The outbreak of war in Europe a century ago affected the lives of countless young Australian men, some involved in battles overseas but others facing a fight at home.

Hundreds of Australian residents were arrested and taken to makeshift internment camps such as one at Torrens Island at Port Adelaide.

A century on, the stories of the internees have been revived by historians Mandy Paul, Peter Monteath and Rebecca Martin in a book and exhibition at the South Australian Migration Museum.

The internees were kept in Spartan conditions, among sand hills fenced by barbed wire and guarded by troops.

For most who were held in the camps, being of German heritage was their only "crime".

Among them was Paul Dubotzki who ran a photographic studio in Adelaide.

When sent to Torrens Island, he took his camera with him and his photos show what life was like for the inmates.

"They tried to do things to keep themselves occupied," Mandy Paul from the South Australian Migration Museum said.

"There was the Kaiser cafe, theatre productions, a tattoo parlour, Dubotzki's photos studio, two bands, there was a gymnastics club, a choir, people played chess, they found ways to amuse themselves."

Miner arrested as wife and children wept

Frank Bundardy was arrested as his wife and children wept for him. ( Supplied: National Archives Australia )

The camps produced suffering, including hunger, and heartache for many families.

In a diary, Broken Hill miner and boxer Frank Bungardy recounted the moment after his arrest in August 1915.

"I left my home, a weeping wife and my weeping children bound for the railway station to catch the Adelaide express," he wrote.

Historian Peter Monteath said scant reason was given for the arrests, with families told little because of censorship of the era.

"The first interned were Germans who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was thought they might go back to Germany to fight against Australian forces," he said.

"Then there were people against whom there were suspicions they may be enemy sympathisers, even if they [authorities] didn't necessarily know what the suspicions were."

The South Australian Migration Museum is running an exhibition on the experiences and Mr Monteath says it is an awkward fit in the year of the centenary of Anzac.

"The dominant narrative is of Australia that is united by the war experience, but this story shows that it could be divisive as well," he said.

Thousands were declared 'enemy aliens'

Some of the wounds suffered by a WWI camp prisoner. ( Supplied: State Library NSW )

South Australia had a high percentage of people with German heritage, as from the first years of the colony many Germans had sought freedom from religious persecution by migrating to Australia.

When war broke out in 1914 the Australian Government pursued those people it considered to be "enemy aliens".

They included those born in countries at war with the British Empire, their children (even if born in Australia) and British subjects with German backgrounds.

Almost 7,000 people were interned across Australia, in camps including Torrens Island, another four in New South Wales and one each in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

The National Archives holds a registry of names of those interned, but the historians filled in many personal details by drawing on the diary kept by Frank Bungardy and the photographs taken by Paul Dubotzki.

Mr Dubotzki was in German New Guinea at the outbreak of war and travelled to Adelaide where he was arrested as an enemy alien and sent to Torrens Island.

The work from his photography business at the camp was not fully explored until 2007 when his daughters in Germany revealed they had it in safe keeping.

Black and white images show how prisoners filled the hours and the harsh conditions they lived in.

Mandy Paul said the exhibition was confronting for some descendents of those who were kept in the wartime camps.

"The facts of internment are making some of those descendents quite upset, some people are understanding what it was like to be German in Australia in the First World War and it isn't a pretty picture necessarily," she said.

Brutality at Torrens Island reached a peak in 1915 and, as stories leaked out, an investigation of the camp and its commander Captain Hawkes led to its closure and SA men were moved to camps in New South Wales.

Now, 100 years later, more is known about the wartime suffering and some of the cruelty.