SENDING ALIENS TO AUSTRALIA.
CANBERRA, Tuesday.
In the House of Representatives this afternoon Mr. Martens (Lab., Qld.), said that the Government’s acquiescence in Britain’s proposal to send alien internees to Australia for safe custody was causing great alarm to many people.
If ships were available, they should not bring a “ready-made fifth column” to Australia, Mr. Martens said, but should be used instead to bring English women and children to the comparative safety of our shores.
The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 7 August 1940, p 13
ALIEN REFUGEES.
Sir,—I wish to add my appeal to tho many already made through your columns to fellow-Australians on behalf of refugees from Central Europe.
Those who have had even slight contact with these people i cause that they have been wounded in a way most difficult to heal—in their minds. They have seen and heard sights and sounds almost beyond the imagination of Australians.
I ask my fellow-Australians to remember it is a large part of our British tradition to shelter and care for people who need such protection. Our association with the words “Concentration camp” is with Berrima and little gardens and libraries for the Internees—as in 1914-18. With these people, who came to us before our countries were at war the words have a meaning wholly remote.
The letters published in to-day’s “Sydney Morning Herald” received by his mother from Harald Arnold Minibeck, a young highly-qualified Austrian doctor, with special degrees in relation to skin diseases, who took his life in Sydney on June 28, rather than face the picture in his mind of a concentration camp—should be read by every Australian before voting for wholesale internment of refugees—for his own peace of mind.
Yours faithfully,
M. E. CAMPBELL
Burwood, The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 9 August 1940, p 4