Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
EVA ENGELMAN
THE IMMIGRANT'S
STORY
,
HE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS arriving in
Australia from Europe increased rapidly just
before and after the Second World War. As a
postwar immigrant myself I would like to
comment on how my experiences differ from the main
characters in three Australian books.
Moniek Prochownik, the unfulfilled artist in Alex
Miller's novel Prochownik's Dream (2005), migrated
to Australia looking for dignity and freedom. Perhaps it
was due to his bad war memories, his first work experiences, or his over-protective family, that he failed to
take the opportunities that Australia offered.
Fcliks and Komelia Skrzynecki, remembered by
their son Peter in his memoir The Sparrow Garden
(2004), arrived with pre-existing prejudices, homesick
even before they reached Australia, and spent their
whole life amongst fellow Polish immigrants.
Raimond Gaita's portrayal of his father in Romulus,
My Father (1998) sho.ws that he was an honest person,
good family man, friend and tradesman, but he was
unable to be a suc~essful immigrant because of personal misfortunes. '.
94
,
between Prague and Sydney about travel arrangements.
For the sum of one pound, John and Rita obtained my
landing permit, number 39837, which permitted them
to guarantee my maintenance in Australia. The authorities had to be convinced that I was of sound health and
good moral chatacter. This presented no difficulties, as
I was only nineteen.
.
According to the passenger list of the converted
freighter Ville d 'Amiens, I arrived at the Port of
Sydney from Marseilles, via New Caledonia, on
November 25, 1946. Although I had a valid passport
with an Aust-ralian visa, an Aliens Registration
Officer filled out an "Application for Registration"
form with my personal details. He requested an additional photograph and took my fingerprints. The document was ready for my signature and I hoped I would
now be allowed to enter Australia. But my disembarkation was further delayed as, after a three-month
voyage, our luxurious but battered ship was so dirty
that the local wharfies refused to board and unload our
luggage.
Before our departure from Prague I had received
two puzzling photos from my cousins. One was of Rita
wearing a white uniform, standing in front of a shop
window displaying the sign "Delicatessen". Her plain
apparel was a far cry from that of the socialite I remembered, who always dressed immaculately in outfits
from her parents' fashion boutique. The other photo
showed John, formerly a lawyer, wearing baggy shorts,
knee-high socks and something vaguely resembling a
soldier's headgear.
The mystery was solved upon my arrival and gave
me an insight into Australia. John's shorts and digger's
hat were the "livery" worn by friendly aliens who volunteered for quasi-military duties. Rita's photo had
been taken in front of the Continental Delicatessen in
Macleay Street, Potts Point, where my cousins served
cold meats and salads prepared in a tiny kitchen. They
worked from morning until midnight, using a cookbook
written by Marie Janku-Sandtnerova (a sort of Czech
QUADRANT OCTOBER
2008
Copyright of Full Text rests with the original copyright owner and, except as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, copying this copyright material is prohibited without the permission of the owner or
-its exclusive licensee or agent or by way of a licence from Copyright Agency Limited. For information about such licences contact Copyright Agency Limited on (02) 93947600 (ph) or (02) 93947601 (fax)
LEX MILLER'S novel Prochownik's Dream portrays Moniek Prochownik as having the
chance to become a successful immigrant
because of his thorough knowledge of
English, acquired while working for ten years in Britain
before his arrival in Australia.
Moniek, a fourteen-year-old boy with an ambition to
become an artist, was separated from his parents during
the war and sent to a labour camp in Poland. He arrived
in Australia with his wife Lola, not as a stateless refugee,
but as an immigrant looking forward to enjoying here the
dignity of personal freedom.
Such hope was dashed on the first day he spent on the
moulding line of the Melbourne Dunlop plant, when he
felt obliged to change his name from Prochownik to
Powlet. Moniek considered the factory his second
prison-after the Polish labour camp-but he never left.
Despite a talent for painting and knowledge of English,
he failed to take advantage of the opportunities Australia
offered. Evidently he had no will to succeed, perhaps
feeling constrained by the experiences of his youth.
Was Moniek's lack of effort also partly due to the
(perhaps unintentional) absence of support from his
loving wife and his two sons, Roy and Tony, both born
in Australia? The over-protective Lola was proud to
watch her husband spend evenings drawing and guiding
Tony to become a painter. However, Lola put away
Moniek's paintings in an old suitcase, and they were
never exhibited. Did the family realise that Moniek's last
chance of being recognised as an artist in Australia thus
disappeared? At the end of the book, Prochownik's
dream had not been realised, 'as Tony had not yet painted
his father's portrait.
Roy, Tony's older brother, understood that his father,
by putting on a brave front, was trying to hide his frustration with his family. Roy came to the rational conclusion that "perhaps one lifetime was not long enough to
become an Australian".
QUADRANT OCTOBER
2008
95
96
Board and visited his family for a few days each month.
After Feliks' two-year contract was completed, the
Skrzynecki family was free to go where they pleased.
They went only as far as western Sydney. With a deposit
of 270 and a loan of 1600, they became, within four
years, owners of a cottage at 9 Mary Street, Regents
Park, with a creek, garden and fruit trees. Feliks stayed
in his first job with the Water Board until his retirement.
The house in Mary Street became Peter's parents'
refuge, from which they never moved, and the "sparrow
garden" came to be their paradise. And yet, why this
ferocity, when Feliks "violently clubbed to death small
bodies of sparrows, trapped under wire netting which
should have protected his lettuces"? Peter suggests that
this was the only way his father could assert authority.
Feliks and Kornelia were law-abiding citizens and
loving parents. They made sure their son received a
Catholic education, but they attended mass only when it
was celebrated by a Polish priest, and arranged to be
buried in a family plot in the Polish section of
Rookwood Cemetery.
For their friends they' chose only Polish and a few
other immigrants from displaced persons' camps. In this
context two of Peter's statements come to mind: that life
in Australia will be for all of them "a far cry from the
lives they left behind as consequences of displacement
and dispossession"; on the other hand that "children
grow up in Australia to a far better life than their parents
had left behind in Europe".
The immigration angle provides the major theme in
The Sparrow Garden. I found it difficult to ~nderstand
why Peter exaggerated the intolerance of the Australian
immigration officials, politicians and some inhabitants,
who were not used to the postwar influx of refugees.
After all, that is what we were, "not convicts, squatters,
or landed gentry". I think Associate Professor Peter
Skrzynecki OAM would concede that the second generation of immigrants can choose their trade or profession
without being discriminated against. Shouldn't he also
admit that his parents, only four years after arriving in
Australia, already owned their home and could select
their own way of life? It unfortunately did not include
adjusting fully to Australia.
IMOND GAITA'S biography, Romulus. My
Father, is more than just a description of how
a family of refugees deals with life in a new
ountry. It is an attempt to understand a man
from whom Raimond learned three fundamental things:
"what a good workman is; what an honest man is; what
friendship is".
Such a man is called, in Yiddish, a Mensch: an
upright, honourable and decent man. With such virtues
Romulus should have become a successful settler and fit
easily into the local community. Instead, he and his
Ri
QUADRANT OCTOBER
2008
Roy came to
the rational
conclusion that
"perhaps one
lifetime was not
long enough
to become
an Australian".
QUADRANT OCTOBER
200R
97
98
QUADRANT OCTOBER
2008