Silent for 80 years, music from war camps plays again
The musical notes were scrawled on bits of toilet paper, tissue and card, sitting silent in a bundle for decades.
1963 Dunera Reunion
A folder of the scribbled manuscripts was handed to the organist at a suburban Sydney church, who gave them to his daughter, violist and historical music academic Nicole Forsyth.
She was overwhelmed when she looked inside: “It was incredible, it was a whole chapter of 20th-century Australian history.”
The package contained the compositions of Max-Peter Meyer, one of more than 2000 men shipped to Australia on the Dunera at the beginning of World War II, considered “enemy aliens” by the British government.
Many onboard were, in fact, Jewish refugees who fled to Britain from Nazi-occupied Europe, along with Italian and German prisoners of war. There were eminent artists, writers, philosophers and musicians among them.
The men and boys endured abysmal conditions during their two-month journey on the Dunera, as they were beaten and abused by British soldiers, who allowed them only 30 minutes of fresh air and light each day.
Meyer composed a mass onboard the ship, and music and art continued to be a salve when the men were taken to internment camps in Hay, in western NSW, and Tatura, in northern Victoria.
The internees, who became known as the “Dunera boys”, set up unofficial universities and established choirs and orchestras.
Some created their own currency, colourful bank notes with a haunting hidden inscription: “We are here because we are here because we are here.”
The men sought relief from the torment of their uncertain fate, especially those who left families behind in Britain.
“Music within these camps was something to pass the time, an intellectual and cultural life really sustained them,” Ms Forsyth said.
“The music was used as a source of hope, being able to take your brain and your soul from behind the barbed wire.”
Meyer’s compositions, including a piano quartet, have been rarely heard in the eight decades since they were performed by the internees.
Ms Forsyth is recreating the quartet at a performance and guest lecture at the Orange Regional Museum next Friday as part of its exhibition Enemy Aliens, which includes artworks and personal items from the archives of Dunera boys’ relatives.
The exhibition explores the lesser-known stories of the internees’ time in the central west town, where some men stayed for six weeks.
Performers from the Orange Regional Conservatorium will join Ms Forsyth to play the movements, which flow from a children’s lullaby to a psalm and a rollicking rondo.
She will think of Oswald von Wolkenstein, one of the youngest men on the Dunera, who held onto Meyer’s music and gave it to her father in the hopes of hearing it played again.
Ms Forsyth said there is an enormous responsibility to respect the legacy of the Dunera boys, some of whom went on to forge new lives in Australia and influence the nation’s art and culture.
“When I’m looking at history, I always want to know not what it looks like, but how it sounds.
“It’s like being able to contact ghosts over decades by putting your finger on that note again.
“The story is really important with this music, to be able to tell the story of those refugees wordlessly through the pure emotion of music.”
AAP
