80th Dunera Anniversary event – survival through sculpture
The Dunera Association together with Sydney’s Emanuel Synagogue and the Duldig Studio will present a special event to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the arrival in Australia of the Dunera and the Queen Mary.
Karl Duldig, DAWN, 1968, bronze. Monument to Jewish sportsmen victims of the Holocaust, Israel.
In September 1940, the British authorities deported German and Italian ‘enemy aliens’ from Singapore on the Queen Mary.
They were taken from Sydney to an internment camp in Tatura, Victoria, where they joined some of the Dunera internees who had disembarked in Melbourne.
The event highlights the contribution of the internees to Australian cultural life and explores the art of Karl Duldig, his wife Slawa and the collection of the Duldig Studio in Victoria.
Shortly after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Karl, a top-ranking Austrian tennis player as well as a highly regarded sculptor used his tennis connections to flee to Switzerland from where he organised for his wife, Slawa, and baby daughter, Eva, to join him. In 1939 they went to Singapore where the Duldigs established successful artistic careers. However, in 1940, with war imminent, the British authorities deported many of the Jews from Singapore to Australia.
After a passage on the Queen Mary, 267 Singapore refugees, escorted by 42 troops, arrived at Sydney on 25 September 1940. Two days later, following a train trip, trucks deposited them 1000km to the south-west at an internment camp near Tatura, in central Victoria.
They were interned in Tatura until 1942 when Karl joined the Australian army.
After the war Karl and Slawa re-established their lives and artistic careers in Melbourne. The Modernist art of Karl Duldig is internationally acclaimed and represented in cities around the world.
The former home and artists’ studio of Karl and Slawa Duldig was opened as a museum in 1996. Karl and Slawa’s daughter Eva de Jong-Duldig was the founding Director of the Duldig Studio and will be the keynote speaker at this event.
Eva was born in Vienna in 1938 and was interned with her parents at Tatura for almost two years. Her presentation will focus on the Jewish context of Karl’s works including his work in Vienna and for Jewish organisations.
Join us on Sunday November 15 from 4:00pm for this historic online event: https://tinyurl.com/duldig
