Fyshwick's own wartime internment camp
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Monteath said the Monlonglo camp in the then Federal Capital Territory was unusual, constructed in the dying days of World War I in mid-1918.
“It was constructed fairly late in the piece with the expectation many more [detainees] would be arriving there,” he said.
As Alan Foskett details in his book, The Molonglo Internment Camp: A Unique Part of Canberra’s Heritage and History, the Australian government built Molonglo originally in response to a request from the British government that it accommodate 3500 German and Austrian nationals, then interned in China. The camp was built, complete with watch tower, but the China plan never transpired.
So instead, another internment camp, the harshly-run Bourke camp, was closed down and 200 Germans and Austrians transferred to Molonglo, arriving from May 27, 1918. The camp closed in 1919, the families were deported to Germany and the buildings became the Molonglo settlement, to “accommodate single men and about 110 families moving to Canberra to work in the emerging national capital”.
But before then, to be interned at the camp, must have been a traumatic experience, Foskett believes, even though he believes their treatment was humane. “These people were basically intelligent, industrious, caring people incarcerated because of their origin, not because of any threat they posed to Australia or its allies,” he wrote.
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