They arrived by the good ship HMT (hired military transport) Dunera in Australia from Britain during World War II.
Mostly they had only the clothes they stood up in. Some 2200 men and boys aged between 16 and 66 on the ship were to become known as the Dunera Boys. About a third remained in Australia after hostilities ceased.
German-born Bern Brent was aged 17 when he arrived in Australia. He will be 100 in December and is now believed to be the only surviving Dunera Boy in the country – and only one of five worldwide.
Their remarkable story will be safeguarded with the opening of a tribute memorial on Sunday at Jones Bay Wharf in Darling Harbour, where the Dunera offloaded its Sydney contingent.
“Collar the lot!” was the abrupt order made by then British prime minister Winston Churchill after Italy joined the war in 1940 and applied to all “enemy or dangerous aliens” in Britain.
Germans and Austrians, mostly Jewish, previously determined not to be a risk, were incarcerated in their thousands in Britain in the belief it would stop any spies among them from forming a “fifth column” in the event of invasion. They were interned in Britain or deported to Canada and Australia, where most would be held for the duration of the war.
Read the article by Tim Barlass in WAToday.