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Fears for Stolen Generations records as Broome heritage centre closes
Families in Western Australia's north fear they could lose access to the only known records of relatives as the Sisters of St John of God Heritage Centre Broome prepares to close.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following article contains information about people who have died.
In May the Sisters of St John of God (SSJG) announced it would shut the centre's doors in October as the congregation in Australia also winds up.
Since 1995, the sisters and volunteers have worked to transform its Broome convent into a museum and archive.
While the building is heritage-listed, it remains unclear what will happen to its award-winning exhibition or the thousands of historical photos and documents.
Nyikina woman Phillipa Cook said the lack of assurance concerned her and many others.
She said the centre contained the history of "just about every Aboriginal family" across the Kimberley — connections the Stolen Generations had threatened to erase.
"There's a lot of photographs there that we hadn't seen before."
Ms Cook said her grandmother and grandmother's sister were taken from Derby to the Beagle Bay Mission during the Stolen Generations in the early 1900s.
"They never saw their mothers again until they were in their 40s," she said.
The heritage centre contained photos of her grandmother, and even photos of herself, which allowed them to re-draw a family tree that was intentionally severed.
Ms Cook said whenever people who had been fostered visited Broome they also went to the centre.
"We bring them up here and we take them there to see the connection between the family," Ms Cook said.
Ms Cook said the state government should step in to help keep the centre open.
Monash University Indigenous research fellow and Jaru, Kitja and Yawuru woman, Jacinta Walsh, said church archives were not protected under the Commonwealth Archives Act.
She said because they were privately owned they could technically be destroyed.
"The laws don't protect us and that's a real concern Australia-wide," she said.
Ms Walsh said many Aboriginal families lived with the reality their stolen history was privately held.
"Many of the places Aboriginal children were taken to were run by church organisations," she said.
Ms Walsh studied her family history as part of her PhD research.
She was adopted as a child and grew up separated from her community and culture in Melbourne.
The Broome centre holds some of the only archival photos of her grandmother, who was taken to Beagle Bay Mission.
The heritage centre is yet to respond to the ABC's questions about plans for the preservation and continued access of its photos and archives.
A government spokesperson did not rule out whether the state would purchase the historical documents or advocate for them to be made public, but said "future leasing opportunities" were a matter for the building owner, the church.
"The state would need additional time to investigate and understand the options relating to storage of historical records and archives," the spokesperson said.
For Ms Walsh, the materials held at the centre provided validation to heal from "trauma that runs through families".
"When you find a document, that textual record is evidence of what my family went through," she said.
