Exhibition launch at Chapel on Station
Sabine Nielsen's Opening Speech
Box Hill is home to such a variety of nations and languages: one third of residents are born overseas and one quarter comes from a non-English speaking background. The top five countries of birth are: China, the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Mandarin and Cantonese are the most commonly spoken languages other than English at home. This is followed by Greek, Italian and Vietnamese. At Boxhill Baptist, a large Cambodian community worships alongside everybody else.
But, a lot of people have probably forgotten that Box Hill was also home to a lot of German migrants post WWII!
Sabine Nielsen's Opening Speech
Box Hill is home to such a variety of nations and languages: one third of residents are born overseas and one quarter comes from a non-English speaking background. The top five countries of birth are: China, the United Kingdom, India, Malaysia and Vietnam.
Mandarin and Cantonese are the most commonly spoken languages other than English at home. This is followed by Greek, Italian and Vietnamese. At Boxhill Baptist, a large Cambodian community worships alongside everybody else.
But, a lot of people have probably forgotten that Box Hill was also home to a lot of German migrants post WWII!
Approximately 0.2 per cent of residents are Indigenous. Though a small population in relative terms, this group have a long history on this land, even in a contemporary sense. Whitehorse was home to a number of boys homes that housed children from the stolen generation.
The traditional custodians of this land are the people of the Wurundjeri-Balluk Tribe, and as newcomers and new settlers on this land, we pay our respects to the elders both past, present and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia.
The Wurundjeri are deeply spiritual people who honor the creator spirit, Bunjil the Eaglehawk – this spirit is very much present in the gallery - every time, I have visited, I have been impressed by the creative spirit and the originality of the exhibits.
It has been great working together with Alex May, curator, and meeting Pastor Richard Mallaby and learning about their vision for their church, which reads (in part):
(It is our vision) to create a community that embraces people in the love of God, in ways that are meaningful and practical. We believe that all people are children of God and we are engaging on a journey where we are growing and learning from one another.
This travelling exhibition is very much about journeys – this time particularly, as we are focusing on people displaced, driven away from their home lands as political and social borders were redrawn, and/or refugees who left behind war, devastation, imprisonment and hunger in order to find safety and a new future.
To that extent, we are pleased to welcome Pastor Tri Nguyen and Dr Brigitte Lambert who will share their stories with us.
Before we hear them, I’d like to tell you a little more about the exhibition.
I am often asked, what led me to this and what made me write the book on which this exhibition is based.
In a way, it was my own experience – I, too, came here on a boat, albeit my journey was not quite as dramatic as Tri’s or Brigitte’s! I left my home island of Föhr on a ferry, and then stepped aboard the Fairstar in Bremerhaven for a six week journey. Arriving here in 1972, I experienced quite a culture shock. Nothing was remotely like anything I had imagined.
There are so many new things for a migrant to adapt to. Recently, I wrote about the difference between German and Australian cakes on our FB page and drew quite a response! And it is not only the textures and flavours of those cakes that we grew up with that we are talking about: it is the whole culture around eating cake that is different.
When I came here, I quickly learned that the meal my Australian family referred to as “tea” was not “afternoon tea” but dinner – a hot dinner, and after dinner they often served cake! Unheard of amongst my family back home – in fact, my mother would have been aghast: Such a waste! She would have cried.
Cakes are eaten as a special treat in between meals in the afternoon; not after a perfectly adequate evening meal!
I’m sure, everybody here who has come from another country or has lived in one, can tell a similar story. But I hold great hopes that while religions, politics, our languages and customs still give rise to division, we may eventually learn to fully accept each other via each others food – after all, where would we be without pizza, sour dough bread, sushi, souvlaki, croissants and Chinese dumplings – even Grünkohl, kale, a quint essential German/European winter vegetable and a staple – has recently become hip!
For the first 25 years of my life in Australia, I was busy trying to assimilate, to blend in – and to be a wife and mother and teacher.
But when I began to write, what I had subconsciously experienced – as a migrant – somehow surfaced. My very first novel – a romance called Lovelorn – dealt with ‘displacement’. A girl has to leave Melbourne and her family and friends because of something that has happened. She has to completely restructure her life – in a different town. Needless to say, it being a romance – all turns out for the best – not without several dramatic upheavals! Lovelorn is published as an e-book by Random House.
In my second novel, Becoming Telly, – which was completely unplanned, it just started from an experience in the Australian bush – the protagonist who presented herself, is a German girl. Her family has brought to Australia as a teenager – and it is interesting that our speaker, Brigitte Lambert, has reflected just about that topic quite a lot: How do children experience migration? You can’t read this novel because I haven’t yet found a publisher for it!
After Becoming Telly, I started to write in German. And this time, I did draft a plan and more or less stuck to it! Even though the following four novels are set on the island where I was born and focus on two mystery-solving elderly ladies, one of their nieces lives in Australia. For the first time, I consciously thought about migration and what it means and incorporated that in a novel. And writing, I began to wonder: how other migrants feel?
You see, all along, I had thought I was peculiar – that it was my fault that I never quite fitted into my Australian family – that I always remained a little bit different. When I left teaching, one of the heads of department farewelled me with the words: “You brought something … European to the school!” Wow, I thought – I have tried so hard to become an Aussie, to be like you all – and 25 years later I am commended for being different!!
For my second German novel I also wanted a character – a German – who had arrived here to an adventure. I thought about the gold rush but that didn’t fit my time. Then, I met – quite by accident - my first migrant (portrayed in the book and the exhibition, Ernst Erdt who had worked on the Snowy Mountain Scheme. His story was not an adventure – it was a life! The Snowy Mountain Scheme was no adventure park, no fun ride. It was perfect for the novel – but it needed to be told in full. And Ernst Erdt was a displaced person – his home of Pomerania no longer existed as part of Germany post WWII.
I met Inga Martinow – a refugee from a devastated country and a war that had claimed her husband and her home.
Next, Paul Anders. He too could not return to the country where he had been born and raised - Silesia.
Genie Fiebig’s family were part of the German community in the city of Lodsch. For centuries the Germans and Poles lived together peacefully – WWII changed all that – the Germans were driven out.
Fritz Schwab and George Dreyfus were hunted and persecuted under the Nazi regime. Fritz discovered after the war that his family had been murdered in a concentration camp; George came here as a child refugee, smuggled out of the country by his family. His parents managed to escape but his grandparents, too, were murdered.
Pastor Steiniger left Germany in 1935, a contemporary of the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, he nevertheless was interned here during the war period (as was Genie’s father).
H.R. Uhlherr’s family suffered displacement: driven out of Palastine under the British Mandate, the mother and children had to return to Germany, the father was interned at Tatura. It took ten long years before the family was reunited.
Karin Koeppen fled East Germany and the communist regime and started a new life as a young woman on her own.
Fred Glasbrenner chose to come here - but chose the most adventurous way: Having very little money, he and two mates rode their bikes all the way – and then some more: From Darwin to Melbourne to arrive in time for the Olympics 1956!
A book about journeys, indeed!
Once I had started talking to these people, their rich lives, what they had experienced and endured, captured me. Each story is unique in itself – but each story touches on migration and all that it involves.
And since we have toured with this exhibition, we meet other people who have experienced similar and yet completely amazing fates of their own.
To complete this talk, I want to point out that the creative spirits behind what you see here are all people who were not born here.
The photographer, Eva Maria Rugel, who took these portraits, spent six years in Australia – she has just returned home to Germany. Eva is an amazing photographer – an extremely sensitive and inquisitive artist. She was not satisfied with just taking a picture – as a friend commented: “She captured them at a moment when they were in another place.”
The idea for the exhibition really took hold of me when David Wong, born and bred in New York, entered. It was he who conceived the banners, which are quite symbolic, really. David’s idea was to start with a large portrait – something you can easily see from a distance. The large portrait draws you in – you notice there is a second, smaller photo. A person, holding an object. Now, you read the caption, you become intrigued, you go on reading the smaller text. The portrait makes sense to you – you take something away.
In a way, what Eva and David created reflects the experience of the migrant arriving in a new country. First one sees the big picture. Then, slowly, slowly one is drawn into society … understands more, takes aboard the new culture and allows it to become part of his or her history.
Ute, my co-coordinator, and Peter Haberberger both come from Nürnberg – the place of the famous German gingerbread and marzipan – and their skills add so much. Ute had experience in setting up and hanging an exhibition about which I knew nothing. Peter acts as our resident photographer and takes many of the photos which we show on our website and Facebook, while Ute also twitters for us.
Ingrid Ciotti was born in Stuttgart, came to Australia as an intern for Henkell Brothers and met and married into an Italian-Australian family! Ingrid is our IT wizard – she conceived and manages our website and Facebook. You find us easily: Just look for “Memories in my Luggage”.
Even Michelle McKinley, who translated the original German book, is not an Aussie – she has since returned to her native New Zealand. Her experience of living in Melbourne – and plunging herself head-first into the German community of Fitzroy by sending her children to the German school there - allowed her to be sensitive to the cultural nuances of the stories she had to translate.
Our perception of what this exhibition is about changes constantly – we meet such different audiences, are privy to overwhelming memories and realize all the time, that although “our” migrants arrived between 1935 and 1956, their experiences are still relevant today – we can draw parallels, our children can learn from them and – best of all: we can contribute to the debate that rages around migration by widening our horizons.
If you would like to find out more about these people, the book is available in German and English.
We will have a special event here on Sunday, 21 June at 5pm, when Tri Nguyen and Werner Hauburger join us with their stories of escape.
In July we are moving on to TTHA in Bayswater – with a full programme. You can find all the details on our website.
At other exhibitions we have spoken a lot about languages – the meaning of language and the value of maintaining one’s mother tongue (a subject dear to Birgitte Lambert’s heart) - and I would like to finish with a quote.
On a recent Q and A programme (2014), Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Arrernte female elder, actress, teacher and activist spoke about her Aboriginality. Words which ring true to anyone of a different background:
“(This is) my language, inspite of whiteness trying to penetrate my brain by assimilationists – I am alive, I am here and now – and I speak my language. I practice my cultural essence of me. Don’t try and suppress me and don’t call me a problem.”
The traditional custodians of this land are the people of the Wurundjeri-Balluk Tribe, and as newcomers and new settlers on this land, we pay our respects to the elders both past, present and future for they hold the memories, the traditions, the culture and hopes of Aboriginal Australia.
The Wurundjeri are deeply spiritual people who honor the creator spirit, Bunjil the Eaglehawk – this spirit is very much present in the gallery - every time, I have visited, I have been impressed by the creative spirit and the originality of the exhibits.
It has been great working together with Alex May, curator, and meeting Pastor Richard Mallaby and learning about their vision for their church, which reads (in part):
(It is our vision) to create a community that embraces people in the love of God, in ways that are meaningful and practical. We believe that all people are children of God and we are engaging on a journey where we are growing and learning from one another.
This travelling exhibition is very much about journeys – this time particularly, as we are focusing on people displaced, driven away from their home lands as political and social borders were redrawn, and/or refugees who left behind war, devastation, imprisonment and hunger in order to find safety and a new future.
To that extent, we are pleased to welcome Pastor Tri Nguyen and Dr Brigitte Lambert who will share their stories with us.
Before we hear them, I’d like to tell you a little more about the exhibition.
I am often asked, what led me to this and what made me write the book on which this exhibition is based.
In a way, it was my own experience – I, too, came here on a boat, albeit my journey was not quite as dramatic as Tri’s or Brigitte’s! I left my home island of Föhr on a ferry, and then stepped aboard the Fairstar in Bremerhaven for a six week journey. Arriving here in 1972, I experienced quite a culture shock. Nothing was remotely like anything I had imagined.
There are so many new things for a migrant to adapt to. Recently, I wrote about the difference between German and Australian cakes on our FB page and drew quite a response! And it is not only the textures and flavours of those cakes that we grew up with that we are talking about: it is the whole culture around eating cake that is different.
When I came here, I quickly learned that the meal my Australian family referred to as “tea” was not “afternoon tea” but dinner – a hot dinner, and after dinner they often served cake! Unheard of amongst my family back home – in fact, my mother would have been aghast: Such a waste! She would have cried.
Cakes are eaten as a special treat in between meals in the afternoon; not after a perfectly adequate evening meal!
I’m sure, everybody here who has come from another country or has lived in one, can tell a similar story. But I hold great hopes that while religions, politics, our languages and customs still give rise to division, we may eventually learn to fully accept each other via each others food – after all, where would we be without pizza, sour dough bread, sushi, souvlaki, croissants and Chinese dumplings – even Grünkohl, kale, a quint essential German/European winter vegetable and a staple – has recently become hip!
For the first 25 years of my life in Australia, I was busy trying to assimilate, to blend in – and to be a wife and mother and teacher.
But when I began to write, what I had subconsciously experienced – as a migrant – somehow surfaced. My very first novel – a romance called Lovelorn – dealt with ‘displacement’. A girl has to leave Melbourne and her family and friends because of something that has happened. She has to completely restructure her life – in a different town. Needless to say, it being a romance – all turns out for the best – not without several dramatic upheavals! Lovelorn is published as an e-book by Random House.
In my second novel, Becoming Telly, – which was completely unplanned, it just started from an experience in the Australian bush – the protagonist who presented herself, is a German girl. Her family has brought to Australia as a teenager – and it is interesting that our speaker, Brigitte Lambert, has reflected just about that topic quite a lot: How do children experience migration? You can’t read this novel because I haven’t yet found a publisher for it!
After Becoming Telly, I started to write in German. And this time, I did draft a plan and more or less stuck to it! Even though the following four novels are set on the island where I was born and focus on two mystery-solving elderly ladies, one of their nieces lives in Australia. For the first time, I consciously thought about migration and what it means and incorporated that in a novel. And writing, I began to wonder: how other migrants feel?
You see, all along, I had thought I was peculiar – that it was my fault that I never quite fitted into my Australian family – that I always remained a little bit different. When I left teaching, one of the heads of department farewelled me with the words: “You brought something … European to the school!” Wow, I thought – I have tried so hard to become an Aussie, to be like you all – and 25 years later I am commended for being different!!
For my second German novel I also wanted a character – a German – who had arrived here to an adventure. I thought about the gold rush but that didn’t fit my time. Then, I met – quite by accident - my first migrant (portrayed in the book and the exhibition, Ernst Erdt who had worked on the Snowy Mountain Scheme. His story was not an adventure – it was a life! The Snowy Mountain Scheme was no adventure park, no fun ride. It was perfect for the novel – but it needed to be told in full. And Ernst Erdt was a displaced person – his home of Pomerania no longer existed as part of Germany post WWII.
I met Inga Martinow – a refugee from a devastated country and a war that had claimed her husband and her home.
Next, Paul Anders. He too could not return to the country where he had been born and raised - Silesia.
Genie Fiebig’s family were part of the German community in the city of Lodsch. For centuries the Germans and Poles lived together peacefully – WWII changed all that – the Germans were driven out.
Fritz Schwab and George Dreyfus were hunted and persecuted under the Nazi regime. Fritz discovered after the war that his family had been murdered in a concentration camp; George came here as a child refugee, smuggled out of the country by his family. His parents managed to escape but his grandparents, too, were murdered.
Pastor Steiniger left Germany in 1935, a contemporary of the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and an outspoken critic of the Nazi regime, he nevertheless was interned here during the war period (as was Genie’s father).
H.R. Uhlherr’s family suffered displacement: driven out of Palastine under the British Mandate, the mother and children had to return to Germany, the father was interned at Tatura. It took ten long years before the family was reunited.
Karin Koeppen fled East Germany and the communist regime and started a new life as a young woman on her own.
Fred Glasbrenner chose to come here - but chose the most adventurous way: Having very little money, he and two mates rode their bikes all the way – and then some more: From Darwin to Melbourne to arrive in time for the Olympics 1956!
A book about journeys, indeed!
Once I had started talking to these people, their rich lives, what they had experienced and endured, captured me. Each story is unique in itself – but each story touches on migration and all that it involves.
And since we have toured with this exhibition, we meet other people who have experienced similar and yet completely amazing fates of their own.
To complete this talk, I want to point out that the creative spirits behind what you see here are all people who were not born here.
The photographer, Eva Maria Rugel, who took these portraits, spent six years in Australia – she has just returned home to Germany. Eva is an amazing photographer – an extremely sensitive and inquisitive artist. She was not satisfied with just taking a picture – as a friend commented: “She captured them at a moment when they were in another place.”
The idea for the exhibition really took hold of me when David Wong, born and bred in New York, entered. It was he who conceived the banners, which are quite symbolic, really. David’s idea was to start with a large portrait – something you can easily see from a distance. The large portrait draws you in – you notice there is a second, smaller photo. A person, holding an object. Now, you read the caption, you become intrigued, you go on reading the smaller text. The portrait makes sense to you – you take something away.
In a way, what Eva and David created reflects the experience of the migrant arriving in a new country. First one sees the big picture. Then, slowly, slowly one is drawn into society … understands more, takes aboard the new culture and allows it to become part of his or her history.
Ute, my co-coordinator, and Peter Haberberger both come from Nürnberg – the place of the famous German gingerbread and marzipan – and their skills add so much. Ute had experience in setting up and hanging an exhibition about which I knew nothing. Peter acts as our resident photographer and takes many of the photos which we show on our website and Facebook, while Ute also twitters for us.
Ingrid Ciotti was born in Stuttgart, came to Australia as an intern for Henkell Brothers and met and married into an Italian-Australian family! Ingrid is our IT wizard – she conceived and manages our website and Facebook. You find us easily: Just look for “Memories in my Luggage”.
Even Michelle McKinley, who translated the original German book, is not an Aussie – she has since returned to her native New Zealand. Her experience of living in Melbourne – and plunging herself head-first into the German community of Fitzroy by sending her children to the German school there - allowed her to be sensitive to the cultural nuances of the stories she had to translate.
Our perception of what this exhibition is about changes constantly – we meet such different audiences, are privy to overwhelming memories and realize all the time, that although “our” migrants arrived between 1935 and 1956, their experiences are still relevant today – we can draw parallels, our children can learn from them and – best of all: we can contribute to the debate that rages around migration by widening our horizons.
If you would like to find out more about these people, the book is available in German and English.
We will have a special event here on Sunday, 21 June at 5pm, when Tri Nguyen and Werner Hauburger join us with their stories of escape.
In July we are moving on to TTHA in Bayswater – with a full programme. You can find all the details on our website.
At other exhibitions we have spoken a lot about languages – the meaning of language and the value of maintaining one’s mother tongue (a subject dear to Birgitte Lambert’s heart) - and I would like to finish with a quote.
On a recent Q and A programme (2014), Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, Arrernte female elder, actress, teacher and activist spoke about her Aboriginality. Words which ring true to anyone of a different background:
“(This is) my language, inspite of whiteness trying to penetrate my brain by assimilationists – I am alive, I am here and now – and I speak my language. I practice my cultural essence of me. Don’t try and suppress me and don’t call me a problem.”
