Bonegilla Migrant Experience: Why should I visit this immigration museum in Wodonga?

One in 20 Australians has a relative who passed through the Bonegilla migrant camp in Wodonga. The museum on the site – the Bonegilla Migrant Experience – tells the story of post-war Australian immigration.

Detailed answer: It doesn’t take long inside the Bonegilla Migrant Experience to realise the first arrivals must have been terrified. The initial migrants came in 1947, fleeing post-war Europe where they had no homes to go back to.

The Second World War had ended. People left lost amongst the aftermath took a chance on being shipped to the other side of the world. When they arrived in Australia, they were packed on a train, then taken to mysterious camp in the middle of nowhere. Given what had happened in Europe, these poor immigrants must have feared the worst.

Australia’s largest migrant reception centre

That camp was Bonegilla, just outside Wodonga on the Victoria/ New South Wales border. Formerly an army camp, Bonegilla transformed into an internment camp for Italians during World War II. After the war, it became Australia’s largest and longest-operating migrant reception and training centre. At its busiest Bonegilla was a sprawling, 28 block campus of simple huts, housing 7,000 people.

The nightmare visions of Bonegilla didn’t quite match the reality. Tedium, rather than terror, was the mainstay.

Between 1947 and 1971, ‘populate or perish’ policies opened Australia to widespread European immigration. As part of this immigration wave, more than 300,000 migrants served time at the Bonegilla migrant camp.

Most underwent health checks, learned English and sat through lectures on the Australian way of life. Then, they went off to work somewhere else in the country. But Bonegilla migrant camp, to all intents and purposes, became a small town.

Visiting the Bonegilla Migrant Experience

One block is now a museum, the Bonegilla Migrant Experience. It doesn’t shy away from the racism at the Bonegilla migrant camp, either.

The first group welcomed in were the Balts fleeing Russian control. They looked suitably “Australian” (ie. White). Lighter-skinned northern Italians got preference over southern Italians.  Brits found themselves in the best-equipped huts.

Many of these immigrants were lured over by information sessions held in Europe. Back in their home countries, would-be migrants saw pictures of Bondi Beach and Sydney’s Royal Botanic Gardens.

They’d then arrive in Australia, quickly bundled off into the bush. The new migrants found themselves working on whatever needed doing, with existing skillsets almost entirely ignored.

Why put the migrant camp at Bonegilla?

But why Bonegilla? Well, location was key. New South Wales and Victoria had different rail gauges. This meant that trains running from Melbourne to Wodonga didn’t work on the line from Albury to Sydney. This is despite Albury-Wodonga effectively being one city separated by the Murray River, 328km from Melbourne.

With a migrant camp close to both train lines, it was easier to send workers wherever needed in either state. The existing army camp at Bonegilla was in roughly the right spot, and had plenty of room for expansion.

Individual migrant experiences

What the Bonegilla Migrant Experience does really well is using individual stories and anecdotes. These snippets from people who lived at the Bonegilla migrant camp tell a greater truth. And the accounts of every day camp life are just as fascinating as the insights into the migration system. Quotes plastered across the walls of the dorm style living quarters are worth reading.

It was a drearily basic existence. Everyone had their rationed grey army blanket, mug and plate, and electrical adaptors were like gold dust. Some dorms being 20 minutes’ walk from a toilet.

There was no partitioning of sleeping, eating and washing space either. This lack of privacy ground many migrants down. One quote from a Slovenian who arrived in 1949 reads: “The night was bitterly cold. We slept mainly completely dressed and were still freezing.”

Other quotes tell of being frightened by possums and snakes. Or being driven mad by loudspeaker broadcasts blaring from 7am to 7pm. Or being so sick of being served boiled mutton that many vowed never to eat lamb again.

Learning at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp

As a museum, the Bonegilla Migrant Experience is easily on a par with the Immigration Museum in Melbourne or Migration Museum in Adelaide. What makes it special is the sense of being where history happened.

The Bonegilla migrant camp is arguably the birthplace of modern Australia. Friendships and networks formed at Bonegilla became the foundations of ethnic communities. These became established in the big cities when the migrants moved on and settled for good.

Extraordinarily, one in 20 Australians today has a relative who passed through Bonegilla at some point. It is where Australia stopped becoming an adjunct of the UK, and its present international flavour began.

The Bonegilla Migrant Experience is open on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Entry is free.

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