ABSTRACT
By definition, islands are separate from the mainland, and this distance from everyday society was sought by holidaymakers when Rottnest Island was gazetted for tourism in 1911. However, the outbreak of World War One brought an end to camping, fishing, and swimming on the island for the locals, as the island became, yet again, another kind of prison – this time for civilian internees. Together with a continuing penal operation that necessitated a handful of warders and guards, several hundred soldiers were stationed on the island to run an internment camp housing more than 1,100 civilian internees from Germany and Austria-Hungary. Among them were merchant seamen from German trade vessels, whom the war had caught by surprise. Two internees, German ship officers Karl Lehmann and Martin Trojan, recorded hundreds of photographs during their 18 months of incarceration on the island, allowing a unique glimpse into the island’s social and physical character. The internment camp was a historical oddity, with its combination of warders, soldiers, Indigenous prisoners, and European internees. Men from the most diverse backgrounds and social circumstances, who quite often did not even share a common language, cohabited peacefully. Remarkably, their fraternisation transcended contentious national and ethnic boundaries during the Great War.
