Greta Migrant Camp

The army years

The Commonwealth acquired 2,930 acres in the Allendale–Greta area in November 1939. Construction began quickly, and the 2/11th Battalion arrived on 15 December. More facilities were added during the war as Australian Imperial Force and militia units trained here. After the fighting ended, some surrounding training land returned to grazing while the camp prepared troops for occupation service in Japan. Its transfer to the Department of Immigration in 1949 began a different phase in the same buildings.

Arriving by train

The first large transfers from Bathurst reached Greta in early June 1949. On 19 August, Fairsea passengers disembarked at Newcastle and continued to the camp by train; the Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations records 1,096 people in that group. June brought transfers from another Australian reception centre, while August brought arrivals directly through Newcastle.

Reception, accommodation and work

Chocolate City processed arrivals and allocated men to employment; Silver City accommodated dependants while families sought a place to live. These roles could change with demand. Gretel Evans’s study describes how the two-year government employment contract shaped family life. Work could take men to Queensland cane fields, steelworks, railways or the Snowy Mountains Scheme, leaving their families in the camp.

A family account published online records a later arrival. German migrants who reached Australia in January 1955 were taken to Sydney and then by train to Greta because the Bonegilla migrant camp was full. The same account describes migrant men working at the BHP steelworks at Newcastle staying in Nissen huts opposite the old Newcastle abattoir site while their families remained at the camp.

Everyday life in the two sections

Each section had a school, cinema, canteen and chapels, with the main hospital in Silver City. Teachers came through the Education Department, and an employment office operated at the camp. The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations describes separate administrations for Chocolate City and Silver City, headed by a director or commander. Its account also describes basic accommodation and families separated by employment. These practical arrangements made the camp both a temporary home and an administrative centre.

Remembering arrival

The experience of Greta could look very different to a child and to a parent. In interviews studied by Evans, younger and longer-term residents often remembered the camp affectionately, while adults and older children recalled greater difficulty. Ingrid Rudolph, who arrived aged ten in August 1949, remembered empty barracks and families hanging blankets to make private spaces. Her account connects the army origins of the buildings with the immediate challenge of making them suitable for family life.

One family, two camps

Lydia Mamtschak recalls arriving in Sydney with her parents on 6 June 1949. After two weeks at Bathurst, she and her mother were sent to Greta while her father went to Chullora. He repaired train seats at Redfern Railway Yards. Her account brings the family separation described in administrative histories down to one household: mother and daughter in the Hunter Valley, father working in Sydney. She also recalls that her father’s legal qualifications and her mother’s teaching qualifications did not lead to work in their professions.

A choir, a school and a stage

In his 1966 history of Ukrainians around Newcastle, Mykhailo Nimtsiv recalls a mixed Ukrainian choir appearing at Greta in August 1949. Roman Hrobelko had organised it during the voyage to Australia; Volodymyr Yankivskyi and Leonid Medvediv later conducted choirs at the camp. Ukrainian residents also taught, organised children’s activities and performed at concerts. Nimtsiv names Roman Drahan and Yevhen Haran among the teachers, and Nina Parubocha and Olena Zaiats among childcare workers.

Family visits and community organisers

Saturdays brought husbands back from their workplaces to visit wives and children. Nimtsiv recalls concerts, dancing and exhibitions of embroidery, rugs, painted eggs and other objects residents had brought with them. He credits Roman Drahan with organising the Ukrainian community and describes his own work establishing a school and Plast group. These activities were difficult to sustain as families moved out to establish permanent homes.

Ukrainian Catholic worship

The Catholic parish history in Ukrainians in Australia dates Father F. Boskyi’s first Divine Liturgy at Greta camp to the end of March 1950. A letter from Father M. Kopiakivskyi, dated 8 April 1951 and reproduced in the same volume, describes Boskyi’s pastoral visits to Greta and reports 200 families belonging to their community there. The letter recalls priests hearing confessions, celebrating services and teaching children during their visits to migrant camps.

Life in the photographs

Newcastle Libraries preserves photographs contributed by former Greta residents alongside official and newspaper images. A Mary Ashton series photograph shows two families outside a Chocolate City hut: timber steps lead to separate doors, and a child stands beside a tricycle. The catalogue identifies the Stajkowski and Musialik families and dates the photograph to 1949–1954. A Peter Naglost series school photograph records another part of daily life: children pose outside a corrugated building with a board reading “No. 1 Migrant School, Greta Camp, 3B, 1952”. An Immigration Department image shows Girl Guides and Brownies gathered outdoors in 1954. These photographs give a closer view of accommodation, education and recreation than administrative totals alone.

Closure and later uses

Evans, citing Val Randall, records a final meal for 107 residents on 5 January 1960 before their departure for Villawood. Formal closure followed on 15 January. Buildings were then sold and dismantled. The Army regained control in 1962, according to the Australian War Memorial, and used the site intermittently for training before its sale at auction in 1980.

A community beyond the camp

Greta’s Ukrainian community continued after the reception camp closed. The 1966 church history records that local faithful bought land and built a church hall in 1960, partitioning part of it as a chapel. Nimtsiv describes 23 Ukrainian families settled in Greta, with a chapel, community hall and Sunday school. These were institutions of the town’s continuing community, where families could meet after leaving camp accommodation.

A place people returned to

Former residents returned for the 2019 anniversary weekend, marking eighty years since the army camp opened and seventy since migrant arrivals began. Speaking at Greta, Governor-General David Hurley recognised both histories and the contribution of former residents to postwar Australia. His commemorative account estimated that around 100,000 migrants, including Ukrainians, passed through the camp over its eleven years of operation.

The Margaret Henry Oral History Archive at the University of Newcastle holds interviews with people who were at the Greta Migrant Camp. Its catalogue lists Felix Dangel under the title “Greta Migrant Hostel”, Elly Slechter under “Immigration of Displaced Persons to Australia Greta Camp” and Ann Buldecki under “Greta Migrant Camp”, together with Bazil Manunczak on displaced persons in the Hunter Region; the recordings themselves have not been consulted here. The Greta Historical Museum holds material on both the Greta Army Training Camp and the migrant camp that followed it.