Harry Pollack

Portrait of Harry Pollack, internee at Hay Camp Hospital, Hay, New South Wales. Hofmann was for several years himself an internee in the Hay Internment Camp. He was one of the refugees sent by the British Government on the ship HMT Dunera from London to Australia in 1940. The British Government responded to public panic over the 'enemy within' and temporarily interned thousands of foreign nationals. Canada and Australia agreed to assist with the process, and in July 1940, HMT Dunera set sail from Liverpool to Sydney carrying 22,542 male 'enemy aliens'. The vast majority of the deportees were strongly anti-Fascist and two-thirds of them were Jews. On arrival in Melbourne in September 1940, 500 deportees disembarked and were transferred to the Tatura Internment camp while the remaining men and youths went on to Sydney and were transferred to the Hay camps, and subsequently to Tatura. Hofmann was one of the latter, taken first to Hay, New South Wales and later to Tatura in Victoria.