Rural Cowra: Jewish deportees, Italian & Japanese POWs

Following Nazi Germany’s enactment of the infamous Nuremberg Laws in 1936, expatriate Jewish organisations sought to help as many pot­ent­ial victims out of Germany and Eastern Europe as poss­ible. The USA, Britain and Shanghai China became potential sanct­uaries. 

Japanese prisoners of war, 12th Prisoner of War Camp, Cowra 

July 1, 1944.

Australian War Memorial

Location of Cowra, Hay and Tatura camps

in S.E Australia

Museums Victoria

In Australia, Jewish leaders begged Canberra to take Jewish re­fug­ees. And in Dec 1938, after Nazi occupation of Austria and Czech­os­lovakia, Joe Lyons’ Federal Labour government agreed to take an un­pre­ced­ented 15,000 desperate Jews. Yes, it came with condit­ions: The usual £500 landing fee was reduced for those with rel­at­ives in Aust­ralia and less for those with sponsors, IF all Jewish immigrants were the responsibility of the local Jewish communities.

Early in WW2, the majority of internees in Australia were herded into old internment camps, the Germans and Italians being estab­l­ished at the old Holsworthy Barracks in NSW. As the num­bers grew, new camps for prisoners of war were needed. By Sept 1940, the gov­ernment had completed 4 com­pounds at Tatura (Victoria), 3 at Hay and 1 at Cowra (NSW), 3 at Loveday (S.A) and one at Harvey (W.A).

Since they were Ger­man and Austrian citizens, the Jewish refugees who'd arrived with swastikas on their pass­ports were initially regarded as Enemy Aliens and threatened with int­er­n­ment. But how could they be Nazi symp­ath­is­ers if they were fleeing Nazism? Soon they became Friendly Aliens.

Cowra (pop now 10,000) is a pleasant town in a farming dist­rict 314km west of Sydney; it has two important war tales to tell. The first was the story of a settlement that became a haven for Jew­ish refugees who had fled Europe early in WW2. These were German Jews who had initially fled to Britain to es­cape Nazi persecution and were imprisoned on the Isle of Man. In 1940 Australia reached an agreement with Britain to accept c3000 German, Austrian and Hungar­ian young male prisoners, mainly Jewish. They were sent from Britain aboard the ship HMT Dunera. On arrival in Melb­ourne in Sept 1940, 500 deportees were tran­s­ferred to Tat­ura internment camp while the remaining males went north to Sydney and thence to Hay’s camps.

What the refugees needed in these horrible wartime conditions was food: vegetables, poultry and sheep. So the Australian Jewish Wel­f­are Service est­ablished two companies: 1. Mutual Farm Ltd and 2. Mutual Enterprises Ltd, to set­tle the refugees into ag­ricultural enterprises. This would satisfy the gov­ern­ment’s requ­ire­ments and guarantee the newcomers would not weigh on Australia’s economy.

The ref­ug­ees were largely city-people and few had worked on the land. The main training initially took place at Chelsea Park in West Sydney where 200+ people lived. Meanwhile 25 families mov­ed to their own properties, while 28 couples and 63 young men went into rural employ­ment.

Mooringa, a 100-hectare property outside Cowra, was pur­ch­ased by Mutual Farms in Sept 1940. The Mooringa Set­tlement disapp­ear­ed but historian Graham Apthorpe has re­corded an amazing era of WW2 history in his book, A Town at War. Apth­orpe interviewed 4 key people: Harry Kramer-Crom­er, Claude Newcombe, Margit Scouller and George Bluth. 

4 Jewish deportees working in Cowra

Australian War Memorial

Italian Prisoners of War installing a new filtration trench 

for their POW Camp septic system.

Digger History

Austrian Kurt Pisk (b1937) and his parents Fred and Anna Pisk fled Vienna after the Mar 1938 Anschluss/an­n­exation by Hitler. During their time at Mooringa, the Pisks were allocated two It­al­ian POWs to help them with farm-work. In fact the refugees were all hel­p­ed by local families, as was seen in the collection of rare photos Apthorpe found in Cromer’s photo album. [NB Mooringa  re­f­ugees were for­bidden cameras, cars and guns, in case they used them to advantage Australia’s enemy].

The photos in the Cowra Shire Council showed the refugees learning how to create life on the land. They were shown building their huts, cutting gum trees into fence posts, working with horses and learn­ing to plough & harvest. Of all the German-speaking Jews seeking a safe life in WW2, these were lucky ones.

They were still under surveil­lance of course. Regulations insisted that the Mooringa Jews travel weekly by horse-drawn sulky to the lo­c­al policeman in Cow­ra. So the sensible serg­eant, realising the Jews weren’t a risk to Allied security, told them to report monthly. The community at Mooringa totally ensured safety once the Jewish men were all­owed to enlist in the Australian armed forces, in Feb 1944.

News of the Cowra Outbreak,

Aug 1944.

Cowra was also known for holding 1,104 Jap­an­ese POWs, guarded by the 22nd Garrison Battalion. In response to in­formation that the prisoners were planning a mass outbreak, not­ice was given that all Japanese prisoners of low rank would be trans­fer­red to Hay Prisoner Camp. In Aug 1944, a prisoner ran shout­ing to the camp gates. Soon a bugle was heard when pris­oners, armed with knives and improvised clubs, rushed from their huts in a suicidal mission. Sentries opened fire but hundreds of pris­oners hacked the wire fences and escaped into open country, while others set fire to the huts. This was the Cowra Breakout, a desperate event that resulted in 231 Japanese dying and 108 wounded; 3 Australian soldiers were killed and 3 wounded. It was the lar­gest, most tragic WW2 prison escape on Australian soil.

In 1964 Cowra became an official Japanese War Cemetery when the re­mains of all the Japanese who had died in Aust­ralia were raised, transported and buried together. A gathering was held at Cowra to memorialise these Japanese men, and to build the World Peace Bell. Cowra’s lovely 5 hec­tare Japanese Garden and Cultural Centre were opened in 1979, and expanded in 1986.

Japanese Memorial Gardens, Cowra

Japanese War Cemetery, Cowra

Traces of War