Posted on behalf of Dr Patrick Vaughan (email: patrickvaughan38@yahoo.co.uk)

I am researching the life of Dr Paul Posener, a prominent Berlin lawyer who fled the city suddenly on 23 June 1933. He was Jewish by birth, but was not religious. He had been a prominent activist in the SPD.

Are you able to help me with any information about him?

By 1938 he was living in London. In 1940 he was interned and taken on the Dunera to Tatura Camp. I have presumed that he disembarked when the ship docked at Melbourne (but I may be wrong about that). He wrote home from Tatura in a letter that we have, dated 19 June 1941. Some time afterwards he was brought back to UK, but then interned in the Isle of Man. In the end Dr Posener returned to Berlin (1953) and died there in 1958 aged 82.

If you are in a position to circulate this enquiry through other members of the Dunera Association, I should be most grateful. Any information supplied will be acknowledged, and will be much appreciated.

Email address supplied above, but please, as a start, contact us HERE

Many thanks

As an aside here: A link to a watercolour from the Tatura Camp.