I'm doing a project on interment camps in Australia for History, and I can't find much information on it. Are there any good databases that you know of that are free? Australian ones would be good. Thanks :-)

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Rooster Cogburn Profile
Rooster Cogburn , Rooster Cogburn, answered

Which war ? Or something else ? I found some things for you but it's WW1 and WW2.

Wartime internment camps in Australia - – National Archives of Australia

List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in Australia - Wikipedia, the ...

Internment during World War II Australia - Museum Victoria Collections

Didge Doo Profile
Didge Doo answered

I once travelled from Melbourne to Sydney, sitting next to a man who had been the first European citizen to be commissioned as an officer in the Australian Army during WWII. He was sent to a Japanese POW camp at Cowra (in NSW) to take over as commanding officer, and arrived the day after a major escape.

I was only 8 when the war ended so I don't recall much. Here are a couple of links that should give you what you need.

The best known was the breakout at Cowra. The most shameful was the Dunera Affair. These unfortunates were held at a camp at Hay, which General Sheridan would have described as less inhabitable than Texas. (He's the guy who said if he owned Hell and Texas he'd rent out Texas and live in Hell.)

Australian Internment Camps: WWII

Civilian Internees in Australia

The Dunera Affair

The Cowra Breakout

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Tris Fray Potter
Tris Fray Potter commented
Thanks! There's not much on the topic, and I've drained all the databases that the school has, and the State Library website.
Your story about the officer is really cool. I'd really like to talk to someone like him about it. It would show a different perspective about internment.
Didge Doo
Didge Doo commented
There was a telemovie called The Dunera Boys which told the story of some of them. In 1940 the British government decided to arrest all Germans living in Britain and that included a lot of Jews. They were shipped to Auistraia on the Dunera. I see that YouTube has a couple of "episodes" though I remember it as a movie.

Of more use to you is the story told buy one of those people, now an old man, and it will give you a victim's perspective. You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_Aw9Wn1-NI

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