The admission of European refugees from East and South Asia in 1947: antecedents of Australia's international refugee organization mass resettlement scheme

tends to focus on the arrival in Australia of 843 displaced persons (DPs) aboard the General Heintzelman in November 1947 as a paradigmatic starting point of mass immigration, refugee resettlement and the end of monoculturalism. Here, I focus on two seemingly inconsequential episodes from 1947 – the admission of Polish refugees from India in August, and the arrival of hundreds of Jewish survivors aboard the Hwa Lien, in January – which could further our understanding of the immigration of International Refugee Organization (IRO)-sponsored DPs, and unsettle genealogies that shore up the present.