The Dunera’s Journey
Part 3

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 1

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 2

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 3

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 4

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 5

The Dunera’s Journey
Part 6

End of 1940 the internees of Camp 7 near Hay in the Australian state of New South Wales sent their report on the journey on the Dunera to the British representative in Australia. The report is reproduced here unabridged and supplemented by extracts from other documents.

The English text is available in the Dehn family archive; it is probably a transcript whose formatting has largely been adopted. Additional research: Peter Dehn, January 2024.

M E M O R A N D U M

submitted to His Excellency The High Commissioner Of The United Kingdom
In Australia by The Internees From England at
No. 7 Camp, Eastern Command, Hay, N.S.W.

The following gives a short account of the treatment which the 962 internees in No. 7 Camp, Eastern Command, Australia experienced during their voyage to Australia on board H.M.T „DUNERA“. The full complement of internees arriving on the „DUNERA“ is made up by those in No. 8 Camp to whom all conditions of treatment as set out below apply automatically.

All persons here were interned between May and July 1940 in consequence of general internment orders, and are practically all refugees from Nazi Oppression on account of their Jewish descent, their political conviction or their religious faith. Nearly all are classified as „C“ class cases by the Special Aliens Tribunals set up in England, declaring them officially to be „refugees from Nazi Oppression“ and freeing them from most restrictions.

Conditions determining internees to go overseas

Before thier transportation overseas these internees were in various English Camps and were either sent overseas voluntarily on the strength of certain promises made or were compelled to go.

a) The internees coming from the temporary camp Lingfield (about 350 on board H.M.T „DUNERA“) were promised that they were going to a more permanent camp in England. They were accordingly in no way prepared for a long journey overseas.
b) The internees coming from the Internment Camp HUYTON near Liverpool (about 1000 on board H.M.T. „DUNERA“) were promised by their Camp Commandant that
1. going overseas more personal freedom subject to certain restrictions and possibilities for work in one’s own sphere
2. their wives and children
3. any prospective migrants would not be placed in worse position as regards their migration plans.

On being personally consulted, the Officers in charge of the Camp persuaded all inquirers to volunteer as there was a great future overseas in store for them.

It was officially announced that 80 lbs. luggage could be taken and in parts if the camp kit-bags were provided to take necessities for the first days of the voyage. Nearly all the internees coming from Huyton were volunteers only a limited number were compelled to join, ostensively to make up the requisite numbers of the transport.

c) The internees from the Central Camp and Onchan Camp, Douglas, Isle of Man, were promised that
1. they were going to Canada
2. their wives and children would be in the same convoy.

In the Onchan Camp the future Canadian postal address was officially announced. The married men from these camps volunteered, the unmarried ones ware compelled to go. They were allowed to take up to 80 lbs. luggage.

d) The internees coming from the Internment Camp Ramsay, Isle of man, were mostly members of the Kitchener Camp, Richborough, Kent, i.e. refugees from Germany who had found asylum in England pending their further transmigration overseas. They were promised by their Camp Commandant:
1. that they would most probably go to Canada
2. that as regards their transmigration they would in no way be placed in a worde [] position by joining the transport
3. that the transmigrants to USA (approx.. 200) could do nothing better than to volunteer for this transport, especially as they would save their overseas passage money in that way
4. that overseas they would regain freedom of movement.

One year after the end of the deportations, the Home Office admits illegal action, but plays down its scope. Among others, this affected men from Kitchener Camp, Richborough, Kent: “When the general internment of enemy aliens in the coastal area took place the fact that some of the inmates of this refugee camp were not enemy aliens was overlooked and they were sent into internment with the Germans and Austrians, and some of them were later sent to Australia and Canada.”

A.I. Tudor, British Home Office, to Major Wheeler, Office of the Australian High Commissioner, 27 August 1941, Australian National Archives NAA, NAA_ItemNumber216015, page 230.

The fact is: Kitchener Camp was a transit camp for Jewish refugees who were taken out of Germany with government permission and were waiting to travel on to other countries. Not just “some”, but non of them were enemy aliens. Regardless of whether they were brought to the Dunera via Huyton or the Isle of Man after Kitchener Camp was closed. This is yet another deception of the public by the British government.

They were allowed to take 80 lbs. luggage with them and the luggage was examined by an officer before it was forwarded.

It will be clearly observed from the above that the internees arriving on board H.M.T. “DUNERA” were in the great majority men who had volunteered for this transport and had done so on the strength of promises which appeared to give an infinitely greater chance of helping in the fight against Nazi Germany than sitting behind barbed wire at Liverpool for their embarkation on July 10, 1940.

Embarkation

A.

As far as is known the first transport to arrive were about 500 men from Huyton. They were kept waiting on the embarkation pier for the boat to make fast and had then to proceed through a narrow door-way on to the landing stage. Behind this door soldiers were posted who subjected everybody to n exceedingly rough search. Everything carried in hand or loose in the pickets was taken off the internees. All less valuable effects like gloves, toilet utensils, eatables, pipes etc. were thrown disorderly on the ground. Valuables were stuffed into sacks or disappeared openly into the pockets of the searching soldiers. Soon rows of empty wallets were lying on the floor, the contents if empty attachee cases were roughly thrown about, and the officially provided kit-bags could be seen all over the place, valuable documents, identity and emigration papers, testimonials of all kinds were taken away, thrown on the ground or even ostensively torn-up before the eyes of their very owners.

No receipts were given, except by one single search group. Appeals to the officers standing by were fruitless. Attempts of protest were roughly suppressed. A dazed group of men found themselves herded together in the lower and upper No,2 Mess Decks on board H.M.T. “DUNERA”. Of all the articles taken away on the landing stage only a few were ever seen again.

B.

The members of the second transport from Huyton, arriving a few hours later, were each ordered to pick up two suitcases standing on the railway platform.

1. Part were ordered into the upper No. 2 Deck, and all attachee cases and the provided kit-bags were taken away, The suitcases were opened (sometimes by force) in spite of the fact that they did not belong to the persons carrying them. Articles of value and interest were taken out. This procedure was stopped after a time and the internees were ordered to place the suitcases in heaps on one of the decks. The internees were ordered to gather on one side of the deck and to move to the other through a row of soldiers. here they were closely searched with results similar to that of the first group. Everything loose which was found was taken away.
2. The rest was sent into No. 3 Lower Mess Deck. Here they were ordered to sit down and to empty out everything out of their pockets on to the mess tables. A body search and a thorough examination of the articles lying on the tables ensued, in which anything of value was taken away. There did not appear any system as regards the other articles taken. In some cases even note-books, toothbrushes, soap were removed. Some time later it was declared that a mistake had been made and some sacks containing articles impounded on this, the upper No.3 and upper No.2 Deck, were emptied out on the floor and one of the tables. It was found that only very few articles of value had remained in the sacks.

The internees commenced the following day to take steps to trace the rightful owners of these articles, but before this could have been carried to a conclusion, the remaining articles were again collected by soldiers and taken away.

C.

The group from the Internment Camp Lingfield arrived next. They were also asked to take suitcases with them from the station, but were ordered to leave them on the top deck. Here all attachee cases and bags of all kinds were taken off them. On arrival on the upper No.3 Deck they were treated similar to the beforementioned group.

D.

The first part of group arriving from the various Camps on the Isle of Man were quartered in the Sergeants Deck. on the forepart of the ship. The remainder in the aftpart together with non-refugees internees and Italians, later disembarked at Melbourne[1] There were 200 Italians and 251 Germans - all survivors of the Arandora Star. They included both Nazis and refugees..

1. Of those placed in the forepart, all cases, bags and other portables were taken away on their entering the ship and a body search was commensed, but not completely carried out while they were seated at their mess tables. Some of the articles taken off were placed in large bowls and were later returned. Most articles of value were missing.
2. Those moved on to the aftpart of the ship were searched when they entered the upper mess deck. Everything found in the pockets was taken away, including handkerchiefs etc. All articles were thrown on the ground, except most of the valuables which were pocketed by the soldiers. Suddenly the soldiers disappeared, leaving a great pivot of the impounded articles lying about which the internees then commenced to redistribute.

All these searches were carried out without any discrimination, accompanied by acts of violence and resulted in the loss of enormous amounts of money, valuable articles, toilet necessities, and important documents which have never been recovered.

As regards the incidents appertaining to the embarkation of the internees, reference is made to the accompanying statements by Siegfried Cohn, Geismar, Hirsch, Halle, Laske, Lederer, Leiser, Oppenheim, Riess, Simon and Wolpe.

Treatment during the voyage

Hygienic conditions

1. a) The internee’s decks were without exception overcrowded by at least 50 per cent. The lower No. 2 Deck provided for 228 men; it became accommodation for 354 men. This proportion was true of practically every deck.
b) The congestion was such that people slept at night on mess tables and on the floor during the whole of the voyage, whereas during the day when no hammocks were allowed, staircases and every available inch of floor space was constantly packed. In the event of any accident the congestion alone would have made an attempt of live-saving impossible.
2. On the first evening it was forbidden to leave the decks. Buckets for urine were provided. The buckets were soon overflowing and sewage flooded the decks as the ship rode. In the midst of it, men were lying on the floor to sleep, for at first there was neither hammocks nor blankets.
3. a) For weeks the hatches were kept battened down. Neither day- light nor natural air ever reached the decks. For weeks one was dependant on electric light and artificial air-supply through ventilators – and that in overcrowded decks on a journey through the tropics. Later the hatches were opened periodically.The portholes were closed the whole time.
b) No inoculation against typhoid and cholera was administered in spite of circumstances obviously favouring an epidemic of this kind. Although the most essential medicaments were lacking, vital medicines like Insulin were thrown overboard when discovered to be owned by internees. False teeth were removed, destroyed or thrown overboard.
4. The upper parts of the ship where one would havebeen in the fresh air were absolutely out of bounds. a) “Exercise” lasted 15-25 minutes a day on such days as it took place. The ways of access were barred by barved wire and sentries with bayounets. Ibn many days, however, “exercise” was ordered.
b) For the longest part of the voyage the upper parts of the ship could be entered only with bare feet. On one occasion, a sergeant threw an empty bottle in among the passing internees. The bottle broke and the internees were driven over the splinters with bare feet. The grinning lascars looked on as the white internees were subjected to such treatment.
c) The order had been issued to run or walk fast during these exercises. Those who did not walk fast enough were driven along by the sentries with rifle-butts or were bruised by blows. At the ends of the Decks, Lewis Guns loaded and completely manned were kept trained on the internees in readiness to shoot. At times officers and sergeants assaulted the passing internees, pushed them, beat them and insulted or swore at them whilst hitting them. A Roman Catholic priest was among those pushed and beaten in this manner and a Rabbi.
d) In the beginning, it was not permissible to evade those exercises. During the absence of the internees created in this manner, the decks were searched by sergeants for valuables.
5. There were open portholes at the kitchen, in the wash-rooms and in the latrines. Around all these portholes – including those in the latrines – closely packed groups would stand trying to obtain a little fresh air. At four o’clock in the afternoon, these portholes too were closed. The air in the internees’ quarters defies description, especially in the washplaces were the steam from the hot saltwater showers mingled with the perspiration of the crowded men.
6. From the first landing in North-West-Africa to the first landing in Australia, i. e. during the whole voyage through the tropics, there was fresh water only two or three times a week. During the stops in the African ports where the use of saltwater was forbidden because of the danger of contagion, there was no water at all for the cleaning of crockery, washing or bathing – and that in the tropics.
7. There were approx 2 dozen seats in the latrines for 1600 internees. As the constant stream of saltwater rinsing them was mich too violent, a number of these seats were constantly smeared with a muxture of saltwater and excrements, makung the use impossible. In front of the remaining seats, qeues of waiting men would assemble dring the rush hours, so that nature hat to be relieved in the vfull views of many impatient witnesses. In addition, a large part of the internees suffered from violent diarrhoeas – in others sea sickness took the form of chronix indigestion. Owing to the motion of the sea, the floor of the latrines was almost always flooded with sewage. On days when the sea was rough the state of the lavoratory paper could hardly be describved. There was a constant shortage of lavatory paper, with rarely more than two sheets per person. Other paper was not available, newspaper was forbidden.
8. Razors and shaving utensils had been taken away. During the first five weeks everyone went about with unkempt beards. The resulting rashes and itches were most painful. Those who had managed to keep their razors and were cleanshaven, were threatened with the bunker. Before arrival in Australia, the order was given to remove the beards immediately. For this purpose, 8 razors were distributed among 1600 internees.
9. Medicaments were very shortm there was not even a sufficiant supply of laxartives. Those who were ill nearly always had to qeue for half or whole hour, before being led to a doctor. Not before several weeks had elapsed, the less serious cases were permitted to sit on deck during exercises. Shortly, before arrival in Australia men over 54 years of age and cripples were granted about an hour’s rest in the fresh air every day.
10. Being without any luggage the greatest part of the internees hat to pass through the tropic as follows:
a) without tooth-brush and paste
b) without comb and haurbrush
c) for weeks without soap; later one piece of soap was issued to every 20 men once or twice a week.
d) for weeks without towels; later every 10 men received on towel, mostly originating out of opened suitcases o the internees.
e) with only one shirt, one pair of pants, only one pair of stockings, often only one handkerchief. Whenever they washed and dried their laundry, (drying took place on the mess decks) the internees went without any laundry at all. Through constant washing – especially in saltwater – the laundry was soon reduced to rags.
f) with only one suit and therefor often with holes all over.
g) with but one pair of shoes, mostly with battered soles on which one had to step through the sewage covering the floors of the latrines.

As regards the above, see also statements by Dr. Herrnstadt[2] Dr Arthur Herrnstadt (1895-1979) was a dentist in Berlin-Moabit. He was briefly imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp as an "action Jew" after the pogrom of November 1938. Shortly before the start of the war, he was granted asylum in England and travelled to Kitchener Camp. He was naturalised in Australia in 1946., Dr. Urbach[3] Arthur Urbach, born in 1896, was a dentist from Berlin. He went to Palestine in 1942. and Dr. Wasser.

The situation with regard to safety measures was as follows:

No life-belts were issued at any time.
No instructions were given for a case oof emergency and no exercises or boat drills were ever carried out.

Since the two torpedoes which touched the boat did not explode, a panic was avoided which would have meant complete disaster.

II. Searches and Confiscations

During the whole of the voyage searches were made of persons picked out at random or systematically of persons quartered on particular decks. In many cases these searches appeared to be the indiscriminate acts of guards, in others they weer carried out in presence of or under the supervision of officers.

1. Several  times sergeants appeared in the middle of the night in the troop decks, accompanied by privates with fixed bayonets, and quietly began to unfasten wrist-watches, tear off wedding rings and search for valuables, forcing the persons affected to keep quiet by the threat of violence. Several internees were beaten up on these occasions.
2. On the fifth day of the voyage all internees quartered in No.2 Troop Deck were ordered to go to exercise, nobody was allowed to remain below. Sergeants then searched the empty messes without witnesses and took away remaining valuables and other articles, even gloves, scarves etc. Even coat-linings were found to have been stripped open, and the stuffing of jackets torn out. On their return from exercise the internees were searched at the entrance to their decks and deprived of what few articles they had still with them.
3. In view of this search the deck leaders of the lower No.3 deck decided to collect all valuables and to entrust them to an officer for safe-keeping. An officer declared himself willing to do this and gave his word of honour as an officer to look after them and return them at the end of the voyage. Two closed canvass bags filled with articles were thereupon handed to him. Neither the bags nor the articles contained therein have ever been seen again.

Hans Hermann Josephy (Hans Jackson) later memorialised the searches.
Courtesy of Allen Sternstein.

Shortly after the articles had been thus voluntarily surrendered, a search while the internees were on exercise was made on this and the upper No.3 deck similar to that on the No.2 decks. On this occasion, articles like tooth-brushes, toothpaste, personal letters and photos, disappeared alongside with fountain-pens, valuables, pencils, etc. were left over.
A similar search was also made on the Italian Deck (Upper No.7 Troop Deck) and the deck below where refugees were quartered on one of the following days.
4. Persons were being deprived of their wristwatches, wedding rings and other articles while on exercise on deck. They were often searched bodily when they returned from exercise. Others were intercepted by N.C.O.’s and soldiers on their way to the Hospital, to the washrooms or the lavatory. and often forcefully relieved of any personal articles. Internees who had volunteered to assist in the store-galley or in other work, were deprived of any articles of value whilst doing their work.
Others were searched when they went to fetch their hammocks on the second day of the voyage. When protest were uttered or officers asked for, threats with weapons were immediately made.
5.  During these searches religious garments, Jewish vestments, prayerbooks, bibles phylacteries, were taken away or torn. On application of the interned Chief Rabbi, Lt. Maloney returned some of these vestments, but during one of the following nights they were again carried away by sergeants and not seen again. Some of these vestments have been saved from burning synagogues in Nazi Germany
6. The internees Representatives repeatedly brought this state of affairs to the notice of officers asking for intervention. The officers maintained that the sentries were under orders and within their right to search at any time. Col. Scott who was in charge f the military on board ship, informed the deckleaders of the internees that he had personally ordered these confiscations, acting on War Office instructions and that all property would be restored to the internees.
When a statement to that effect was submitted to the deckleaders, Col. Scott had it returned with instructions that he would lock the deckleaders into the ships’ prison and hand them over to the Australian authorities in irons, if the representatives should undertake to submit further letters of this kind.

As regards these searches, reference is made to the accompanying statements by Altmann, Austern[4] The merchant Michael Austern was born in Horodnicew, Poland, in 1899., Chodziesner[5] Georg Chodziesner was born in Berlin on 4 March 1900, the son of the respected lawyer Ludwig Chodziesner. He was an electrical engineer by profession. After his release from internment and the end of his army service, he remained in Australia. After the war, he wrote down his experiences on the Dunera under the title "How I came to Australia". His great-grandson Joshua used this as the basis for a picture story., Darnbacher, Felsenstein[6] Jakob Felsenstein was born in Frankfurt in 1908. He was a businessman and metallurgist by profession., Gernsheimer[7] The correct name is Helmut Gernsheim. He was born in Munich in 1913 and was a photographer., Hammerstein[8] Hans Herbert Hammerstein, born in Berlin in 1901, was headmaster of the Jewish primary schools in Stettin when he was imprisoned in Sachenhausen after the November pogroms of 1938. He went to England in 1939. He was one of the group who were taken directly from the Kitchener Camp transit camp to the Dunera. In Kitchener Camp, as later in the Australian internment camps, he was involved in Zionist educational work. After his release, he went to Palestine. Under his Jewish name Israel Shiloni, he founded the "Museum Deutsches Judentum" in 1971. He died in 1996., Kubach[9] Ulrich Charles Hermann Kubach was born in Berlin in 1919. He was a salesman and a member of the Church of England., Laske[10] Peter Georg Laske, born in Berlin in 1920, was a specialised dealer., Lederer, Lewin, Lindheimer, Dr. Karl Meyer[11] Karl Georg Mayer, a Catholic born in Vienna in 1902, was an oil expert., Zacharias Meyer[12] Zacharias Mayer, born in 1898, was a stonemason by trade. A stumbling block in his home town of Alsbach-Hähnlein commemorates him., Marx and Schick.

It has not yet been possible to prepare a full account of all the articles forcibly taken during these searches, but a random summary giving particulars of the losses incurred by the internees with initial letters K, L and M only is submitted herewith and should give a fair indication of the total loss.

As regards the articles voluntarily surrendered by the internees quartered on the lower No. 3 deck, reference is made to the statements by Messrs. Eppenstein and Lehner[13] Hans Peter Ernst Lehner was born in Charlottenburg in 1916. He was a Protestant. He called himself a petroleum geologist. and to the summary list attached to the latter statement.

As regards to the protest made by the deckleaders against these searches reference is made to the statement by Mr. Lewinsky.

III. Handling an Loss of Luggage

1. The internees had been officially informed in the English camps that they were permitted to take 80 lbs. luggage with them. For many internees who had fled from the Nazis out if Germany, Holland and Belgium these 80lbs. of luggage constituted nearly all their wherewithal.
2. On boarding H.M.T. “DUNERA” the internees were deprived of their entire luggage for the duration of the voyage. Repeated applications to officers to return to them at least small hand luggage or to permit them to take necessary things out of their trunks were refused. From the very beginning of the journey the internees saw their trunks thrown into careless piles on the open decks. The trunks had been forced open, most of them had been slashed open with bayonets, the contents ransacked were partly lying about on deck and important documents, e.g. American immigration papers, were blown about the deck and into the sea.
3. The contents of many cases had been tipped out at random and fatigue parties of internees had to clear up the heap which had been exposed to sea spray and rain. Soldiers openly pocketed articles from that heap
4. Later the belongings were taken into a luggage room which was however neither locked nor sealed. During the entire voyage up to the first Australian ports, sergeants were again and again seen as they emerged from the luggage room loaded with all kinds of objects. It also attracted attention that sergeants were suddenly writing with expensive fountain-pens and that a typewriter belonging to an internee was seen in the orderly room.
5. Medicaments and medical instruments were taken from the luggage of internees and where they were not thrown overboard, officially used in Hospital.
6. Large quantities of personal laundry, including garments and soap. originating from the internees’ luggage that had been forced open, were brought to the messes in bundles and internees were ordered to accept and wear garments not belonging to them and obviously taken from their comrades. The internees refused to do this unless the property could be identified beyond doubt by the owner. The entire lack of soap or other cleaning material made it imperative to accept odd pieces of soap taken out of cases.
7. When the luggage was returned in the Australian Camp, it was ascertained and witnessed by Australian officers:
a) that a large number of trunks had been wantonly damaged or destroyed,
b) that the contents of most cases had been wilfully interfered with,
c) that hardly anything of value had remained in any of the cases opened,
d) that a great quantity of garments, books, personal laundry, toilet utensils and quantitites of other goods were missing, 
e) that a considerable number of important and irreplaceable documents were missing,
f) that a number of trunks and suitcases had disappeared entirely,
g) that some cases contained merely mixed articles in a soiled state not belonging to the owner o the case, the whole of the original contents being lost.

As regards to handling of the luggage during the voyage, reference is made to the statements by Clussmann[14] Gustav Heinrich Clusmann was a Protestant. The sculptor was born in Hamburg in 1906., Eule[15] Heinrich Eule, a travelling salesman born in Worms in 1908, was naturalised in Australia., Gruenberg, Dr. Glass, Halle[16] Like many Dunera Boys, the merchant Samuel Halle (born 1900 in Hartheim) was brought directly from the Kitchener Camp to the Dunera., Halpernsohn[17] Leon David Halpersohn was born in Brody/Ukraine in 1903, probably lived in Berlin and was an economist. He was interned in Kitchener Camp., Dr. Lewin, Dr. Marcus, Riess and Weyl[18] Commercial clerk Walter Weyl was born in Wuppertal-Elberfeld in 1920..

As regards the state of the belongings of the internees on their arrival here, reference is made to the confidential report compiled by the Australian receiving authorities at the Internment Camp.

A further List was compiled by the internees giving names and particulars of owners of the cases not retrieved at all, as per copy attached.

At random internees whose names commencing with K, L and M were chosen to give full particulars of the articles missing out of their cases and a list was prepared as per copy attached. A complete List can be provided. In addition please find attached a summary compiled by the Australian Camp Authorities, showing the state of each case, as it arrived here.

A few days after disembarking in Sydney, the internees at the Hay camp were astonished: “On 10 September, Lieutenant O’Neill visited the camp. When he arrived, he was booed and everyone shouted: ‘Where’s our luggage?’ He disappeared immediately.”

Georg Chodziesner „How I came to Australia“, page 16.

IV. Treatment of Internees by the Military

From the outset our status on board the “DUNERA” was ill-defined. The soldiers only expressed the belief that we were parachutists or, in any case, prisoners of war. The treatment dealt out was accordingly. The internees were addressed with the vilest curses only. For days the officers refused to listen to the internees’ representations about the many threats and bodily punishments dealt out indiscriminately by N.C.O.’s and men on every occasion. Orders of every kind were given to the accompaniment of loaded rifles with bayonets fixed. kicks and hits with rifle-butts were a daily occurrence. Any attempt to seek recourse was roughly frustrated. The slightest reason was good enough to provoke punishment on the spot by sentries without any investigation or chance of redress.

The elderly internees and those who had gone through the severe treatment at the hands of the Nazi agents in German Concentration Camps before they had found refuge in England, became so despondent that they hid away whenever a uniform came into sight, particularly in ports od call where drunkenness amongst the guards made it impossible to foresee what the net moment might bring.

The brutality of manners and methods displayed was such that talk of suicide was current, and as is known, one internee chose this way out. The material losses experienced from the beginning, coupled with the hourly treatment, threat of severe punishment, produced an atmosphere of fearful apprehension intensified by the feeling of utter helplessness at the mercy of uniformed representatives of a country which had herself given the internees refuge from the prosecution of the Nazis, and to which their loyalty had been proved on more than one way. Any protests made to officers and men on the grounds of human dignity and the position as “friendly aliens”, proved to be victims of Nazi oppression by British Tribunals, were ignored.

Suspicion as regards the internees went so far as to accuse them of attempted arson when a piece of rag which had been wrapped around a steel-encased lamp burning all night to protect the sleepers from the continuous glare, started smouldering. It was quickly pulled down and water was poured over it by the internee who slept beneath it, but the pungent smell attracted the sentry. An investigation was held and the harmlessness of the case quickly established to the satisfaction of the commander. Nevertheless, one internee was put into the ship’s prison for one night and press reports in Australia later spoke of an attempt to set fire to the ship. We were accused of attempted mutiny almost all the time, although no effort was spared on the part of the deckleaders, (i.e. the internees’ representatives) to keep people calm and to avoid anything which might have been interpreted as an act of provocation.

As special instance of ill-treatment can be cited the following:

1. During the exercises the internees were pushed by officers, sergeants and men, beaten, driven along with the butts of rifles and otherwise ill-treated,
2. During searches and confiscations of all kinds internees were beaten and on some occasion stabbed with bayonets,
3. During negotiations about confiscated valuables, the deckleaders were threatened with the bunker and irons,
4. Chief Rabbi Dr. Ehrentreu who had written to the Commander in a religious matter, was warned by Lt. O’NEILL that he would hang him at the mast, throw him overboard and such like.
5. When a so-called spoon-message[19] The guards found a spoon on deck with a message attached. The deck leaders were not informed of the contents. The potential message in a bottle must have been written on toilet paper because no other paper was available to the internees, reports Georg Chodziesner in "How I Came to Australia", page 9. had been found, the internees were threatened with the curtailment of food and light, unless the person responsible confessed,
6. Similar steps were announced when it was alleged that some knives had vanished from the kitchen,
7. Two internees had been found out of bounds, were tied to a post by Lt. O’NEILL who was apparently in a state of drunkenness, insulted with words such as “German Jewish Swine”, sons of “German Jewish dogs” and one of them was beaten until he bled. His screams of pain could be heard from afar.
8. One internee was kept in Hospital on account of mental disease and attempted to leave the ship at Melbourne, in an absurd disguise, was maltreated by some sergeants in the most brutal manner imaginable and beaten unconscious. His bloodstained shirt was shown by Captain Burton to Cl. Scott.

At the Dunera Court Martial, Sergeant Arthur Helliwell was charged with four counts. Two concerned his conduct during an escape attempt by internee Waldemar Eckfeld known to be mentally ill in Melbourne Harbour. Helliwell had assaulted him during the escape attempt or failed to protect the man from abuse. Helliwell was acquitted on these charges.

“The Times” from May 23, 1941 about the court martial, NAA, NAA_ItemNumber216013, pg 122.

As regards these incidents, reference is made inter alia to the accompanying statements by Darnbacher, Federn[20] Ilnari Karl Peter Federn was born in Berlin in 1910, but was Austrian. The student described himself as a Protestant. henle[21] Kurt Siegbert Henle, a Hamburg Jew born in 1924, was arrested at the age of just 16 and deported on the Dunera., Kubach, Laske, Lederer, Lewinsky, Rosenblueth, Ruhstadt[22] Kurt Ruhstadt was an engineering student born in 1921; he came from Soest. and Simon.

We submit this Memorandum by request of His Excellency the High Commissioner of the United Kingdom.

It states to the best of our knowledge a true account of conditions prevailing on H.M.T. “DUNERA” during our transportation to Australia. We have collected material as evidence from fellow internees who are prepared to swear to its accuracy.

Footnotes