A dedicated amateur historian has devoted years to finding and recording the stories of German and Italian prisoners of war held in a forest camp south of Perth during World War II.
Ernie Polis had always had a keen interest in military history, but it wasn't until recovering from a bout of double pneumonia in 1992 that he turned his attention to an element of Western Australia's World War II history.
"I had three weeks off work and got a book out from the library called Stalag Australia, and in there were one or two lines about Marrinup [prisoner of war camp] and its commandant, Major Hector Stuart Foley," Mr Polis told Christine Layton on ABC Radio Perth.
"I looked up H.S. Foley in the phone book and gave him a call. I thought it'd be a three-minute call but we were still talking three hours later."
This set him on a course to find out more about the guards and prisoners who lived at Marrinup No. 16 POW camp in the bush near Dwellingup, between 1941 and 1946.
Altogether there were 300 German soldiers and 3,500 Italians held at Marrinup and the reason they were in WA was to both help the British government and address a labour shortage.
The men held at Marrinup had all been captured in North Africa. The British government had to find somewhere to put them and appealed to Australia for help.
"At that time in WA there was a big shortage of firewood," Mr Polis said.
"All the workers had enlisted in the army and we needed 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes of firewood a year, so the Germans were employed as firewood cutters and gatherers of firewood in the forest."
The Italians, who were more trusted than the Germans, were put to work on farms around the state, while the Germans were confined to the Marrinup camp.
"Hector Foley had stayed in contact with a lot of ex-officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] and he just was chucking names at me — I just grew the contact list from there and visited them all, and they had wonderful stories to tell," Mr Polis said.
"I also stumbled across an ex-German POW who was living in WA named Gunther Kuhlmann. He told me what went on inside the camp, the illegal booze-making."
The camp, built among the trees near the timber milling town of Dwellingup, was a series of huts surrounded by tight security.
"If you've seen The Great Escape film, it was exactly the same — wire fences, watch towers, searchlights at night, perimeter guards, contraband searches," he said.
"There was a detention centre they called a cooler. Discipline was very strict inside the camp.
"The Germans were always kept there, all 300 of them."
Most of the guards were former soldiers from World War I and many of them were just grateful to have a job after the difficult years of the Great Depression.
"They got paid six shillings and nine pence a day — about 69 cents a day, which probably equated to around about $40 or $50 today. It was quite a good wage, and they had no expenses.
"It was a job. It was a contribution to the war effort and they felt like they were doing something worthwhile."
Mr Polis got a further insight into life at the camp when he received a trove of pictures taken secretly by one of the prisoners.
Fritz Reimer was an Austrian flack gunner captured on Crete.
"He had a little 35-millimetre camera and he had kept that secret when he was captured, managed to bring it to Marrinup, and took more than 50 photos.
"When he went back to Europe he had them developed.
"Frederick Emmert, who was a German senior NCO at the camp, wrote to me and said, 'Fritz's died, I've got these photos do you want them?'
"And they arrived in the mail about a month later."
The photos show the buildings and men at the camp, scenes of daily life, and even a visit by the International Committee of the Red Cross to check on conditions.
One picture shows the inmates commemorating the Nazi national holiday of Heldengedenktag (Heroes Remembrance Day), complete with a wreath and iron cross monument.
Notably, they are wearing German army parade uniforms, despite being captured while they were wearing battle fatigues.
"The German POWs in Australia asked the Australian government to ask the German government to supply them with new uniforms," he said.
"The German government said, 'Nope, but we will certainly send bolts of cloth, badges, buttons, decorations, and other embellishments'.
"In the Murchison POW camp in Victoria, they had about 12 German ex-tailors and had German army uniforms made for the POWs in Australia and there is the photo of Friedrich wearing his parade uniform, with the Iron Cross second class and everything else."
When the war in Europe ended in May 1945, the Germans and Italians faced a long wait to get home.
"Shipping was a problem. The Germans returned to Victoria in August 1946, but they didn't arrive back in Germany until February 1947."
Some of the Italians enjoyed the experience so much that they decided to migrate to Australia after the war, and Mr Polis has counted 134 men who were at Marrinup who returned to WA.
"Most of the Italian POWs were exceptionally hard workers on farms," he said.
"They enjoyed the freedom, the experience, the new adventure for them. The farmers looked after them as if they were members of the family."
In 1961 a bushfire swept through the Dwellingup region and destroyed much of what remained of Marrinup camp, although there are still vestiges in what is now the Marrinup State Forest.
"Pretty much all the concrete foundations are still there, bits of barbed wire, broken glass, buttons," Mr Polis said.
"A couple of guard towers are still there. The keen eye will find things if you look hard enough."
After 30 years of research and interviews, Mr Polis has published a book, A Cage in the Bush, telling the story of the POWs and mark they left on the state. The title comes from the German POWs name for Marrinup, Kaefig im Wald — a cage in the forest.
