Film - Giovanni Sgro, 'Australia: per forza e per amore', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

My name is Giovanni Sgro. I was born in a peasant family in Seminara, Calabria. In 1952 I migrated to Australia. I was one of the first assisted migrant. I had no intention of migrating to Australia or anywhere else, but, one afternoon in February while I was at work at the olive oil factories, I heard a whistle. I recognised it as a family whistle. It was my brother, call me to go home because I had to leave at 5 o’clock that afternoon to migrate to Australia.

At home my mother and sister were crying and had already packed a small suitcase with my few possession. My father had mailed the application without telling me. I protest and then went off to the piazza. My cousin and a few others follow me to convince me to go, as I only had two hours to catch the train to Naples.In the end they convince me but just to make sure I didn’t change my mind, one of them come with me.

I spend two weeks at Bagnolli in the migration camp at Naples because the ship broken down. It then took 44 days to sail to Melbourne. From Melbourne we went by train to Bonegilla Military Camp where I spend three horrible months and took a part the Bonegilla Revolt. I finally got work as a painter in Cobram painting the Church and Convent.

By 1954 I was in Melbourne where I became very active with my Union. I then become involved in the Labor Party because I realised that migrant were discriminated against and they were just numbers. Because I was involve in politic the Conservative Government of the day refuse me citizenship and re-entry visa, so I could not go to Italy to visit my sick mother. That was very hard for me and my parents, but I was convinced that what I was doing was right. It wasn’t until 1973 after the election of the Whitlam Labor Government that I was granted a Australian Citizenship at the big ceremony at the Coburg Town Hall. In the early 70 I was one of the founder of FILEF, the Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and their Family in Australian and the first President of Ethnic Community Council of Victoria.

I was one of only two people have been imprisoned in the dungeon of the Parliament House with the then Principal of Brunswick Girls High School. I had disrupt the opening of State Parliament to demand a new School. (?) in 1979 I was elected to Parliament, to the Upper House, to bring home the reality that Australia’s a multicultural society. I made part of my maiden speech in Italian. That was the first it had been done in an English speaking Parliament. Later I was elected to Deputy President and Chairman of Committee. It was not only an honour for me who had arrived here with no English and very little school but for the migrant community in this country. My Parliamentary Office was the busiest office because many ordinary people of all backgrounds recognised my as one of them. I hadn’t wanted to come to Australia. My father forged my signature because he thought I could have a better life. It’s only recently that I have understood that.

All my life in Australia I have worked to create a better society. I have been happy here, I have enjoyed my life. I have a wife and three daughters and grandchildren, but I cannot forget where I was born. In the daytime I work in Australia but at night I am in Seminara, Calabria.

Film - Mark Silver, 'To Sevek', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Hello Dear Sevek, your photo has been with me all my life hanging on our wall next to mum’s youngest brother Malat.

I feel I have always known you, the stories of your life have been real before my eyes.

[speaks in foreign langauge] your first words that our mother described were on Black Monday when there were bombs falling around you in Warsaw. I wonder what it must have been like, at three years old, having to leave the comfort of your extended family home for a long cold journey to the east escaping with your parents the clutches of the jackboots. Mum and dad still had the key to their house in their pockets.

Seven years later they would come back to the devastation of the holocaust discovering that all their family left behind had been murdered in the most horrific ways. The rubble was total.

What my mother could never forgive herself for till her dying day was losing you. Not in the minus 50 Celsius below and the hunger of Siberia but a few years later in the warmth of Uzbekistan where they sheltered for the rest of the war.

How could she have stopped the typhoid that griped your feverishly small young body? She never stopped working out ways that she should have or maybe could have, prevented your death.

The 5th of February 1942 was forever locked into their psyche. A day of quiet solitude and a candle lit in memory of the beauty of a life cut short.

Your bright undying image is standing before my eyes, you blonde angel mine, your wise little blue eyes that shined with the blueness of the sky. You beloved son, the joy of your sound of your laughter echoing in the greatness of the forest, my dear son, little happiness have you in your short life and suffering a lot in you short days. Like an eagle carrying his offspring to a secret nest which is impossible to defend against a terrible storm did I carry you on my shoulders to a safe place far from the danger and humiliation to a free and happy life. They built another life out of the rubble.

So hello dear Sevek, I wonder what you would make of us all today. We are in a land that is vast and full of wonder. Our parents have passed on now. You have one brother in Israel and me here, two nieces and two nephews, cousins, still a couple of uncles, a few more distant auntie and lots of friends that know about you. Dad always said how kind and gentle and loving you were. You kept them going maybe you are also keeping us going our little Sevek, you are the world we lost, the links with our heritage.

Your hopes and dreams are ours and they’ll live on in us through us the bond of love between us remains unbroken forever. We found instead adversity and suffering and hunger and suffering from illness until in the end your clear soul parted with the body in the wide steppes encircled with mighty hills covered with external snow.

The only consolation and comfort for my aching heart is the bright picture of you in which I touch with trembling lips and circle with fatherly tears.

Joshua Z Ibbershtejn born…10th June 1937 died 5th February 1942 Kolchoz (?)Comintern (?) Uzbekistan.

Film - Maria de Maria, 'Journey Home', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

So which one are you mum?

That is me, the little girl with the plaits. This is the only picture of my family all together, many years ago in Calabria…

[continues in Italian as subtitled on screen]

So mum what was it like for you when you first arrived in Australia?

[Answers in Italian as subtitled on screen]

What was the hardest thing for you to face mum?

[Answers in Italian as subtitled on screen]

You’ve always kept busy, sewing, cooking at the restaurant, with your embroidery, English and computer classes and your women’s club, you’re just remarkable. I’ve always admired your courage. You’ve been a tower of strength for us mum. I love being part of two worlds and if it hadn’t been for you and dad, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

[Answers in Italian as subtitled on screen]

Film - Anastasia Solomidis, 'Leaving Tropeoulhos', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

[In Greek]

I am from a village which is called Tropeouhos. When a government office came to the village, he asked who wanted to migrate to Australia. When my husband asked me "What do you think, should we go to Australia?". I thought about it and answered "Better we go, because with work we can get on with life". So we decided to go. 

We had an enjoyable trip on a boat called "Kirinia". We docked in Freemantle where we found two people from home. They told us not to worry about anything, that things would go well for us... and that we would see and love Australia.

We went to Bonegilla and there we found things very nice. They had small bungalows for us to live in, more than enough food and even a school for the children. After this we went to Sydney. I am very happy that I find myself in this land, this land that has embraced all the migrants. And that my children have grown and prospered and for this I am very thankful.

Film - Nella Siciliano, 'Next Generation', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

My father came to Australia from Sicily, Italy in 1952. He married my mother by proxy in 1955 and she arrived not long after.

Even though I was born in Australia in the late ‘50s, being in a family only speaking Italian it was difficult for me to understand English when I started school. After my first few days of school my parents were asked to come to school and speak to the teacher. Because mum didn’t speak any words of English dad came. He was asked why his daughter did not speak English.

Being the only child from a non-English speaking family made me feel different and isolated from the other children at school. However, as time went on I picked up the language and completed my school years.

Dad’s parents arrived in Australia in 1963 and lived with us for a little while. In the same year dad bought our first TV, so I had windows into two different worlds. Around the age of 10 years I was asked to go with my grandmother to the doctor to translate. To me it was boring sitting and waiting at the doctors rooms. I was often asked to go with family members to see doctors and specialists as I was the eldest and understood best. Sometimes I wonder if I said the proper thing in relation to their illness or, was it like a game of Chinese whispers. I was a child go-between in an adult world.

As my school years came to an end, in the country there were not many opportunities to continue studies. I worked in the local supermarket for a while.

In 1976 I met Dom Siciliano and in June 1977 we were married. I came to Cobram and worked with my husband. We have four children, three sons and one daughter. Our children grew up and completed their school studies locally. Our sons have stayed and worked on the family orchard. Our daughter said she would like to go to University. Her father said he would think about that. I said that my daughter was getting the opportunity I did not have and if she had the scores to enter University I would be happy for her to go. I thank God she was admitted to University and that her dad agreed.

Film - Agnes Karlik, 'The Story of an Immigrant Filmmaker', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

The ship Anna Salen arrived in Fremantle on the 31st of December 1950, my father and I amongst the 1,522 passengers. We escaped communist Hungary for Vienna, leaving behind my mother and two sisters. But Vienna became dangerous so we decided to migrate to Australia.

We stayed as refugees in a camp in Nordenham while we waited to leave. I worked a as translator in the camp and on the ship. I learnt that many families were also torn apart. For those five weeks the ship was our berth. I slept in a bunk sharing with the many other women. Everyone worked to help out and to find ways to amuse ourselves.

We grouped together around our own languages but everyone ate together and attended English classes. My father made a film of our journey. At Fremantle trains on the wharf took us to the camps. We were sent to Northam. We slept in barracks, divided by Army blankets separating the families and adjusted to camp life in Australia.

We moved on quickly to Perth searching for a place to develop my father’s film. He heard of a lab in Melbourne. The lab Hersh’s Films offered my father a job, so Melbourne became our new home. Migration is a very mixed experience. You can certainly find freedom, peace and a new life but there is pain and sadness leaving so much behind. We were never reunited with my mother and sisters.

Film - Stephen Pascoe, 'Jidi', Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Eight months ago Jidi, my grandfather, was diagnosed with lung cancer. My sister and I were scared that soon he would be gone, and with him a lifetime of stories. One day soon after, we went to our grandparents' place. Jidi was nervous and agitated.

"So what do you want to ask me, anyway?" he said.

Just about your life, Jid."

"But there's nothing special about my life."

My sister and I set up the tripod, and I spoke to Jidi, trying to divert his attention away from the camera. He seemed terrified by it. We started the interview. He told us his life in five minutes-- born in Lebanon, migrated to Australia as a child, went to school in the country, then to the Army-- best time of his life, except meeting Granny, of course. They had eight beautiful kids, then us, the grandkids. Then the story was over.

"But back to Lebanon, Jid. What was it really like? Is it true that your dad and Simon Yunis decided to migrate to Australia over a card game one night back in the village? What was it like for you to leave as a child? Do you remember going to Beirut?"

He couldn't remember any of that. He was distracted, looking out the window as he tried to recreate distant childhood memories. He called out for Granny to refresh his memory even though these episodes happened long before they met.

My grandfather's Lebanon is slipping, like his memory, beyond our reach. As for the rest of us, we carry a sense of our Lebaneseness like a ghost from the past. It is tied to our memories of relatives now passed away who never forgot their lives in Lebanon. With time, the family has forgotten. And with each generation, we move further and further from that mystical Lebanon of the past. The more that it fades, the tighter we hold onto it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]