Displaced Persons MemorialPrint Page

The monument includes a sculpture commemorating wives and children of the refugees who worked on the Snowy Mountains Scheme. It also contains information boards and other memorials to the history of displaced persons who stayed in the area during these years.

The Uranquinty Migrant Centre was established as a result of the Displaced Persons Immigration Scheme that had been embarked upon by Prime Minister Chifley's government at the end of the Second World War as was a part of the Populate or Perish policy of the time. Under Arthur Calwell, Australia's first Minister for Immigration, displaced persons still in camps within Germany, Austria and France were chosen to fill the need for a constant supply of labour to the country.

Reception and training centres were established in now disused army and airforce camps in rural and remote areas such as Uranquinty from 1948, particularly because by then married displaced persons with their families were being allowed entry into Australia. Places like Uranquinty had the space to provide accommodation for the wives and children. Many of these displaced persons worked on the relatively nearby Snowy Mountains Scheme.
 

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