What a contested site in the pantheon of my memories is occupied by Bonegilla. My parents stayed in Bonegilla for about a week in August 1955 and occasionally, as an adolescent, when I would ask them about what this was exactly, this Bonegilla, they would just say it was a camp that they had to stay in for about a week. When I asked them how they wound up there they would just brush it aside and say that’s how things were at the time and that they were very happy there as they were together, they had each other, and that’s all that mattered.

My father sacrificed his love for his country to travel to the farthest point on the global map that he could find. He was from a family of shepherds. My mother was from a family of craftsmen, policemen, journalists and priests, who had relocated from Athens to Almiropotamos – a tiny spec of a seaside village on the island of Evia – where my maternal grandmother had inherited a small house. My maternal grandfather was a master carpenter, servicing Almiropotamos and the surrounding villages, and his family was considered a very fine, upstanding one. Meanwhile, my father fell madly in love with their eldest daughter. My mother’s family was vehemently opposed to the union, forbade them from marrying in the village, prompting them to take a perilous sea trip to Athens, marry there, and then soon after leave for Australia in 1955.

And so, Bonegilla loomed as this sunny place that provided a sanctuary for my beleaguered parents. But, as Virginia Wolf had so wisely said, it is the literary text that reveals the truth or, at least, facilitates the truth coming out. In this context, the literary text in question was that of a play, a dramatic enactment.

In the early 1980s I joined Tes Lyssiotis’ theatrical troupe. The first play, ‘I’ll go to Australia and wear a Hat’ that explored post-war migration of Greeks to Australia was an astonishing success. Buoyed by this, Tes then decided to devise a play about Bonegilla, under the ironic title ‘Hotel Bonegilla’ that would explore the conditions that lead to the riots of the 1950s and 1960s. She asked us to find people who had stayed in the camp and interview them as that would enrich our improvised dialogues. I remember feeling like I was undergoing an out of body experience. Tes talked to us about the confusion, the cultural and linguistic isolation, and the general despair that pervaded this camp that was – at that time – over 5 hours from Melbourne in the middle of ‘nowhere’.

Needless to say, I started to place this family mythology of Bonegilla as a bucolic wonderland within the context of hidden traumas that are at the heart of migration. After considerable prodding from me, much more nuanced recollections were uttered.

After a truly horrendous voyage on the ship Skaugum, where the men and women were divided into separate uncomfortable and vaguely filthy ‘barracks’ – and during which my mother nearly died from malnutrition – they finally arrived in Port Melbourne. A few distant relatives of my mother’s had already settled in Melbourne, one of whom – her cousin, a young single man – was waiting for them. Upon disembarking, my parents were informed through this man who knew a little English that they must go to Bonegilla if they wanted to gain work in this country. They were given no choice. My mother’s cousin, seeing how scared my mother was, promised he would travel to Bonegilla the following weekend to check that they were ok.

My parents took no issue with the accommodation or the food in Bonegilla. The walls were paper thin with cracks everywhere and the food was nothing like the food they were used to, but they were together, and they never lost sight of the privilege of that throughout their lives. However, when they were there in the mid-fifties it was winter and there was no heating, people were freezing. It was huge, a sea of sparse cold rooms, and felt like a prison. There was always a long que at the central toilet and shower facilities and people just gave up waiting most of the time. During my parents’ stay most of the immigrants were Greek and, despite any rhetoric to the contrary, there were no interpreters whatsoever. They simply shared amongst themselves the meagre number of English words that they knew to make sense of what was going on.

By the end of the week, my father was informed that he was going to be sent to work on the Queensland sugar plantations for six-months while my mother had to stay behind in Bonegilla. And so, their dream of migration affording them the right to set out on a new life together disintegrated before their very eyes. However, the weekend before my father was due to leave, my mother’s cousin miraculously stayed true to his word, made his way to Bonegilla – not easy in those days – bribed an official and took my parents back to Melbourne, where they immediately found work, became Australian citizens as soon as they could and settled happily and gratefully into their new life. They harboured a profound love and respect for my mother’s cousin throughout their lives.

There is a postscript to this narrative. Several decades later, my parents and I travelled to Bonegilla as there was a reunion of immigrants who stayed there in the 50s. We went by car and my mother commented as to how much more beautiful the countryside appeared to her now as opposed to then. My parents were visibly moved and stated that there are moments when our lives truly are at the mercy of the winds.

My trip to Bonegilla last week was bittersweet for me. My husband and I went up by train – passing through the same landscape, walking through the same buildings and grounds – just as my late parents had done nearly 70 years ago…

The above article formed part of the recent launch of the ‘Finding Home Exhibition’ jointly organised by La Trobe University’s Dardalis Archives, the La Trobe University Albury-Wodonga Campus, Wodonga Council, in partnership with the Bonegilla Migrant Experience.

*Dr Konstandina Dounis is a cultural historian, writer and literary translator at Monash Education Academy, Monash University.