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Fay
When they arrived in Uzbekistan chaos was all around and the Free Polish Army had moved on. While trying to decide what to do next, Fay's father came down with typhoid and was hospitalised for weeks. The family stayed by his side until he recuperated. Many of the families who had travelled with them to Uzbekistan fared worse and there were many deaths. There were five families with children who made this journey together and Fay was the only child to survive.
Australia approved their application first, offering them a sponsored migrant visa. The journey to Australia was long and hard. First they had to travel by train to Paris, a city filled with displaced people and people in transit waiting for a place to go to. In Paris they were allocated passage on the Yugoslav registered ship 'Partisanka' and departed Europe from Trieste in December 1948. No one on the ship knew much about Australia. Many believed that kangaroos would run up and down the streets. A lot of the people on the ship just wanted to be as far away from Europe as possible. Fay's relatives rented a house for them in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, and furnished it. Her father, a house painter, was lucky to find work soon after their arrival.
Fay was eleven years old when she arrived and immediately hated Australia. At school she was placed in a class for nine-year olds as she did not speak English. The fact that she was literate in Polish, Russian and Yiddish did not count. Her opinion of Australia changed as her family took advantage of the many opportunities available. No one wanted to go back to Europe.
Fay met her husband Alan at high school and married in 1960. In 1956 Fay became an Australian citizen and was granted a teaching scholarship. She went to teachers college and graduated as teacher and then as a kindergarten teacher, turning a long held dream into reality. Fay has taught in many schools and kindergartens for over 30 years. Fay never returned to Europe, she never considered it an option. She has now retired from school and kindergarten teaching, but still teaches English to newly arrived older migrants. Fay believes that Australia is the rich cosmopolitan and vibrant country that it is today because of the contribution of its many migrants. "
Thankyou to the Ethnic Communites' Council of Victoria for providing these stories. |
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"Fay
Morris is an Australian mother of four children and grandmother
to one child. She was born Faije Rozenblum, into a large extended
Jewish family in the Polish city of Chelm, in January 1938. When
Fay was eighteen months old, Germany invaded Poland and her home
fell under the jurisdiction of the conquering army of the Third
Reich. Many of the Jewish residents, including Fay and her parents,
fled to Russia. Eventually they settled in the city of Gorki until
Fay's father was mobilised to join the Free Polish Army (then in
Uzbekistan) to fight on the side of the allies. 
After
the war, Fay's family returned to a devastated Poland. Anti-semitism
was still rife and they began to look for a new country in which
to make a home. In 1947 they received letters from cousins in Argentina,
Brazil and Australia offering to assist them in leaving Europe.
They applied to each of these countries.
Fay's
first impression of her new home was that it was not like Europe.
Melbourne was quiet and people were private. There was not the chaos
or the vibrancy she was used to. Many in Australia did not want
refugees here and the new Australians kept to themselves and their
migrant community.
Like
many migrants, Fay's family worked hard and was able to buy their
own house. The family participated actively in their community's
cultural life and much of Fay's time was spent with her Jewish friends.
