Unaccompanied Refugee And Evacuee Children In Australia, 1933 - 1945
Between Hitler's rise to power in 1933 and the end of World War II, Australia received a number of unaccompanied refugee and evacuee children from the UK, Europe and later, South-East Asia and the Pacific. But the number was pitifully small, the government was reluctant to offer refuge to children in need of it, and the experiences of those children who did arrive were not always happy ones.
The children at the centre of the book fall into two groups, the British evacuee children sent to Australia to escape German bombing and possible invasion and the much smaller group of Jewish and other non-Aryan children sent in desperation from Germany, Austria and Poland to escape the persecution of the Third Reich - many of these children were the only ones of their families to survive the war.
This is the story of these children, examining their backgrounds, the care they received, their adjustment to life in Australia without their families and the additional wrench of repatriation. It also examines the troubled record of government policy on the issue and the work of voluntary organisations. These experiences and reflections lead to conclusions about the placement and care of children separated from their families.
