C ONTENTS

Preface ix

PART 1: 'A PLACE OF NO HOPE'

The Policy 1
The Camp 6

PART 11: PASSING THROUGH - 1947-

1951 9
Augustus 12
Arrival and Reception 19
Processing \ 34
Frank 36
'Bul The Food Was A.Nightmare' 42
Training 51
Welfare 59
Things Fali Apart

PART HI: 'MIGRANT CAMP BLUES' 67

The Immigration Industry 71
Eric 73
Work or Repatriation
90
B .King, Social Worker 92
The Bonegilla 'Comm unity' 101
Eureka -1961

PART IV: THE DR EAMING 122

'Little Europe Closes íts Doors' 131
Epilogue 139
Augustus
141
Soon:es 143
Endnoies
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Cover: Dina Tourvas, 'Bonegilla: The Point of Transition', 1985.

The following illustrations are official photographs of Bonegil1a from the

Department of Immigration & Ethnic Affairs:

Figure l. Augustus 11

Figure 2. Port Mclboume 12

Figure 3. Eating 'camp-style' 38

Figure 4. Tbe women -1949 51

Figure 5. The landscape 58

Figure 6. Thc camp canteen 66

Figure 7. Aeríal view 70

Figure 8. Area theatre - 1952 82

Figure 9. B. King 91

Figure 10. Colonel Guinn 91

 víí

Acknowledgements

TO MY PARENTS FOR RISKING THE JOURNEY

This book wou/d never have made it into print

without the generous financia{ assistance of the
v'accari ltalian J/istorical Trust. It has been six
years now since Bonegilla metamorphosed from
a brief moment of dinner-table conversation, to
an ali consuming obsession , an M .A. thesis,
and now the monograph.
l would never have /asted the distance without
the encouragement and inspiration provided
by my friend s and co-workers: Julie Wells,
Míchael Crozier, Michael Cathcart , Charles
Ferrall, Paul Hicks, Jenny Jlaas, Lloyd
Fleming , and.for her editorial expertise , Sue
Janson. l also know I wou/dn't have any
histories to revisit if not for the co-operation
o/ all those who gave their time
to speak with me , write to me, ar throw the
slightest reference to Bonegilla in my direction.
 ix

Preface

lt was a lonely place , and it had a sign, which nobody had

token down, lhat said:
Bonegilla. A Place o/ No Hope.
(Franca Arena, 'Australia 200 years and Beyond',
Age, supplement, 27 October 1987}

Each culture creates its own dreaming -myths which evolve and revolve
around memories of social origins. Imm igration, the status of being an
immigrant, has always fascinated, partially because of the expcrience of
uprooting, of exile from a familiar orientation of culture and social meaning.
Sketched out as a particular shared experience of geographical displacement,
the 'migrant dreaming' encapsula tes, contains and enguJfs even greater
distances, distances of class, gender, and ethnicity, as well as of diverse
individual pasts, their presents and divergent futures. For immigrants to
Australia during the post-World War 11 immigration boom, the shared
moment of entry into their 'second life' has clustered around a few vivid
images and trigger words. One of these is, or has become, 'Bonegilla'.
By way of introduction, it is perhaps enough to say that Bonegilla was an
Immigration Centre opened up by the Australian Department of Immigration
in 1947. It was located about eight miles from the nearest town Albury, at
least a six.-hour train joumey from any of the main urban population centres.
Its role was integral to the development of an Australian post-war
immigration programmc aimcd to counter population and labour deficiencies.
Aftcr the war, and u ntil its closure in 1971, its majar purpose was lo house
non-British migrants. More than three hundred thousand people from all parts
of the European continent passed through its gatcs during this lime.
Bonegilla was in sorne ways unique. It was to be used as a 'staging camp'
for 'processing' migrants. Voluntary and refugee migrants who had exchanged
two years of their labour for assisted or free passages could be railed from
Bonegilla to remole areas of the Australian continent, to be placed in jobs
Australians did not want to do, away from mettopoJitan centtes and in 'critical
areas of the economy'. It would also be a place where these migrants were to
be 'Australianised', given training in the English language and familiarised
with the Australian way of life, ali of which was to talce place within a period
of six weeks. In actuality the nature of Üleir experience of Bonegilla varied;
for sorne, the time there stretched out to months, for others, it may have been
x. Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

a matter of only a week. What they all had in cmnmon was Bonegilla -as
a place where their fates, at Jeast in the immediate future, would be decided
for them. The 'Reception and Training' Centre was effectively to be a site
not only where accommodation would be provided, but where migrants could
be stratified into certain social and occupational classifications: classified
generically as 'New Australians', and occupationally as 'labourer' or
'domestic'. An infonnal policy of 'non-confrontation and dispersa!', and of
keeping these groups largely isolated from urban Australian society,
maximised the immigrants' potential as a directable and controllable pool of
labour. It is this role which left its imprint on the lives of the majority of
those who passed through.
As the period in which Bonegilla operated became incorporated into
the assimilation era of immigration history, so its role in shaping the
nature of the 'migrant experience' for those who had passed through its
gates was increasingly underplayed or forgotten. Seemingly silent, yet
quite vocal inconsistencies, such as the pronunciation of Bone/gilla,
Bo/ne/gilla, in fact suggest that the very word hides a complex series of
histories crucial to our understanding of the possibilities of an
ethnically non-homogenous Australian society. Depending on its
preferred pronunciation, [Bone/gilla (the Australian version), Bo/ne/gilla
(the 'migrant' version)], the idea of Bonegilla has been co-opted into the
realm of immigration myth, as wen as constituting a majar part of the
immigrants' re-ordering of their reality, much as the Immigration
Department itself had used it to construct its own image of a successful
immigration programme. Yet all these significances, these voices, have
largely remained silent, out of earshot of mainstream Australian
history. It is my generation - the later generation -who is picking
up on the theme. And the theme - because it has no existence
within an official version - is 'extracted' from the 'originals', from
those who were there.
Certainly the physical reality of Bonegilla as an Immigration Centre
no longer exists. Neither does its Australian interpretation as BoneJgilla
- it has been decoded and recoded to have meaning for a new
'multicultural' Australia rather than the old 'new Australian'. The one-
time 'migrants' ' recollections of Bonegilla, their isolation from any shared
community input of historical awareness, in the majority of cases until
approached by an eager oral historian, would seem to suggest that
Bonegilla should have died a natural death with its physical closure. Yet
the word BonegiUa is becoming increasingly prominent and recognised by
Australians and ex-inhabitants of the camp long after the peak of its own
infamy. The idea of Bonegilla has created its own comm unity -
those who know about Bonegilla as distinguished from those for whom it
signifies nothing; and then from those
 xi

who are using it as a symbol of remembering and of reworking the more

domínant official cultural themes and dreams of Bonegilla, revived as dinner
!able conversations, as well as poems or stories.
The idea of a collective 'migrant dreaming' which relies on any of the
füerary, fixed manifestations of personal dreams, is a manufactured lie, or
rather a constant alibí; it imposes unity and precision of definition where the
popular oral history of Bonegi11a survives through obscurity, ambiguity,
contradiction and irony. For those who had personal contact with the actuality
that was the Bonegilla Immigration Centre, recollections are fragmentcd. The
nature of popular and private memories are as brittle as lhey are intricate.
And most often they are dominatcd by either the food provided there, or the
more notorious riots.
It was interesúng for me to see which themes thc 'migrants' would take
up when given the chance to ordcr their memories - to place their
lives within hístorical contexts. For those ex-migrants who have an active
role in keeping the past alive for the ethnic comm unities to which they
belong, images of how that past was structured are emphatically and
dramalically voiced. In contrast, for those who wish to forget the
'injustices' or discomforts of the past (more often those who are/have becn
successful in lhe present and have no desire/nee.d to recall such memories), it
can be tied in to a more satisfying present-day dialogue with righted
wrongs and economic justifications . The pattems of course.are never this
clear cut, but neither is there any doubt that thc rcmcmbrancc of things
past is an avcn ue for reflecúons on situations present. Even when its
significance is denied, or represented in tenns of the food eaten there,
BonegilJa acts as a political symbol as m uch through the vehemence of
any denial as through the acceptance of its importance. Similarly, for the
Australian personnel, there may be a differcnt social contcxt in which to
place their rcading of Bonegilla, yet it is one which recognises Boncgilla's
importance in the schcma of immigration history, as well as its potent
symbolic effect on the present status of im migration. Their commentary
might vary in its attention to criticisms or defences; still, the very need
to construct its significance according to such values points to the potency
of Bonegilla as a political symbol, a symbol potentially alive for them now
in ways ít may not have been in the past. This approach is often shared by
the migranlS, evcn if in lerms of individual effects rather than of a
structural understanding of Australian society.
We cannot help but be critical of Bonegilla, what it stood for. After ali.
we write from the perspective of a new decade in immigration policy
'enlightened' by lhe tenets of multicu\turalism as our particular trigger word.
But lhose involved in the programme that revolved around Bonegilla have
xii Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

perceived Bonegilla as a haven far the destitute, providing valuable provisions

of education, food, clothing, accommodation, ali, it seemed, gratis. These
same people, without perhaps being perturbed by the insidious overtones of
such planning and regimentation, thought of their function as one of
providíng compassionate aid, and may have concluded that no other country
was doing as much for migrants as part of its official policy as Australia. To
the migrants, those who could detach themselves from the physical
strangeness that invaded their senses of normality, Bonegilla may have offered
renewed hope, a continuing sense of security; ar for those who carne out in
search of the golden land, it may have offcred only despair. To sorne, facing
the harsh realities of recession and shortages of work and housing once
outside Bonegilla, it could be 'home', to others 1íttle more than limbo,
pcrhaps even purgatory. No one had ever pictured the lucky country in the
shape of tin army huts and barbed wire compounds.
This history of Bonegilla does not claim to be the only acceptable one;
there are too many versions, none of which might satisfy the interpretations
of every person who was in sorne way more intimately connected with its
operation, whether as official staff members or as temporary m igrant
inhabitants. 1 can only attempt to place before you the different versions 1
have come across, to incorporate these memories into yet another version
which believes that at one level Bonegilla cannot be really understood
without understanding the history of immigration as an institution. But aiso
that the changes we, as Australians, 'old' and 'new', have witncsscd in
immigration policies and programmes cannot be fully understood in terms of
their achievements and limitations, without knowing the history of
Bonegilla, the nature of national dreams that conjured up the possibilities for
its existence in the first place, and the way it changed the lives of those who
were meant to live that dream. In the beginning, this is a history that revisits
and revises other histories, oral and archival. It is about the re-creation of
communities, the possibilíties for remembering and for cultural renewal.
 'A Place of No Hope' l

PART 1: 'A PLACE OF NO HOPE'

The Policy

The immediate post-war years marked significant changes in official

Australian altitudes towards the purpose of immigration. By 1945 the
necessity for drastic increases in the A ustralian population through
immígration had, in political circles, been accepted. So urgent did the
situation seem that the Department of the Interior urged that non-British
immigrants be regarded as a viable source for economic as well as defence
purposes. This was quite a radical position to talce, considering that the
govemment traditionally favoured British migrants, or, at most, a partial
influx of 'Western Europeans'. Yet the man ner in which solutions to the
imperative issues of defence and economic build-up were formulated involved
longer-standing prejudices. These were flexible only to the extent that the fear
of 'perishing', captured in popular slogans such as 'Populate or Perish', could
be invoked as urgent and imminent. The steps in the fonnation of national
policy which led to the eventual arrival of 'Displaced Persons' in 1947 -
migrants from traditionally unfavoured European areas -were in no sense
evolved until well into 1947. Even then, developmen L<; were closcly tied i n
with the programme for British migrants.1
In alignment with Arthur Calwell's pronouncement that for every 'foreígn'
migrant there would be ten British, the Australian govern ment had
consolidated its plans for enticing British migrants with the signing in 1946
of the 'U.K. Free and Assisted Passage Agreement'.2 As part of a new
organised and bureaucratised approach to immigratíon, ccrtaín aspects of the
operation were not to be left to chance. The very creation of Departments of
Immigration, and of Infonnation, bot.h with Calwell as their Minister, was
symptomatic of the new order.3 Immigration policy, above ali else, was to
inaugurate a new age in govemmental concem for public relations exercises
out of wartime.
One focus of this advcrtising highlighted the State as benefactor, as
protector. Responsibility for the 'reception, placement and after-care of
migrants upon arrival' was to be shared between the Commonwealth and the
states.4 The co-operation of voluntary organisations traditionally involved in
caring for newly arrived immigrants was designated secondary. There was also
sorne expectation that the general comm unity would try to make 'New
Australians' feel at home.
2 Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

The other focus of public appeal was a concem for 'the nation', that is its
economic welfare. The interests that 'the nation' may have represented wcre
ambiguously stated and summed up as the health of the GDP and the state of
industry. In an attempt to co-ordinate immigration with specific employment
needs, surveys were to be undertaken aimed at discovering the capacity of each
state to 'absorb' migrants during 1947. These surveys would also discover
what facilities were suitable for the temporary or transit accommodation of
migrants. By February 1947 it was further decided that the states would set up
'reception depots' near ports of disembarkation. Ex-military establishments
which could house a few hundred at a time were sought in the outer suburbs
of principal cities.5 The Commonwealth Employment Service would
cstablish offices there to assist the quicker and simpler absorptíon of British
migrants into the workforce.
After the war even Britain and many other industrialised nations were
suffering labour shortages. These more favoured migrant 'source' countries
were loath to give up their workers when they were so desperately needed at
home. Although there was an unlimited fund of Displaced Persons available
for the purposes of providing workers, these were people Australia, initially,
did not want to accept, despite UN picas that Australia take a fair quota for
humanitarian reasons.6
A more concened attempt to try and encourage the immigration of
'suitable' types was made in May 1947 with the adoption of the Empire and
Allied ExServiccmen's Scheme -soldiers of Dutch, Norwegian, Belgian,
French and Danish 'extraction' were to be enticed by the opportunity of re
settling in Australia.7 But, in the same month, sorne CIAC officials were
surprised to receive word that Calwell's department was now making
overtures to join the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) which handled
the resettlement of the Displaced Persons. Although Calwell was not so
casily dcterred in his desire for particular types of immigrants to constitute
the backbone of his immigration plan, at this point the importance of the
immigration plan itself overwhelmed the detail of its ethnic and cultural
makeup.
The imperatives dictated by labour shortages were such, thal in June,
Calwell felt it necessary to undertake a world tour to study the question of
shipping and immígration, and to examine the IRO's own resources for
transportation. Over the following months another agreement was made with
the IRO. Twelve thousand Displaced Persons {DPs) from camps in occupied
Europe were to be resettled in A ustralia in lhe first year. Only an
experimental number, it was soon increased to 20,000 even befare the first
arrivals.8
 'A Place of No Hope' 3

The apparent change of attitude can be partially explained in the tempting

and irresistible aspects of the offer that the IRO had made. Shipping for
Displaced Pcrsons would be provided and at the IRO's expense -this was
crucial in the context of the world-wide post-war shipping shortage. The DPs
would be chosen by the Australian govemment and would be subject to a
twelve-month empJoyment contract undcr the direction of the Australian
govemment; even after that two-year period their residency in Australia would
remain conditional. Australia would contribute an ex gratis paymcnt of flO
per head to pay for the extra distance that the IRO ships would have to cover
from the normal routes to Canada or Soulh America. Australia would have
control over the programme, over the choice of migrants and over the
migrants themselves. Calwell assured lhe public by taking into account their
paranoia:
We shall have to select them because sorne areas are not above
sending us ones they most want to get rid of. We do not want
traitors and collaborators.9

Part of the explanation for lhe Australian govemment's own conviction

that DPs would be economically useful, can be sought in the internatíonal
responses of different countries to the DP situation. England, for example,
had, since 1946, been 'successfully' operating the European Vol untary
Workers' (EVWs) scheme even lhough it faced the same stated obstacles as
Australia: a housing shortage and lhe probiem of rchabililatíng ex
servicemen.10 Thcse EVWs were placed mostly in hostels and camps and
recruited into unskilled and essenlial industries for what was supposed to be a
contractual one-year pcriod. The idea was that competition far jobs held by
English workers would be controlled and that, by placing hostcls and camps
in remate arcas, any largc-scale confrontalion with the English population
would be avoided. Of course Ausualia had its own experiences in planning for
the large number of assisted British migrants, but the Displaced Persons were
not British, nor were they among the preferred group of 'aJien' immigrants.
In contrast to the arrangements which had been decided far British
immigration, whereby responsibility was to be divided between the states and
the Commonweallh, the federal govemment in this case would take wholly
upon itself the responsibility for the selection, reception, placement in
employment and after-care of the DPs. Such responsibilities would be more
than com pensated for by the benefits the agreement would offer the Australian
economy. Bu t the reaping also demanded sorne sowing. The problem of
efficiently absorbing lhe DPs was íntertwíned with convincing the Australian
pubtic that the obstaclcs which had stood in the way befare the July decisíon
had now been removed and that the re-settlement of DPs would be of benefit
4 Bonegilla 'APlace o/ No Hope'

to Australians, and worth the taxpayers' expense. The assisted introduction of

a large number of non-British refugee migrants from the unknown quantity
that was 'Eastem Europe', and on such a substantial scale, could be perceived
as a threat not only to the 'working Australian', but to the social status quo
and the image of a 'British' Australia.
Policy regarding DPs developed its own peculiarly local rationale, never
quite consistent with the logic applied to the situation for 'favoured' types of
migrants. These migrants could and would be directed to jobs at vital points
of the Australian economy for which there was a shortage of labour, and
which Australian workers refused to do. In exchange they would be allowed to
share the fruits of a country 'superior' in living standards to anything it was
assu med they had known, at least during the war years. Their labour
commitment would eam them their fares, the provision of temporary
accommodation, and even English-language training services. But ali those
services would in tum be located at a sufficient distance from metropolitan
areas and convenient to rural employment in order to reinforce the principie of
directability, of control. If control was not exercised, the Department of
Labour and National Service feared that migrants

would be free to move into metropolitan areas to compete

uncontrollably for limited accommodation facilities needed by
Australian citizens, and to congregate there in racial groups, the
creation of which would neither be in the real interests of
Displaced Persons nor of the Commonwealth, if given the right
to select their own employment immediately, where and how
they tike, they competed for jobs for which there is an
oversupply of Australian workers. Were this to happen, the
future development of the Commonwealth's migration policy
might well be prejudiced by the growth of opposition to this
policy on the part of the workers at large as unwillingness by
the mass of the Australian people to co-operate in the process of
assimilation.11

The decision to locate the Reception Centre at an ex-arm y camp was

pragmatic in the context of the nation-wide housing shortage at the time.
After ali, the same step had been planned for British migrants. Yet the
conception of the Reception and Training Centre, the prolonged stay of six
weeks, as well as the isolated ·location of Bonegilla, were unique
modifications for those migrants specified as non·British.
The choice of Bonegilla, on the outskirts of the Albury-Wodonga area of
northern Victoria, as the site for the 'Reception and Training' experiment was
 'A Place of No Hope' 5

in no way inevitable, but it can be quite simply explained by virtue of its

convenience for employment and distribution purposes. The camp was
situated at a gauge connection point; migrants could be railed out from the
Centre to almost anywhere in Australia with the Ieast inconvenience for
changing trains and offloading luggage. 12 There was also an active
decentralisation movement in the Albury-Wodonga arca, and the introduction
of migrants to rural areas was in accord with the more general decentralisation
initiatives. Being almost 200 miles from Melboume, it also suited in other
ways: Bonegilla was at least half-way between the two largest cities in
Australia, Melbourne and Sydney, and a relatively short drive to the capital,
Canberra, which was still being built, as well as to the large public works of
the 'Snowy Mountain Scheme'. Thus Bonegilla offered the site for a nation
wide feed line, even though the migrants themselves would find the major
cities inaccessible for prívate purposes because of transport costs.
The intention was that the Displaced Persons would create more resources
than they would use. Such benefits were to be conveyed to an assumed
hostile public as part of a 'conditioning campaign'. It would be stressed that
the immigration programme -including the DPs themselves -was under
control:
It is suggested that publicity should not stress the numbers
arriving and due to arrive, but should be directed to emphasising
the planned character of the employment bcing found for the
displaced persons ill tcrms of crcating an incrcasing numbcr of
jobs as well as an increased standard of living in terms of
houses, public works and consumer goods.13

The accommodation system as a whole, and its more specific example in

the Reception and Training Centre at Boncgilla, would rccreate the conditions
of dependency for migrants and reinforce certain social values and class
structures. The organised and contained presentation of the Reception and
Training Centre to the public also reinforccd not only the illusion and
practice of 'control', but the assumption that it was at ali necessary.
6 'Bonegilla 'APlace of No Hope'

The Camp

Australians have unfortunately always been resentful o/

foreigners and there is little visible enthusiasm to welcome
them now . . . With proper supervision the Balts should be
able to come and go with local residents being scarcely aware
o/ their presence and with increased prosperity to the Bonegilla
district.
( Border M orning Mail , 11 November 1947)

In 1948, the Australian Department of Immigration published a brief

pamphlet optimistically entitled Glück in der Neuen Heimat, (Happy in Your
New Homeland).1 Fifty thousand copies of this publication were distributed
to British and American zones so that sorne, at least, of the migrants who
eventually arrived at Bonegilla had in all probability read its interpretation of
not only their possible new life in Bonegilla, but in Australia. Much like the
newspaper stories of the time, it romanticised this 'new life' with pictures of
lovers wandering through sunset-lit landscapes. The time at Bonegilla was to
be one of Ieaming about the 'Australian Way of Life', of friendly mingling
with the Iocals in thriving Albury, of swimming, and dancing -'the resort
of a lifetime in a happy new homeland'. Here they would enjoy dances, folk
music and songs, the expression of national culture, costumes and crafts, ali
with the blessing of Arthur Calwell, who vísited to hear the talents of
impromptu orchestras and sopranos. Their journey to the other side of the
world held the promise of a new and wonderful life, much in the mould of the
old world. But once here those expectations, as wcll as the Immigration
Departrncnt's responsibility to provide information, were lost amid the
cuphoria which surrounded accounts of, and strategies for, the immigration
plan.
In 1947 the Immigration Department took over Bonegilla from the
Australian army on a tenure basis. A former army-camp and POW hostel
during World War II, itwas spartan to say the least, and dilapidated after
years of neglect.2 Not only was it isolated, being sorne eight miles
from the
nearest town, Wodonga, but it covered an immense expanse of land.
Bonegilla extended over 247 hectares of wind-swept Australian countryside.
As an ex-military installation, it was separated from the surrounding district
by cyclone-wire fencing. It contained something like eight miles of unmade
roads. If,at peak capacity, a migrant was billeted to the outskirts of the
camp
 'APlace of No Hope' 7

it migbt be a two-mile walk to tbe camp's centre where most of tbe

administrative activity took place.
The camp landscape was dotted with regulation galvanised iron and a
few timber anny huts. These were unlined and had a gap one foot wide
running the length of the hut's upper circumference. The gaps were
covered in wire meshing for ventilation. Because the landscape at Bonegilla
was denuded of trees during these early years, mosquitoes and duststorms
plagued its inhabitants in the summer, just as the cold winds could
penetrate in winter; flies were an all-season nuisance.3
The buildings and ablutions facilities were in need of repair, kitchens and
kitchen equipment had to be made available, mess rooms, various stores for
rations, clothing, blankets, linen and general equipment provided, class rooms
fitted out for the preliminary education of the Displaced Persons, recreation
rooms, church, hospital and staff quarters esblblished. Everything was in
much the same condition as left by the army when they had vacated it. The
inadequacies extended to cooking and dining facilities, and prirnitive toilet and
bathing arrangements.
Initially, it had been envisaged that only 1,500 migrants would be
accommodated at the camp at any one time so that only a portion of its
blocks were opened up. Tbese were organised around the central area
known as the Civic Centre, housing the Administration and
Commonwealth Employment Service Offices, Social Service Department,
Alien Registration, Customs' Baggage Room, Gymnasium, Paymaster,
Information Centre, Theatre and Churches. Outside the administration area
a multi-coloured pebble coat of arms officially marked Bonegilla's status.
The camp also had a small hospital that had been used by the army, and
which, lilce the existing accommodation arrangements, had to be
upgraded. lts relative isolation also dictated that c;::ertain additional
facilities be provided, a 'canteen', and a post office. By 1952, this list of
'essentials' would incorporate banks and
h.4
While conditions in general were similar for migrants and staff, in the
first few years accommodation for migrants was on a dormitory basis.
Different national groups were housed in separate blocks and within these
blocks women and men, wives and husbands were segregated. The huts
contained no intemal facilíties, nor any furniture except for the camp beds.
The migrants set up crude blanket partitioning and placed their luggage
between the beds, arranging them like altars, to provide a sense of privacy and
personal space. Food was also a communal activity. Mess halls in each block
were staffed by the army canteen services. Issues covered a large amount of
equipment which provided the basic accoutrements for a relatively
comfortable existence: 1 army type bed, 1 mattress, 5 blankets, 3 sheets, 2
8 'Bonegilla 'A Place of No
Hope'
pillowslips, 1 píllow, 2 towels, 2 cups and saucers, 2 each soup, dinner and
small plates, 2 each knives, forks, soup, dessert and teaspoons, tables, chairs,
teapots, jugs, basins, brushes, brooms, buckets, shovels, rakes; if lost or
damaged any property consigned had to be replaced at the temporary owner's
expense.
When personnel from the Department of External Affairs visited the camp
they did not hesitate to complain that the camp was 'very dirty and poorly
equipped'. T.H.E. Heyes, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration,
responded to such criticism with indignation:

Replacement on a large scale of fittings, etc., had to be

undertaken as an urgent measure as well as an Australia-wide
search for ali types of equipment and clothing not only for lhis
camp but for others, for British migrants being established in
other states . . . Despite the acute shortage of manual labour, ali
huts had been cleaned and as much general cleaning up carried
out as was practicable in the circumstances. No other complaint
has been received as to the conditions existing in the Camp and
impartial observers such as the Press and other visitors, many of
them present at the Camp before your staff reached there, have
expressed the view, quite unsolicited, that the arrangements and
conditions were satisfactory.5

That week Heyes and Calwell had together visited the camp 'to see Balts
being Australianised', learníng songs such as 'Three Blind Mice' and 'lt's a
Long Way to Tipperary', reading poetry from "fhe Man from Snowy River',
'I Love a Sunburnt Country', and to be the delighted observers of a concert
demonstrating the migrants' cultpral accomplishments presented in Calwell's
honour.6 They wcre both satisfied at the manner in which improvements
were being undertaken, and quite confidently reported that the migrants
themselves were 'very appreciative of what had been done for them.' Any
conflicting opinions were quickly, and confidenUy, dismissed.
 PART II: PASSING THROUGH - 1947-1951

A ug ustus

Lady, read on local paper your nocice abouc che Bonegílla Camp, hope
my writings could help you for a page?
Landed in Melbourne, 18-8-1950 from che Fairsea MV from
Germany , straight Germany, Port Said , Suez Melbourne about 2000
Displaced People from lhe shrinking to lhe East Europa. Po/es,
Hungarians, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Roumanians, Italians etc. Train was
second class with seats not timber ones, Europa we had t hird class, sort of
'lift' to moralefor a start.
Reached Bonegilla by bus (jrom Albury ), it was dark. At the sort o/
arrival-room, looked to the lightglobe swarming with mosquitoes afirst drop.
Sorne how we gol our shed , galvanised iron walls, roo[. timber frame. Jusi
to
look al it. no masonite lining well we gol our 'bed' and linens. Sure 'linens'
after migrant camp (only 9 months for me. years for others) was a Lift -
pleasant one.
Opened my eyes, light was streaming in. My nose gave a signa/ , as
'temperature', gave a blow and a steaming column went up. Is this 'warm
Australia?' Well it was winter here.morning lined same huts.went to
breakfast: chops, porridge, marmalade, slice of bread , some cheese. Well
bread was not much as we mosl live on bread, hut helped myse/f on cheese;
mutton chops, well most o/ us gave them a miss.
We were divided. lluts most far nationalities. Was told it was an ex Army
camp. It was a first drop into classic galvanised-iron roofs, timber frame
buildings, I had to find as a classic in this /and. Today I am still a great
believer in galvanised iron roofs, they're good for catching water.
We had the day free to settle down. By way of life I am an inquisitive
minded person. There was a young boy (J was 30 , single), my age who /
knew /rom the ship and decided to get out the camp to see the place. We
were wa/king still inside the camp, when by chance J looked to the ground
-
there was something , a BIG Brown Penny. I picúd it up looked to my
'treasure', yes, THAT was ALL the money I could count on. Not had /or a
few yards walk. Strangely myfriend did not look around much, his nose was
down. Well Ostralia is a rich land we were told. He went back. I went on, on
to the open spaces. J /ove them, then J was struck. You will never lhink o/
this simple fact , my ears were geuing used to rhe sounds about , and smiled.
Cattle mooing, dogs barking, sheep, bees, hirds, well THEY were 'talking' as
in Europa. /t lifted my morale.
10 Bonegílla 'APlace of No Hope'

Reached a bilumen romí and walked as it sort of followed Ihe lake, the
/Jume Reser voir. A car stopped , a family inside, the driver told me
'something', I said 'no inglish'. they smiled , and went on. The words were
impressed. Back in the camp /ooked to the dictionary, and laughed. They
asked me if I want a lift. Well to Ostralians people do not walk much on
roads, long distances.
We had a hall meeting where the Camp Director told us how we were
/ucky to have huts, his ancestors did not have that luck just tents if any.
In the evening borrowed sixpence and got an airletter sent to my mother,
as l
was here and well.
/t was a starry night, bit o/ moonlight, if 1 remember. Walking to the
post o/fice could not help but see the Southern Cross, so large. lt was
another 'lift', l'm a bit romantic.
Next days went around there was the range for gunnery, a tank shell with
still marks of jiring. War was over, learned time after hcw the boys of years
be/ore went up North to fight Japs. I was an ex-enemy , in enemy
land. Goodwill and my techhical education were my wealth and hopefor
the/UJure. On the Weir I could not help but see the water rushing out o/
the pipes.
Such a waste o/ energy, l asked a friend . 'Why don't they put in a
turbine?'. 'Oh. they have plenty of power here'. I remembered in the offices
drawings o/ electrical applíances with X's on them, getting power could
not have been that easy, but maybe getting things easy was a way of life
here.
The camp's speakers calls ended with 'thank-you' - it told me this
land
was at least civilised -at the camp,farmers. people , were coming to
select 'manpower'. The address system calling out names to go to the
o/fice mates were going to the railways. J hoped to get there. l did not
know what sort of life they went to, they got a tent, bed, light, a pan , sure
it was pioneering conditions. One day we got our first pay, sorne shillings,
as difference from what they gol lo keep us and saved. I felt a rich man,
sorne nights we even got picture shows. And staring up at the screens,
there was the Humanity of Europa , and on lheir faces you saw what they
sujfered lo survive. But the younger ones had sparkling faces, pretty faces,
ali talking their own language, german the most common.
Sornebody tried to put out their national costumes.
F orgot. A few days a/ter our arrival we were called out al sort of
railway station where our baggage boxes were, had a suitcase, rucksack
and a bag, sorne young o/ficer in plain clothes was looking in our
baggage, when it carne my turn l opened my suitcase, books were in there
he ran through the pages and out carne a branch o/ Oak ami a blue
flower. He took lhem and tossed them into a sort of incinerator. l was
ready to blow. The branch of Oak and the flower were Europa to me. l
took them the last lwurs befare l
 Passing Through 1947-1951 11

left. There in Delmenhorts the last hours before going on ship. 1felt to walk
out of the camp. There were green fields, it was a misty-blue sky, flowers,
birds, pretty houses among trees. l tried tofill my eyes and Soul to the ful/.
Will 1ever see them again?
So l took a branch of oak
and a flower there. That
young Ostralian officer could
NOT
know what he did to nJ.e :_. ....,
/ One day my name carne on the
speaker. There in the office
they asked if l wanted to work
in the PMG. Well, telephones.
S h u r e, so my life started to
roll on. I gol the job passed
the e:caminations got marríed
(HAD to impon a girl) J built
my home, shure the Úon is
galv iron and it sing when rain.
Year ago I met an Ostralian he
too was in Bonegilla Camp. l
asked him if then the huts were
lined, shure not, so we did not
have worse than them and he
dropped. We did NOT have hot
water; we had to get cold
showers, I could not believe it
myself. M e, ex-enemy , hot
water showers, and Ostralians
cold -water.
Well l am 34 years in this
Land , 30 European; Austrian
by old traditions, romantíc ,
me /odie , musical , I am
including a photo made on my
arrival. M y surname was dif!
erent , Italians forced my
father to change the original. l
gol it back when J became a
citizen of this land -even my
suitcase proved my dreams. Figure 1.
"No One Penny -No lnglish.'
12 Bonegilla 'A Place of No Hope'

Arrival and Reception

Bonegilla siding, bare and lonely, is not a romantic looking

area -it's a jumping off place amid acres of sunbrowned
grass
- but there's lije and romance in every trainload of new
Australians to arrive. ( Border Morning Mail, Albury, 24
December 1948)

l was too tired, too shocked , too disappointed ,

and everything in the bush frightened me. (Ania, 1984)

Figure 2.
Port Melbowne 1949
 Passing Through 19471951 13

All Displaced Persons were to anive at Fremant1e. Sorne dísem barked

lhere and were sent to a Reception Centre which had been establíshed to cater
for local employment needs. The remainder went on to Mclbourne whcre they
boarded trains which took them to Bonegilla. If the physical appearance of
Bonegilla and the circumstances surrounding each arrival ahered, what
changed very litt1e was the manner in which the incoming 'assistcd migrants'
were receivcd, 'trained' and allocated to employment. Whether each migrant
went through all these procedures or not, and whether they ali viewed the
system from the same perspective, is another matter. Discrepancies occur
bctween what the officíals claim was supposed to happen and did happen, and
what the migrants remem ber as happening. But, as Rachcl McLaren, a social
worker vísiting in 1950 obscrved, the routine of reception and clearance
occurred so often that it proceeded very smoothly indeed, even if it could not
cater for a11 migrants ali of the time and if the migrants themselvcs often had
little knowledge of what was occurring or why:

The nurnbers catered for at Bonegilla are so great, and the area so
vast that it functions alrnost as a town in itself; one of one's
rnost vivid first impressions is regarding its size, and the regular
bus service withín the camp is a necessity. As a visitor 1 had
probably a differenl impression of the camp from that which a
Ncw Australian might have on arrival, and it may be that many
e:>: perience<l a sene of i ola tion in being situated so rnany miles
from the nearest town . . . . The appearance presented by seores
of huts is not prepossessing, but an effort has been rnade to
brighten the Civic centre and the three Centre administration
blocks with bright gardens, and, in sorne blocks, gardens have
becn tended around the huts also. The view bcyond the camp to
the surrounding hills and the wcir is a magnificent onc and 1
understand that New Australians have comrnented upon this
feature also. It would provide sorne measure of cornpensation for
the inconvenience of camp life . . . .It is difficult to give
anything beyond a 11eneral impression after a brief stay at
Bonegilla, far in so large a camp a considerable time is
necessarily spent orienting oneself. 1

The problem of orientation, if it was a problem for McLaren, rn ust have

seemed insunnountable to sorne of the migrants, perhaps even more so
given their expectations.