Calls grow to preserve Australia’s largest World War II prison camp

A former World War II prisoner camp in Victoria has gone on the market, prompting calls to preserve a site tied to Australia’s wartime history. Camp 13 at Murchison, 35 kilometres south-west of Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley, held Italian, German and Japanese prisoners between 1941 and 1947.

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He was a foot soldier in a panzer division, stationed in Greece.

Shane Pruckner wants the site protected because his father, Rudolph “Rudi” Pruckner, was interned there after being captured in Greece. Pruckner said his father was a foot soldier in a panzer division stationed in Greece when Australian and New Zealand forces retreating from the country captured his unit.

Rudi Pruckner entered Camp 13 on his 21st birthday in 1941. His son said the prisoner was treated “very well” and that some guards helped him escape by providing a uniform, transport and a place to stay. He travelled by train to western Victoria and hid at a remote farm near Lake Condah for about six weeks before being recaptured and returned to the camp.

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They were captured in a short battle with Australia and New Zealand forces that were retreating from Greece at the time.

After the war, Pruckner went back to Austria but chose to settle in Australia because people in postwar Europe struggled to find work and food. A former camp sergeant sponsored him, while the family who had sheltered him offered farm work that helped him emigrate.

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They put him on a train to the western district, and he was hidden at a remote farm at Lake Condah for about six weeks before he was recaptured and taken back to Camp 13.

Kay Ball of the Murchison Historical Society said the portion now for sale also contains a memorial to German sailors from the Kormoran, the raider involved in the sinking of HMAS Sydney. The Australian cruiser disappeared for decades after sinking with all 645 people aboard. The site also retains a gun emplacement installed to guard Japanese prisoners transferred there after the mass breakout at Cowra in 1944. Nearly 80 years after Camp 13 closed, the emplacement remains.

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The Kormoran was the German raider involved in the sinking of that ship, the largest loss of life in naval history in Australian waters, and a terrible event.