WW1 Australian Guard Concentration Camp Badge

[badgecollector]

hi all

the latest addition to my collection.
The AWM describes the badge as “badge with voided letters 'GCC', for 'Guard Concentration Camp', surmounted by a King's crown however Cossum describes it as German Concentration Camp guards badge?

During World War I, for security reasons the Australian Government pursued a comprehensive internment policy against enemy aliens living in Australia.

Australia interned almost 7000 people during World War I, of whom about 4500 were enemy aliens and British nationals of German ancestry already resident in Australia. They were interned in ten different camps with in Australia.

In 1915 many of the smaller camps in Australia closed, with their inmates transferred to larger camps. The largest camp was at Holsworthy in New South Wales. Families of the interned men were placed in a camp near Canberra.

Initially only those born in countries at war with Australia were classed as enemy aliens, but later this was expanded to include people of enemy nations who were naturalised British subjects, Australian-born descendants of migrants born in enemy nations and others who were thought to pose a threat to Australia's security.

Cheers
bc

[NEMO]

Every once in a while an item comes along that is truly fascinating , an area I know nothing about but compels you to delve deeper ?

Your post prompted me to go ` tinterneting` to day about the European nationals interned in Australia in the first war in the camps and found it an amazing story , many English but with German decent - well worthy of a documentry .

Never seen or heard of this badge before so can not comment but many thanks for showing .

[badgecollector]

Hi nemo
Yeah, it’s a rare badge and an unusual history. Even when you think that Australians had guards at their Concentration Camps leaves an uneasy feeling with me.
Concentration Camps conjures up images of thousands of South African women and children dying in the British ones of the Boer war and the horrendous Nazi camps
BC

[NSW Military Forces]

I have a nice postcard portrait from my private collection of a WW1 soldier wearing the GCC collar badges.
See attached picture.

[MBabylon]

Hi everyone, joining this thread a bit late but I have the same badge in my collection (it took me a while to identify it). I was wondering if anyone has any idea of the number issued and an approximate value. Was it an official badge?
Thanks!

[slick_mick]

It's an unofficial badge and judging by it's rarity I would say only a small number were made.

Mick

[kingsley]

Many years ago an old friend gave me a GCC collar badge that his father wore during WW1 and told me that it was GERMAN Concentration Camp. The term came into bad odour during WW2 so we then used the expression Internment Camp.

I understand that the ordinary Germans went to Old Holdsworthy (where there is still a remaining inscription I think on a bridge) and the intelligentsia went to Trial Bay where there was a disused gaol built in the 1880s. Fishing, surfing and sunbaking were a long way from the mud and blood of France.
POWs like the Emden crew were sent to Berrima.

The guards were rotated between the camps.I thought they would have been 40 year olds and older like the guards at Cowra during the WW2 breakout, but I recently got an incredible high def photo of the guards wearing the GCC badges from the Trial Bay Gaol museum. They were young tough guys and described as the "Camp Police". I can't post the photo because it belongs to the museum and they asked me not to publish it. They might give you one if you contact them.The guards in the photo were armed with long Lee Enfields and 1888 12 inch bayonets and wore leather bandoliers.

There was in fact trouble at Holdsworthy and force was used. You can look it up online.

My scan is the most incredible piece of Australian militaria I have ever seen, a GCC baton. Sorry the image if not very good, not easy to photograph.

[fairlie63]

A fascinating item Kingsley. I've often wondered how many of those sad souls in those camps committed no more of a 'crime' than having a foreign name.

We probably would have been better off, at least in the Second World War, by freeing the internees and locking up the wharfies instead

[kingsley]

The 'Huns" in WW1 were demonised, propaganda can go too far if it comes to spy scares and kicking Dachund dogs in the street. I assume that Dobermans and German shepherds had less trouble.
I had an old uncle with a German name whose grandfather emigrated as early as 1854 in the Gold Rush. He worked in WW1 as a sales rep. and one proprietor wouldn't deal with him because he had a German name. He said that HE was born in Australia and his father was also born in Australia, which made him just as German as the King.
Most of the internees of course were quite harmless.

[MBabylon]

Originally Posted by slick_mick

It's an unofficial badge and judging by it's rarity I would say only a small number were made.

Mick

Really interesting topic. It came to my collection as one of a number of badges from the period around WW1 that my great-grandfather picked up during his service. Most of them are ANZAC and Canadian from his time in Gallipoli, so I wonder how he would have come across this one if it was primarily used in continental Australian internment camps.

[NorthStafford]

Originally Posted by kingsley

The 'Huns" in WW1 were demonised, propaganda can go too far if it comes to spy scares and kicking Dachund dogs in the street. I assume that Dobermans and German shepherds had less trouble.
I had an old uncle with a German name whose grandfather emigrated as early as 1854 in the Gold Rush. He worked in WW1 as a sales rep. and one proprietor wouldn't deal with him because he had a German name. He said that HE was born in Australia and his father was also born in Australia, which made him just as German as the King.
Most of the internees of course were quite harmless.

I'm not criticising what you say but.. It's so easy for us to view these happenings logically from 100+years away but at the time Australian youth was going overseas and being killed by Germans so perhaps they can be forgiven for being a little less objective than we are.

[MBabylon]

Originally Posted by NorthStafford

I'm not criticising what you say but.. It's so easy for us to view these happenings logically from 100+years away but at the time Australian youth was going overseas and being killed by Germans so perhaps they can be forgiven for being a little less objective than we are.

Agreed. It was quite common policy at the time anyway, the Germans and Brits did the same. And again during the Second World War, where the Americans also interned their Japanese. It's just one of those unpleasant things that happened during war.