Wanda Skowronska

To Bonegilla from Somewhere Wanda Skowronska

The word Bonegilla resonates deeply with those who have ever lived there. A place in the bush in northern Victoria, it was the first home for Displaced Persons (DPs) after World War Two - many Poles, Czechs, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Ukrainians among them. In fact it was the largest migrant camp in Australia's history. This was a town like no other - under southern skies there were echoes of Warsaw, Budapest, Riga and Prague - as well as talk of vanished worlds and Soviet post-war realities. This book traces the tumultuous journeys of two DPs, Bogdan and Valerie, to this strange bush town which came to occupy a unique, mysterious and iconic place in Australian migration history.