The Stanwix Collection

An extensive collection of 357 items from the first half of the Twentieth Century including documents and photos donated by Shirley Stanwix (formerly Cläre Freudenberg) who arrived as a ten year old in Western Australia in 1938 with her family as German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The collection reflects the family's life in Germany (Bremen and Kiel) prior to their forced departure through to the establishment of successful lives in Western Australia. Importantly it provides telling evidence of the slow erosion of human rights for Jewish people under the Nazi regime, culminating in the death of Shirley's father in Esterwegen Concentration Camp in 1936 and the years of persecution that followed.