Gateway To New Life For The Dispossessed
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday February 6, 1997
The Bonegilla centre, which welcomed immigrants, had a chequered history, writes GRETCHEN MILLER .
IT is 50 years since the gates of Albury's Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre opened to welcome displaced people as part of the post-World War II immigration program.
At 15, Mrs Tiiu Solasoo was the youngest person in the first shipload, which arrived in December 1947.
Bonegilla was the first migrant centre to be opened in Australia and it was also the largest, with 320,000 passing through its doors during its 34-year existence.
Beginning its life as an army camp, it was transformed to house the shiploads of immigrants, before they were assigned to labouring jobs.
Despite the importance of the camp in Australia's multicultural history, soon after it closed in 1971 the government destroyed many key documents which detailed what happened to the people who lived there, making it difficult to map the stories it undoubtedly holds - stories such as that of Mrs Solasoo.
Mrs Solasoo came with her mother from the refugee camps of Germany, having fled their native Estonia when the Russians invaded in 1944. Her father, the editor of a large daily newspaper, was imprisoned in a Russian gulag in 1940 and she never saw him again.
She still remembers how the mountains of fruit in the Fremantle marketplace astounded her when she stopped there, en route.
The fruit and opulent shops were a far cry from the black market and the shells of bombed buildings that marked Germany during the war.
Mrs Solasoo stayed at Bonegilla for six weeks, with 142 fellow Estonians, and, while memories of the camp's inmates vary according to different periods of its history, she recalls much singing and dancing and the tremendous friendliness of the people of Albury.
"We were brought here as labourers to do the work Australians themselves didn't want to do. Of course we didn't look at it that way, we were very happy to come."
She remembers the camp's barrack-like accommodation, and, despite expecting "heat and open spaces", she was surprised at the cold nights and used to walk about wrapped in a grey army-issue blanket.
There were English classes, an Estonian male choir and folk dancing, and, by February, she and her mother already had jobs in a Nestle factory in the country village of Dennington. They had been contracted by the government to work wherever they were placed, for two years.
"I cried every night," she said, missing her Estonian companions.
But the Australians were very supportive and sympathetic. "When the men in the choir were sent to work, the conductor of the choir managed that the choir could stay together. They were sent on the lumber camps," she said.
It was a time of great change. Being an adolescent during the war, and having moved to Australia with few belongings, she had grown out of her own clothes and was wearing her mother's hand-me-downs.
She still remembers the woman who took her aside at Christmas time, with sympathy for her holey shoes, and gave her some of her own daughter's clothing. "I got a beautiful pair of shoes and some dresses and I was the happiest girl in the world," she says. "I think the family was called Roxborough."
While Bonegilla marked the beginning of many happy lives in Australia, it also had its share of unhappiness and tragedy, according to Professor Andrew Jakubowicz , a professor of sociology at the University of Technology, Sydney.
Early in its history, soon after Mrs Solasoo had left, Jewish refugees, Nazi collaborators and displaced persons were all housed together.
Because it was assumed everyone spoke German, English and German were the languages used to communicate with the inmates. This was horrific for the Jews, who had come to Australia to forget about their persecution by the Germans, Professor Jakubowicz said.
When then Minister for Immigration, Mr Arthur Calwell set up Bonegilla, Australia was more interested in making sure immigrants were anti-communist, and would fit in visually, than it was concerned about Nazi sympathisers.
"They didn't want to frighten the locals, so they chose people whom the government thought looked like the fantasy most Australians had of themselves," the professor said.
In the '50s, there were several riots over food and sleeping conditions, and, in 1961, there was an uprising by Italian migrants over the right to work - the army and the police were called in and there were several arrests.
"Overall, it was a fairly dramatic introduction to Australia," Professor Jakubowicz said. "People remember it with a mixture of emotions. Some can only think of it with horror, others see it as the first step on the road. Some can hardly believe they were there, it was so surreal."
According to Professor Conrad Kwiet , deputy director of Macquarie University's Centre for Comparative Genocide Studies, of 170,000 males coming through the Australian immigration camps, 4,000 would have been a party to war crimes.
One such, who came through Bonegilla and then worked as an immigration official, was the Latvian-born, Konrad Kalejs , who later became an Australian citizen. Canada is now seeking his extradition for his alleged role in the Nazi death camps.
But Professor Kwiet did not feel that Australia had offered itself as a safe haven, although critics have accused it of having done so.
"We tried our best to come to terms with that. On the whole, I would still argue, compared with other countries, Australia is exemplary in its social diversity."
Film and television dramas and documentaries have been made about Bonegilla - for example, the ABC TV series Bordertown and the movie Silver City. There have been also been books and radio programs about the experiences of new migrants.
The organisers of the Bonegilla '97 50th Anniversary Reunion Festival welcome contact with anyone who went through the camp. They are also looking for interest from cultural groups to take part in the festival in September. For more information, call (060) 412 188.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald
