Back to search results » Back to search page »

Tatura Prisoner of War Camp

Location

1320 Stewart Road,Tatura, GREATER SHEPPARTON CITY

File Number

Original Hermes No: 76327

Level

Statement of Significance

NUMBER ONE INTERNMENT CAMP
1320 STEWART ROAD TATURA and 1275 CRAWFORD ROAD TATURA
VHR Number H2048
File Number HER/2002/000306

Other Names NO.1 INTERNMENT CAMP

Municipality Greater Shepparton City

Extent of Registration : 1. All of the land marked L1 on Diagram 2048 held by the Executive Director being all of the land described in Certificate of Title Volume 9528 Folio 467.
2. All of the above and below ground archaeological relics on the registered land including (but not limited to): Cafe Welblech, the skittle alley, the Cell building, the drainage channels, and the garden beds and garden path remnants.
Other Listings 1 Greater Shepparton City Planning Scheme

Heritage Act Categories Archaeological place;Heritage place

Click on the arrow below to view the Item Categories.

Item Categories
Item Group Item Category
Military Internment Camp

Click on the arrow below to view the Statement of Significance. Note: Some records may not yet have a Statement of Significance.
Statement of Significance

What is significant?Number One Internment Camp is located on the eastern side of Waranga Reservoir, 20 kms south of Tatura. It was Australia's first purpose built internment camp for housing enemy aliens and/or prisoners of war. Camp 1 was established in 1940 and was closed in 1947. The camp housed male civilian internees, first of German origin and later of Italian origin who had been resident in Australia. The camp is a superb archaeological site with most of its features such as huts, ablution blocks, kitchens, tennis courts, gardens, ponds, skittle alley, cafe hall, sewerage works and security fencing easily recognised.

How is it significant?Number One Internment Camp is of historic, cultural, social and archaeological significance to the State of Victoria.
Why is it significant?Number One Internment Camp is historically significant for its association with the Australian internment policy of the first half of the twentieth century. Camp 1 was the first of eighteen purpose-built camps, a number of which were constructed in the Goulburn Valley. Crucial to the significance of the camp is its capacity to demonstrate to all visitors a direct impact of World War II on Australia. Although many of the internees were Australian residents, they were thought to be a potential security risk to the nation because of the country of their birth or their affiliations. The ruins and the landscape illustrate clearly the physical environment faced by internees and the organisational arrangements of World War II internment camp.
Number One Internment Camp is historically significant due to the impact it had on persons of German origin in Victoria. Germans represented one of the major national groups in the early waves of immigration to Australia. Although numerically fewer than British or Irish settlers, they nevertheless had a substantial impact in forming the Australian society. Internment demonstrated to them that they were not considered a part of Australian society, which was at that time dominated by British values and politics.
Number One Internment Camp is archaeologically significant because it contains an abundance of archaeological evidence on the layout and operation of the camp and life within the camp. Local historians have recorded the memories of former German and Italian Internees who have returned to erevisit' a period of their live which had a profound effect on them. The compactness of the camp, and the quality and depth of surviving sources of information (archaeological, historical and oral history) bestows the ruins with tremendous social significance as touchstones to the experience of wartime internment.

Group

Military