Arrival

Table of Contents

History

The Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre was born from the Australian Government's need to "populate or perish" after World War II. The Government had set an ambitious target to increase the country's population to improve national security and encourage development.

In 1947 an existing Army camp at Bonegilla was transformed into the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre for Displaced Persons, who under the charter of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) were unable to return their countries of origin after the war.

Bonegilla was one of the first migrant reception centres to open in Australia, the largest, and the longest running having opened in 1947 and closed 1971.

Arrival

Nearly all of the 320,000 migrants and refugees who passed through Bonegilla arrived by train with most coming via Station Pier, Melbourne. Migrants also came from Woolloomooloo wharf or the Overseas Passenger Terminal, in Sydney, and by plane from the late 1950's on.

Many of the new arrivals were unsettled by the rail journey to Bonegilla. They were disconcerted by the old-fashioned country trains, their long journey through unfamiliar open country and, then, by the primitive Bonegilla rail platform with its overgrown grass.

Bonegilla was isolated. The approaches and surrounds looked un-peopled. And the location was uninviting.

Port Melbourne

On arrival, immigrants were given coloured buttons to indicate their destination. Blue meant that family or friends would be waiting, prink was for South Australia, purple for Tasmania, single females received white buttons and yellow buttons denoted Bonegilla.

The train met the migrant ships at Station Pier and then commenced an eight hour journey to Bonegilla, with one stop at either Benalla or Seymour for refreshments.

It was from the windows of these old wooden carriages, pulled by a steam train, that many weary travellers gained their first impression of the Australian countryside.

Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre

On arrival, migrants collected any hand baggage and were allocated rudimentary sleeping quarters. There was an issue of eating utensils, crockery, blankets, and bed linen waiting for them on top of a thin kapok mattress on their bed.

Initially, the Displaced Persons were separated to single-sex dormitory huts but this practice was changed as more family groups started to arrive.

At Bonegilla, migrants were housed, fed, taught English, taught money skills, cared for, and found work.

Quotes

I found our arrival in the middle of the night at Bonegilla far worse than my forced arrival in Germany in 1943. Bonegilla looked like a concentration camp. This impression was strengthened by the fact that we were greeted in German.

- Unknown

We arrived late at night in the middle of nowhere. The train did not stop at a station but somewhere in a paddock. After leaving the train, each person was handed a cord and a name tag to be put around his or her neck like typical camp people. My parents felt very bad about all this.

- Alie Van Ast, The Netherlands, 1955.

I have a very vivid memory of walking into our hut on arrival! The rows of beds without partitions and the ventilation gaps between the wall and the ceiling. It was cold! I remember my mother and other women crying that it was like the KZ (concentration camps). Blanket partitions soon went up between beds - but the quiet weeping of women is still a vivid memory.

- John Rika, Czechoslovakia, 1949, arriving as a seven year old in May.

We arrived at Bonegilla by train in the pitch dark. The buses took us to the big reception centre and we were allocated our two little rooms, which were as sparse as sparse could be. Naked little light bulb, no heating of any sort and the beds were soldiers’ beds, chicken wire beds with black blankets and our luggage had not yet arrived.

- Anne Hawker, The Netherlands, 1952.

Stories

Poems

Map