Dunera Lives: Profiles

The story of the ‘Dunera Boys’ is an intrinsic part of the history of Australia in the Second World War and in its aftermath. The injustice these 2000 men suffered through British internment in camps at Hay, Tatura and Orange is well known. Less familiar is the tale of what happened to them afterwards. Following on from volume one Dunera Lives: A Visual History (2018), Dunera Lives: Profiles continues the saga in life stories.

This second volume of Dunera Lives presents the voices, faces, and lives of 20 people, who, together with nearly 3000 other internees from Britain and Singapore, landed in Australia in 1940. All over the world there were Dunera lives, those of men and women who passed through the upheavals of the Second World War and survived to tell the tale. Here are some of their stories.

A contribution to the history of Australia, to the history of migrants and migration, and to the history of human rights, these two volumes put in the public domain a story whose full dimensions and complexity have never been described.

‘In the way it traces the lives of 'Dunera boys’ before, during and after internment, Dunera Lives: Profiles is narrative history in one of its most engaging and moving forms.‘ - Raimond Gaita