Hay Internment Camp Cigarette Box

[German Internment Camps in Australia], c.1942 metal cigarette box with wooden base, which has, a hand-painted view on the lid, titled 'Internment -, Camp - Hay - N.S.W.' showing two barracks buildings, a stockade, fences and lights and is endorsed 'B to D, at upper left. The Hay Internment and Pow camps at Hay, were established during World War II as prisoner-of-war and internment centres, due in no small measure to the isolated location of the town. Three high-security camps were constructed in 1940. The first arrivals were over 2000 refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria, most of whom were Jewish, they had been interned in the United Kingdom when fears of an armed invasion of Britain were at their peak. The British government then made the decision to forcibly transport these refugees to Australia on the Hmt Dunera. The internees were kept in conditions on board the Dunera that were cruel and inhumane, and after the war the Dunera story became quite infamous, leading the British government to apologise for their egregious mistreatment of innocent civilian refugees.