| Portraits of German migrants to Australia – a book by Sabine Nielsen |
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 Meet the "Leierkastenmann", Hans Hahnemann - he cheers us up, playing his old-fashioned barrel organ, at our Christmas Markets, various fairs and functions throughout the year.
Hans delighted the audience at TTHA on 17 September over some Kaffee und Kuchen (see photos, courtesy Ute Haberberger). And here is his story...
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Anthony (Horst) Kamphausen’s father was a scientist employed at the ‘Hermann Göring Werke’ in the Sudentenland. After a traumatic escape – lasting eight months - the family was finally reunited in Germany. The ESTEA scheme – ‘The Employment of Scientific and Technical Enemy Aliens Scheme in Australia ‘–, designed as part of Germany’s reparation for WWII, brought them to Australia.
This is Anthony's story as presented by him as part of the special events series at the Memories in My Luggage exhibition at Osborne House, Geelong.
 Knud Bartels spoke at TTHA (Tabulam and Templer Homes for the Aged), Bayswater.
How was a new aeroplane developed in a world before computers and flight simulators? Well, some one had to climb into the cockpit and try it out - live! On Friday, our series of special talks, introduced us to the life of a German test pilot in the 1960s. Knud Bartels joined the HFB (Hamburger Flugzeug Bau) at a time when the air industry started up again after WWII. Because there were no test pilots in Germany, a Swiss, an American and Knud, quickly going for his pilot's licence, started up to see if the newly build HFB 320 - a jet suitable to fly businessmen to their engagements - could actually fly. "Wir wussten nicht mal, ob das Ding fliegen würde!" ('We didn't event know if the thing could fly!'), Knud remembers. It was a heavy aeroplane and difficult to control. As a model it was unusual because of its "Vorfeilung" - in laymen's terms: it was wider in the front than in the back and you could stand up in the cockpit. Every manoeuvre had to be tested by the pilots. They worked six days a week, from 7am to 7pm with hardly a break. "When we came down to re-fuel, we grabbed a quick cup of coffee, then we were off again." In the morning, Knud would work out the program for the day and off they'd go. "There was no radio contact with the ground - they had no idea where we were or what we were up to, until eventually, we'd return!" Unimaginable nowadays - in a world of fine-tuned air traffic safety. Sadly, both the Swiss and the American test pilots with whom Knud started off, were killed in separate incidents. Miraculously, Knud survived. And lived to tell a fascinated audience about his career. The HFB 320 was commercially not successful, and eventually Knud was 'leant' to the VFW (Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke) and became a program director for the airbus, responsible for teaching airbus purchasers how to fly and maintain their aeroplane. This job took him and his wife, Waltraut, to Toulouse in France and later, to Jakarta, Indonesia. When it was time to retire, they had lived as expats for too long to simply slip back quietly into being German citizens. They embarked on yet another adventure and moved to Australia. Knud Bartels is an entertaining story teller. He told us about a career most of us knew little about, and he managed to tell us about technical details in simple and easy to understand language! Thank you, Knud! Knud and Waltraut are about to fly again - albeit, though they both held pilot licences, they will not take to the rudder themselves but trust a younger man or woman to fly them safely to Germany where they are visiting relatives. Still, their fellow passengers will rest assured that there are two experienced 'spares' among them - ready to take over should the need arise. Presented by Dr Kristian Ireland
The stories of the 'Ostarbeiter' - civilians and POWs who were forced into slave labour during WWII - were almost totally neglected until the 1990's when historians and researches found survivors and their descendants and started to record their experiences. Dr Kristian Ireland - our speaker on Friday, 24 July - stumbled across the story of his grandparents when a teacher at Primary School set the class a project: to record their family history.  by Brigitte Lambert
As Sabine NIelsen has stated in the introduction to her book, most of the stories presented there are from adult migrants to Australia. I came here as a 9-year old, with my parents and baby sister, so my reflections on migration and the settling-in period might be a bit different in certain ways – but I daresay that overall, they are very similar to the adult version. Children have been the focus in much migration research to date, and there are some interesting notions about them: For instance, in sociology, child migrants and especially those in the pre-teenage years could be labelled as Gen 1.5 – being somehow perceived as ‘half-way’ between one generation and the next. A basic notion is that 1.5s bring with them characteristics from their home country and then continue their development in the new one. Their identity is held to be a combination of two cultures and traditions, although of course, this aspect is hardly clear-cut, and there are many factors arising from the circumstances of migration, which affect individuals in different ways. Nevertheless, 1.5s are often bilingual and bicultural, and some studies suggest that they find it easier to adapt to the local culture and society than people who immigrated as adults.  When young Fred Glasbrenner and his two mates, Theo Guth and Konne Fischer, arrived in Darwin after an arduous journey - riding their bikes all the way from Backnang (Stuttgart is just next door) to Australia, they went into a pub in the Northern Territory to quench their thirst.
"Three cokes, please", they said. A hush fell over the pub. "Three cokes, please", they repeated. Making sure their German-accented English came across loud and clear. "Coca Cola", they added for good measure. The hush deepened, the publican glared. Flaring his nostril*, he took a deep breath, and then he let them have it: "If you want to drink - bleep, bleep - coke, go to the - bleep, bleep - milk bar down the road!"  presented by Herta Uhlherr
as part of the Official Launch of Memories In My Luggage Exhibition at Tabulam and Templer Homes. Herta is pictured here on the left with Linde Mohr, President of the Australian-German Welfare Society on the right. The Temple Society is an independent faith community, with no connection to the Knights Templar of a thousand years ago. Why were our forebears in Palestine? They migrated from South West Germany from 1868 to the 1890s for two main reasons: Reason 1: The founders’ strong – we would now say “progressive” – ideas about what Christianity should be about if it truly followed Jesus’ teachings rather than Church doctrine naturally upset the Church authorities, who persecuted them, so they looked for somewhere else to go. Reason 2: Through his theological studies, founder Christoph Hoffmann had concluded that biblical prophecy indicated “the Kingdom of God” – the main theme of Jesus’ teaching – would begin as the “New Jerusalem”. He believed that practising living in the way Jesus taught – i.e. loving God and your neighbour as yourself, with compassion, acceptance and cooperation – would be noticed more in the famed holy city of Jerusalem, from where model communities could spread into all the world, making it more peaceful and harmonious. >>> Read more  presented by Helmut Glenk as part of the Official Launch of Memories In My Luggage Exhibition at Tabulam and Templer Homes. Helmut is pictured left in discussions over this book "From Desert Sands to Golden Oranges: The History of the German Templer Settlement of Sarona in Palestine 1871-1947". It is interesting to reflect and ask oneself why did the Templers come to Bayswater in 1946/47? It was probably the first “concentration” of Templers at one location in Australia and today is still the core of the Templer Community in Australia, notwithstanding the Temple Society Australia (TSA) Office being in Bentleigh. The numbers of Templers living in the vicinity of Bayswater together with its aged care facilities, hall, bowling alley, tennis courts, chapel, village and importantly the substantial land parcel on which all this is located, makes it the focal point of TSA activities and its community. >>> Read more  presented by Dieter Glenk
Dieter presented the following as part of the Official Launch of Memories in my Luggage at the Tabulam and Templer Home for the Aged in Bayswater. (Dieter is picture on the right, with his brother Helmut on the left and Sabine Nielsen centre.) My brother Helmut has spoken of and documented why and how the first Templers settled in Bayswater in November/December 1946. I would like to relate some of my memories and experiences as and eight year old boy who had grown up behind barb wire and for whom the new freedom was a massive culture shock. Our grandparents came with us. They had received some small income from their orange grove harvest in the early years of internment but this had stopped. It was insufficient to sustain them into old age. It had been a condition of release from the internment camp that people could support themselves and that they had accommodation. In the case of our grandparents because of their age, there was an additional condition that for them to remain in Australia they would be fully supported by our parents for the rest of their lives and they would never be entitled to government social security payments or the pension. At the time of our release Opa and Oma were aged 61 and 63. It was their third start from scratch in their lives which had been devastated by two world wars. >>> Read more
Margitta Acker has written two books - “From Baltic Shores to a Distant Land” (published 2009) and “Meat Pies and Mumbling Blokes” (published 2013) - describing her personal migration experience. They can be purchased for $20 each (plus postage) and a discount applies if you buy both. Please contact: ackers@netspeed.com.au. "I arrived in Australia in June 1962. In my luggage I not only carried memories, but expectations, too, imaginings of what Australia and my life in this new and oh, so strange land, might be like. In the beginning I looked for the familiar – in nature, in culture and in everyday life. The familiar was going to help me find my place in these new and somewhat intimidating surroundings, and the memories – they were going to keep me strong and help me cope. This information was posted to our Facebook page by Andrew Gazcol. Klemzig was one of the places originally settled by the Germans who arrived in 1838. At the time they established a small village near the River Torrens and named it after their home village back in Germany which today is now part of Poland and called Klępsk.  Extracts from a book by Andrew Gaczol (soon to be published)
Otto Gaczol grew up in Silesia and lived through the German occupation of Poland just 30 km away from the concentration camp Auschwitz. In January 1945, just 14 years old he fled, just ahead of the Red Army and made his way to Berlin. His son, Andrew, wrote down his story. Australia calling: populate or perish After WWII the Australian government was anxious to populate this vast and largely empty continent. The threat of an invasion during the war had alerted them to their potential defencelessness and the labour shortages would lead to economic disaster. Otto Gazcol headed the call, alongside about three million other European immigrants who arrived between 1945–1975. “My mother is called Regina Licitis. She and my father, Valfrids, were refugees from Latvia. They arrived in Dresden, Germany in 1944. I was born in Schwandorf. From Schwandorf we went to Amberg, a DP (Displaced Persons) camp and then on to Weiden.
The photo shows my mother and I in Naples, waiting to embark the "General Stuart Heitzelman". Then we are aboard the ship on our way to Australia. We were taken to Bonegilla first, but didn’t stay long. We managed to rent a furnished room in Carlton. The photo shows us in front of the house – my mother and I and a friend with her children. Our first private ‘home’ in Melbourne! But the car does not belong to us!” Inara Johnston Extract from the book written by Louise McLean (nee Wannag - originally Vanags her father's Latvian name)
PART FOUR: Boat people from Bremerhaven Australia wants, and will welcome, new healthy citizens who are determined to become good Australians. Arthur Caldwell, Australian Minister for Immigration, 1945 My father had many reasons for wanting to leave Germany. The war years and post-war years in Berlin were very hard on my parents. Not only was Berlin an unfamiliar city to my father, it was a city in the grip of a totalitarian regime and a horrible war. As a young man, my father found himself a stranger in a foreign city. Forced to leave his friends in Riga, he now had only his mother and father for company. Nor was Germany his home. Despite the fact that he was linguistically and in some respects culturally German, Latvia was the only country he felt he belonged in. Now with the Russian occupation of Latvia, there could be no thoughts of ever returning. Even as a young man my father could be charming and funny, but though he made many friends during his time in Berlin, these friendships were shallow and didn’t survive the war. What was the point in getting too close to anyone? How did you know where you would be after the war ended? Or if indeed you would still be alive? It was eight years since the war ended. Although Germany was beginning to show signs of economic recovery, the psychological scars were proving harder to heal. The wounds ran deep. Reminders of the terrors of war and the misery of defeat were plain to see in the landscape and on the faces of the people who survived. How tempting it must have been to entertain thoughts of a country not tinged with the stain of war. My parents had thought about leaving Germany ever since the war had ended. They had briefly toyed with the idea of Brazil or Venezuela but the climate and complete foreignness of South America never really appealed. Canada was very tempting. Latvians were very welcome as migrants to Canada and the climatic conditions were very similar. My father was tempted by the ice and snow, my mother much less so. By Artur Baumhammer, son of Willi Baumhammer
‘My name is Artur Baumhammer, and I am the son of Willi Baumhammer, who was one of the first 613 German tradesmen that were contracted to the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Authority (SMHEA) in 1951. 44 men arrived by plane, including my father, the rest arrived on various ships. Their contracts were for two years. The boat: MS Castelbianco, the destination: Canada. One year later my mother-in-law together with her young son tries to join her aunt, alas – Canada has closed its borders to migrants. They turn to Australia instead and arrive in 1954, to start life at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre. Back home in Hamburg they had lost everything, their house destroyed, their belongings decimated by air raids. How much easier the start to their new life would have been, had they been able to join family ... |
