German WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia (original) (raw)
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Australian Journal of Politics & History, 2020
Since the Archives Act of 1983 Australia's World War II internees have had access to their wartime files, yet little attention has focused on whether they and their families have consulted these records, or on their responses to them. From the early 2000s historians and archivists began discussing the need for combining private oral testimony with official records as part of a wider discourse on the importance of life stories for deepening knowledge about the past. This article explores the impact of a father's official internment records on his son, through the son's sharing of memories, lived experience and his reactions to official documents, in order to provide a more complete story of his father's internment and life than either the public record or the oral testimony alone can produce. We argue that Sam Ragonesi's oral testimony, especially concerning his encounter with Salvatore Ragonesi's official records, contributes to a greater shared understanding of experiences of war on the home front by integrating social, cultural and family dimensions hidden from Ragonesi's public history. In this way intergenerational experiences help both to contest the collective image of internment and create a more complex picture of the War. Between 1939 and 1945 approximately 7,000 foreign-born residents were interned in Australia, including over 1,500 naturalized British Subjects. 1 The most recent figures show that 4,855 Italian civilians represented the largest 'enemy-alien' group, and over 20 per cent of the Italian-born population. 2 Since the Freedom of Information Act of 1982 and the Archives Act of 1983 it has been possible to access individuals' official internment records, which has resulted in a growing body of scholarship. 3 Such access also led to political recognition
During the 20th century, some 35,000 Australian servicemen and servicewomen became prisoners of war. More than 4,000 Australians were captured by Ottoman and German troops during the First World War, and 30 were captured by enemy forces during the Korean War. In the Second World War, more than 30,000 Australians became prisoners of the Italians, Germans, Vichy French and the Japanese. The number who died in captivity was extremely high, particularly in the Asia-Pacific theatres: more than 8,000 of the 22,300 Australian prisoners of war died as a result of their captivity. Changi prison in Singapore, the railway cutting known as 'Hellfire Pass' along the infamous Burma–Thailand Railway, and the Sandakan death marches in north Borneo: all have become an integral part of how we remember Australia’s prisoners of war and the Australian experience of the Second World War. About 1,500 Australian civilians were also interned by the Japanese during the conflict. Fortunately, no Australians have suffered as prisoners of war during commitments to later conflicts in South Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Removing danger from the homefront in Australia, (WWII Internment)
‘Removing danger: the making of dangerous internees in Australia’, Mark J Crowley and Sandra T. Dawson (Eds.), Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939- 45, 2017, Boydell and Brewer, pp. 206-223., 2017
last draft, published as: ‘Removing danger: the making of dangerous internees in Australia’, Mark J Crowley and Sandra T. Dawson (Eds.), Home Fronts: Britain and the Empire at War, 1939- 45, 2017, Boydell and Brewer, pp. 206-223. This chapter analyses internment of civilians (e.g. Germans, Italians, Japanese) in Australia during WWII. It argues that ‘Danger’, real and imagined, has been an undercurrent through Australian life and culture since settlement. In this chapter I examine how themes of danger from outside and from within were an influence on the home front during WWII, and what was done through policies and government actions to remove danger through internment. What were the changing needs of the home front? What was the desired function and service done for the Empire? And when and why did danger cease?
"Conditions rotten": stories of Indigenous Australian prisoners in the Second World War
Wartime, no. 85, January 2019, pp 42-49, 2019
As historians are becoming more aware of the diversity of the Australian prisoner of war experience during the Second World War, increasing numbers of Indigenous Australians' stories are being identified. Through the combined hard work of researchers, families, and communities, a more complete picture of Aboriginal prisoner-of-war experiences is emerging.
Italo-Australians during the second world war: Some perceptions of internment
Italian Studies in Southern Africa/Studi d’Italianistica nell’Africa Australe, 2011
The entry of Italy into the second world war brought considerable disruption to the over thirty thousand strong Italian Australian community whose presence was seen by the Australian authorities as a serious potential threat to national security. About 4,700 mainly male Italian Australians were incarcerated in internment camps while women and children were left to fend for themselves in a highly hostile environment. Although a significant social-historical phenomenon, very few and at best highly partial studies (such as Bosworth and Ugolini 1992, Cresciani 1993, Martinuzzi O'Brien 1993, 2002, in press) have been produced on the subject. Many Italian Australians, however, have tended to reflect, often from a victimological viewpoint, on the internment experience in their memoirs and reminiscences. This paper proposes to provide an additional dimension to the topic by examining oral and written accounts produced by some Italian Australian protagonists of the internment experience with a view to considering how their albeit subjective perceptions provide a particular viewpoint of one way in which Australia reacted to the events of war.
Australian POW in German Captivity in the Second World War
Australian Journal of Politics and History, 2008
When history has taken an interest in the Australian POW experience in the Second World War, the focus has been largely on those in Japanese captivity, where suffering was immense and mortality rates high. Popular culture has reinforced the perception that those who fell into German hands had it easy, living fairly comfortable existences punctuated with adventurous episodes, typically in the form of escape attempts. This essay seeks to correct the misperceptions arising from the "Colditz myth" by examining the Australian experience of captivity in Germany, drawing on both Australian and German sources. Two aspects of that experience are highlighted, namely the experience of work, as it was required of the vast majority of POW, and that of the strange phenomenon of "holiday camps". 1 The number of Australian officers and men of the 2 nd AIF captured in North Africa, Greece and Crete is put at 7,116; the number of Australian airmen serving in RAAF or RAF squadrons entering German captivity is 1,476, most of them from Bomber Command.