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The darkside of Australian History
Forbidden relationships From the end of the Second World War to 1965, over 650 Japanese women migrated to Australia as the wives and fiancees of Australian servicemen. Their story is one of courage and strength. Japanese war brides gave up the familiarity of home and family to journey across the sea and begin a new life in Australia. The records left behind in the National Archives tell stories of the love, adventure, challenges and heartbreak these women faced in the era of the White Australia policy.
Forbidden relationships After the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, postwar Japan was stricken by poverty and devastation. In 1946 Australia joined the British Commonwealth Occupation Force and stationed troops in Japan for over 10 years. Australian attitudes towards the Japanese were tense and hostile, and occupation authorities forbid servicemen from fraternising with the locals. Australian servicemen were not allowed to visit Japanese homes or take part in family life. Despite this policy, Australian servicemen found ways to interact with Japanese people through employment, the black market, entertainment and sightseeing. Many of these interactions led to romantic relationships.
Government attitudes attitude do not marry Japanese women Government attitudes The Australian Government’s attitude meant servicemen were banned from marrying Japanese women. However, the marriage ban did not prevent Australian soldiers from applying to Australian authorities for permission to marry in Japan. Even without permission, servicemen married their Japanese wives through the Japanese Christian Church, Japanese registration office, British Consular Office or through traditional Japanese marriage ceremonies. However, Japanese women continued to be banned from Australia, even when they were the wives or fiancés of Australian servicemen. When their husbands were ordered back to Australia, many women were left behind in Japan, often with young children. In 1952, the Menzies government finally granted permission for Japanese wives and fiancés of Australian servicemen to enter Australia. The application process was lengthy, and there were many factors that could prevent a wife from coming to Australia. One of the greatest obstacles was the health checks. Any Japanese woman who was diagnosed with tuberculosis was immediately denied entry. By 1956, the occupation of Japan had ended and Japanese wives were allowed to become permanent Australian citizens.
This is a black-and-white Australian propaganda poster with the heading 'The hand that waved a fan takes the dagger of the League of Blood'. At the bottom of the poster is the text 'We've always despised them - NOW WE MUST SMASH THEM! At the top of the poster, an illustration shows a Japanese man in traditional dress waving a fan, and, seated behind him, a woman in a kimono. A second illustration shows a Japanese soldier wielding a dagger and a sword. Is an example of the use of a poster to deliver war-related messages from the Australian Government to its citizens during World War II (1939–45) –Australia joined the war in 1939, declaring war on Germany; in 1941 it declared war on Japan. Was created during the second phase of Australia's engagement with the war, when Australian troops were brought back from overseas to fight the Japanese in the Pacific and defend the Australian mainland. Is an example of wartime propaganda that portrayed the Japanese as cruel and murderous – dehumanising the enemy is a common propaganda technique that is used to incite a country's citizens to hate the enemy, thereby justifying the need to kill enemy soldiers.
Japanese Australians Japanese people first arrived in the 1870s (despite a ban on emigration in place until 1886). During the late 19th and early 20th centuries Japanese migrants played a prominent role in the pearl industry of north-western Australia. By 1911, the Japanese population while small groups had grown to approximately 3,500 people. With the outbreak of war in the Pacific in 1941, most Japanese in Australia were interned and then deported when the war ended. At the end of the war only 74 Japanese citizens and their children were permitted to remain in Australia. Not until the 1970s did the Japanese population recover to the levels at the start of the 20th century. As of 2011, of Australia's 35,378 Japan-born residents, more than 65% had arrived from the mid-1990s onwards. According to a global survey conducted at the end of 2013, Australia was the most popular country for Japanese people to live in. The first person from Japan to settle in Australia was recorded in 1871. Japanese only began to emigrate en masse in the 1880s following the lifting of restrictions. In Australia, the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 temporarily prevented more Japanese from migrating, but subsequent exemptions to the dictation test were applied to Japanese people mitigating restrictions. In Australia from the late 19th and early 20th Century many worked as pearlers in Northern Australia or in the sugar cane industry in Queensland.
Internment of Japanese in Australia Between December 1941 and September 1945, Australia and Japan were at war. On July 28, 1941, Australian military intelligence indicated that there were 1139 Japanese living in Australia and 36 in Australian-controlled territories. Under the guise of national security, 1141 Japanese civilians (almost the entire population) living in Australia were interned for up to six years throughout WWII. An additional 3160 Japanese civilians arrested in allied countries across the Asia-Pacific Region were also interned in Australia on a user-pay basis; this included 600 Formosans (Taiwanese). An unknown number of Koreans were arrested as Japanese and carried Japanese names. The internment of Japanese in Australia was more racial than political, with Japanese being "evacuated" from their hometowns "for their own good" (ie, to prevent racist attacks against them by non-Japanese). Several months after the cessation of hostilities, all ethnic-Japanese internees who did not possess Australian nationality were repatriated to Occupied Japan, regardless of the locations of their previous abodes, whilst all ethnic-Formosans were repatriated to Occupied Formosa. The Japanese population in Australia was later replenished in the 1950s by the arrival of 500 Japanese war brides, who had married AIF soldiers stationed in occupied Japan. Ethnic Japanese settlers from Peru settled Australia following the dictatorship of Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces of Peru in 1968. The lifting of barriers in Australia to non-European immigration in 1973 coincided with the Japanese post-war economic miracle which dissuaded Japanese from emigrating. Japan's increasing economic importance to Australia from the 1960s, and rising prosperity and linkages between the two countries, led to an increase in the number of Japanese choosing to live in Australia.
A poster used in Japan to attract immigrants to Peru and Brazil. It reads: "Join your Family, Let's Go to South America."
People born in Japan as a percentage of the population in Sydney divided geographically by postal area, as of the 2011 census.
One dot represents 100 Japanese-born residents in Melbourne
The Japanese School in Perth and the Hyogo Prefectural Government Cultural Centre
Japanese Cemetery of Broome. Broome, Western Australia
Italian prisoners of war in Australia Italian prisoners of war in Australia were Italian soldiers captured by the British and Allied Forces in World War II and taken to Australia. On 10 June 1940, Italy entered the Second World War on the side of Germany. During the course of the war, Great Britain and their allies captured in Ethiopia and North Africa approximately 400,000 Italian troops, who were sent to POW camps all over the world, including Australia. Between 1941 and 1945, Australia received custody of 18,420 Italian POWs. The bulk came from British camps in India. During this time prisoners wore burgundy/maroon clothing. Then, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, the Australian authorities took between 13,000 and 15,000 Italian prisoners out of the POW camps and put them to work. The Australian Federal Government is still yet, to apologise for interning Australian citizens because of where they were born, like what was done overseas with apologies given in such countries as the United States and Canada. An apology was given by the Government of South Australia, but no attempts by either party and it seems unlikely from the coalition, whose recent deputy leader MP Michael McCormack says it's not necessary to apologise to European nationals, interned by the Federal Government during the Second World War and "Look, it was considered the right policy at the time", along with "I think we sometimes need to just move on with these sorts of things".
Locations of Italian internment camps in Australia Locations of Italian internment camps in Australia The internment camps built by the Australian government used borrowed lands from local farmers which were returned to land owners after World War II ended. There were numerous internment camps built in Australia during World War II to house Italian POWs. Evidence remaining of these camps only exists in few locations. The remains of some internment camps represent the ethno-cultural backgrounds of the detainees who were imprisoned during WWII. Through the monuments and facilities built by the internees and POWs, their cultural identity developed culture was on display for the Australian guards to observe. Hay Camp, New South Wales Through funds from the British, the Australian government built Hay Camp in New South Wales from 1941 to 1942, which consisted of three camps. It housed a thousand inmates in each of the three camps during its operation which ended in 1946. There was a total of sixty-six thousand Italian and Japanese POWs, and German, Austrian, Italian, and Japanese “enemy aliens” housed in the Hay camp. The influence of the Italians within the camp is represented by the miniature model of the Colosseum which was built by the Italian POWs during their agricultural labor to present themselves to the Australian guards as “urban” and “civilized.
Inside the internment camps The Cowra Camp was built in NSW during 1941 to 1942, to house captured POWs sent by the British. The Loveday Camp was located near Barmera, where the freshwater Lake Bonney is situated, which had six separate compounds to accommodate Italian, German, and Japanese internees. The Harvey camp, specifically the Camp eleven in the facility, housed Italian “enemy aliens” and a few Italian POWs from September 1940 to April 1942. The majority of captured WWII Italian POWs were treated well and respected fairly across Australia by the Australian guards of the internment camps and the local community. Since the 1929 Geneva Convention was implemented prior to the creation of the WWII internment camps in Australia, there were not many significant incidents of mistreatment by the Australian guards. Although the Australian guards respected the prisoners, there were still some violence within the camps due to ideological divides between the prisoners. As the population of the Italian POWs in the Australian internment camps increased in 1941, it made the job of the Australian intelligence agencies in controlling the conflicts between the fascists and the anti-fascists harder. The Italian POWs were forced to work on projects inside the internment camps and farms without any pay, whilst the Italian internees were given some minimum pay for their hourly work.
The influence of the Italian POW in Australian farms While there were many foreign POWs who were captured and sent to one of the Australian internment camps during the WWII, there were fifteen thousand Italian POWs, out of the thirty-five thousand Italian POWs captured in Northern Africa, who were sent directly to farms such as in Queensland. These Italian POWs who were sent to farms for agricultural work greatly impacted the labor market of Australia in the 1940s which had shortages of labor. This plan to allow Italian POWs to work on local farms without any guards was issued by the Australian government. During this process of the enforcement, there was some opposition against the labor practices from the Australian Worker’s Union and some Australian Labor Party officials. he Italian POWs who built strong relationships when they took part in the farm labor programs in Australia returned back to Australia after WWII ended resettling there to build families. There were some others who returned and married Australians whom they had met during the farm labor.
Hay Hay Hay Oberon Glen Innes Cowra Yanco Liverpool Prisoners Of War and Internment Camp Bathurst Internment Camp at Bathurst Civil Gaol Long Bay Civil Gaol Long Bay State Reformatory Orange Temporary Internment Camp Peat Island Civil Reformatory Gaythorne Prisoners of War and Internment Camp Chinese Camp at Bulimba shipyard, Brisbane for Native Labour Company Enoggera Temporary Internment and POW Camp North Ward POW Compound Stuart Prison, Stuart, Townsville Thompson's Point POW camp (unsubstantiated) Sandy Creek Internment and POW Camp Loveday Gladstone Civil Gaol Moorook West Wood Camp Brighton Tatura Rushworth Myrtleford CTT Graytown POW Camp Murchison Camp Darley Examples Cowra POW Camp 1 July 1944
Aboriginal prison and forced labour camp Between 1838 and 1931, Aboriginal prisoners held on Rottnest Island were held in deplorable conditions and subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment.
