Wilhelm Sawatzky
Wilhelm Sawatzky was a member of one of the most unusual groups to be interned in Australia, namely the Templers from Palestine.
The Templers traced their origins to the founding in Germany in 1861 of the Temple Society, which in its efforts to revive Christian faith encountered opposition from the mainstream Protestant Church. Members of the Temple Society chose to create what they regarded as communities of God’s people – the spiritual temple – in the Holy Land. With the support of Ottoman authorities, the first of those communities was established in Haifa in 1868; over the following decades further communities were established in Palestine. They managed to survive British occupation during World War I, though many Templers, still very devoted to German language and culture, were interned in Egypt.
The next war hit them much harder and would ultimately end their presence in Palestine. When Rommel’s Afrika Korps pushed its way eastward across the Libyan desert toward Egypt and the Suez Canal through the middle of 1941, security concerns dictated that Germans and a smaller number of Italians be removed from Palestine altogether. Most of the Germans were Templers, and British authorities were keenly aware of their strong allegiances to Germany. When war broke out in 1939, male members of the Temple Society were escorted under guard to accommodation on the coast, while their families were contained in the settlements, enclosed in barbed wire.
Men and their families were later reunited and transported to Egypt to be boarded on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth, which had just brought troops from Australia to the war in the Middle East. The Templers, including Wilhelm Sawatzky, were part of a contingent of 665 Germans and 165 Italians. On board, also, were German POWs, members of Rommel’s Afrika Korps. They arrived in Sydney on 24 August 1941.
Sawatzky was born in the Palestinian settlement of Wilhelma in 1923. Australian authorities also recorded that his occupation was farmer, that his religion was ‘Templer’, that his initial date of capture in Palestine was 3 September 1939, and that his next of kin was Anna Sawatzky – his widowed mother.
The most common destination for the Templers after their arrival in Australia was No. 3 Internment Camp Tatura in Victoria, which, unlike Loveday, could accommodate families. This was the initial fate of Sawatzky along with his mother and sister. But on 10 February 1943, all single males over eighteen years of age, including married men who had been separated from their families in Palestine, were transferred to Loveday. The first group sent there totalled 42 men, followed, in due course, by all young men from the Tatura family camp when they turned 18.
In Loveday Sawatzky shared a hut with 24 men, all of them Templers. He remained there until the final year of the war, when with other Germans he was transferred back to Tatura. He was not finally released from captivity until April 1947, having spent to that point nearly eight of his not yet 24 years as an internee. Now known as ‘Bill’, he was able to remain in Australia, marry and raise a family, and eventually celebrate his 100th birthday in 2023.
Sources:
Doris Frank, ‘Wilhelm SAWATZKY (b.1923) [P36056]’, https://lovedayinternmentcamp.au/internee-experiences-five-detention-camps-during-wwii/, accessed 2.10.2025.
NAA: MP1103/2, 36056, Prisoner of War/Internee; Sawatzky, Wilhelm; Year of birth - 1923; Nationality – German
NAA: MP1103/1, P36056, Prisoner of War/Internee: Sawatzky, Wilhelm; Date of birth - 06 August 1923; Nationality – German