National conference of historians and war vets will discuss prisoners of war

The trauma, social legacy and cultural myths surrounding Australian military and civilian prisoners of war will be explored in a national research conference at the Australian National University in Canberra.

The two-day conference, on 5 and 6 June, will bring together historians, war veterans and defence-force specialist advisers. Research will be presented on the experiences of more than 34,000 Australians held captive during both world wars. Japanese troops captured 22,000 Australians during the second world war, for example, but only 13,872 were recovered when the war ended—more than one-third died in camps across occupied territories in south-east Asia and New Guinea.

Christina Twomey, a historian at Monash University, will give the opening keynote address, Compensating Captivity—POWs of the Japanese in Post-war Culture. In her most recent book, Australia’s Forgotten Prisoners, Twomey explored why the Australian government failed to recognise the suffering of civilian prisoners of war held in Japanese camps, expecting them to reimburse the government for the costs of their evacuation and repatriation.