Volunteers are making records relating to Holocaust survivors who migrated to Australia more accessible.

The records

The National Archives' Victoria office holds a series of records relating to sponsorship of Holocaust survivors to Australia. The series is B4064 – Applications for admission of relative or friend to Australia form 40, single number series (1945–1946).

In August 1945, Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell approved a scheme for Holocaust survivors to be sponsored to Australia. The nominees had to be former concentration camp inmates, forced labourers, deportees or those who were in hiding during the war. The sponsors had to be close relatives already resident in Australia. The scheme was later extended to Jewish refugees who had been trapped in Shanghai during the War.

Under the scheme, sponsors sent application forms to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry. These provided details of both sponsors and nominees. 'Schedules' (bundles) of application forms were then sent to the Minister for Immigration for approval.

The application forms in B4064 relate predominately to Holocaust survivors nominated by members of Melbourne's Jewish community. Each form contains a range of information about both the Holocaust survivor and their sponsor.

Students from Monash University have been helping the National Archives make these historically significant records more accessible. So far, over 1,000 individual application forms from B4064 have been repackaged and listed on RecordSearch.

'Present address: Dachau Concentration Camp'

No doubt, behind each application is a story of personal tragedy and survival. In November 1945, Stanley Korman of Brighton in Melbourne sponsored his cousin Abram. Stanley listed Abram's present address as 'Dachau Concentration Camp'. Lipman Jedwab was listed as still being at 'Buchenwald Camp, Germany'. One of the younger nominees, 1 year-old Andrea Bodor, was born 'on the way from Hungary to Belsen'.

Family reunions

Many of the sponsors were themselves refugees from Nazi persecution. Amongst them were Ernst and Kora Singer, who arrived from Austria in late 1938. In 1942, Kora's parents were sent to Theresianstadt Concentration Camp. Kora’s father died there a few months later, but her mother Amalie survived.

In November 1945, Kora applied to sponsor her mother to Australia. She was included in the fifth schedule approved by Arthur Calwell. Amalie arrived in August 1946, just a few months after her grandson Peter Singer, the world-famous philosopher and ethicist was born.

An internationally renowned survivor

Amongst the most interesting discoveries in the series has been sponsorship applications for internationally renowned Holocaust survivor Dr Viktor Frankl. Frankl, who was a Viennese psychiatrist, survived Auschwitz, but his parents, brother and wife all perished.

Frankl's sponsors were his only surviving sibling Stella and her husband Walter Bondy. Stella and Walter had made it to Melbourne before the war. Viktor ultimately chose not migrate to Australia, returning to Vienna instead. There he became a world-renowned psychiatrist, academic and author. He drew on his experience and observations in the death camps to inform his psychological theories and his best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning.

The National Archives would like to thank Sue Hampel OAM of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University for helping to facilitate this volunteer project. The Monash University students who worked on the project were Evelyn Tan, Abby Goldstein, Clare Moffat and Alicia Sach. The assistance of Arthur Calwell's daughter, Dr Mary Elizabeth Calwell is also gratefully acknowledged.