Post-WWII ship passengers honoured during Southern Forests heritage festival

The stories of nearly 8000 displaced people and refugees who arrived in Australia aboard a ship after World War II were presented in Bridgetown as part of the Southern Forests and Valleys Heritage Festival.

Many of the passengers from the Anna Salen ship settled in the Warren Blackwood region in the early 1950s, with close to 10,000 people migrating via the ship to Australia.

Greenbushes Discovery Centre chair Amanda Lovitt presented a talk on the Anna Salen immigrants to Australia to honour her father, and other passengers.

The presentation was a culmination of her research on post-WWII refugees to Australia, with her father arriving in 1950 from Czechoslovakia.

Ms Lovitt said her father Peter Haas, born in 1928, arrived in Australia on December 31. He soon married and had children in the region.

Proud of her heritage, Ms Lovitt said when she became a justice of the peace she began carrying the Bible her dad was presented when he received Australian citizenship.

“There is much written on descendants of survivors of the Holocaust and many of those align with the generational trauma of First Nations,” Ms Lovitt said.

“I wanted to honour my Dad. He had a hard life, and I wanted to tell the stories of his fellow passengers on the ship that arrived 31st December, 1950.

“Personally, I feel I have honoured my Dad’s memory and realised that while his life was hard, so were the lives of so many of these people.

“They all played their part in modern multicultural life in Australia. Some used their struggles to succeed in many aspects. Some fell and took their lives or had criminal offences.”

Ms Lovitt spoke earlier this month as part of the heritage festival.

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