Why Weren't We Told?: Genocide in the Wildflower State

A companion to the multi-award-winning documentary film Genocide in the Wildflower State, this book offers a deeply moving and disturbing exposé of the often denied and dismissed reality of racist state thinking

In springtime stunning wildflowers bloom along roadsides leading to the many Native Missions and State institutions in Western Australia that once served effectively as concentration camps for thousands of Aboriginal children they called 'half-castes' who were forcibly removed from their parents by the state government under its infamous 1905 Aborigines Act.

These were places used for systematic programs of 'biological absorption', for 'breeding out the colour' of our people of mixed descent. At the root of these practices and policies were racial theories of eugenics, carried out in Western Australia well before Nazi Germany. They aimed to achieve a 'White Australia'.

After World War 2 until the early 1970s, thousands more of our children continued to be taken to be forcibly assimilated into white settler society. A federal inquiry in 1997 called it for what it was — genocide.

In this book, supported by the best historical research, Stolen Generations Survivors and their descendants give personal testimony to the untold grief and intergenerational trauma caused by this vast racial system.

A companion to the multi-award-winning documentary film Genocide in the Wildflower State, this book offers a deeply moving and disturbing exposé of the often denied and dismissed reality of racist state thinking, and the resulting misery families experience today. It gives voice to Survivors' urgent calls for redress and compensation for these grave wrongs.

© 2026 Upswell (E-bog): 9781743824979

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 3. november 2026