The Prison Camps in Australia - Birth of a Nation (405/418)

The Prison Camps in Australia - Birth of a Nation (405/418)

UNESCO has protected eleven convict sites in Australia as World Heritage sites, because they represent the birth of this young nation. The British built their colony here with the blood, sweat and tears of their prisoners. The convicts could never return home to their families so far away in Europe - even after they had worked off their sentences. It is a story that should never be forgotten.

The first of these camps was set up in 1787 in what is today Port Jackson, New South Wales. The camp of Cockatoo Island opened in 1839 as a prison for re-offenders. The working conditions here were particularly hard. In 1803 the British also occupied the large island to the south of the continent: Van Diemen's Land, nowadays known as Tasmania. Thousands of aborigines lived here and, as in the rest of the colony, most died from the illnesses introduced by the Europeans. Port Arthur was a camp for the worst criminals from Great Britain and Ireland. Its location made it an ideal high-security prison. Prisoner transports to Australia were stopped in 1853.