The term “wandering Jew” can mean many things but this to me means a Jew without a home but eventually, those Jews have to settle and create a family this is my family’s story about immigration. Since My grandparents moved from England to Australia in the 1950s there have been many more generations in our family parents, kids, and grandchildren so three generations ago. My grandparents may have not gone to the concentration camps but their parents and grandparents did.
My grandmas’ parents Joan and Raphael didn’t have a lot of money. Hardly had any friends but did eventually get friends through a card game called bridge this game got her through hard times not to mention the unruly depression that my great-grandma went through during the transition. Raphael my great-grandfather went to South Head shule in Dover Heights. Has made friends there joining the secluded Jewish community that I believe has grown much bigger from then. The same as my Great Grandma Joan my Great Grandfather also had a hard time, they both didn’t have a lot of money and It was especially difficult to find jobs because they were middle-aged and workplaces were looking for pure Aussie young blokes. Back then men and women were different women were stay-at-home moms helping out their husbands in any way they could while men found it easy to find jobs because people believed that men worked harder than women now imagine an immigrant woman from another country middle-aged trying to find a job it wasn’t easy.
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In England where my dad’s side originated from and immigrated to there weren’t many Jewish aspects in my family although we did celebrate some traditions lighting the candles, Shabbat, and some Jewish seasons In Australia this had not changed due to the warm-hearted community that welcomes multiculturalism.
On my grandpas’ side, there was Great grandpa Cecil and Jean in contrast with my grandma’s family my grandpa's side had a little bit of money to build a business tailoring shoes and ended up selling it to build a family house. By that time my grandpas’ parents had already retired. Yes, there were some social problems to start with but my great-grandparents could make friends quickly soon enough my great-grandparents joined a shule and started golfing creating a secluded friendly environment Jews were treated the same as any other race. Men and women were believed to be slightly different according to my grandpa men tend to get jobs easier than women in those times.
Unfortunately, on my mums’ side, my great-grandmother had passed away before I could get the chance to meet her my great-grandma passed away four days after I was born but I heard she was a fighter it’s a shame because I was the first grandchild. But I still have my Zada to tell the story. My Zada’s great-grandmother and grandfather were from Poland and they were born in a city called Lodge In Europe when the war broke out they were rounded up into a Ghetto unfortunately they didn’t make it out of Auschwitz but their children did eventually those children got married and had my Zada. They came to Australia in 1950 and Zada came with them he was 2 years old and they went to live in Melbourne because his parents knew someone that was living there at the time. My mums’ side of the family were now named by the government as displaced persons, so the Australian government said they can come into the country as an immigrant and live and work in Australia to be a citizen. My great-grandparents traveled with my Zada and his 4-year-old brother on a ship from Marcie in France.
Being A Jew in Europe wasn’t a very pleasant thing since my great grandparents were scared that the Nazis would find them or their children would get taken away even street brawls would strike out if anyone noticed that you were a Jew so they were deciding either to go to America or Israel or Australia but the first ship that was available from Marcie was the ship to Australia.
The Australian Jewish community was transformed in the 1930s and 1940s by the arrival of approximately 8,000 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany Austria and Czechoslovakia and, slightly later, by approximately 35,000 East European survivors of the Holocaust.
(Melbourne’s Jewish community is said to have the highest percentage of Holocaust survivors of any Jewish community in the world.)
These Central and East European Jews differed markedly in their outlook from the largely Anglo-Jewish community which they found on their arrival. Most spoke Yiddish, Polish, German, or Hungarian.
In contrast to many non-Zionist Australian Jews of British background, the newcomers were keenly Zionist in orientation and strongly supported the establishment of Israel in 1948 and since.
From the 1940s, too, substantial numbers of Sephardi Jews, especially from Egypt, have settled in Australia (particularly in Adelaide) as have, more recently, thousands of Jews from Southern Africa and the former Soviet Union.
Britain and France had allowed Hitler to do so if he stopped there. Hitler didn’t and invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Realizing that war was imminent, Britain and France warned Germany that if Poland was invaded a state of war would exist. In September 1939, Germany attacked Poland. Britain and France were now at war with Germany. This is why my Zada’s parents had to flee because they were scared France was going to be invaded by the Nazi Germans so they took the first boat they could get their hands on and fled to seek help.
My grandmas’ great grandparents came from Lithuania and England my grandpas’ great-grandparents came from Poland and Russia they both moved to England for a new start since the war was getting bad in those countries. That is how my grandma and grandpa met each other and married in England so did both their brother and sister. It's funny because my grandma’s sister married my grandpas’ brother and my grandma married her husband’s brother same as my grandpa married his brother’s sister.
In the 1960s at the time in England, it was a bitter winter and her sister Debora just came back from a trip to Australia and said how amazing the atmosphere and weather is and that they should move to Australia my grandma was a little hesitant but my grandpa wanted to go because he had family there and they heard that there are great opportunities for education there for my dad and his brother.
The reason why most people in the 1950s – 1960s is because the war in Europe just ended and it was chaotic. Germany was crushed and the map of Europe was being carved up by the United States and the Soviet Union. Western Europe was invaded by the Soviet Union. Migrants began streaming out of Eastern Europe to places like Australia and the United States to get away from the oppression in their homelands by the Soviet Union. The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union meant that nuclear war was a real threat and some people saw Australia as a safe place to live. Unfortunately, my great grandparents the 1950s did not go to Australia or the United States they went to England and created a family there at the time they could only speak Polish and Russian at the time. Everyone knows that in Britain there were many bombings by the Nazis and my family had to take cover in the air raid shelters luckily by the time the first bombing started the Nazis had been vanquished.
On my mums’ side of the family, it was a more chaotic story my great-grandparents came from France where the Germans started to mobilize for war in September 1939, when Nazi Germany attacked Poland, but the war seemed far away until May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army. The French government departed Paris on June 10, and the Germans occupied the city on June 14. All of this history leads my great-grandparents as well as my grandparents to flee on a ship to Australia.
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