The experiences of World War II German Internees from Persia and their fate in Australia were discussed at a symposium and exhibition presented by Western Sydney University in Barmera on March 4, 2023.

The event was organised by Professor Pedram Khosronejad (School of Social Science, Western Sydney University) and hosted by the Loveday Internment Camp Committee and Berri Barmera Council with support from Flinders University.

About 60 people from across the region and SA attended the event.
Speakers at the symposium included the children of some of the German civilian of Persia (Iran), prisoners detained at the camp and the Tatura Internment Camp in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley between 1941 and 1946.
These delegates were from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

They spoke about being born and growing up in Iran, Germany and Australia after World War II when their parents were released and allowed to remain here.

The last surviving female internee of Germans of Persia, Helga Griffin outlined her experiences to the symposium.

She was held with her father, mother and two brothers at Camp 3 at Tatura in Victoria.

Prior to the symposium, Riverland Historian Rosemary Gower gave the visitors a tour of the internment camps including the General Headquarters site owned by Berri Barmera Council.

You can watch the full symposium here.

Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall (left) Riverland historian and tour leader Rosemary Gower and John Wulff of Sydney, the son of a WWII German Internee from Persia (Iran) who lived at Camp 10 visited the Loveday Internment Camp site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Riverland Historian Rosemary Gower (left), Doris Frank of Melbourne, Ingrid Stephen who both had fathers who were WWII German Internees from Persia (Iran) who lived at the Loveday Internment Camp, Elaine Shergis of Perth and Berri Barmera Councillor Rhonda Centofanti visiting the General Headquarters site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall (left) Riverland historian and tour leader Rosemary Gower and John Wulff of Sydney, the son of a WWII German Internee from Persia (Iran) who lived at Camp 10 visited the General Headquarters site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Riverland Historian Rosemary Gower (left) Doris Frank of Melbourne, Ingrid Stephen who both had fathers who were WWII German Internees from Persia (Iran) who lived at the camp, Elaine Shergis of Perth and Berri Barmera councillor Rhonda Centofanti visiting the Loveday Internment Camp site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Western Sydney University’s Adjunct Professor and Curator of Persian Arts Dr Pedram Khosronejad( left) Doris Frank and Ingrid Stephen both of Melbourne who each had fathers who were WWII German Internees from Persia detained at Loveday, Riverland historian Rosemary Gower, Berri Barmera councillor Rhonda Centofanti, Elaine Shergis of Perth, Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall and Helga Griffin, 87, of Canberra, a former internee from Tatura in Victoria at the General Headquarters site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Western Sydney University’s Adjunct Professor and Curator of Persian Arts Dr Pedram Khosronejad( left) Doris Frank and Ingrid Stephen both of Melbourne who each had fathers who were WWII German Internees from Persia detained at Loveday, Riverland historian Rosemary Gower, Berri Barmera councillor Rhonda Centofanti, Elaine Shergis of Perth, Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall and Helga Griffin, 87, of Canberra, a former internee from Tatura in Victoria at the Loveday Internment Camp General Headquarters site in March 2023.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall officially opened the WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia symposium on Saturday and told the audience about growing up on a property at Loveday which once was part of Camp 9.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall officially opened the WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia symposium on Saturday and told the audience about growing up on a property at Loveday which once was part of Camp 9.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Berri Barmera Mayor Ella Winnall officially opened the conference and highlighted the importance of the LIC to the Riverland region and Australia.

She also outlined her own family’s connections.

“I grew up on part of Camp 9 at Loveday, where my family moved to an old soldier settlement block when we came to the Riverland,” she said.

“When I would go to school, we’d drive past an old ruin, I believe a cell block on the neighbour’s property.

“I learnt about the land being used to grow opium poppies amongst other things to support the war effort.”

“I grew up understanding the importance of the iterations of history of the land that supported me and how that past will continue to shape future generations growing up on it.”

The symposium highlighted the influence the Loveday and Tatura internment camps had on the descendants of internees from Persia who lived at the camp.

Ms Gower also spoke at the forum and discussed the history and significant role the Loveday Internment Camp played in supplying fresh produce and morphine from the opium poppies to Australian troops during World War II.

The symposium’s Keynote Speaker Professor Peter Monteath from Flinders University described the LIC as being “the most multicultural place in the world during the 1940s”.

The camp at its peak housed 5,380 German, Italian and Japanese civilian prisoners.

Prof Monteath described the remains of the internment camp as “an incredible piece of heritage”.

Berri Barmera Council owns the General Headquarters site and parts of the Camp 10 site and is investigating ways to make the area more accessible to tourists.

The General Headquarters building also known by locals as the Loveday Hall.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

The General Headquarters building also known by locals as the Loveday Hall.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

The speakers who shared their knowledge about WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia at a symposium at Barmera on March 4, 2023
Riverland Historian Rosemary Gower, (left) Flinders University Professor Peter Monteath, Helga Griffin, 87, of Canberra, a former internee from Tatura in Victoria, John Wulff of Sydney, the son of an internee who lived at Camp 10, Doris Frank and Ingrid Stephen both of Melbourne whose fathers were internees at Loveday and Western Sydney University’s Adjunct Professor and Curator of Persian Arts Dr Pedram Khosronejad.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

The symposium in March attracted 70 participants from across the Riverland, Adelaide, and interstate.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

The speakers who shared their knowledge about WWII Internees from Persia and their Fate in Australia at a symposium at Barmera on March 4, 2023
Riverland historian Rosemary Gower, (left) Flinders University professor Peter Monteath, Helga Griffin, 87, of Canberra, a former internee from Tatura in Victoria, John Wulff of Sydney, the son of an internee who lived at Camp 10, Doris Frank and Ingrid Stephen both of Melbourne whose fathers were internees at Loveday and Western Sydney University’s Adjunct Professor and Curator of Persian Arts Dr Pedram Khosronejad.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

The symposium in March attracted 70 participants from across the Riverland, Adelaide, and interstate.

Source: Berri Barmera Library

Prof. Monteath told the symposium Australia during WWII interned more than 4000 internees of German descent.

He said 1000 of these civilian prisoners from Germany had already settled in Australia and more than 3000 were from overseas.

Prof. Monteath said in 1941 about 500 of these Germans from Iran (formerly Persia) were sent by Britain on a New Zealand troop ship called the Rangitiki to Australia.

According to the convenor of symposium and curator of exhibition, Professor Pedram Khosronejad, the civilian Germans of Persia who were detained on Iranian soil and sent to the Australian internment prison camps included six women and four children.

They were among a group of 1500 that sought refuge at the German embassy in Tehran, when the British and Russians invaded Iran.

Based on the project’s website of their project, the British firstly transported this group of Germans from Iran to Basra in Iraq before sending them on the ship Rohna to Bombay in India.

The Germans of Persia were then sent on the Rangitiki to the South Australian capital Adelaide.

“The single internees were taken to the Loveday Internment Camps and six families (sixteen persons including four children) were taken to the Tatura Internment Camp,” Professor Khosronejad said.

Prof. Monteath told the symposium most of the German Persian internees remained in Australia after WWII.

He said the Australian government recognised the contribution the German Persian internees could make to the nation after the war and allowed them to stay.

“They were an extremely diverse group and despite the challenges of not being able to return home, they made a new home in Australia,” Prof Monteath said.