Czech/Australian relations during the WWII (1939-1945)

Brief introduction to the project

Welcome to the website aimed at Czech-Australian relations during the WWII (1939-1945), created for the purposes of a dissertation thesis by PhDr. Pavel Kreisinger.

The website is non-commercial. In the first place, it should serve as an introduction to the project, and partial results of the research will be published here as well.

Thematically-oriented articles and profiles will be presented continuously, together with lists of Czechoslovaks (countrymen, expatriates and men in exile) who spent the WWII in Australia.

Although the project focuses primarily on the 1939-1945 era, accompanying information and current information concerning Czech-Australian relations throughout the 20th century will be published, too.

Thematic subfields of the project include:

  • activities of the Czechoslovak consulate general in Sydney between 1939 and 1945 and its support of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance (the government in exile in London); the vice-consul, later consul general Adolf Solanský
  • Czechoslovak honorary consulates in Australia during the war
  • unsuccessful recruitment of Czechoslovak volunteers in Australia: from Czechoslovakia through Australia to the Czechoslovak foreign army in the Middle East
  • Together near besieged Tobruk (1941): a friendly encounter of Czechoslovaks and Australians during military service in North Africa and on the Middle East
  • Czechoslovaks in the Australian army (air forces, navy, women's auxiliary service), labour corps and the war industry
  • Jewish expatriates from Czechoslovakia to Australia
  • Czechoslovak Red Cross in Australia and its help to the Czechoslovak foreign resistance
  • Czechoslovak compatriotsʹ organisations in Australia and their activities
  • Jews, Germans and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia in Australian internment and labour camps
  • evacuation of Czechoslovak countrymen from Singapore to Australia in 1942
  • Australian prisoners of war on the territory of former Czechoslovakia (Sudetenland, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia)
  • Australian soldiers awarded the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939