I read with great interest the excerpt from Simon Parkin’s book, Island of Extraordinary Captives, about Britain’s use of internment in the second world war (‘I remember the feeling of insult’: when Britain imprisoned its wartime refugees, 1 February). One extreme case of abuse and insult not mentioned, although it may appear in the book, is the case of the notorious troopship HMT Dunera, which transported “enemy aliens” to internment camps in Australia.
My father, Sigmund Kirstein, was among the internees: a man in his 50s who had managed to reach Britain in 1939. The conditions on the Dunera and the abuse of the internees are a matter of record. Several of the crew were court-martialled after a journey of 57 days with 2,740 men incarcerated in a vessel meant for 1,600 troops.
The internees suffered physical abuse, verbal insults, shortage of food and water, and, according to my late father, the worst of all was that there were only 10 toilets for more than 2,000 men. The internees’ possessions were looted, and anything not considered to be of value was thrown overboard, leaving the men with just the clothes they stood up in.
Many of the men were orthodox Jews, and their prayer books and prayer shawls were also consigned to the waves by their guards. On arrival in Australia the men were interned, mostly at Hay in New South Wales, in very harsh conditions but, like the internees on the Isle of Man, they rallied and did their best to overcome the physical and psychological hardships.
There is, or was, a Dunera “alumni” association and a few of the internees remained in Australia. My father returned to Britain to be reunited with his wife in Llanelli, but carried the trauma of his ordeal throughout his life. It is good to see that a book about the dark chapter of “enemy aliens” during the second world war is now published.
Yehudit Kirstein Keshet
Be’er Sheva, Israel
• The letters (4 February) in response to Simon Parkin’s article show how those fleeing Nazi persecution were subject to imprisonment and humiliation by the UK authorities. My own family case adds a further twist to those of your correspondents. My father, fleeing Nazi persecution in occupied Vienna, was granted asylum in this country with the status “category C – not to be interned”. But this counted for nothing and he was imprisoned in Lingfield Park racecourse stables.
This was a tad better than his brother, who was imprisoned on the Isle of Man and then transported to Australia under almost slave-ship conditions on HMT Dunera (hit by a torpedo that, luckily, did not explode). The British government acknowledged Hitler’s Anschluss and, although they were Austrians, my father and his brother were considered to be Germans, unlike in the US, which considered my father to be stateless in his visa application.
Thus, when my mother (born in north Wales of Welsh parentage) married, she became an “enemy alien” and her rights were severely curtailed, ending her career as an opera singer. These restrictions included having to report to the police at frequent and regular intervals, not to own a bicycle or a car, and to report her intention to change her address. Her British nationality was not restored until 1948, three years after the war ended. All of these abuses and indignities followed from a campaign by the rightwing tabloids and the resulting internment decision, for which Winston Churchill carries personal responsibility.
Tony Mayer
Swindon, Wiltshire
• The use of internment started much earlier than during the first world war (Letters, 4 February). The British government practised it from at least 1709. Starting in 1708, the official propaganda machine oiled by Daniel Defoe seduced tens of thousands of Palatine peasants and artisans with promises of land to uproot their families and come to England. They were welcomed by internment in makeshift camps on Blackheath and Camberwell Green.
Unable to cope or to control the xenophobic mobs who attacked the invited “guests”, the government scattered them to Ireland, to increase the Protestant population; North Carolina, as part of a deal with property sharks; and New York, where they were forced into indentured labour as part of an impossible scheme to produce naval stores. Families were ripped apart and a large number died. When the project failed the government simply turned them loose and they were left to their own devices.
I imagine the US should be grateful: among those who were sent across the Atlanic were the Rockefellers, Wanamakers, Rittenhouses, the ancestors of Elvis Presley, and John Peter Zenger, who laid the basis for the freedom of the press.
Dr Charles Posner
Lavenham, Suffolk
• John Green’s letter rightly asks the question as to why refugees from Nazi oppression were interned when they were clearly not a threat. My father was one such refugee who was interned in Seaton and, later, at camps in Canada.
The events are even worse than portrayed by John Green. In addition to those interned in British camps in 1940, the British sent over 2,000 mainly Jewish refugees to Canada. They did this knowing that they were not a threat to the UK, while lying about the danger they presented to ensure that they would be taken. Most refugees from Nazi oppression sent to Canada were classified as safe by British tribunals; however, Britain had forced the hand of the Canadian government to accept a certain number of “dangerous refugees” from the UK and could not lose face by not sending the numbers previously quoted. Instead of “dangerous Nazi paratroopers” arriving in Canada, a large contingent of Jewish and other refugees from Nazi oppression disembarked there. While in Canada, refugees were initially interned in the same camps and sometimes the same huts as Nazi prisoners of war, and also faced antisemitic treatment from their Canadian captors.
After the sinking of the Arandora Star, the British government realised their mistake and public opinion turned. Large numbers of refugees started to be returned to the UK in 1940; however, not all were released until 1943. This terrible blunder by the UK government was in no small measure caused by a kneejerk reaction to public hysteria whipped up at the time by the Daily Mail and Daily Express. As they say, some things never change.
Simon James
Ilston, Swansea
• The photographs of the internment camp used to illustrate Simon Parkin’s article and the letters responding to it brought back memories of the time I lived in that road on the outskirts of Liverpool in the early 1940s.
My mother and I were allocated a house in Belton Road, Huyton following the destruction of our family home by enemy bombing. By the time we arrived at what was to be our home for the next eight years, all external signs of internment had been removed.
Inside the house was very different. The refugees had taken to expressing their frustration at their plight by illustrating the bedroom walls with graffiti, messages in various languages and illustrations. It was left to my mother, with the help of neighbours, to clean and redecorate the house.
Where the earlier residents were transferred to was never revealed to my mother.
Tony Short
Maghull, Merseyside
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