaviour, than the services provided for them and
whether or not they were adequate.
Thc first week at the Reception Centre was paid for by the Dcpartment
of Immigration. As well, it had becn decided to pay transicnt migrants a
'special bcnefit', an allowance of 25 shillings a week. Eligibility for the
benefit was meant to give migrants an economic status comparable with
that of the 'average Australian'. After the first week though, L1 was
deducted automatically from that amount towards the cost of the
maintenance of the Centre. Migrants then retained five shillings to cover
incidental expenses, usually enough to purchase a few packets of
cigarettes and sorne stamps.2 This situation of dcpendency upon the Centre
for food and accommodation, and of having limited funds, although
appreciated, also meant that employment was a major aspiration of the
migrants, just as it was the greatest of their expectations. Without
assurance of employment, any other fringe benefits, such as English
'training' or social service benefits, were worthless. B. King, the resident
Bonegilla social worker from late 1951, was acutely aware of this priority:
20 Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

This was the most important thing m their lives. In summer

when lhere was grape harvesting and fruit picking in the south
and canecu tting in Queensland, life was hectic with men being
sent off to jobs, w ives and families to follow if and when
accommodation was found. In winter when jobs took longer to
find and there wasn't as much demand for unskilled men, then
morale was low. Sorne went off unaided to look for work. This
was risky for them because there was a rule that prohibited them
from retuming to the camp if they failed to find a job. Doublless
sorne did and kept themselves hidden from Block Supervisors.
You can guess that the YWCA officer and 1, in our small way,
tried every contact we had in the surrounding district to find jobs
for individual rnigrants, sorne single, sorne married. These would
be men who just could not be fitted into any of the categories of
work at the employment office.

It was not uncommon for farmers to come across migrants venturing on to

properties in the Bonegilla area in search of work. The only justification the
migrants could offer unwitting farmers was that they were sick of camp life
and wante.d to get out to eam money as soon as possible.3
The process of registering migrants for employment, interviewing them
and finally placing them was only meant to take up to ten days, but the
procedure held the key to the immediate destíny of the migrants and theír
families.
The day after arriving at the Centre, migrants were called up over the
loudspeaker to register for employment. Once at the employment office they
were confronted with four tables, each supervise.d by a resident CES officer.
Each t.able's purpose was defined by a sign in German which corresponde.d to
the categories: 'single men','single women', 'married couples' and 'heads of
families' .(Alex) The reasons for this categorisation, the brainchild of local
CES authorities, were obvíously pertinent to the differing employment
potential of men and women within the employment placement process, but
also to the particular accommodation problems associated with placing
marrie.d couples or 'breadwinners' with families. The mígrants were classified
'just the same as an Australian', except that their work or educational
qualifications had little or no bearing.(Gerry) What counted was the nature of
employment requisitions being sent in from various states and prívate
companies, and individual e,mployers.4
In 1949 there were only 22 'Australians' employed at Bonegilla. Most of
these were Employrnent Officers. They were young and single, sorne were ex
service, and almost ali of them had been transferred by order of the
Commonwea.Ith Employment Service (CES). They were sometimes criticised
by their colleagues, and by migrants, as unsympathetic and abusive of their
power. For Alex, a young man working for the Bonegilla CES, the altitudes
of hís co-workers could be interpreted as 'they didn't like people steppíng
outsíde the system'. While there was agreement by workers and migrants
alike that, in the type of operation whích had been set up at Bonegílla,
corruption took place, more often than not the employment officers were
themselves victims of policy directives handed down to thcm from Canberra.
The duties of the employment officer, lik.e the routines of processing,
were outlined quite specifically. They were responsible for the occupational
assessment of Displaced Persons and for the recording of vacancies which
would then be channel1ed through the office. They selected individuals for
reference to employers, arranged transport, and arranged for interviews by
interested employers. They prepared claims for payment by the Department of
Immigration for allowances to cover meals and subsistence, en route to place
of employment. and issued ration entitlements. 5
Placement itself was often part of a less formal process, as Boris's
experience suggeslS:

Before getting this job 1 was once standing in this line of job
seekers, and there were what looked to me like peasants from
outside wanting perhaps sorne seasonal help and they were sort
of looking us up and down and one of thern actually touched me
to see whether I had any muscles and 1 irnmediately tumed around
and told him to take his dirty paws off me or I am going to
flatten him. I said I am not a cattle and if you do not want to
employ me that's alright with me, and if 1 don't find ernployment
1 might as well be sent back to Europe, 1 will not be treated like
caule, and they were a little bit perplexed because I spoke
English as well as any other language, and 1 ticked them off for
most unbecoming behaviour.

Boris ended up living at Bonegilla for almost two years as an interpreter in

the hospital, attempting to put to sorne use his facility with languages, and
his professional qualifications, which included a Masters' degrce in
IntemationaJ Studies. He regarded it as a better way to work out bis contract
than risk being placed in a remole private industry area
For Nina, whose husband George had been in a German POW camp for
many years during the war, a similar event evoked memories of shootings
faked by the guards there to amuse themselves at the inmates' expense:
22 Bonegi/la :4 Place of No Hope'

One moming like in old Rome, all the men had to get up, stand
in a line, in one line . . . then a farmer carne, looked everyone
in the face, stopped in front of George.

George was wanted for fann work. But when he and Nina arrived at Bonegilla
other migrants warned them against taking farm work. They would be
isolated and exploited. Most of all they would never meet anyone:

We were interested to meet Australians, improve our knowledge

of English, and learn about life in Australia.

When Nina was called over the Ioudspeaker to be interviewed for a cook's
position, she told them she couldn't cook; her previous job was as translator
in a French Embassy in Gennany. She describes her feelings as resentful:
'They wanted to keep us down that was obvious'. 'Cattle type auctions',
according to CES officers employed at Bonegilla, were not 'strictly'
govemment polícy. Neither was the appearance of the employer at the camp;
but, in a period when rural and seasonal work took up a large proportion of
DP labour, the Employment Officers admitted it probably occurred.
The pattem of employment allocation was fixed early on. The general
strategy accot;ded with the principies ouUined by the Department of Labour
and National Service prior to the migrants' arrival:

the Displaced Persons should, as far as possible, be found

employment in country districts in preference to employment in
the vicinity of the principal cities. 6

Of the first group of migrants who arrived at Bonegilla the women were sent
out to work in their specified areas: nursing positions, hospital work, typing
and domestic Iabour in Canberra, Victoria and New South Wales. The men
were dispersed all over Australia and into areas of employment which hardly
reflected their qualifications as the Border Morning M ail had recorded them.
Their usefulness was perceíved in terms of unskilled labour: 328 men were
sent to various places in Victoria -to the Kiewa Dam, to Yallourn to mine
coa!, to work in the timber industry, flax production, export-milk processing,
salt harvesting, quarry work, and fruit harvestíng, the seasonal nature of
which required that they be reallocated after six weeks. One hundred and thirty
went to New South Wales to work in building and material production,
forestry and timber; 179 to South Australia on waterworks and railway
construction, salt harvesting and timber; 30 to the timber industry in Western
Australia; 12 to the Tasmanian newsprint industry, and another 12 to zinc
 Passing Through 1947-1951 23

production in the same state. The Department did not bother to draw up a
corresponding detailed 1isting of fema1e a1locations.
By 1949 the migration of DPs was a booming industry. Reception and
Training Centres sprang up in most states, and there were 20 Holding Centres
to accommodate the wives and families of contracted workers, also mostly
Jocated in isolated areas. Forty-seven thousand beds were made available for
the almost exclusive use of non-British DP migrants. Bonegilla's capacity
was doubled and then expanded again. From an initial capacity of less than
2,000, by 1950 it could accommodate 7,700 migrants and 1,600 more in
emergency conditions.8
One of these 'emergencícs' was the 1949 coal strike. In April, T.H.E. Heyes,
Secretary for Immigration, wrote to the Director of Employment, W.FunneIJ,
that while the present rate of moving migrants out to employment was 700 a
week from each of Bathurst and Bonegilla camps, by the end of May it had to
increase to 1,000 a week each to cope with increasing targets.9 But by June
there was a coal strike, and insufficient accommodation as there was no
movement out to employment, so the Reception Centres' populations bui1t
up to overflow. In July the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 1,000
Displaced Persons were without a job because of lhe miners' strike, while
migrants were arriving at the rate of 2,000 a week.10 At Bonegilla tents were
borrowed from nearby Bandiana Anny camp lo create the 1,600 necessary
extra places. In theory they were to house only single men, although
fam ilies, like Sylvana's, occasionally endcd up in them for short periods of
time. On October 25, 400 more tents were set up at Bonegilla to meet the
crisis, while the cubicling of huts which had commenced to províde famíly
accommodation, was slowed down. Reception and Training Centres were fuU
and 10,433 DPs were due in the coming month, A further plan was laid to
accommodate 4,000 migrants in tents.
Strategies were also devised to keep migrants occupied and to provide
them with increased educational resources while they were out of work. But
the excess numbers in camps meant that schooling facilities had to be
usurped for accommodation purposes. Classes were either suspended or held
out in the open.
The strike had made ít almost impossible lo transport men to work
sites, and the work sites themsclves were not operating. Emergency
work was created at military bases, and special trains were arranged to
take DPs to Queensland to work on the canefields. But men defied polícy
and sought their own work, with sorne encouragement from CES officers
willing to concede their temporary ineffectualness. Venturing to seek work
on their own meant having to come up with the transport fare, and
facing uncertainty as to whether they would actually obtain work once
they made it into the cities.
24 Bonegilla 'APlace o/ No Hope'

Although sorne men attempted to find their own work and succecded
where t.he employment office had failed, many ended up destitute
-having left Bonegilla on their own initiative they were not allowed to
retum there. Under these circumstances, sorne resoned to crime. The
effects were felt in ali the camps. Those with English skills tried to make
their plight heard through the media:

Sir, a week after 860 displaced persons from Europe arrived at

the Bathurst Reception Centre a representative from the Labor
ministry who spoke at the camp, was asked if it was possible to
get work in the coa! mines. He answered: 'Such people are dearer
than gold . . .' The representative is gone and we are waiting for
work. We have daily lessons in the English language, the meals
served by camp mess are good, we get clothes, shoes etc.
Everybody in camp was sure that in three or four weeks we start
to work . . . But now we are eight weeks in the camp and we ask
the employment officer for work but without success. We learned
a Iittle English and started to read Australian newspapers and we
got a picture of Australia's troubles - lack of coa), gas
shortages, etc. . . . We could solve the problem much better. We
are very thankful for hospitality, but we couldn't eat the
Australian bread gratis. We are waiting far work! 11

Such agitation worried the Department of Immigration. Heyes sensed that

it might be necessary to reemphasise certain basic principies of employment,
as a means of keeping the reins on local operations:

It is desired to emphasise that in the present industrial disruption

the displaced person stood down is in the same position as an
Australian similarly without work. A1though it is appreciated that
he is without the usual resources of Australians and has less
mobility in his choice of jobs, differential treatment cannot be
given which wou1d place DPs in a more advantageous posüion
than Australian workers. 12

Ironically, scarcity of jobs could allow greater independence from the CES
system. Rolf and Monica arrived at Bonegilla in the midst of the strike. Rolf
had been trained as a 'druggist' in Latvia but was at Bonegilla for three weeks
befare being placed in temporary work at Bandiana, bis qualifications ignored.
Monica was in Bonegilla for six weeks with her sick child. From Estonia,
she met her husband in DP camps in Germany, where they both Iived for four
 Passing Through 1947·1951 25

years prior to being selected to come to Australia. They 'chose' Australia

bccause ít was the first country to open up immigration to the family as a
unit. Rolf was able to find himself a position in Melbourne after Bandiana,
and as a result Monica spent only a few months in a Holding Centre waiting
for him.
The strike was over by August, and every report was geared to suggest
that emergencies were an aberration, but the tents stayed up. Problems of
employment allocation and 'crisis' or emergency situations re occurred, to the
extent that they could be seen as a normal pan of the processing routine.
Such crises were not only caused by events externa! to the control of
immigration policies, but were often symptomatic of it. In November 1950,
three ships carrying 5,000 migrants arrived in Melbourne on the day of a rail
strike. Pat Smith, an administration officer at the time, recaIJs its impact on
personnel at Bonegilla:

. . . earlier in the day starting at 5 a.m. we commenced to

move out 3,000 people partly dependents going to family
Centres and panly workers going to Sydney in three special
trains from Albury. In between the people leaving to go away
and the first lot of new people arriving from Melboume at 7 p.m.
the staff in the accommodation areas had to clean and reprepare
all the accommodation and allocate the new arrivals on paper at
various huts. Constant 24 hour meals had to be prepared. The
actual operation of moving 3,000 people out and 5,000 people
in took 24 hours and we were totally on duty the whole time
without a break.

Things were not of course always this hectic. But the speed at which
events occurred at Bonegilla meant that there was often liule time for
deliberating and apart from the more general principies of operation laid down
by the dep3I1Illents concemed in Canberra, decisions were an immediate and
local responsibility:

. . . the quicker we could get people whether workers or

dcpendents out of Bonegilla the better we liked because only we
and Canberra and lhe offices in Melbourne and Sydney knew of
the number of ships carrying thousands of migrants appearing on
the horizon . . . .Things had to be done sometimes in an ad hoc
way, meeting problems quickly as they arose. There was no
precedent, no one had ever done this before. In many cases il
was like making decisions in wartime.
26 Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

With the expected cessation of the lntemational Refugee Organisation in

1951, it was the aim of the Deparunent in 1950 to obtain as many DPs as
possible in that year, and 50,000 was set as the target. Most of this number
were received in the first six months. But when a further 30,000 was added to
the quota for that year, the strain on accommodation once again necessitated a
resort to 'emergency accommodation', and the new target was set in full
knowledge that tents would be resorted to for up to 4,000 migrants at
Bonegilla and Bathurst. Eight thousand, five hundred were due in February,
10,000 in April, 4,000 in May, and 4,000 in June, so that the setting of the
target itself was only possible 'under certain circumstances': namely, the use
of tents at Bathurst, Bonegilla and Greta -which had also be.en temporarily
converted into a Reception and Training Centre while still also operating as a
Holding Centre to cope with the increased demand.13 By 1950, workers'
hostels, like the BHP hostel at Iron Knob, were built using DP labour, in
answer it seems to the increasing numbers arriving and the concurrent need
for diversification in employment opportunities.14 CES officers were now
less limited in the placements they could offer employers, and migrants could
be more easily dispatched in large nwnbers to industrial sites in cities as well
as more isolated areas.
In the peak years (1949-51) there were 40 officers who were called
upan at times to process about a thousand migrants a week. While
attempts were made by the more sympathetic officers to try and keep
married couples and families together, they were fighting an
accommodation system and a labour market which were not structured
around the family unit, and in fact worked to thwart such considerations
in their reliance on bulk requisitioning and mass processing.
Once family 'units' were recruited in late 1948, the response had been to
section off parts of the Reception and Training Centre for the dependents.15
Separated from their working spouses, the women and children could continue
on at Bonegilla or Bathurst on a more permanent basis while the
'breadwinner' worlé:ed out bis contract. What began as a result of necessity
was soon transfonned into an official policy whereby the principie of
separating dependents from breadwinners was complacently continued. At
the time that approval was given for the building of workers' hostels, special
Holding Centres were established to accommodate the families of those
workers. 16 This enforced separation led to headaches for officials as men
began tak.ing their families out of the Holding Centres without securing
any alternative accommodation for them. But the spectacle was even more
desperate for the many widows and unmarried mothers who ended up in these
Centres. B. King was also a social worker at the Benalla Holding Centre:
 Passing Through 1947-1951 27

Benalla was a sad and tragic camp where widows and single
mothers were sent. The plan was that they would be able to find
work in Benalla fruit factories. It was psychologically a mistake
to isolate the women and children from the men. The
Commanding Officer there was an army man with little idea of
how to cope with their problems. The morale of the women was
low and assimilation into the community poor.

It was most often women who were long-term victims of

employment programmes, and of the 1ack of co-ordination between
emp1oyment officers and social workers or migrants themsclves. This
was particularly a problem for married mothers and widows whose
children could noi be housed near their place of work. For those able to
find placement at a Centre such as Bonegilla, life was at Jeast a little
simpler, since their children were not separated from them if they
worked there. For those women who were not recruited into the
employment programme, their lack of status relegated them to the
Holding Centres in even more isolated areas than Benalla and Bonegilla
-Uranquinty and Cowra amongst others -and their life there was even
more debilitating as they waited for their partners to fulfil their
employment conttacts.
Apart from the problem of matching employment or accommodation
needs with family or marital situations, there were certain groups which were
singled out as creating special problems. These were unsupported women
with childrcn (whether widowed or unmarried); youths under 18 who paid the
same hostel fe.es, but eamcd lower wages: and those suffering from injury or
disease.17 The Department of Labour and National Service, the Department
of Immigration, and the local administration cou1d find no real solution for
these 'misfits' within the basic employment and accommodation policies. In
1948 Eve Morrison, a visiting social worker, memoed sorne of these cases as
representative of wider problems and nol as 'isolated cases'.18
Most of these cases involved lhe problem of single parents, usually
women, and the accommodation of their children. But occasionally a
difficulty also arose in regard to general social and psychological well-
being:

A young woman after a health mental breakdown was retumed

to the Centre as fit for placement in employment. Wilh a
knowledge of her former disability and that this condition could
recur it was recommended to the employment officer that she be
placed in a cenain city or near to it as she had a friend there. She
was placed in another state where she had no friends.
28 Bonegilla 'APlace of No
Hope'
Eve Morrison attempted to establish co-operation between the CES and
welfare departments in order to avoid such obvious mistakes, but to little
avail.
One of the most distressing fonns of separation was brought about by the
policy of making young males and females over the age of sixteen also
subject to employment direction. Young females usually ended up as
'mother's helpers', nurses' aides, or in canneries and clothing factories.
'Mother's helper' was generally used as a euphemism for a domestic or maid
servant. Sylvana, after being introduced to tent life al Bonegilla, was asked
whether she preferred domestic work to nursing. Not being able to stomach
the latter, she was separated from her family and sent to work as a 'mother's
helper' in Sydney. Her mother and sister were sent to Cowra Holding Camp,
while she and her father fulfilled their contracts at distant locations. Pino,
from the samc town as Sylvana, was not old enough to be pul to work, but
his 17 year old sister was, and while he went to a Holding Centre with his
mother, his father and sister were sent to opposite ends of the state.
The problem of separating rnarried couples was just as acute. Alex, also
an Employment Officer, argues 'you had to break them up . . . the policy was
to get them out of the camp'. Serge remembers, as a DP in Italy, having
agreed to the possibility that he and his wife might have to be, and most
probably would be, separated in Australia. They agreed to this condition ,
because of their desperation to leave Europe. When they were eventually
found jobs together in a guest house in Warburton, even the fact that the job
basically involved cleaning toilets did not dampen their feeling of good
fortune. It rnay have been policy to attempt not to separate married couples,
or to locate breadwinners close to dependenl<l, but the Iarge numbers of people
passing through the system meant it was not often possible. Appropriate
accommodation was lacking near employment siles, and the hostel system
had been inefficiently co-ordinated.
When Marta found a job in BonegiUa as a waitress, her molher, though
elderly, was sent off to live alone at Cowra. Marta and her family, including
her mother, had ali spent four to five years in DP camps while still in
Europe, and carne out not expecting to be separated. Once at Bonegilla Marta
married immediately and soon began a family. It was only when Thornas, her
husband, previously the editor of an Eston.ian newspaper, obtained a job
interpreting for local members of the Australian Workers' Union (AWU) that
they were able to exercise any influence to move her mother closer to
Bonegilla. Marta's mother spent the next few years at Benalla Holding Camp,
unlil her daughter's children were bom, when she was finally allowed to live
at Bonegilla to be her daughter's 'mother's heJper'. Bu t ü offered little
compensation:
 This was the most upsetting thing. Coming ali those thousands
of miles, twenty thousand miles away from Europe and then all of
a sudden your mother is separated from you and she couldn't live
with us. (Marta)

The Australian Workers' Union, Thomas's employer, was generally

regarded with hostility by the migrants, who, since their European
experiences, were staunchly anti-comm unist and anti·trade unions. The trade
union was often perceived as 'the school of communism'. Thomas himself
was accused of being a communist because his job was to sell the AWU
ideals to other migrants using his linguistic skills. But hoslility to the
union, outside of the European context, was also understandable. lt was
largely through the lack of action on the part of the union to promote
acccptance of migrant skills, or to agitate on their bchalf, that proved an
obstacle to their more satisfactory employment placement
On occasions people with contacts tired of bureaucracies and sought their
own employment. They were only allowed to accept independently made
offers üthe work was classified as an 'essential service'. Fnink had managed
to find his own job in Melboume through personal contacts, but was not
allowed to accept a major position at the Swallow's biscuit factory because
the job did not hold priority for DP labour. Instead the Bonegi11a
administration offered him a job in the camp as either a teacher or a Block
Supervisor. He accepted the !atter with his wife Lydia as an assistant, and
eventually became the 'Quartcring' Supervisor.
Because of the lack of jobs in the immediate district many migrants tried
to find an opening in the camp itself. A job within the camp had advantages.
It was often preferable to taking one's chances labouring in another remate
spot in thc Australian 'bush'; it could offcr sorne stability and security, as
well as the ccrtainty of a reasonable standard of accommodatíon at a relatively
inexpensive rate which 'allowed the chance for saving: and, particularly in the
case of single parents, it also offcred a beuer chance of preventing separation
from your spouse or family. By the 1950s the proportion of migrant staff at
Bonegilla had grown to about 80 per cent. The type of jobs which could be
taken up in the camp was necessarily limited and, as with the first migrants,
depended on one's facility with the English language. The range had expanded
from 'hygiene' positions (the cleaning of amenities and wai tressing), to
assistant jobs in the education services (the creches, the kindergarten, and
1ater adult classes), or in lower echelon positions in administration. Migrants
even 'infiltrated' teaching positions at lower rates of pay. When Australian
teachers took up the migrants' cause they were accused of being 'reds' for
demanding
equal pay for equal work.
30 Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

As Kershaw's welcome speech to the incoming migrants had prophesied,

technical and professional qualifications were ignored. European doctors were
moulded into medica! orderlies for camp hospitals, while women were hired
as nurses' assistants. The hospital system, more generally, exemplified in the
extreme the lack of status which European professionals held within
Australian society, and the hypocritical way in which they were treated.
In 1949 Bonegilla had a population which could vary from 1,000 to
20,000 migrants, but there was only one medica) officer. He was responsible
for examining, and prescribing medication, for every arrival. The system
worked because of the reliance placed on the work of 'medica) orderly'
foreign doctors:

Officially filling menial pos1uons and rece1vmg appropriately

low wages, they examined all new arrivals and reported their
findings to the Australian doctors . . . On the one hand they
were asked to go beyond the duty of the medica! orderly -
indeed at Bonegilla at least they were issued with stethoscopes
so that they could examine new arriv als and the sick. On the
other hand, they were ordered around by the nursing sisters who
insisted that they should wash implements and clean floors.19

Hans was Estonian. He had been a medical student but had spent the years
prior to arriving in Australia in Gennan DP camps, and then continued his
sbldies until 1949 when he decided to immigrate with his mother, being 'sick
and tired with the war life'. He could speak English and had high
expectations. Hans was at Bonegilla for a month until he got a job as a
kítchen hand there and worked for a while on the staff. He was separated from
his mother upon arriving at Bonegilla because, as a non·transient migrant,
there were no facilities to accommodate them together. He argues that the
lifestyle once he wa8 employed in the camp was different from that of a
migrant passing through, although objectives remained, somewhat ironically,
the same: 'the main aim was to get away as quickly as possible and as far
away as possible.'
Lazslo, an air force doctor from Hungary, had been enticed to come to
Australia by the promise of a job in his profession. It was because of that
promise that he declined an offer to go to the United States. Once he arrived
at Bonegilla he saw that there were already many European doctors there, ali
waiting for employment, or working in first aid. Lazslo arrived with his wife
and son, both of whom the administration wanted im mediately to relocate at a
Holding Centre. But in arder to avoid that possibility, he took up a job in the
Bonegilla kitchens and his wife, Magda, became a cook there. After a few
 weeks, he was 'promoted' to hospital orderly, and then told not to assume
any vestiges of authority such as wearing a white coat. His job
consisted of registering patients, giving diagnoses, and possibly treating
them. Ahhough he made friends with Brigadier Lemaire, the head of one of
the administrative units at Bonegilla, even Lemaire's influence was not
enough to get him a position as a practising doctor. The offer of a job at
a TB sanatorium in Melbourne, organised by Lemaire, resulted only in
the playing out of a similar scenario. On arrival at the sanatorium, the
Matron's first words of greeting were 'forget you are a doctor'.
Disillusioned, Lazslo returned to Bonegilla, and stayed there until 1954,
five years ali told. Even though he saw no future there, Magda had been
placed in a 'good' job, as a hygiene woman, quite well paid, washing
toilets and cleaning the supervisor's flat. From this she was transferred to a
job in the creche and kindergarten. They both finally left Bonegitta when,
on his own initiative, Lazslo found a position in Melboume as a
microbiologist at the Ang1iss meatworks. Bonegilla had been bearable,
and besides he was constantly being promised that his registration as a
doctor would happen soon in order to keep him there. If this glimmer of
hope had not been held out to them, it is difficult to know whether they
would have persisted at Bonegilla.
The relegation of migrants to certain areas of employment wit.hin
Bonegilla was the source of sorne tension. It also meant that migrants
discovered their own means of compensating for the discrimination
inherent in the systcm , by practising their own forros of exclusion. Mrs
Steiner remembers ali aspects of camp life interfering with her private and
family life. Her husband, chief Education Officer at the camp, often
brought students home to meet his family. lt was through conversations
with them that she
learnt about the black market within the camp, and of 'the Latvian takeover'
of the transport system -until a cleanout was ordered, only so that it
could be replaced with another nationalily coming in and prcdominating in
that one area. Professor Wadham of the Commonwealth Immigration
Planning Council (CIPC) complained of a Polish monopoly: 'that a
number of Polish migrants have been appointed to various posts in the
camp and that these are not unbiased in their treatment of others -
especially those of other nationalities.' 20
The migrants themselves rarely mention ethnic, or national, rivalries. The
nature of the official administrative and 'ethnic' hierarchy may have imposed a
particular social orde.r, but class affiliations often broke down barriers and
took priority, in individual cases, over ethnicity. While migrants more or less
congregated in their own national groups, segregation within groups more
usually occurred on a 'class' basis, so that occasionally migrams on staff
found friendships developing with Australian staff mem bers.
32 Bonegilla 'A Place of No Hope'

The block supervísors were also described by Colonel Guinn as the

migrants' 'Philosopher, Guide and Friend', as much a reflection of lheir status
wíthin the camp generally and the administration's reliance upon them. They
were on call 24 hours a day, and usually recruited for their capacity to speak
severa! languages, including English. They usually had their own hut and
office, from where they would handle enquiries. Their jobs included
organising huts within their area to suit each new shipload, acting as general
interpreters, organising canteen rosters and camp work rosters which detaiied
general camp duty for the transient migrants. As a Block Supervisor, Frank
could claim close and lasting friendships with certain administrators and
recalls quite proudly his being asked to offer an opinion to Calwell on
matters of camp organisation and the problems which migrants might be
facing. When Frank, 1ike Lazslo, tells of evenings whiled away in Brigadier
Lemaire's lounge-room, sharing port, cigars and classical music, we need to
be aware that sorne basic preconceptions and categorisations collapse. The
history of Bonegilla is no longer merely the tale of Australian meets migrant,
but of individuals interacting and developing relationships which operate on
Ievels other than that of ethnic identity -levels of class, gender and shared
idiosyncrasies.
There was sorne intermarrying between migrants and Australian staff
members, but the degrees of their acceptance by the Australian comm unity at
Bonegilla varied. For the more conservative, 'inlermarriage' was a sign of
lowering your social standing, an instance of 'fraternising', as Barbara
experienced when she, a young inexperienced Australian teacher, married a
'Balt' doctor. The strain on their marriage was aggravated by the restrictions
on her husband's ability to practise his profession. She recalls with sorne
bittemess the humiliation that she, as well as her husband, experienced
because of this:

Major Kershaw was going into the mess one night, 1 was with
Rudy, and Major Kershaw carne through the door as we carne
through and he had one of his flunkies with him . . . so one of
them said to Rudy, 'Good Evening Thx:tor', and with that Major
Kershaw, who was no longer in the army, and was calling
himself 'MAJOR ', said 'Mr P._ please, in Australia, not
"Doctor" '. They were absolutely appalling.

The Australian men who wielded power over the migrants could also be
regarded by the migrants as less educated, of a presumed different 'class', or as
having worked their way up in the ranks only because of the immigration
scheme. For Marta, who worke.d first as a waitress and then in administration
 Passing Through 1947-1951 33

and made friends with her Australian co1leagues, the chief administrators
could still be perceived in not so favourable a light: 'They were so very
imponant all those . . . they werc like Chinese Kaisers'.
But for the majority, particularly transient migrants, encounters with
Australian staff were few:

We ali seemed to think, and in our conversations it was that

Bonegilla wasn't really Australia, bccause there were an awful Iot
of migrants. It was more or less Iike a little migrant city. Ali
nationalities put togcther. We didn't get enough contact with real
Australians. (Hans)

Any relaxing of certain role models within individual circumstances did not
detract from the general function of Bonegilla. The administrators' job was to
move the migrants in and out and to do it efficiently. Close contact was left
up to the other personnel. They too were constricted by their own duties and
the constant arrivals: ·

They [the migrants] arrived by ship and by train from Melboume

by which time they were a cohesive group and only after a time
in Bonegilla did 1 notice individuals. 1 expect ali staff were
inclined to treat them as a group at first. (King)

For many of the staff direclly in contact with transient migrants, their
voices and their bodies remained a constant blur, always around but never
re.ally noticed, and the contrary could be applied to the migrants' perception of
the staff. Not only were the administrative machinations índecipherable and
invisible to them, but so too were the many administrators themscJ ves.
Once the more formal aspects of processing had been taken carc of, ali
that was left was the wait, for employment allocation, or for placement in a
Holding Centre where they would be accommodated on a more permanent
basis. The concept of time, the naturc of relationships and fricndships seemed
to take on a different perspective when viewed from inside a 'camp' situation
-isolated from the goíngs-on of the outside world, and organised
according to its own routines and rhythms. As people carne and wcnt
the hygiene workers set to cleaning and reorganising huts according
to the Block Supervisor's orders, in preparation for the next shipload.