Private MAX SCHWARTZ V510653, A.C.M.F. 8th Emp. Coy., Australian Army Labour Service who died age 26 on 30 December 1943 Son of Marcus and Ceilea Schwartz, of Vienna, Austria. Remembered with honour TOCUMWAL GENERAL CEMETERY CWGC :: Cemetery Details
The AWM ROH lists Cause of death as Accidental (Drowning). His NAA files haven't been digitised but the WW2 nominal roll lists his locality at time of enlistment as Tatura which was the location of a large internment camp for foreign nationals. Most notably "The Dunera Boys" In the early days of World War II, the British, responding to a fear of “the enemy within” temporarily interned thousands of individuals. Australia and Canada agreed to help “the mother country” and in 1940, the HMT Dunera brought a group of 2500 refugees, mostly Jewish refugees, from Nazi Germany to Australia. Singapore, having accepted a number of refugees in the 1930’s also intensified measures against ‘enemy aliens’. Australia was prepared to accept this group also, on a temporary basis. Over 200 internees arrived on the troopship, Queen Mary, in September 1940. The internees were kept in internment camps in rural Australia and over time were released. Many elected to remain in Australia and a number served with Australia’s Defence Forces, notably the 8th Employment Company. The Dunera Affair - Israel & Judaism Studies
This lad died on the same day at Tocumwal. In Memory of Private ULRICH SIEGMUND LAUFER V510654, A.I.F. 8th Emp. Coy., Australian Army Labour Service who died age 20 on 30 December 1943 Son of Dr. Kurt Laufer and Ella F. Laufer; nephew of Mrs. E. Rosenthal, of New York City,. Remembered with honour TOCUMWAL GENERAL CEMETERY
Struth Spidge - you have managed to double the sadness of this thread......... Here we have a couple of promising young blokes who were chased out of their homeland through persecution (and to save their lives from the regime). They end up in Britain where they get arrested and ultimately shipped to Australia on what appears to have been a hell voyage by itself. They then end up in internment camps in some of the least hospitable parts of the country. Eventually they are allowed to join the Australian Army - in an employment company. One of these blokes was a medical student and the other a commercial artist in their home countries. Finally they end up in Tocumwal and both of them drown in the Murray river.....
Possibly one tried to save the other as often occurs. Neither may not have been strong swimmers and the river ran quite quickly in those days.
Reading the newspapers show quite a few drownings around the same time - apparently big rains up north around Xmas must have led to increased river levels all the way down the line.