The Vienna Boys Choir.

The famous Vienna Mozart Boys Choir found themselves stranded in Australia on the final leg of their global tour.

Australia declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, the day after their final concert in Perth Town Hall, so the choristers suddenly found themselves no longer celebrities but, in effect, Australia’s youngest aliens.

On the invitation of the Archbishop for Melbourne Daniel Mannix, the boys, ranging in age from 8 to 14, came with their musical director Dr Georg Gruber and their teacher Dr Otto Sternberg.

Gruber and Sternberg were later accused of being Nazi sympathisers and interned for the duration of the war, while the boys formed the nucleus of the St Patrick’s Cathedral Choir.

Mannix arranged for each of the choir boys to be billeted to foster homes in the inner city and schooled at East Melbourne.

When the war ended most of the boys elected to stay rather than return to their war-torn homeland.