Junzo Murakami

Junzo Murakami was born in Japan in 1876 and arrived in Australia in 1897. More than three decades later – in 1930 – he visited the land of his birth. Like many Japanese residing in Australia who visited their homeland, he was given an exemption from the dictation test on his return. In the era of the White Australia Policy, the dictation test, which required people arriving in Australia to prove their efficiency in a European language, was effectively an instrument to keep non-Europeans out of Australia.

Murakami was arrested immediately after the outbreak of war between Japan and Australia in December 1941, by which time he had been in Australia for some 44 of his 65 years. Prior to his arrest he had been living in Brisbane with his wife and two step-children. He was taken to the internment camp at Hay in New South Wales via the internment facility at Gaythorne in Brisbane. From May 1943 he was in Loveday until his release on 11 November 1944.