Internment Coins

Trout, it is a big no-no to use Coin Community Forum for partisan viewpoints and not everybody sees the internment of enemy aliens during wartime as wrong. The internment camps in Australia were nothing like the German ones and the internees in Australia were frequently allowed day release to go to work etc.
BTW I am related to Lord Kitchener so I'm naturally on the other side of the partisanship about the use of internment.

Enemy aliens isn't a strong term, it was the official term for the detainees. I have seen a number of accounts by detainees (both in Australia and in England(Isle of Man))such as the Dunera Boys and they were generally treated very well and were really no worse off than the locals (think of rationing). The main restrictions on them was on communication (mail/telephone) and on travel. Really no worse than a Butlins holiday camp.

Can't agree that the terms are strong in any way. In wartime the enemy is the enemy and the term alien has long classical roots. As far as "locking up friends" I can only say that would be Newspeak (which didn't exist until 1948) and besides it can't be said that they were friends. Many of those interred had sympathies with the other side and would have been a risk to leave free (sabotage, spying etc). The risk was real and undoubtedly those in charge remembered the examples that occurred in WW1 (in 1915 several Germans in England were executed by firing squad at the Tower of London for spying and at Broken Hill a Turk attacked a passenger train with rifle fire and hit/killed civilians) . Of course when you do wholesale round ups (to find out the friendlies from the foes) it means many decent people ended up in detention (the Dunera Boys were Jewish as an example) and most detainees were released well before the end of the war (as they were determined to be friendlies or not a risk.
Detainees may sound like a euphemism for prisoner but the words do have different meanings and the civilian detainees were never treated like common criminals or P.O.Ws. Even the Italian P.O.Ws were hardly treated as prisoners and they were given a good deal of freedom, many ended up returning after the war to settle down in the Riverina, hardly a sign that they were mistreated.
Hay was no Gitmo.

Very interesting historical tokens!

Think Trouts post was accurate and concise....

Would like these in my "world coins of WWII set"





1."Hay" is for horses

and

2.


kettle...I'm black...

No idea if any of this translates to Aussie English....

I read you amida and agree.

Surely the area has had a good going over before. I wouldn't expect to a large quantity of collectible material.

... interesting observation about the Internment Camp threepence that penny_dreadful mentioned in his previous email.

I took the liberty of enlarging part of the coin that was shown on the ebay web site. As shown below.

As you can see, it is the product of a recut die, changing "CAMP" to "CAMPS".

Squire

Thanks penny dreaful, the gentleman who gave me these coins quoted"these might not be worth anything but to me they mean a heck of alot!"

Thats it mate I won't be selling them for a long time :)