These oral histories trace the journeys made by only a few of the many thousands of European immigrant workers and their families who arrived in South Australia and lived at the Woodside Immigration Centre in the post World War 2 period.

Very few South Australians have have heard of the Woodside Immigration Centre, also known as the Woodside Migrant Hostel, the Woodside Holding Centre, Woodside Migrant Camp, or, by those who knew it more intimately, 'The Camp'.

Located 2 kms south of the township of Woodside and 27 kms east of Adelaide, it was opened as an Immigration Centre early in 1949 and at its peak held about 3,000 migrants - women, children and men.

In 1949, the Woodside Army Base was converted into the Woodside Immigration Centre and came under the control of Department of Labour and National Service. It was a Commonwealth Government Reception and Training Centre like Bonegilla in Victoria, Bathurst in New South Wales, and Northern in Western Australia.

The Woodside Army Base was located on 162 hectares of land purchased by the Commonwealth in 1927. It was used for establishing and training light horse and infantry units between the two World Wars, and during World War 2 , general purpose barracks were built there for the mobilisation of four infantry battalions.

From 1949 until 1952, the year in which the Federal Government's Displaced Person's Mass Migration Scheme was terminated, the inhabitants of the Woodside Immigration Centre were all refugees and displaces persons from several European countries who had been accommodated in Displaced Persons' Camps in Germany once the war ended.

The term displacement was used to describe nearly one million Europeans at the end of WW2 who were either: Civilians who were 'taken' to Germany from the country of their birth where they were forced to work as unpaid laborers bolstering Germany's war effort; civilians who escaped the Russian Army's invasion of their country; soldiers who were released from German prisoners of war camps a the of he war.

Woodside Camp was their first home in Australia. As displaced persons or refugees, they had no hope to reestablish themselves in their homelands, so they accepted an offer made to them by the Australian Commonwealth Government for a free passage to Australia in return for a two year work contract to work either as domestics (women) or laborers (men). Australia was thus able to participate in humanitarian objective of resettling homeless war victims as well as importing the labour force essential to Australia's expansion after the war effort.