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
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
That’s why, in an orderly way, the German Templers migrated to Palestine. Some also came from the Caucasus (Russia) and from the USA; they were all linked by their faith.
After a very hard beginning in the then badly neglected Turkish province of Palestine, the six Templer settlements prospered and were highly regarded by their Arab and Jewish neighbours. In fact, the cooperative agricultural enterprises begun soon after by the incoming Zionists learnt a lot from the Templers’ practices.
Tensions escalated in the 1930s in Europe and the Middle East. When WWII broke out in 1939, the British Mandatory Authority interned in camps all German men of military age still in Palestine, and their families were crowded into the agricultural Templer settlements, which were quickly surrounded by barbed wire perimeter fences and guards.
By 1941, Rommel in North Africa made the British fear for the Suez Canal. The world’s largest luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth, was converted into a not-at-all-luxurious troop carrier, which brought ANZAC forces to Egypt to fight the Germans (Tobruk, El Alamein). At the end of July 1941, over 500 Templers were forcibly deported on the Queen Elizabeth with minimum luggage. Where to? Stifling hot, dirty train carriages had brought them through the Sinai Desert to the Canal; they had to carry suitcases and children in the fierce summer sun, but at least the men and their families were together again, though all were plagued by thirst and great anxiety.
Conditions on board ship were awfully cramped. Four or five double bunks in a cabin made accessing cupboards impossible. Lukewarm salt water in basins and baths was not refreshing; one woman wrote they rinsed out their clothes and put them on wet to smell less of sweat. There was little access to luggage in the hold. The food was judged terrible – lots of frozen rabbit, few vegetables, no fruit and nothing suitable for little children or those sick. My mother told us she had a dreadful time, like many others, cooped up with a sick toddler and her other children. Heat, humidity, no fresh air, and restricted water – the Jewish auxiliary guards often blocked access to the taps out of spite. Then there was the threat of German U-boats.
After initial chaos, the German POWs on the ship were permitted to serve at meal times and things went more smoothly; some made music – a little light relief. Also the young people would gather in a corridor and sing folk songs – someone had an accordion. The Australian guards were friendlier and sometimes slipped an apple to the children.
At last it became clear – our destination was to be Australia! At Fremantle, fresh food and vegetables, fuel and water were loaded. Many were seasick as the ship ploughed across the Great Australian Bight. Finally, Sydney Harbour! One of my few memories (I was three and a half years old) is how far down it was to the water. Ferries took us under the famous bridge to Darling Harbour and a train – clean, with padded seats, unlike in Egypt – and ladies (the CWA?) brought sandwiches and hot tea at a station further along. Everyone was also issued with a woollen ex-army coat, dyed red so that any escapees could be identified more easily. It was winter Down Under and we had left Palestine in summer clothes.
After many hours on the train, then on trucks, we arrived at the Tatura internment camp. One woman wrote: “Horrified we look at each other. We had not imagined that things would be this bad! The whole thing looks like a gigantic rat trap” – with watchtowers and searchlights (Erna Tietz, Exiled from the Holy Land p 9). Barbed wire compounds with rudimentary barracks, bare, draughty, no insulation – so cold! Few Australians knew of these camps, unlike today when television cameras seem to be everywhere. Compared to e.g. today’s refugee or detention centres with a diversity of refugees, the Templers, though from different villages, had much in common: language, background, mentality. Kitchen and cleaning rosters were soon organised, also school classes and physical activities when possible. While preparing to conduct a funeral recently I learnt that a couple of young men on duty to heat the coppers for hot showers would play on their mouth organ in between adding more wood – were the girls showering on the other side of the corrugated iron wall being serenaded?
Boredom was a problem. The Persian professors interned with us offered classes. Some distance education courses were available and many men took the opportunity to learn more English, other languages and different skills. My father’s course in poultry keeping helped him get a job later in a private zoo. Great creativity was developed. Plays were put on, do-it-yourself everything – much (cheap) cheesecloth and dyes were involved in making costumes.
Interviews, after the war ended, persuaded the Australian authorities that Templers were upright people, not the dangerous criminals some had alleged. Most of us internees were allowed to stay; they could leave camp when they had found a job and accommodation. The fact that many Australian men had not (or not yet) returned from the war meant labour was sorely needed. With little English, men and women laboured on farms and in factories and households.
Meanwhile, back in Palestine, the elderly and those who had missed the boat due to illness were not as crowded in the perimeter settlements anymore. There were several exchanges of Jewish people from Germany for Templers from Palestine, who made their way by train across Asia Minor, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria (the route of the old Orient Express) to Germany. No sooner had they arrived than one family was killed in an air raid. The convoluted journey of one mother with her two boys and how they eventually, after ten years apart, where reunited with their father in Australia is described in Sabine’s book: the chapter on Hermann Ralph Uhlherr.
Other Palestine Templers, who had been studying or visiting relatives in Germany in 1939, got stuck there by the outbreak of war and also took many years to get here to join their relatives. Some never made it at all.
For the Templers still in Palestine hoping to save their settlements, life became increasingly dangerous. They were falsely accused of hostile acts, and they were harassed and cheated and threatened. In Sarona, where the mayor, Gotthilf Wagner, was to chair a meeting of Elders, this was for some reason delayed by twenty minutes during which time a bomb blew up the meeting room. Thank God a major bloodbath was avoided. But not long after, in March 1946, Jewish terrorists shot Wagner dead at point-blank range. It became quite clear the remaining Templers would be driven out of the country and would have to abandon all that they had built up with their blood, sweat and tears and there would be no going back. Both the Jews and the Arabs were determined to secure the highways and infrastructure and claim as much land as possible.
In April 1948, shortly before the British Mandate expired, Jewish Haganah fighters attacked Waldheim at dawn, gunning down several settlers in front of their children. Alerted by the shooting, the Betlehem settlers nearby fled by horse and cart to Nazareth with just what they could grab in that moment. When the news reached Wilhelma in the afternoon, the commandant there ordered the Templers to leave on a British corvette. In enormous haste they packed some essentials. The British army could no longer control the situation. The same warship picked up those fleeing Waldheim and Betlehem, whom the British had trucked to Akko (Acre). About 300 persons were taken to Cyprus, where they lived in a tent “resort” on the beach for many anxious and frustrating months until they could move on to Germany (a few) or Australia (most).
A small group of elderly and sick Templers went from Wilhelma to Jerusalem by car. They found their properties in a dreadful state, and their water cisterns polluted. They sought refuge in the Borromeo Sisters’ Hospice in the German Colony. It was now under the auspices of the Red Cross, but it was located between the fronts, so there was constant shooting. As the British moved out, looters and rabble moved in. The State of Israel was declared on 14th May, 1948. “It was a most unholy Pentecost that year,” wrote an observer. The last small group of Templers departed by ship on 20th July 1950 for Australia.
As we have seen, most Templers were forced out of Palestine with very few possessions. Most of their things and their properties had been confiscated, destroyed or stolen. So, many of them arrived with a single suitcase – and with many memories in their luggage. The different journeys to Australia were difficult, full of anxiety and grief.
In Australia, one had to assimilate, as other migrants will remember, too. Most quickly learnt passable English and, where at all possible, encouraged their youth to get a good education, something that cannot be lost as easily as material possessions. We are grateful to have a good home here, grateful also for the cooperation between the Temple Society Australia and the Australian-German Welfare Society in Melbourne and Sydney.
Above all, Templers on the whole have continued to strive to be the best that they can be and so help create the best possible world around them.
I believe the only hope of reducing or stopping the conflicts raging everywhere is if we humans each put more effort into our spiritual evolution. Wise people including Jesus have pointed out the way, but it’s not easy: it means loving more generously, forgiving, behaving justly, accepting our responsibility – “before God”, as some would say – to take care of one another and of our precious home planet. Most Templers don’t “talk religion” much, but acting for the greater good, rather than for selfish ends alone, is still what underlies our communal life, as it always did. Long may that continue!
Ten minutes is not very long to cover a complex story. There are a number of Templer books where you can read more, like:
“Exiled from the Holy Land” compiled by Horst Blaich, TSA Heritage 2009
“The Holy Land Called” by Dr Paul Sauer, TSA 1991
“Memories of Palestine”, TSA 2005
Temple Society Australia: www.templesociety.org.au
Email: tsa@templesociety.org.au
After a very hard beginning in the then badly neglected Turkish province of Palestine, the six Templer settlements prospered and were highly regarded by their Arab and Jewish neighbours. In fact, the cooperative agricultural enterprises begun soon after by the incoming Zionists learnt a lot from the Templers’ practices.
Tensions escalated in the 1930s in Europe and the Middle East. When WWII broke out in 1939, the British Mandatory Authority interned in camps all German men of military age still in Palestine, and their families were crowded into the agricultural Templer settlements, which were quickly surrounded by barbed wire perimeter fences and guards.
By 1941, Rommel in North Africa made the British fear for the Suez Canal. The world’s largest luxury liner, the Queen Elizabeth, was converted into a not-at-all-luxurious troop carrier, which brought ANZAC forces to Egypt to fight the Germans (Tobruk, El Alamein). At the end of July 1941, over 500 Templers were forcibly deported on the Queen Elizabeth with minimum luggage. Where to? Stifling hot, dirty train carriages had brought them through the Sinai Desert to the Canal; they had to carry suitcases and children in the fierce summer sun, but at least the men and their families were together again, though all were plagued by thirst and great anxiety.
Conditions on board ship were awfully cramped. Four or five double bunks in a cabin made accessing cupboards impossible. Lukewarm salt water in basins and baths was not refreshing; one woman wrote they rinsed out their clothes and put them on wet to smell less of sweat. There was little access to luggage in the hold. The food was judged terrible – lots of frozen rabbit, few vegetables, no fruit and nothing suitable for little children or those sick. My mother told us she had a dreadful time, like many others, cooped up with a sick toddler and her other children. Heat, humidity, no fresh air, and restricted water – the Jewish auxiliary guards often blocked access to the taps out of spite. Then there was the threat of German U-boats.
After initial chaos, the German POWs on the ship were permitted to serve at meal times and things went more smoothly; some made music – a little light relief. Also the young people would gather in a corridor and sing folk songs – someone had an accordion. The Australian guards were friendlier and sometimes slipped an apple to the children.
At last it became clear – our destination was to be Australia! At Fremantle, fresh food and vegetables, fuel and water were loaded. Many were seasick as the ship ploughed across the Great Australian Bight. Finally, Sydney Harbour! One of my few memories (I was three and a half years old) is how far down it was to the water. Ferries took us under the famous bridge to Darling Harbour and a train – clean, with padded seats, unlike in Egypt – and ladies (the CWA?) brought sandwiches and hot tea at a station further along. Everyone was also issued with a woollen ex-army coat, dyed red so that any escapees could be identified more easily. It was winter Down Under and we had left Palestine in summer clothes.
After many hours on the train, then on trucks, we arrived at the Tatura internment camp. One woman wrote: “Horrified we look at each other. We had not imagined that things would be this bad! The whole thing looks like a gigantic rat trap” – with watchtowers and searchlights (Erna Tietz, Exiled from the Holy Land p 9). Barbed wire compounds with rudimentary barracks, bare, draughty, no insulation – so cold! Few Australians knew of these camps, unlike today when television cameras seem to be everywhere. Compared to e.g. today’s refugee or detention centres with a diversity of refugees, the Templers, though from different villages, had much in common: language, background, mentality. Kitchen and cleaning rosters were soon organised, also school classes and physical activities when possible. While preparing to conduct a funeral recently I learnt that a couple of young men on duty to heat the coppers for hot showers would play on their mouth organ in between adding more wood – were the girls showering on the other side of the corrugated iron wall being serenaded?
Boredom was a problem. The Persian professors interned with us offered classes. Some distance education courses were available and many men took the opportunity to learn more English, other languages and different skills. My father’s course in poultry keeping helped him get a job later in a private zoo. Great creativity was developed. Plays were put on, do-it-yourself everything – much (cheap) cheesecloth and dyes were involved in making costumes.
Interviews, after the war ended, persuaded the Australian authorities that Templers were upright people, not the dangerous criminals some had alleged. Most of us internees were allowed to stay; they could leave camp when they had found a job and accommodation. The fact that many Australian men had not (or not yet) returned from the war meant labour was sorely needed. With little English, men and women laboured on farms and in factories and households.
Meanwhile, back in Palestine, the elderly and those who had missed the boat due to illness were not as crowded in the perimeter settlements anymore. There were several exchanges of Jewish people from Germany for Templers from Palestine, who made their way by train across Asia Minor, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria (the route of the old Orient Express) to Germany. No sooner had they arrived than one family was killed in an air raid. The convoluted journey of one mother with her two boys and how they eventually, after ten years apart, where reunited with their father in Australia is described in Sabine’s book: the chapter on Hermann Ralph Uhlherr.
Other Palestine Templers, who had been studying or visiting relatives in Germany in 1939, got stuck there by the outbreak of war and also took many years to get here to join their relatives. Some never made it at all.
For the Templers still in Palestine hoping to save their settlements, life became increasingly dangerous. They were falsely accused of hostile acts, and they were harassed and cheated and threatened. In Sarona, where the mayor, Gotthilf Wagner, was to chair a meeting of Elders, this was for some reason delayed by twenty minutes during which time a bomb blew up the meeting room. Thank God a major bloodbath was avoided. But not long after, in March 1946, Jewish terrorists shot Wagner dead at point-blank range. It became quite clear the remaining Templers would be driven out of the country and would have to abandon all that they had built up with their blood, sweat and tears and there would be no going back. Both the Jews and the Arabs were determined to secure the highways and infrastructure and claim as much land as possible.
In April 1948, shortly before the British Mandate expired, Jewish Haganah fighters attacked Waldheim at dawn, gunning down several settlers in front of their children. Alerted by the shooting, the Betlehem settlers nearby fled by horse and cart to Nazareth with just what they could grab in that moment. When the news reached Wilhelma in the afternoon, the commandant there ordered the Templers to leave on a British corvette. In enormous haste they packed some essentials. The British army could no longer control the situation. The same warship picked up those fleeing Waldheim and Betlehem, whom the British had trucked to Akko (Acre). About 300 persons were taken to Cyprus, where they lived in a tent “resort” on the beach for many anxious and frustrating months until they could move on to Germany (a few) or Australia (most).
A small group of elderly and sick Templers went from Wilhelma to Jerusalem by car. They found their properties in a dreadful state, and their water cisterns polluted. They sought refuge in the Borromeo Sisters’ Hospice in the German Colony. It was now under the auspices of the Red Cross, but it was located between the fronts, so there was constant shooting. As the British moved out, looters and rabble moved in. The State of Israel was declared on 14th May, 1948. “It was a most unholy Pentecost that year,” wrote an observer. The last small group of Templers departed by ship on 20th July 1950 for Australia.
As we have seen, most Templers were forced out of Palestine with very few possessions. Most of their things and their properties had been confiscated, destroyed or stolen. So, many of them arrived with a single suitcase – and with many memories in their luggage. The different journeys to Australia were difficult, full of anxiety and grief.
In Australia, one had to assimilate, as other migrants will remember, too. Most quickly learnt passable English and, where at all possible, encouraged their youth to get a good education, something that cannot be lost as easily as material possessions. We are grateful to have a good home here, grateful also for the cooperation between the Temple Society Australia and the Australian-German Welfare Society in Melbourne and Sydney.
Above all, Templers on the whole have continued to strive to be the best that they can be and so help create the best possible world around them.
I believe the only hope of reducing or stopping the conflicts raging everywhere is if we humans each put more effort into our spiritual evolution. Wise people including Jesus have pointed out the way, but it’s not easy: it means loving more generously, forgiving, behaving justly, accepting our responsibility – “before God”, as some would say – to take care of one another and of our precious home planet. Most Templers don’t “talk religion” much, but acting for the greater good, rather than for selfish ends alone, is still what underlies our communal life, as it always did. Long may that continue!
Ten minutes is not very long to cover a complex story. There are a number of Templer books where you can read more, like:
“Exiled from the Holy Land” compiled by Horst Blaich, TSA Heritage 2009
“The Holy Land Called” by Dr Paul Sauer, TSA 1991
“Memories of Palestine”, TSA 2005
Temple Society Australia: www.templesociety.org.au
Email: tsa@templesociety.org.au
