More than 300,000 migrants passed through the gate of the Bonegilla Migrant Centre near Albury/Wodonga between 1947 and 1971, with most of those migrants coming from non-English speaking European countries.
In December 2007, the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre was recognised as a place with powerful connections for many people in Australia. Today Block 19 is a public memory on post-war immigration that changed the composition and size of the Australian population.
Like those 300,000 others, I arrived in Bonegilla on 8th August 1965; unlike most of those 300,000, I only stayed for two nights because two nights were more than enough in what was essentially an ex-army camp stripped of all amenities which made a POW camp look like CLUB MED.
Find your own registration card at idcards.bonegilla.org.au
For more click here
Bonegilla has remained a powerful connection for me but I may never see it again as my travelling days are over. Instead, I lashed out two hundred and fifteen dollars to have my name added to their Arc Memorial Sculpure - click here. A small price for a bit of immortality.
Today I received an email from the friendly people who run the Bonegilla Migrant Experience asking former "inmates" to dust off and donate the types of clothing we wore during our time in the camp in the 1960s so they may be added to their hands-on interactive display.
What a pity I didn't know it then. I could've kept the pair of underpants I had shat myself in the moment I clapped eyes on that camp in 1965.
