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I want to tell you about the POW camp in South Australia
South
Australia consisted of one main internment camp at Loveday, near
Barmera on the River Murray. Opened in 1941, it was supported by
centres at Bordertown, Clare, Lameroo, Maitland, Mount Gambier, Mount
Pleasant, Morgan, Murray Bridge, Naracoorte, Tumby Bay, Willunga and
Woodside from 1943—45 and a transit camp at Sandy Creek near
Adelaide from 1944—46.
The
Loveday Internment Group accommodated German, Italian and Japanese
internees from various states of Australia, and international
internees and POWs from the Netherlands, East Indies, the Pacific
Islands, New Zealand, Britain and the Middle East. It consisted of
six compounds and accommodation for personnel of the 25/33 Garrison
Battalion who kept guard.
During
its peak, the camp held over 5000 internees who produced goods and
cultivated crops for the Australian war effort.
Some
Italians were deployed to work as farmhands, while other Italian and
Japanese internees were separated and even paid to harvest wood at
Katarapko, Woolenook and Moorook West. 300 Italian internees were
employed as railway workers at Cook on the Trans — Australia line.
One
POW and 134 internees died at Loveday, while another two POWs were
killed during an escape attempt while en route to Loveday.
Cause
of death varied from illness and fragility brought on by old age,
suicide, and at least one homicide.
Loveday
Internment Camp closed in December 1946.
I didn't know that was so in SA. Have been to most of those places you mentioned and didn't see anything, suppose I wasn't looking.
ReplyDeleteMe neither the only camp I knew about was the one at Cowra
DeleteVery interesting, Jo-Anne, that the various nationalities of internees were not simply warehoused but instead put to use doing different types of labor and that some even had paying jobs.
ReplyDeleteI hope your week is off to a fine start, dear friend Jo-Anne!
Yes I found it interesting that some of them had paying jobs
DeleteNice of them to pay 'em. I doubt we'd have done that here.
ReplyDeleteYes I had no idea about that nor did I even know about other camps
DeleteDearest Jo-Anne,
ReplyDeleteThat's another interesting piece of Australian history!
Trying to catch up on some blog reading now my friend has returned back to The Netherlands.
Hugs,
Mariette