A National Site of Truth Telling and Healing at Kinchela Boys Home, Australia
Kinchela survivors discuss their changing relationship with the site over the years—and their current goal of turning the former institution into a museum
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should know that the following material includes images and voices of deceased persons. This exhibit also contains material that may trigger traumatic memories for viewers, particularly survivors of past abuse, violence, or childhood trauma.
Entry courtyard of the main building at Kinchela, with later deck covering original paths (2021) by Alan CrokerWorld Monuments Fund
Once an institution where Aboriginal children were imprisoned and forced to adopt white culture, Kinchela Boys Home (KBH) is a unique example of a Survivor-led effort to transform a site of trauma into a space of healing.
Today, a group of survivors called the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) is working to turn the site into what has been called “Australia’s first truth-telling museum” and has partnered with the World Monuments Fund (WMF) to raise awareness of this effort.
Kinchela is a site of trauma, truth telling, and healing. It is an example of "negative heritage," a term that refers to sites connected to painful histories. When confronted with such sites, communities must wrestle with the question of whether to build over or to preserve.
With the men of KBHAC, WMF discussed the current state of the Home and how their perspectives on preserving the site have evolved over time.
“You can come outta the homes, but homes can't come outta you.”
Lester Maher
Biripi people, taken from Sydney
Assigned #11 at KBH
For many boys who left Kinchela—whether by escaping or by aging out—their immediate desire was to try to leave these memories in the past. Opening up about the abuse inflicted upon them at the Boys Home was—and for some still is—extremely difficult.
In some cases, the boys returned home so changed by their experience that their families no longer recognized them. In Kinchela, they were forced to "talk white and be white." This attempt to "reprogram" them was an act of cultural genocide and has had lasting effects on their relationships with their families and communities.
Building at Kinchela Boys Home under construction (1930s) by UnknownWorld Monuments Fund
"When you went back home to your own community, no one wanted to know you."
“We never knew having a family, so we had to learn to adjust to living outside of regimental life rules and regulations. To learn a family structure, it's a whole new ballgame.… And trying to reconnect—it hasn't really happened even up to this day.”
Lester Maher
Biripi people, taken from Sydney
Assigned #11 at KBH
Hand on the Kinchela gate by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"If I had really bad dreams, I'd get up early in the morning and sit outside for hours.… My wife would say, 'Why are you getting out of bed?'"
In many instances, those who survived Kinchela returned to their homes to find that they no longer had the knowledge of the language and traditional practices they needed to belong, making it even hard to reconnect with the families and communities they'd been taken from.
Kinchela Survivor James Michael "Widdy" Welsh (#36) by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"I didn't talk the language that my community talked.… I wasn't part of the conversation."
The attempted erasure of traditional knowledge was a deliberate result of the policies of the Aborigines Protection Boards (APB), later called the Aborigines Welfare Board. The policy of assimilation was meant to erode First Nations' culture and "breed out the color" of mixed-race children through successive generations of intermarriage with white Australians.
Illustration from Australia's Coloured Minority (1947) by A.O. NevilleWorld Monuments Fund
"In the home, they said, 'You're not Black, you're different.'"
Pages from a book by A.O. Neville, who helped engineer the child removal policy that led to the Stolen Generations. Note that the terms for racial classifications used in the captions are offensive to Aboriginal people.
These broken bonds of trust and fractured identities reinforced the need many Kinchela Survivors felt to keep silent about their experiences, even their loved ones.
Fig tree on the grounds of Kinchela Boys Home by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"I had no love anymore when we were in that place—my love was taken away."
When Kinchela was shut down in 1970, many survivors initially felt that the best thing to do would be to burn the place to the ground.
Main entry to Kinchela Boys Home today (2021) by Jakeb LoveWorld Monuments Fund
"Our spirits are still there—they flogged them right out of us. Well, the only way we can heal ourselves is to get that place back and turn it into something."
Ownership of the land was transferred to the local Aboriginal Land Council in the 1980s. Prior to that, an Aboriginal drug and alcohol rehabilitation center was given a peppercorn lease to operate from the site. That center remained on the site until 2017, when it went into administration and closed. In this it was not unique: many other government and religious institutions that housed the Stolen Generations were either converted to other uses or torn down.
Main entry to Kinchela Boys Home today (2021) by Jakeb LoveWorld Monuments Fund
"They just pull those places down and build on them."
“Everybody kept saying, ‘What do you wanna do? What do you reckon people should do about KBH?’ And I said, ‘Look, just put a match to it and burn it down.’ Because of the memories, all the bloody shit that happened to us as kids. We were just kids; you don't do that to your young kids. You don't do what they did to us in the Boys Home.”
Richard Campbell
Dunghutti & Gumbaynggir peoples, taken from Bowraville
Assigned #28 at KBH
Ballarat Orphanage in Victoria (left) became a Catholic technical school, while most of the original buildings at Bomaderry Aboriginal Children's Home (right) have been demolished.
Uncle James Michael “Widdy” Welsh, who chairs the KBHAC board, returned to Kinchela for the first time to accompany his wife to rehab. The emotional reaction his return provoked made Welsh realize that the buildings, if preserved, could have a role to play in unpacking long-buried memories.
Former Kinchela Boys Home dormitories with 1980s modifications (2021) by Alan CrokerWorld Monuments Fund
"If we destroyed that place, we would have destroyed the proof of the trauma that we need to see with our eyes to understand."
In 2002, an event known as "The Journey Home" took place. It was the first time the KBH Survivors and returned to the site with their families. Another crucial turning point was the 90th anniversary of Kinchela's opening in 2014, when Uncles gathered at KBH to share their memories and celebrate their survival in the face of genocide.
Group of former Kinchela inmatesWorld Monuments Fund
"I feel proud and brave and strong about it now, telling my story."
Many came away feeling newly able to talk about their past—and thinking that restoring the site might be a significant part of their healing process.
“It's 47 degrees, really hot day. And we walked out of the gate and felt this cool, cool breeze going. We had goosebumps all over us. And we looked at the place, we looked at it really hard. And we said, ‘Now we need to get that place back. We need to get it back and turn it into something, turn it into a healing place and a museum.’ So we can release the spirits still in the place, you know?"
Willy Nixon
Gamilaroi people, taken from Gulargambone
Assigned #24 at KBH
Uncles returning to Kinchela for the site's 90th anniversary (2014) by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
Inside the KBHAC Mobile Education Centre Bus. Left to right: Aunty Lesley Franks, KBH Descendant (daughter of KBH Survivor Uncle Les Franks); KBH Survivor Uncle James Michael "Widdy" Welsh, #36; Gloria Duffin (KBH Descendant, Granddaughter of Uncle Les Franks) (2022) by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"I'm here, I'm talking—this is where I'm supposed to be."
KBH Survivor Uncle Roger Jarrett, #12, a KBH board member, says that physically returning has allowed him and his brothers to recover aspects of their identity that were stripped from them when they first walked through the gates of Kinchela as boys. Transforming the site into a national place of truth telling and healing would allow him to recover the love he lost there, which he feels is buried on the property.
Child's footprint from the 1940s found in the original concrete slab from the Kinchela wood shed (2021) by Jakeb LoveWorld Monuments Fund
"[The survivors] come back in...they get their identity back, their culture."
KBH Survivors and KBHAC also hope to create economic opportunities for the local Aboriginal community through the tourism that the museum and healing center would bring.
Uncles talking about proposal to convert the Kinchela Boys Home into a museum and healing space by Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal CorporationWorld Monuments Fund
"We want to train young Aboriginal boys and women in their culture to give them something positive."
“With the living museum, we'll be able to tell the stories about what the pain was, where we were, who we were, and the truth about what happened. That will connect us back to our own land, our own people in the stories that we tell. And the healing center at the back will be the place where we will go and we will see these things happen. That's a vision of what the big possibility of that place could be.”
James Michael "Widdy" Welsh
Wailwan people, taken from Coonamble
Assigned #36 at KBH
Gathering of Kinchela Boys Home survivorsWorld Monuments Fund
Many survivors interviewed spoke about the direct connection they saw between the trauma of the Stolen Generations and the fact that Aboriginal people today face higher rates of unemployment, incarceration, and poverty than non-Aboriginal Australians.
The Kinchela Boys Home has stood empty since the drug and alcohol residential rehabilitation center closed in 2017. KBH Survivors and KBHAC continue to lobby to be able to purchase the site.
Former Kinchela school room showing accumulated rubbish and overgrowth (2021) by Alan CrokerWorld Monuments Fund
"Something is changing in the place.… It's accepting us. That place can feel that we're getting strong."
Survivors of the Kinchela Boys Home with part of the gateWorld Monuments Fund
If their vision is realized, the museum would be a space of healing and truth telling not just for survivors and their families but for generations to come, both in Australia and around the world.
