This speech was presented by Exhibition Coordinator Sabine Nielsen at the exhibition opening at Grovedale Neighbourhood House, Grovedale on 1 October 2015.
The Wathauwurung are the traditional owners of the land where the settlement of Grovedale took place.
We are of course much more recent arrivals – and as such we are grateful that we can meet and share our stories, as is the tradition among the First Nation people – and indeed, it is what Grovedale Neighbourhood House is all about – a totem pole at the entrance welcomes visitors in different languages and offers greetings of peace.
The Wathauwurung are the traditional owners of the land where the settlement of Grovedale took place.
We are of course much more recent arrivals – and as such we are grateful that we can meet and share our stories, as is the tradition among the First Nation people – and indeed, it is what Grovedale Neighbourhood House is all about – a totem pole at the entrance welcomes visitors in different languages and offers greetings of peace.
I believe, the tradition of paying respect to elders past is very strong among the Wathauwurung people. When I go home to where I came from, the island of Föhr in the North Sea, I always make a point of visiting the cemetry at least once. I visit the graves where they all are – my mum and dad, grandparents, uncles, aunts, great grandparents, great uncles and aunts … I lay down some flowers, I chat to them and ensure, the little garden plot is looking tidy. I go there, because they are all part of my memory, even if I didn’t know them all personally, I knew of them through the stories that were told to us.
It is a ritual that is common to most German families. And you don’t just visit your own family – after that you stroll along, and you find all the other people whose names you grew up with, because they were neighbours, shop keepers, the local doctor, the policeman and so on.
A visit to the cemetery leaves me feeling rooted. I feel assured that life continues on in the new generations – and that somehow, those who came before us are still around to comfort us.
A cemetery is a very peaceful place – the German word expresses that: Friedhof – a palce of peace.
One of my favourite German authors, Heinrich Böll, wrote a short story – Eine Stunde Aufenthalt*. It is about a man who returns home to his native German town after many years away. Unsure of which one of his old friends may still be around, and not sure of his welcome – a little afraid, of what changes may have taken place in his absence, he gets the taxi driver to drive him to the cemetery rather than to the street where he once lived. And there they all are: family members, neighbours, friends, acquaintances – even people who feuded with each other during their life time – all slumbering together restfully. He wanders around the gravestones and reads the familiar names, recurring over generations – and remembers.
Well, here in Grovedale and in near-by Freshwater Creek, there are two cemeteries that are populated by German families! When I discovered that – I was not only amazed but I felt curiously at home!
There are such familiar names: Andressen, Baensch, Bieske, Baum, Hartwich, Heyer, Hermann, Klemke, Rossack, Schneider, Schulz and Sömke … are just some of them. And not only are these German names, and two or more generations of one family is buried there, but a lot of the grave stones bear their inscriptions in German!
These graveyards convinced me – not that I needed much convincing - that we should conclude our travelling exhibition in Grovedale – once called Germantown. It could not be a more suitable place!
We started in December 2014 in Bonegilla – at the very Migrant Reception Centre that was the first stop for several of the migrants I spoke to for my book – and it was the first stop for thousands of migrants who arrived in the big migration wave post WWII. Bonegilla was the perfect starting point for our exhibition in that respect. What we didn’t realize was just how emotional the journey would be!
The exhibition was conceived to give the portraits, which Eva Maria Rugel had taken of the migrants I had spoken too, and whose stories I had collected, a proper “outing”. I felt, the portraits might need a bit of explaining so I added the short texts – CVs if you like - taken from the much more extensive chapters as they appear in the book. In a way, to justify our “Migrant Exhibition”, I decided we should have events around it – speakers, music, food, forums that highlight the experience of migration, and also the rich German culture.
Yet, in preparing and putting together the exhibition, none of us expected the emotion this would evoke.
At Bonegilla, people came from as far away as Canberra and, yes, Geelong – to revisit the place where either they or their family had first arrived. Bonegilla is not a very inviting place – barren land, few trees, dry – isolated. It would never be voted “top tourist destination”, or win accolades for its accommodation quarters.
People, who saw it for the first time, and people who had never been back since their initial stay, were moved to tears. Some had been children and had not realised, just how hard it must have been for their parents to start their new life in a place like that. Often, the husbands and fathers were sent away to work on farms, cane- or sugar plantations, and the mothers had to cope by themselves. Memories came flooding back. Some people were sure, they found the hut and the room where they had lived; others remembered the cold in witner, the balzing heat in summer, the endless queues and all: the smell of boiled mutton!!
What had started at Bonegilla, this amazing outpouring of memories has continued throughout the exhibition.
We have found that our displays, in a way, ‘legitimise’ what we as migrants have experienced. A lot of people are relieved to realize that it is ok, to be a migrant, to tell about what it was like. It has been an amazing year of connecting with people and their stories – and of connecting the past to the present and therefore to the future.
The more people talk about what it is like to migrate – to leave one’s home, one’s family, all that one has known – or in the case of displaced people who came with their families: what it is like not to belong, to have lost everything, to undertake an arduous journey – the more stories we hear, the more it helps us to understand those who arrive now.
And it is not only the asylum seekers and refugees, although at present they are foremost in our mind – it is also those others who come here for work, for adventure or seeking a new horizon.Westernized people with good language skills, financial security and job prospects - expatriates. No matter, where you came from and what you have left behind, migration always involves a period of displacement! You enter a different universe with different rules, etiquettes and traditions when you swap your homeland, your Heimat, for a host society.
On our journey we have spoken to and heard of so many different people – migrants who arrived before WWII and migrants post WWII, arriving in the 1950’s who found themselves displaced, refugees, victims of ethnic cleansing or bombing raids. There are people persecuted for their faith – but also adventurers or people who were moved by their faith or those who came for love.
In the 1960’s, migrants arrived for economic reasons – to create a better future for themselves and/or their children. Young men, who had lost their fathers in WWII or who remembered the war all too well, left Germany not be drafted. The cold war drove people away – American missiles un German soil pointing towards Russia were a scary prospect.
We listened to alarming stories – like the Baptist pastor Tri Nguyen who retold his story of fleeing Vietnam.
We heard from expatriates; young Mums; business people and opportunists and international volunteers – and lots of migrants from countries other than Germany, whose stories resembled ours.
When I collected the stories for the book, and when I have talked to visitors to the exhibition, everyone had one thing in common: they all wanted to tell the tale of their life before they came here!
Everyone wants to go back to his or her roots!
Therefore, to finish our exhibition here at Grovedale – Germantown – is absolutely right: because here we are in a place where amongst the first settlers there were Germans.
I was not born and bred in Grovedale, I have only recently become aware of Grovedale’s fascinating history. During the course of the exhibition we will hear from people like Elizabeth Kraus and Erlo Pietsch, long term residents of Grovedale, and June Winter, a descendant of the well-known and respected Winter family, who was here right at the beginning.
But I need to say this: we had intended to make Osborne House in North Geelong our final stop – until fate intervened and invited us here!
I have to thank Elizabeth Kraus for that – we met more or less accidently and before we knew, we were communicating vigorously – about all sorts of things, but mainly about heritage, history and ancestry. Then, Elizabeth invited us to Grovedale to show us the German heritage here!
For years, I had travelled past Grovedale on my way to Barwon Heads , I had visited Geelong numerous times and was very familiar with the beautiful Bellarine Peninsula – yet, I did not know about Grovedale!!
I did not know that Grovedale was once called Germantown and that there are so many reminders of German settlers here! I was amazed – and hooked. Especially, after Elizabeth showed us the German cemeteries – th German cemetery in Grovedale and the one in Freshwater Creek (once called Waldkirch).
I arrived in Australia in 1972 – and although, I did not experience internment, I was not called an enemy alien or had to contend with justified post-war trauma towards citizens, Australia had only recently been at war with, I still realized that being German in Australia was a bit of a stigma!
Yet, here in Grovedale, there is so much evidence of German people who bore their Germanness unashamedly, proudly, openly – who were respected business people, wine growers, orchadists, farmers, milliners and house builders. Who built up strong Lutheran church communities and inscribed their grave stones in their own language!
This exhibition has been about collecting stories – and one such story was lend to us by a descendant of the Hobbs and Grabsch families – Ian Hobbs. This fascinating document is now part of our collection and can be inspected at Grovedale Neighbourhood House.
Read the real-life who-dunnit about George Grabsch, who became a store keeper and hotel owner and fought several court cases against people who owed him money ... until, one day he mysteriously disappeared.
Several days later, he was found drowned – with a heavy chain around his neck and weighed down by rocks. Was it really suicide as the police constable concluded – or was it the wicked Wickham, who owed him money and did him in? A cold case if ever there was one!
You can have a look at George and Louisa Grabsch’ wedding certificate, displayed in the foyer: they were the first couple to be married by Pastor Heyer in the church that was to be St Paul’s!
Read about the history of Germantown and see photos of German heritage buildings.
Or meet Annaisse Novak in the reading nook and her marvelous collection of memorabilia and newspaper cuttings that belonged to her actress mum.
Or leaf through 200 Years of German Migration – an amazing collection of newspaper articles (collected and collates by a former citizen of Grovedale!).
There are also two very special events which are highlights of our exhibition at Grovedale Neighbourhood House, 45 Heyers Road, Grovedale:
German settlers in Grovedale | Thursday, 15 October 2–3.30 pm
presented by June Winter
Grovedale once was called “Germantown”. June recalls a time when all the children at Grovedale Primary school had German ancestors and were related. Her ancestors arrived in Australia from Prussia in the 1850’s. Hear their stories: why they left Germany and what led them to settle in Germantown – and how everything changed when Germany went to war in 1914.
Join us for “Kaffee and Kuchen” – a German style afternoon tea
RSVP: 13 October info@grovenh.org.au phone: 5241 5717
Escape from the Cold War in Europe to the safety of Australia | Tuesday 27 October 2-3.30pm
presented by Erlo Pietsch
Erlo fled Communist Rule in East Germany and found Capitalist Struggle in West Germany. In 1960, he escaped the Cold War in Europe to the safety of Australia. His new home offered him hope alongside the inevitable the culture shock: “I lost my youth by leaving home.”
Join us for “Kaffee and Kuchen” – afternoon tea and German hospitality
RSVP: 23 October info@grovenh.org.au phone: 5241 5717
* Heinrich Böll, Eine Stunde Aufenthalt in Zum Tee bei Dr. Borsig, dtv, München, 1964
It is a ritual that is common to most German families. And you don’t just visit your own family – after that you stroll along, and you find all the other people whose names you grew up with, because they were neighbours, shop keepers, the local doctor, the policeman and so on.
A visit to the cemetery leaves me feeling rooted. I feel assured that life continues on in the new generations – and that somehow, those who came before us are still around to comfort us.
A cemetery is a very peaceful place – the German word expresses that: Friedhof – a palce of peace.
One of my favourite German authors, Heinrich Böll, wrote a short story – Eine Stunde Aufenthalt*. It is about a man who returns home to his native German town after many years away. Unsure of which one of his old friends may still be around, and not sure of his welcome – a little afraid, of what changes may have taken place in his absence, he gets the taxi driver to drive him to the cemetery rather than to the street where he once lived. And there they all are: family members, neighbours, friends, acquaintances – even people who feuded with each other during their life time – all slumbering together restfully. He wanders around the gravestones and reads the familiar names, recurring over generations – and remembers.
Well, here in Grovedale and in near-by Freshwater Creek, there are two cemeteries that are populated by German families! When I discovered that – I was not only amazed but I felt curiously at home!
There are such familiar names: Andressen, Baensch, Bieske, Baum, Hartwich, Heyer, Hermann, Klemke, Rossack, Schneider, Schulz and Sömke … are just some of them. And not only are these German names, and two or more generations of one family is buried there, but a lot of the grave stones bear their inscriptions in German!
These graveyards convinced me – not that I needed much convincing - that we should conclude our travelling exhibition in Grovedale – once called Germantown. It could not be a more suitable place!
We started in December 2014 in Bonegilla – at the very Migrant Reception Centre that was the first stop for several of the migrants I spoke to for my book – and it was the first stop for thousands of migrants who arrived in the big migration wave post WWII. Bonegilla was the perfect starting point for our exhibition in that respect. What we didn’t realize was just how emotional the journey would be!
The exhibition was conceived to give the portraits, which Eva Maria Rugel had taken of the migrants I had spoken too, and whose stories I had collected, a proper “outing”. I felt, the portraits might need a bit of explaining so I added the short texts – CVs if you like - taken from the much more extensive chapters as they appear in the book. In a way, to justify our “Migrant Exhibition”, I decided we should have events around it – speakers, music, food, forums that highlight the experience of migration, and also the rich German culture.
Yet, in preparing and putting together the exhibition, none of us expected the emotion this would evoke.
At Bonegilla, people came from as far away as Canberra and, yes, Geelong – to revisit the place where either they or their family had first arrived. Bonegilla is not a very inviting place – barren land, few trees, dry – isolated. It would never be voted “top tourist destination”, or win accolades for its accommodation quarters.
People, who saw it for the first time, and people who had never been back since their initial stay, were moved to tears. Some had been children and had not realised, just how hard it must have been for their parents to start their new life in a place like that. Often, the husbands and fathers were sent away to work on farms, cane- or sugar plantations, and the mothers had to cope by themselves. Memories came flooding back. Some people were sure, they found the hut and the room where they had lived; others remembered the cold in witner, the balzing heat in summer, the endless queues and all: the smell of boiled mutton!!
What had started at Bonegilla, this amazing outpouring of memories has continued throughout the exhibition.
We have found that our displays, in a way, ‘legitimise’ what we as migrants have experienced. A lot of people are relieved to realize that it is ok, to be a migrant, to tell about what it was like. It has been an amazing year of connecting with people and their stories – and of connecting the past to the present and therefore to the future.
The more people talk about what it is like to migrate – to leave one’s home, one’s family, all that one has known – or in the case of displaced people who came with their families: what it is like not to belong, to have lost everything, to undertake an arduous journey – the more stories we hear, the more it helps us to understand those who arrive now.
And it is not only the asylum seekers and refugees, although at present they are foremost in our mind – it is also those others who come here for work, for adventure or seeking a new horizon.Westernized people with good language skills, financial security and job prospects - expatriates. No matter, where you came from and what you have left behind, migration always involves a period of displacement! You enter a different universe with different rules, etiquettes and traditions when you swap your homeland, your Heimat, for a host society.
On our journey we have spoken to and heard of so many different people – migrants who arrived before WWII and migrants post WWII, arriving in the 1950’s who found themselves displaced, refugees, victims of ethnic cleansing or bombing raids. There are people persecuted for their faith – but also adventurers or people who were moved by their faith or those who came for love.
In the 1960’s, migrants arrived for economic reasons – to create a better future for themselves and/or their children. Young men, who had lost their fathers in WWII or who remembered the war all too well, left Germany not be drafted. The cold war drove people away – American missiles un German soil pointing towards Russia were a scary prospect.
We listened to alarming stories – like the Baptist pastor Tri Nguyen who retold his story of fleeing Vietnam.
We heard from expatriates; young Mums; business people and opportunists and international volunteers – and lots of migrants from countries other than Germany, whose stories resembled ours.
When I collected the stories for the book, and when I have talked to visitors to the exhibition, everyone had one thing in common: they all wanted to tell the tale of their life before they came here!
Everyone wants to go back to his or her roots!
Therefore, to finish our exhibition here at Grovedale – Germantown – is absolutely right: because here we are in a place where amongst the first settlers there were Germans.
I was not born and bred in Grovedale, I have only recently become aware of Grovedale’s fascinating history. During the course of the exhibition we will hear from people like Elizabeth Kraus and Erlo Pietsch, long term residents of Grovedale, and June Winter, a descendant of the well-known and respected Winter family, who was here right at the beginning.
But I need to say this: we had intended to make Osborne House in North Geelong our final stop – until fate intervened and invited us here!
I have to thank Elizabeth Kraus for that – we met more or less accidently and before we knew, we were communicating vigorously – about all sorts of things, but mainly about heritage, history and ancestry. Then, Elizabeth invited us to Grovedale to show us the German heritage here!
For years, I had travelled past Grovedale on my way to Barwon Heads , I had visited Geelong numerous times and was very familiar with the beautiful Bellarine Peninsula – yet, I did not know about Grovedale!!
I did not know that Grovedale was once called Germantown and that there are so many reminders of German settlers here! I was amazed – and hooked. Especially, after Elizabeth showed us the German cemeteries – th German cemetery in Grovedale and the one in Freshwater Creek (once called Waldkirch).
I arrived in Australia in 1972 – and although, I did not experience internment, I was not called an enemy alien or had to contend with justified post-war trauma towards citizens, Australia had only recently been at war with, I still realized that being German in Australia was a bit of a stigma!
Yet, here in Grovedale, there is so much evidence of German people who bore their Germanness unashamedly, proudly, openly – who were respected business people, wine growers, orchadists, farmers, milliners and house builders. Who built up strong Lutheran church communities and inscribed their grave stones in their own language!
This exhibition has been about collecting stories – and one such story was lend to us by a descendant of the Hobbs and Grabsch families – Ian Hobbs. This fascinating document is now part of our collection and can be inspected at Grovedale Neighbourhood House.
Read the real-life who-dunnit about George Grabsch, who became a store keeper and hotel owner and fought several court cases against people who owed him money ... until, one day he mysteriously disappeared.
Several days later, he was found drowned – with a heavy chain around his neck and weighed down by rocks. Was it really suicide as the police constable concluded – or was it the wicked Wickham, who owed him money and did him in? A cold case if ever there was one!
You can have a look at George and Louisa Grabsch’ wedding certificate, displayed in the foyer: they were the first couple to be married by Pastor Heyer in the church that was to be St Paul’s!
Read about the history of Germantown and see photos of German heritage buildings.
Or meet Annaisse Novak in the reading nook and her marvelous collection of memorabilia and newspaper cuttings that belonged to her actress mum.
Or leaf through 200 Years of German Migration – an amazing collection of newspaper articles (collected and collates by a former citizen of Grovedale!).
There are also two very special events which are highlights of our exhibition at Grovedale Neighbourhood House, 45 Heyers Road, Grovedale:
German settlers in Grovedale | Thursday, 15 October 2–3.30 pm
presented by June Winter
Grovedale once was called “Germantown”. June recalls a time when all the children at Grovedale Primary school had German ancestors and were related. Her ancestors arrived in Australia from Prussia in the 1850’s. Hear their stories: why they left Germany and what led them to settle in Germantown – and how everything changed when Germany went to war in 1914.
Join us for “Kaffee and Kuchen” – a German style afternoon tea
RSVP: 13 October info@grovenh.org.au phone: 5241 5717
Escape from the Cold War in Europe to the safety of Australia | Tuesday 27 October 2-3.30pm
presented by Erlo Pietsch
Erlo fled Communist Rule in East Germany and found Capitalist Struggle in West Germany. In 1960, he escaped the Cold War in Europe to the safety of Australia. His new home offered him hope alongside the inevitable the culture shock: “I lost my youth by leaving home.”
Join us for “Kaffee and Kuchen” – afternoon tea and German hospitality
RSVP: 23 October info@grovenh.org.au phone: 5241 5717
* Heinrich Böll, Eine Stunde Aufenthalt in Zum Tee bei Dr. Borsig, dtv, München, 1964
