Stranded in Australia - Part Two

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While researching more about the group of Vienna Boys’ Choir choristers who became interned in Australia during World War II, I came across a very interesting newspaper article. First some backstory: A week before Christmas, 1938, the Vienna Boys’ Choir had embarked on the journey of a lifetime. The choir travelled to Bremerhaven, Germany, then by boat to Hamburg and across the Atlantic to New York. From there, they toured by bus throughout the States then on to southern Canada. A boat then ferried them to Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and finally Australia. By now, it was the latter part of 1939. After their final concert in Perth, Western Australia, they were not allowed to return to their boat as war had broken out in Europe. The then Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix, arranged foster homes for the boys, who then formed the nucleus of his new Cathedral Choir. The boys could communicate with their parents through one letter PER ANNUM by way of the Red Cross. Kurt Schuster, one of the choristers, was two months short of his 10th birthday when the group were stranded in Western Australia after war was declared in Europe. He died in 2020 at the age of 90. Kurt eventually married one of the daughters of his foster family and later became an Australian citizen. In 1979, he and his wife returned to his home town and climbed the 100 steps to the door of his old home to be reunited with his mother, and later his sister and her four children. Four boys had been unable to tour with the choir as their voices had started to break. None of them survived the war. Of the boys who had to spend so many years in Australia, all but one remained in Australia after the war. The photo was taken in Vienna in 2015.