tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/internment-camps-55159/articlesInternment camps – The Conversation2023-08-14T20:00:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2085822023-08-14T20:00:01Z2023-08-14T20:00:01ZDiscrimination, internment camps, then deportation: the end of the second world war did not mean peace for Japanese-Australians<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541157/original/file-20230804-27-77kck2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C0%2C1016%2C663&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interned Japanese having lunch at their camp at Woolenook Bend, South Australia, 1944.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+55100">State Library South Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For most of the world’s population, the end of the second world war was a glorious day. This was not necessarily the case for Japanese-Australians, who faced repatriation to Japan after being interned by their home country, Australia.</p>
<p>Shortly after Japan entered the war in December 1941, 1,141 Japanese people living in Australia were seized and transferred to “enemy” camps – accounting for 98% of the total Japanese population in Australia. This was much higher than <a href="https://lovedayproject.com/about/">the proportion</a> of Italians and Germans sent to Australian internment camps.</p>
<p>At the camps, such as those located in <a href="https://lovedayinternmentcamp.au/">Loveday</a> in South Australia, <a href="https://www.taturamuseum.com/world-war-2-camps">Tatura</a> in Victoria and <a href="https://mgnsw.org.au/organisations/hay-prisoner-war-internment-camp-interpretive-centre/">Hay</a> and <a href="https://www.cowracouncil.com.au/Facilities/Tourism-and-history/POW-Camp">Cowra</a> in New South Wales, Japanese internees were treated by Australian guards according to the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/geneva-convention">Geneva Convention</a>. But there was little contemporary Australian press coverage of these camps, and many Australians did not know about them – even if they lived locally. </p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594">newly published research</a>, I have been exploring the forgotten experiences of Japanese-Australians during the second world war. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-overlooked-story-of-the-incarceration-of-japanese-americans-from-hawaii-during-world-war-ii-188268">The overlooked story of the incarceration of Japanese Americans from Hawaii during World War II</a>
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<h2>The Cowra breakout</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Headline: war prisoners escape from camp, wide search by troops, police" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540361/original/file-20230801-17212-ke38zi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Daily Telegraph report on the breakout.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/27285611">Trove</a></span>
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<p>One of the only pieces of contemporary news reporting on the internment of Japanese people followed the <a href="https://www.nla.gov.au/digital-classroom/year-10/internment-world-war-ii-1939-45/themes/cowra">Cowra breakout</a> in August 1944, when captured prisoners of war tried to escape. Four Australians and 231 Japanese soldiers were killed.</p>
<p>Even after the war, most of the media coverage focused on these POWs rather than the interred Australian residents. </p>
<p>Japanese POWs followed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senjinkun_military_code">Senjinkun</a> military code, <a href="https://anzacportal.dva.gov.au/wars-and-missions/burma-thailand-railway-and-hellfire-pass-1942-1943/">by which</a> “a soldier was expected not to survive to suffer the dishonour of capture”. </p>
<p>This was encouraged by cultural critiques, artists and poets, exemplified by a surviving poem by Sonosuke Sato. Japanese soldiers were brainwashed to believe the chance to die was an honour.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541433/original/file-20230807-6265-6usu56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A poem about the Senjinkun military code.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Digital Collection Database of 我樂多齋:鄭世璠文庫日治藝文期刊 (Wo Le Duo Zhai: Zheng Shi Fan Wen Ku Ri Zhi Yi Wen Qi Kan), Special Collections Center, National Chengchi University Libraries, Taiwan</span></span>
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<p>Common to Australian media publications on this breakout is a tendency to treat the Japanese as “others”. A clear distinction exists between “us” and “them”. It was difficult for Australians to understand the motives of the fatal military decision to escape the camp where they had been treated humanely.</p>
<p>In contrast, media reports did not mention the experiences of the civilian Japanese living in Australia and therefore free from the Japanese military mindset.</p>
<h2>Japanese-Australians</h2>
<p>In pre-war Australia, many Japanese-Australians were working as pearl divers. There were also a hundred or so Japanese elites working for banks and trading companies in Sydney and Melbourne. </p>
<p><a href="https://meiji.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=3785&item_no=1&attribute_id=17&file_no=1">Many Japanese</a> had departed Australia in the 1930s when an unofficial trade war erupted between Australia and Japan. More left as the threat of war grew and Japanese residents faced increasing discrimination and fewer business opportunities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Coffin, mother, children." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541145/original/file-20230804-19-osf1gy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Funeral of Yasukichi Murakami at Tatura Camp, Victoria, June 1944.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Libraries & Archives NT</span></span>
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<p>Not every Australian with a Japanese background associated themselves with the community, or identified strongly with their heritage. But when Japan joined the war, Australia captured the “Japanese”, even those who had lived in the country for decades or were born in Australia.</p>
<p>They were joined in camps by Japanese people <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-history-listen/miyakatsu-koike/13958260">shipped from nearby allied territories</a> such as New Zealand, the Pacific and Indonesia. </p>
<p>One of them was Cairns-born <a href="https://lovedaylives.com/lives/samuel-nakashiba/">Samuel Nakashiba</a>, raised as an Australian without Japanese language fluency. Nevertheless, he was captured and imprisoned as “Japanese”.</p>
<p>Nakashiba lodged his first application for release in June 1942. He was not released until May 1945, when the relevant authority found a job for him in an isolated place in Queensland.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men sawing a tree" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541159/original/file-20230804-21-2amatg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Samuel Nakashiba was interned at the Loveday Camp, pictured, in South Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://lovedaylives.com/lives/samuel-nakashiba/">Red Cross Audiovisual Archive</a></span>
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<p>Yet Nakashiba was still lucky. He was one of only around 200 Japanese permitted to remain in Australia after the war. The rest were deported to Japan, even those with no or few ties to the country.</p>
<h2>Repatriation to Japan</h2>
<p><a href="https://lovedaylives.com/lives/hikotaro-wada/">Hikotaro Wada</a>, a laundryman, was arrested in Kalgoorlie in December 1941. </p>
<p>Arriving in Australia in 1891 when he was 21, he briefly visited Japan in the 1920s, when he discovered he had no family left there and immediately came back.</p>
<p>He applied for release during the war but was unsuccessful. He was sent back to Japan in 1946 after having lived in Australia for 50 years. His fate after repatriation is unknown. </p>
<p>Shigeru Yamaguchi, born in Broome, was listed as “Australian-born Japanese” in the official camp record. He stayed in the camp until the end of war and was then repatriated to Japan. </p>
<p>Prior to his arrest in January 1942, Yamaguchi had made a life as the owner of a vegetable garden in Geraldton, Western Australia. After the war, a major at Loveday camp “advised” him to leave for Japan, believing his prospects would be better there.</p>
<p>In 1947, while serving as an interpreter for the Allied Forces in Tokyo, Yamaguchi requested a re-entry permit to Australia. He was not granted permission to return. His fate after 1947 is also unknown. </p>
<p>In the 1950s, some Japanese divers who had worked in pre-war Broome returned to Australia. As a farmer, Yamaguchi was unlikely to have been in this party. My research on Yamaguchi ended here; Japan has highly restrictive privacy laws that block access to official individual records by anyone other than direct offspring.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/300-letters-of-outrage-from-japanese-canadians-who-lost-their-homes-87249">300 letters of outrage from Japanese Canadians who lost their homes</a>
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<h2>The American redress movement</h2>
<p>During the United States’ involvement in the war, 112,000 “Japanese” were placed in internment camps. Some chose to move to Japan after the ill treatment by the US government. </p>
<p>Japanese-Americans began the <a href="https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/redress-and-reparations-japanese-american-incarceration">redress movement</a> in the 1960s. President Ronald Reagan signed an act to grant reparations for the internment of Japanese-Americans in 1988. In 1991, President George Bush senior <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/18/before-people-start-invoking-japanese-american-internment-they-should-remember-what-it-was-like/">stated</a>: “The internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry was a great injustice, and it will never be repeated.” </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C613%2C404&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men women and children." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C613%2C404&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/541147/original/file-20230804-15-de1eri.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Japanese internees in Tatura, Victoria, lining up for a dental parade 1943.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/052460">Australian War Memorial</a></span>
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<p>By contrast, in Australia no apology has been made to the “Japanese” people who were captured or repatriated, even when Australia was their home.</p>
<p>In the same way stories of diggers and soldiers are Australian stories, experiences of the Japanese-Australians who were unfairly labelled as enemy aliens at our own internment camps should also be regarded as Australian stories. </p>
<p>Have we listened to their stories? And can we say sorry?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This work by Tets Kimura was initially supported by the National Library of Australia's Asia Study Grant. He also received the History Trust of South Australia's South Australian History Fund to visit former camp sites in South Australia, and the Australian Institute of Art History's Art History Research Grant to visit Cowra, New South Wales. An earlier draft was presented at the 2022 symposium “The Art and Creativity of Japanese People Incarcerated in World War II in Australasia and the Pacific” which was funded by the Toshiba International Foundation—before the full academic article was published in the Journal of Australian Studies. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594">https://doi.org/10.1080/14443058.2023.2209594</a></span></em></p>98% of Australia’s Japanese population were sent to internment camps during the second world war.Tets Kimura, Adjunct Lecturer, Creative Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1445472020-09-04T17:37:21Z2020-09-04T17:37:21ZKamala Harris represents an opportunity for coalition building between Blacks and Asian Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355654/original/file-20200831-16-1pla40l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C12%2C3956%2C2643&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kamala Harris speaking via a screen to demonstrators at the protest against racism and police brutality on Aug. 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-watch-democratic-vice-presidential-nominee-news-photo/1228243557?adppopup=true">Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kamala Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother; she is Black and South Asian. She celebrates both sides of her ancestry, which unites two racial groups that are often seen in the United States as being opposed to each other.</p>
<p>If you’ve heard anything about Black and Asian American relations in the U.S., what you’ve heard likely focuses on <a href="https://theoutline.com/post/1351/black-asian-conflict-beauty-supply">hostility and conflict</a> between the two groups.</p>
<p>In electoral politics, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21565503.2017.1288144">research on multiracial legislators</a> indicates that those with dual nonwhite backgrounds like Harris have the potential to serve as bridges between groups and use their backgrounds to influence policy that serves multiple communities.</p>
<p>Harris’ nomination as Joe Biden’s vice presidential running mate is an opportunity to understand the history of the relationship between America’s Black and Asian communities. It’s also a time to consider the possibility for political coalition building between Blacks and Asian Americans in this moment when racial discrimination is an urgent subject for much of the country. </p>
<h2>Racial triangulation</h2>
<p>The 1991 killing of a Black 15-year-old named <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/la_riot/article/0,28804,1614117_1614084_1614514,00.html">Latasha Harlins</a> by a Korean store clerk, and the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/the-los-angeles-riots">violent unrest in Los Angeles</a> that was partially stoked by that killing, are perhaps the most prominent instances and depictions of violence and conflict between Black and Asian American communities. </p>
<p>Similar dynamics continue today. For example, one of the police officers involved in the killing of George Floyd, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311">Tou Thao</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/officer-who-stood-george-floyd-died-asian-american-we-need-n1221311">is a Hmong American with a history of use of excessive force charges</a>. Floyd’s murder bolstered calls from <a href="http://aaopmn.org/2020/05/29/open-letter-to-community/">Asian American communities to address Asian anti-Blackness</a>. </p>
<p>We’d argue that Black and Asian American people are pitted against each other by media, government and society to maintain the United States’ social hierarchies. </p>
<p>When dismissing Black people as stereotypically “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">lazy</a>” or “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">deviant</a>,” media commentators and lawmakers <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">often use stereotypes of Asian Americans to bolster their claims</a>. They stereotype Asian Americans as a <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/asian-american-achievement-paradox">model minority</a> who are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">“diligent”</a> workers who have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">“respect for authority.”</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young Asian man at a protest with a sign that says 'Black Lives Matter.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355655/original/file-20200831-16-pdtzsl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Floyd’s killing led to calls by Asian Americans for solidarity with Blacks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-asian-protester-marches-with-a-sign-expressing-news-photo/1218649573?adppopup=true">Annette Holloway/Icon Sportswire/Getty</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the same time, Asian Americans are treated as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329299027001005?journalCode=pasa">“foreigners”</a> whose citizenship is fair game for questioning. This is especially true for those with <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12552-018-9250-4">darker skin and more recent immigration histories</a>, such as Hmong and Filipinos. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/japanese-american-relocation">Japanese internment</a> during World War II, for instance, is one example in which Japanese Americans were considered security threats to the United States. They were forced by the federal government, through various methods, from their homes into camps. <a href="https://crosscut.com/2020/02/never-again-now-japanese-americans-driven-history-immigration-fight">Today</a>, Japanese Americans, many survivors of those internment camps, are active in opposing immigrant detention centers through the national “<a href="https://www.neveragainaction.com/">Never Again Is Now</a>” Jewish-led movement.</p>
<h2>Black and Asian American common cause</h2>
<p>Yet despite the stereotypes of these two communities in opposition to each other, Black and Asian American communities have historically had close political relationships, drawing on shared struggles to build solidarity. These connections are also mirrored on a personal level.</p>
<p>People who identify as Black and Asian on the <a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-13.pdf">U.S. Census</a> are among the fastest-growing groups of people who identify with two or more races on the U.S. Census. As <a href="https://cjdept.unm.edu/people/faculty/profile/myra-washington.html">Myra Washington</a>, a communications scholar who writes about Blasians, or people who are Black and Asian, shows in “<a href="https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/B/Blasian-Invasion">Blasian Invasion: Racial Mixing in the Celebrity Industrial Complex,</a>” the existence of Black-and-Asian people predates multiracial recognition on the <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/325778/mark_one_or_more">2000 Census</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/12/interracial-marriage-who-is-marrying-out/">Interracial marriage</a> is increasingly common, although intermarriage between Black and Asian American communities is not new. Between the 1880s and early 1900s, South Asian men working on British ships abandoned those ships in Louisiana and New York and worked as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10999940601057309">“peddlers”</a> in New Orleans and New York City. Some intermarried with women from Black communities, such as when Bengali Muslim trader <a href="https://www.thirteen.org/programs/asian-americans/moksad-ali-and-ella-blackman-zddluv/">Moksad Ali married African American Ella Blackman in New Orleans in 1895</a>. </p>
<p>Black feminist scholars like <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?seq=1">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a> use the notion of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039?seq=1">identities as de facto coalitions</a>. This means that individuals can use their identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation and class, and their stature within their own communities to build relationships between groups. </p>
<p>Among the most famous friendships and political connections between Asian American and Black political movement leaders was between Japanese American political activist <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-yuri-kochiyama-20140604-story.html">Yuri Kochiyama</a> and <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297990/malcolm-x-by-manning-marable/">Black radical Malcolm X</a>. </p>
<p>Kochiyama’s politics were deeply influenced by her imprisonment in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. She consequently became <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/us/yuri-kochiyama-civil-rights-activist-dies-at-93.html">radicalized upon meeting Malcolm X</a>. She built relationships with those engaged in Black struggles including defending political prisoners, but also worked with other groups such as Puerto Ricans in their struggles against police violence, for better schools and dignified housing for all working-class communities. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JkhFjoDrtZs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Japanese American activist Yuri Kochiyama worked for social justice across class and racial lines.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>American wars have also inspired solidarity between Black Americans and Asians globally. During the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08854301003746924?journalCode=csad20">Philippine-American War</a> waged from 1899 to 1902, some Black troops known as the Buffalo Soldiers <a href="https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/david-fagen-a2502-20200316-lfrm">saw similarities</a> between American anti-Black racism and American treatment of Filipinos. A number of them defected from the United States to fight alongside Filipinos. </p>
<p>During the Vietnam War, anti-racism activist and boxer <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/muhammad-ali-vietnam/485717/">Muhammad Ali</a> famously protested against deployment to Vietnam, saying that Vietnamese people did not subjugate him to the anti-Black racism he experienced in the United States. </p>
<p>And the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/martin-luther-king-jr-speaks-out-against-the-war">came at a moment</a> where his stances against U.S. imperialism and the Vietnam War were taking central stage on his agenda. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<h2>Potential for coalition building</h2>
<p>Today, Black and Asian American communities may find common ground on the issues of policing and immigration. Although policing may commonly be thought of as a “Black issue” and immigration commonly thought of as an “Asian (or Latinx) issue,” public opinion paints a more complex picture. </p>
<p>Data from the <a href="https://0324c08e-739e-40c4-b70f-3e10d11ab824.filesusr.com/ugd/8b2f7d_d6b4e1aeedee467da9a84e29edcb642a.pdf">African American Research Collective</a> shows that in 2018, 76% of Black survey respondents believed that “immigrants just want to provide a better life for their families, just like you and me.” </p>
<p>In 2016, 49% of Asian American respondents to the <a href="http://naasurvey.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/NAAS16-post-election-report.pdf">National Asian American Survey</a> expressed very favorable or somewhat favorable feelings toward Black Lives Matter. Korean Americans expressed the greatest favorability, at 73%.</p>
<p>However, Black and Asian Americans are not homogeneous groupings. Segments of Indian Americans, for example, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/01/this-is-why-indian-immigrants-wont-benefit-from-trumps-immigration-plan/">support the Trump administration’s immigration policies that favor highly skilled workers</a>. Yet <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/03/01/this-is-why-indian-immigrants-wont-benefit-from-trumps-immigration-plan/">the issuance of these visas</a> is limited due in part to legacies of racial animus toward Indian immigrants. </p>
<p>Much of the discussion about Kamala Harris has focused on her background in law enforcement, her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/kamala-harris-multiracial-identity/2020/08/18/57bb1cd4-de3b-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html">identity</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-kamala-harris-americans-yet-again-have-trouble-understanding-what-multiracial-means-145233">as a multiracial woman</a>, the contradictions between her platform and identities, and the meaning of these for community trust in her leadership. </p>
<p>Harris in essence may become a mirror for these communities to reflect on the ways their two groups have been historically divided by government policy and social tensions. </p>
<p>And her selection may also offer the opportunity for members of the two communities to consider grassroots coalition building on issues – beyond electoral politics – that affect their everyday lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black and Asian American communities have been portrayed as in opposition to each other. Multiracial Kamala Harris, both Asian American and Black, represents the potential for coalition building.Danielle Casarez Lemi, Tower Center Fellow, Southern Methodist UniversityMelina Juárez Pérez, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Western Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033282018-10-09T19:23:49Z2018-10-09T19:23:49ZIn their own words: internees tell of life in our German detainment camps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240150/original/file-20181010-72110-g6iwnn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">German internees at the Holsworthy Internment Camp during the first world war. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of New South Wales</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On August 15 1914, a German steamship called the Lothringen reached Melbourne from Antwerp after 47 days at sea. Without access to telegraphy during their journey, the sailors had no idea that war had broken out between the German and British Empires. When the Lothringen docked here, a company of naval officers informed the Germans on board of the news. </p>
<p>Friedrich Meier, one of the sailors on board, recorded in his diary on 18 August 1914 that he and his comrades were “arrested, […] unsuspectingly, as prisoners of war.” Meier was removed to Langwarrin Internment Camp in Victoria, one of 11 “German Concentration Camps” around the country in which so-called enemy aliens were held during the war.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238797/original/file-20181001-195266-1swo791.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Locations of internment camps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Archives of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At first, only those born in countries with which Australia was at war were interned. Later, the policy was extended to include Australian-born descendants of enemy nations. Like Meier, those detained were very often civilians, thought to pose a threat purely on the basis of their heritage. </p>
<p>In total, around 7,000 people were interned in Australia during the first world war, including around 4,500 with German ancestry born or resident in Australia at the time war broke out. A new exhibition at the State Library NSW showcases the papers of German internees, one of six sets of holdings at the Library with UNESCO Memory of the World status. </p>
<p>Thanks to a collaborative translation project between the library and faculty and students from the University of Sydney’s Department of Germanic Studies, visitors to the exhibition can read internees’ stories in their own words.</p>
<h2>Camp life</h2>
<p>Though conditions varied between camps, life inside them was generally hard. A strict regime operated: “reveille” at 6.30 a.m., lights out at 10 p.m. Prisoners were required to submit to roll call twice a day, and to assemble for parade three times. In between, they might occupy themselves by reading, playing cards, or working, for instance, doing carpentry, like this internee in Holsworthy Camp.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238809/original/file-20181001-195278-1dxb6ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Internee carpenter at work in Holsworthy Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Visits from relatives were permitted, and correspondence was allowed, though letters could only be written in English. It was forbidden to keep a diary or any other written materials in German, or to write about political matters. A strict censorship system operated, with prisoners who spoke German or Croatian used to intercept potentially risky correspondence. Whatever was found, was confiscated, though the letters, diaries, and newspapers that remain demonstrate that much escaped the censors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238810/original/file-20181001-195256-2lkhg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Censor’s office at Holsworthy Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The remaining records illustrate how internees tried to make the most of their time. A lively parallel society developed in the camps, with cafes and sports clubs, theatre groups and football leagues. One of our students has translated an article in Holsworthy’s <em>Kamp Spiegel</em> newspaper which details one league’s efforts to set up a proper pitch to play on. </p>
<p>The <em>Kamp Spiegel</em> was one of several German-language newspapers that circulated illicitly inside the camps. Advertisements in <em>Die Welt am Montag</em>, the Trial Bay camp weekly, spruik the wares of Andreas Meiers, the proprietor of Café Habsburg, the “first and biggest food stall in the camp”. The Habsburg opened “every Monday and Thursday” and served a “variety of foods” including the speciality “braised beef with potato dumplings”. </p>
<p>Another restaurant, “next to the roller-skating rink”, advertised itself as a “Newly fitted, spacious and comfortable established locale”, where one could play “billiards and snooker”, and eat the “finest pastries” and “excellent lunches and evening suppers”. The Café Artist Klause, meanwhile, was positioned “opposite the German theatre”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238811/original/file-20181001-195272-n4b44k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Croatian internee employed as a translator in the Censor’s office at Holsworthy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Treading the boards</h2>
<p>The dramatic life of some inmates is revealed in the theatre criticism of the <em>Kamp Spiegel</em>. An anonymous reviewer writes encouragingly of his fellow detainees’ theatrical performances. In 1915 in Holsworthy camp, a theatre troupe, the Deutsche Theater Bühne, staged Hermann Sudermann’s 1905 play <em>Stein unter Steinen</em> (Stone among Stones). It tells the story of Jakob Biegler, a young and talented but hard-up stonemason’s apprentice who is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for killing his landlord in a heated confrontation. </p>
<p>The camp critic tells us that Mr Diederich’s portrayal of Zarncke, the benevolent master stonemason who gives Jakob work, was “quite superb”. Meanwhile, “Mr. Himmelmann’s natural gift for acting” allowed him to play the role of Lore, Jakob’s common law partner, “deftly and realistically”. </p>
<p>The pride in the improvement of each performer and in the ability of “our little stage” to convey the impression of a stonemason’s workshop is touching when one considers that many of these men were themselves manual workers confined for no other reason than their German heritage.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238825/original/file-20181002-195256-mefker.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Program cover of ‘Deutsches Theater Liverpool’ (DTL), the theatre troupe inside Liverpool Camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>German internees had little choice but to try and make a life in the camps: after all, nobody knew how long the war would last. But life was far from rosy. Conditions were cramped and unsanitary: not cleaning up properly after using the toilet facilities carried a punishment of solitary confinement. </p>
<p>Other punishments included restriction to a meagre diet of watery oats, and restraint using leg chains or a body belt. Guards taunted prisoners about life on the outside, and worries about families and businesses drove some to suicide, or to attempt escape. </p>
<h2>Poetic resistance</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238815/original/file-20181001-195282-bn0ghe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The illustrated poem ‘The Three Freedom-Seekers’ from Der Kamerad, June 1915.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library NSW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Among the materials our student translators have unearthed is an illustrated poem from <em>Der Kamerad</em> (The Comrade), the handwritten weekly published by prisoners of Torrens Island Camp, South Australia, in June 1915. It recounts a failed escape attempt, though it isn’t clear from the context whether these particular events actually took place or whether the poet is trading on hearsay.</p>
<p>The author tells us that the poem is to be sung to the tune of the German folk song <em>Es zogen drei Burschen wohl über den Rhein</em>. In its original form, the song goes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Three lads went a wandering over the Rhine,
<br>
A landlady welcomed them, gave them some wine. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In its modified form, the unnamed prisoner — who dedicates his poem to “The Three Freedom-Seekers” — writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It rained one evening with force so great,
<br>
The time in the camp was long after eight.
<br>
Three young lads, through the fence they did crawl,
<br>
The guards, they slept – who’d believe it at all?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The author continues by telling us that the “freedom-seekers” were caught and returned to the camp after 13 days, with “long hair and beards, many now turned grey” and concludes that “a moral can be learned” from this story: “Don’t run away from Torrens Island!”</p>
<h2>Returning home?</h2>
<p>After the war ended, these camps were closed. All internees were deported to Germany, regardless of whether they had any family ties there or had set foot on its shores. </p>
<p>In a mass letter of complaint, prisoners of Holsworthy camp “with wives, families or other dependants in Australia” pleaded to be released to their home on parole, or interned on house arrest with their loved ones. Over 1,000 people appealed deportation decisions, but only 306 were allowed to stay.</p>
<p>Like many others, Friedrich Meier was eventually also transported to Holsworthy to await deportation. In his final entry, he writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The majority of our camp is expected to depart on the 25th or 26th of month with the “Kursk” …, which is currently docked in Sydney.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike so many other German internees, Meier, at least, was returning home. </p>
<p>A hundred years later, the first world war is still largely commemorated as a conflict in which members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps — ANZACs — fought with the British Empire against the German and Austrian aggressors.</p>
<p>But the full picture is much more complex. While some German Australians fought on the side of the British Empire against their ancestral country, others were interned in camps. Their papers reveal the complex history of Australia’s first world war in more detail than ever before. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>The <a href="http://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/c.php?g=671848&p=4729959">exhibition</a> runs until March 2019. A public event will be held on the evening of 14 November 2018, revealing more findings from the translation project.</em></p>
<p><em>Acknowledgements: library curators Anna Corkhill and Margot Riley; student translators: Holly Anderson, Giulia Ara, Brigitta Bene, Alexander McDonald, Lauren O’Hara, Benjamin Walker, Ruby Watters. Images reproduced with permission of State Library New South Wales.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cat Moir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>4,500 people with German ancestry were interned in Australia when the first world war broke out. A new translation project sheds light on their experiences.Cat Moir, Lecturer in Germanic Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/983312018-06-22T05:06:03Z2018-06-22T05:06:03ZFrom World War II ‘enemy’ internment to Windrush: Britain quickly forgets its gratitude to economic migrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224202/original/file-20180621-137738-1vxn3cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Deported and drowned: an Italian memorial in London to those who died on the Arandora Star in 1940. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remembrance_for_the_Drowned_-_geograph.org.uk_-_679587.jpg">Martin Addison / Remembrance for the Drowned via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c9vwmzw7n7lt/windrush-scandal">Windrush scandal</a> of recent months, alongside revelations of the appalling conditions in <a href="http://www.aboutimmigration.co.uk/uk-detention-centres.html">immigration detention centres</a> in the UK, have highlighted serious issues with the way migrants are treated in Britain. </p>
<p>To Anglo-Italians in particular, interned in Britain during World War II, there are many similarities between their experiences almost 80 years ago and what the Windrush immigrants endured more recently. </p>
<p>The Windrush immigrants arrived from the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43782241">West Indies between 1948 and 1971</a> in order to help plug the British postwar labour shortage. Almost a century before, Italians had travelled to Britain in order to <a href="https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/italian-immigration-to-britain">run – and work in – cafes and restaurants</a>, in types of jobs not usually perceived as threats to British workers. With both the Windrush immigrants and the Italians, their labour was appreciated, even though they often suffered verbal and physical <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-36388761">abuse because of their race</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/windrush-generation-latest-to-be-stripped-of-their-rights-in-the-name-of-migration-control-95158">Windrush generation latest to be stripped of their rights in the name of 'migration control'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>During World War II, foreign nationals from countries with which Britain was at war became “enemy aliens” and were subject to various restrictions. A few months into the war, the order was given to <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/collar-lot-britains-policy-internment-second-world-war/">arrest them</a>. Up to 30,000 Germans, Austrians, and Italians were arrested during May and June 1940 and sent to temporary holding camps, and then to semi-permanent camps on the Isle of Man. The majority of the internees were men, though approximately 4,000 women and children were also interned. Some of the men were then deported to camps in Canada and Australia. </p>
<h2>Warth Mill</h2>
<p>The temporary holding camps where the internees were sent immediately after their arrest were barely habitable by the time the first of them arrived. The worst of all these camps by far, however, was <a href="http://www.lancashireatwar.co.uk/warth-pow/4587398310">Warth Mill</a>, in Bury, near Manchester.</p>
<p>Warth Mill was an abandoned cotton mill where buckets were provided as toilets, floors were covered in oil from abandoned machinery, windows were broken, and rats roamed freely. Although only in existence for a few weeks in 1940, the terrible conditions remained seared on the memories of those who experienced detention at Warth Mill, or “<a href="https://www.sussex.ac.uk/webteam/gateway/file.php?name=pistol-enemy-alien.pdf&site=15">Wrath Mill</a>”, as it was labelled by one of its inmates. </p>
<p>Like those in present-day immigration detention centres, the internees had no idea how long they would be held in detention, they lacked adequate healthcare, and were treated like criminals. The inhumane conditions at Warth Mill led to a <a href="https://www.warthmillsproject.com/stories/conditions-at-warth-mills/">hunger strike</a>, much in the same way that more than 100 women went on hunger strike at <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/yarls-wood-women-immigration-detention-centre-hunger-strike-home-office-a8223886.html">Yarl’s Wood</a> in February 2018. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/i-befriend-women-detained-at-yarls-wood-their-life-in-immigration-limbo-is-excruciating-92905">I befriend women detained at Yarl's Wood: their life in immigration limbo is excruciating</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Although many of the internees from Germany and Austria held at Warth Mill had only recently arrived in Britain as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKX0ZX6lXE">refugees from Nazi oppression</a>, for the Italian internees it was a very different story. The majority of them had lived in the UK for several decades and had established lives and businesses in the country. The often significant contributions to their communities were no protection against incarceration. </p>
<p>For those Italians of the 1940s who had not naturalised and become British citizens, their rights were limited in a similar way to those Windrush immigrants who have not gone through the naturalisation process. In the case of the Italians, Britain was at war – but the fact that the Windrush immigrants can be treated in such a similar way during peacetime is even more concerning.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tvKX0ZX6lXE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Dangerous deportations</h2>
<p>In June and July 1940, most of the internees at Warth Mill were being moved on to Liverpool and the Isle of Man. The Italian inmates presumed that would also be their fate, but unknown to them, a large proportion were selected by the authorities to be transported to Canada on a ship called the <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/collar-lot-britains-policy-internment-second-world-war/">Arandora Star</a>. When it left Liverpool 1 July, 1940, 1,678 men had been forced onto a ship designed to carry 500. </p>
<p>Internees were crammed below decks and the exits were guarded by barbed wire. On the morning of July 2, 1940, just over half those on board lost their lives when the <a href="https://www.warthmillsproject.com/stories/tragedy-of-the-arandora-star/">Arandora Star was torpedoed</a> by a German U-boat. Those that survived had to wait several hours in the freezing sea to be rescued and many were then loaded on to another boat, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10409026">the Dunera</a>, and sent on a traumatic journey to Australia.</p>
<p>Public opinion was initially in favour of the internment of Germans, Austrians, and Italians during the war. However, after the public became aware of the tragedy of the Arandora Star – and as a result of campaigns by various members of parliament – opinion changed and supported the release of “loyal” internees. It took several months, but eventually internees were able to apply for release and many of them served in the armed forces. </p>
<p>In a similar way, recent campaigns in the House of Commons, such as those <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2018/apr/16/national-day-of-shame-david-lammy-criticises-treatment-of-windrush-generation-video">spearheaded by David Lammy</a> have led to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/caroline-nokes-immigration-minister-apology-windrush-generation-a8331696.html">public apologies</a> and a review of policy. </p>
<p>What the Anglo-Italian community hoped several decades ago – and what the Windrush immigrants hope today – is that effective policy can be developed without the trauma immigrants have experienced in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Pistol has received funding from The Warth Mills Project, which is sponsored by the Heritage Lottery Fund.</span></em></p>During World War II, many Anglo-Italians who had come to the UK as economic migrants, were interned as ‘enemy aliens’ – and some deported.Rachel Pistol, Research associate, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/981922018-06-15T11:40:31Z2018-06-15T11:40:31ZGerman prisoners held comedy nights in British war camps – we recreated one<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223107/original/file-20180613-32307-1m3mzxo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Die show muss weitergehen!</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Ian Lowes Collection</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Picture an expensively furnished dining room with a table set for over 30 people. Dr Felix Volkart and his wife Hermine will later host a lavish party; she is already in full evening dress. Their young maid is sent to roll the carpet out to the street. An elderly manservant, Baumann, is slowed by nostalgia, trying Hermine’s patience to the limit. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>HERMINE: Go ask the cook whether the lobster has yet been brought; if not telephone.</p>
<p>BAUMANN: To whom? To the lobster?</p>
<p>HERMINE: No, to the delicatessen dealer. Number seven hundred and forty-six.</p>
<p>BAUMANN: It will all be attended to. Just to think, that 20 years have passed, and I still have the honour and the pleasure. </p>
<p>HERMINE (aside): He is incorrigible! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s the opening scene of Ludwig Fulda’s 1890 comedy Unter Vier Augen (<a href="https://archive.org/stream/byourselvesacom00wallgoog#page/n70/mode/2up">By Ourselves</a>), staged a century ago near Hawick in the Scottish borders. It was performed entirely in German as part of a <em>lustspielabend</em>, or comedy evening, of music and two plays – the other was Heinrich von Kleist’s Der Zerbrochne Krug (<a href="https://www.enotes.com/topics/broken-jug">The Broken Jug</a>, 1808). </p>
<p>The audience and actors needed this kind of distraction: they were in Scotland as prisoners of war. The show, which took place at the Stobs internment camp, was typical of those performed in British camps throughout World War I. They are a fascinating insight into a long-forgotten cultural history. </p>
<p>As part of the war centenary commemorations, a team from Edinburgh Napier University decided to recreate this evening. Now it is about to <a href="https://www.napier.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/research-search/news/a-night-at-stobs-ahrc-funded-performances-about-wwi-internment">do a mini-tour</a>. </p>
<h2>Objects of suspicion</h2>
<p>When war broke out, German citizens in Britain became objects of suspicion and surveillance. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/4-5/12/contents/enacted">Aliens Restriction Act</a> was immediately passed, which allowed internment camps to be set up to prevent men aged 17 to 55 from serving in enemy armies. Prisoners of war were soon added, too. </p>
<p>Besides the Scottish borders, other locations for camps included Alexandra Palace in London, Dorchester and Southend in the south of England, and Douglas and Knockaloe on the Isle of Man. In all, according to research shortly to be published by <a href="https://www.napier.ac.uk/about-us/news/comedy-and-cross-dressing-ww1-style">colleagues</a> on the Stobs project, Britain and its colonies interned 50,000 civilians and 90,000 military prisoners from Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey.</p>
<p>Theatrical nights were hugely popular. At <a href="http://www.knockaloe.im">Knockaloe</a>, on the remote western side of the Isle of Man, detainees staged 113 comedies, 42 plays, 15 dramas, 21 variety shows and a pageant over a period of just six months. At Stobs, Carl Rössler’s comedy <a href="https://www.amazon.com/f%C3%BCnf-Frankfurter-Lustspiel-Akten-German/dp/B076DR6H8J">Die Fünf Frankfurter</a> (The Five Frankfurters, 1911) was so popular it had to be performed seven times. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223223/original/file-20180614-32342-1vvta00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Ian Lowes Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223224/original/file-20180614-32310-nljqba.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Both shots from Die Fünf Frankfurter being performed at Stobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Ian Lowes Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stobs, which has lately been the focus of a <a href="http://www.stobscamp.org/2017-2019-project/">major memorial project</a>, held up to 4,500 detainees during wartime, though in 1916 the civilians all moved to Knockaloe. The war must have felt long in that windswept valley, and detainees had to keep themselves entertained – besides the drama club, there were musical instruments and a camp newspaper, Stobsiade. It was after hearing about that newspaper from my colleague <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/rachael-durkin-322650/articles">Rachael Durkin</a> that the idea to recreate a comedy evening came about. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223220/original/file-20180614-32310-1mm1rmu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stobs camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Manz / Hawick Museum</span></span>
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<p>Theatre shows in the camps helped guard against “barbed wire disease”, a dangerously depressive mixture of boredom and isolation. Performances would remind men about distant people and places, while popular German music provided powerful emotional cues. </p>
<p>Shows were dictated by practicalities – camps were men only, for example, so all women’s parts were performed by men in women’s clothing. The sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld later <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/hirschfeld_magnus">wrote</a> that such acts helped normalise same-sex relationships in Germany and elsewhere. </p>
<p>The evening we decided to recreate, using just six actors in multiple roles, opens with a rendition of the bombastic overture to Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, famous for the later section best known as the can-can. The next item is By Ourselves, followed by the interval. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vEnW5_GTooI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>The musicians return with a stereotypically German Strauss waltz. Then comes The Broken Jug, a comedy about justice and the closeness of rural life. The truth of the title incident is slowly revealed by a series of farcical events. </p>
<p>We judged that recreating this evening in its entirety would have been too long and would have said nothing about the context of the camp. After all, our challenge was to bring the history of internment to life. </p>
<p>Our theatrical director, Iain Davie, decided to create a performance within a performance. He commissioned the scriptwriter <a href="https://twitter.com/DraycottTrimm">Charity Trimm</a> to write a comedic play set backstage on the night in question, drawing on historical sources for authenticity and incorporating parts of the night’s performance. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223226/original/file-20180614-32304-14eaow5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rehearsal time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Iain Davie</span></span>
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<p>The characters in the backstage play include a college lecturer, a gymnast, a baker and a scientist. They’re acutely aware of life in other camps from letters from back home, down to the details of theatre props. The drama club is an ideal way to fill their time, until one actor injures himself and a more reluctant detainee has to step forward. </p>
<h2>Played for laughs</h2>
<p>The jaunty tone of these camp comedy evenings might seem strange to audiences today, but it shows how people cope under duress. Prisoners didn’t need reminded of their harsh reality, they wanted to focus on unavailable things such as privacy, intimacy, female companionship and fine foods.</p>
<p>We see something similar with British prisoners in German internment camps. The <a href="http://ruhleben.tripod.com">Ruehleben camp</a> near Berlin <a href="http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719070846/">also had</a> a theatre club, where they performed everything from Shakespeare to light operas such as Gilbert and Sullivan’s <a href="https://www.eno.org/operas/the-mikado/">The Mikado</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223227/original/file-20180614-32323-qoaj7v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Romance not dead.</span>
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<p>Indeed, entertainment and laughter have been getting humans through hardship for as long as we can remember. Examples include everything from the <a href="http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10413/9076/Stroebel_Maureen_2000.pdf;sequence=1">pastoral poetry</a> that was a common response to the English Civil War of the 1600s, to glam rockers and new romantics in the lean years of the 1970s and early 1980s. </p>
<p>This reality adds poignancy to the <em>lustspielabend</em> of the internment camps. Elsewhere home fires burned and millions of soldiers wrote letters from the front. But in remote corners of the British countryside were lonely fearful men, clapping and laughing and hoping for better times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98192/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Frayn received funding for this project from the AHRC. </span></em></p>Many thousands of Germans got through internment by performing farces, dressing up as women and clapping along to the can-can.Andrew Frayn, Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature and Culture, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.