AUTHOR Victoria Purman will launch her latest release The Last of the Bonegilla Girls at the Mount Gambier Library tonight at 7pm.
The historical saga will give readers a clear insight into the Bonegilla Migrant Camp – a sprawling ex-Army camp on the River Murray in Victoria.
Between 1947 and 1971, more than 320,000 people passed through the camp after arriving in Australia, mainly from Europe, looking for new lives and better opportunities.
“Following the end of WWII, the Australian government campaigned for population growth and in return for free passage and help on arrival, newly arrived migrants to the Bonegilla Camp would in return work for the government for two years”, Mount Gambier Library community engagement coordinator Kristi Leamey explained.
The Last of the Bonegilla Girls is set in 1954 and follows 16-year-old Hungarian Elizabeta, who arrives in Australia with her family hoping to escape the hopelessness of life as a refugee in post-war Germany.
Not wanting to leave her village, Elizabeta soon comes to realise all that her parents have sacrificed to give her a better future.
Her first stop is the Bonegilla Migrant Camp where she becomes good friends with three other girls from very different backgrounds.
“This novel has been inspired by Victoria’s own grandparents, who travelled from Germany with their five children to start a new life in 1954,” Ms Leamey said.
“They had brought with them two suitcases, a wooden trunk and memories of their birthplace devastated by the war.”
With one in 20 Australians related to or descended from someone who went through the Bonegilla Migrant Camp, the book will appeal to a wide audience and those looking to gain a better understanding of their own family history or Australian history in general.
Tonight’s launch is a free community event with bookings required for catering purposes.
Book online at www.mountgambier.sa.gov.au or call 8721 2540.
