Berrima Internment Camp Huts Area is a heritage-listed former internment camp site at Argyle Street, Berrima, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. It formed an additional section of the former Berrima Internment Camp outside the walls of Berrima Gaol. It was established from 1915 to 1918. The camp was also known as the Berrima PoW Camp, the German Detention Camp and the German Concentration Camp. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 14 January 2011.
History
Completed in October 1839, Berrima Gaol's ten-metre-high outer walls were built close to the Wingecarribee River on the south western rear side. Located through the main gates of the jail was a narrow yard and the services building consisting of the kitchens, laundry, storerooms and a small chapel. Through this building was a second larger yard with a centrally positioned tower block, with north, south and west two-storey cell blocks radiating from it forming a "T" configuration and smaller corner yards. The jail's isolation cells were located in these corner yards. Most of the cells were small, 2.4 m square, however, there were larger cells, 2.4×3 m that served as duty rooms for guards and the infirmary.Simons, p34
Still in operation today, Berrima Gaol is the oldest functioning jail in Australia. The jail was renown throughout the 19th Century as a "foreboding" place where hardened criminals were sent.http://www.app.unsw.edu.au/research-docs/Jurisdiction/NSW3.asp 2010 Flogging was common practice as was solitary confinement in the underground cells deprived of light and sound. In 1862 all convicts sentenced to five years or more by NSW courts were subjected to a year of solitary confinement at the jail.Berrima Concentration Camp: Life on the River. p. 231
The Berrima Gaol served as NSW's principal jail until it closed its gates in 1909.
Berrima Internment Camp
In 1915, Berrima Gaol was reopened as an internment camp for German prisoners, serving as a satellite camp of the large Holsworthy Internment Camp at Liverpool, along with Trial Bay Gaol and a number of other facilities in the State.
With the declaration of War in 1914, people of German origin and German property immediately became the "enemy". As Germany had a number of colonies in the South Pacific, there were quite a number of merchant ships in the ports and German shipping vessels in various Australian harbours at the time of the declaration. As a result, the ships were seized by the Australian Armed Forces while in port and German passengers and crew were detained. Other merchant ships were captured offshore by the Navy.
Based on the British Government's concentration camp model during the Boer War (1899-1902), the Australian government adopted the principal by setting up concentration camps in each of the six States to intern the "alien enemy". By early 1915 there were almost 3,000 German internees in Australia. In order to aid communication between camps, to cut costs and to standardise the rules in terms of the treatment of prisoners, the concentration camps were closed in all states other than New South Wales and all internees were transferred to facilities within New South Wales. It was a long and unpleasant journey for many internees who travelled to New South Wales, some were handcuffed and some were treated roughly by officials.
There were some internees who were granted a reprieve from being detained in the camps. They were allowed to live in the community providing they observed conditions of their parole such as reporting to the authorities on a regular basis.
Holsworthy Internment Camp was the major camp to receive the large influx of internees who were being transported from region camps across Australia. There were also Department of Defence internment camps in Bourke in western NSW and Molonglo in the ACT.
Two other sites, Trial Bay and Berrima Gaols were set up as satellite camps in early 1915. Berrima Concentration Camp was to be predominately for ships officers and sailors, and Trial Bay camp mainly held German internees of prominent social standing such as businessmen and professionals.
The structure of Concentration Camps at the time was based initially on the British code of instructions "Royal Warrant", of August 1914. The constraints of the daily lives and treatment of the internees was later based on the Australian "Rules for the Custody of and Maintenance of Discipline among Prisoners of War in NSW". It outlined the compulsory requirements such as twice-daily roll call, rising and sleep and meal times. It also stated that an elected Internee Camp Committee would look after the "general welfare" of the internees and that Committee was to report to the Camp commandant. Under this main committee sat various other sub committees whose job it was to deal with various aspects of life in the camp such as recreation, theatre and music, kitchen services, education and other aspects.
Arriving by train to Moss Vale and then on foot along the long and rough road, the first group of 89 German internees arrived at Berrima in March 1915. The Defence Department had done little to the jail in preparation for its "new arrivals" other than clearing away the rubbish, making the buildings secure and building an observation platform and a small weatherboard hut for the Camp office. It was the condition of the jail upon arriving that the internees named the place "Ahnenschloss Castle of Foreboding". They had no personal items as their luggage had not arrived, the prison cells that were to be their home were mostly empty of furniture and other than a very few provisions like two blankets, the makings for a mattress, and eating utensils, the internees had very little in the way of comfort. Food was supplied, however, the internees had to prepare and cook their own food.Simons, p29
The majority of German internees to arrive at Berrima Camp were German merchant mariners, however, a minority of internees were prisoners of war from German colonies in the region and other men captured from the German Imperial Navy cruiser SMS Emden. A large proportion of the internees were middle to high-ranking merchantmen, including first officers, chief engineers and captains. Otto Pahnke and Robert Martens held very senior positions as senior supervisors of NGL and HAL lines. From photographs, Simons points out that photographic evidence suggests that these ranks were still observed at the camp level.
Part of Germany's Pacific fleet, SMS Emden was quite an infamous Naval cruiser that had many an Allied warship in search of it soon after outbreak of war. Captained by Fregattenkapitan Karl von Müller, the Emden captured many Allied merchant mariners and either took over their vessels or sank them. Having carried out an impressive action and successful raid on Penang in the Battle of Penang where the SMS Emden sank the Russian cruiser Zhemchug and the French destroyer Mousquet, the cruiser steamed off to the Cocos Islands to destroy an important cable wireless communication station linking Australia with the rest of the world. A convoy of Australian and New Zealand warships heading to Colombo picked up wireless activity from SMS Emden and HMAS Sydney's English Captain Glossop gave the order for his vessel to break away from the convey to deal with the cruiser. Shells were fired from both vessels but the Emden was no match for the Sydney which eventually set the Emden on fire and blew away its control tower, bridge and severely damaged its steering. One hundred and thirty six of Captain von Muller's crew were killed and a further sixty-five badly injured before the Emden finally ran aground on a reef of Windward Island in the North Keeling Group.
In the publication Prisoners in Arcady - German Mariners at Berrima 1915-1919, Simmons noted that the Emden men interned at the Berrima Concentration Camp included Chief Engineer Walter Bergien, Engineers Gerhardt Freund and Otto Fisher, Navigator Otto Monkeskieck and Bosun Karl Muller. Martin Meyer, also interned at Berrima was a young reservist who joined the Emden crew as vice navigator and soon after promoted to Lieutenant but was not on the vessel during its last days. This was the case with Bergien, Monkedieck and Muller.
Daily life for the internees at Berrima Gaol was structured around morning roll call and evening roll call at 5:00 pm. Between these two defining events, the internees were free to wander within a two-mile radius of the jail and were locked up during the evening.
Berrima's small population doubled with the arrival of the "enemy aliens" and the guards. The sleepy town once again began to prosper, playing an important role in providing services to the "new arrivals". The internees bought food, such as bread and meat and other supplies from the village stores. Relations between the townspeople, new and old, were relatively harmonious. The vast majority of the internees spoke some English due to their maritime background and could converse relatively well with the local people. Berrima also played host to families of the internees. They rented houses in the village and there began more interaction with the community, with internees often helping out in the community where needed. A school was set up in a slab hut for the children as evidenced in a photograph showing children, teacher and a sign "Tochterschule Berrima 1917".
The Winagecarribee River played an important role in the daily lives of the internees, providing many opportunities for swimming, fishing and boating along its course. The river winds its way through the Moss Vale and Berrima, around the cliff face below the rear of the town's jail and then flows eleven kilometres downstream. The bank of the river was reasonably heavily wooded in 1915 with native shrubs and grasses as well as tea trees. Platypuses were plentiful in the river up until the 1940s when the exotic Willow took over the banks of the river.
Wide, deep water pools also were a feature at various points along the twisting waterway. One such pool was located just downstream from the jail. This area was a popular swimming hole for not just the internees but also the villagers and the many visitors to Berrima. The internees named this pool Grosse See, meaning Great Lake and being close to the jail, it was a major place of activity for them. A half kilometre west from this water hole was another deeper wider pool that the internees used extensively. This pool was given the name Lake Titicaca.Simons, p35
To provide better water-based amenities for themselves the internees turned their hand at altering the waterway. From local rocks and clay they constructed a dam downstream from Lake Titicaca which raised the water levels in the water hole and the river upstream from it by one metre. Damming the river was a plan that the villagers had hoped that the Administration would have embarked on for many years previous to the construction by the internees.Simons, p46
Utilising the river for swimming was an instantly popular recreational activity amongst the internees. They swam from the sandy beaches in the river's coves and erected diving platforms around the deeper water holes. Boating was also a big feature of life on the river with Venetian carnivals being held along with competitive water sports and other such events. Being experienced seamen, the idea of building a boat was not a daunting task. Simple canoes were constructed as well as fleets of elaborately built and decorated rowing and sailing boats. One notable carnival reported in the local newspapers was a "mock battle" staged by the Berrima Guard, where two watercraft representing the SMS Emden and HMAS Sydney fought it out on the waters of Lake Titicaca close to the Hansa Bridge. The carnivals were usually held on culturally important days, such as the birthdays of German royalty.