7 minute read
Convergences
BY GARRY FABIAN
Garry Fabian was born in 1934 in Stuttgart, Germany. Sharing his 90th birthday year with the Shrine, Garry reflects on his journey through conflict and the importance of sharing his story with younger generations.
Convergences – The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as: The fact that two or more things, ideas, etc become similar or come together.
This year–2024–the Shrine of Remembrance is 90 years old. This year, I also celebrated my 90th birthday. While the beginning of our journeys through time are quite different, they do eventually converge.
At the centre of almost every Victorian city and town stands a war memorial, obelisk and arch, broken pillar or a stern upright soldier, gateway, hall or avenue of honour. Most were raised in the 1920s and 1930s to commemorate the sacrifices made by Victorians in the First World War. The Shrine was a bit of a latecomer, opening on 11 November 1934.
My life journey travelled a different path. My Jewish family history traces back to the 13th century in Germany on both my maternal and paternal lines. I was born in January 1934 in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, when the dark clouds of Nazi Germany started rolling in with rising anti-Semitism and associated restrictions. These conditions worsened in 1935 when the Nuremberg laws imposed negative rules, including the loss of German citizenship on Jews.
These developments convinced my parents that there was no future for us in Germany and our wellbeing was in danger. We emigrated to the Czech Republic and settled in Sudetenland, a German enclave, in 1936. However, this proved to be a short-term solution; after the infamous Munich conference in September 1938, this area was ceded to Nazi Germany.
We packed up and fled four hours before the German Army occupied the area and headed to Prague, the Czech capital. Being stateless, we lived a very unstable existence as the local authorities were not accommodating to the swelling number of refugees. Often action was carried out to expel them from the country. When Nazi Germany invaded the Czech Republic on 15 March 1939, Jews became subject to extensive persecution and harsh rule, curtailing their daily lives. In 1941, deportations to the concentration and later extermination camps started.
Our turn arrived in November 1942 when we were transported to a concentration camp, Theresienstadt, some 50 kilometres from Prague. This was basically a transit camp for transports to extermination camps in Eastern Europe.
In normal times, Theresienstadt had a population of some 3,500. But operating as a concentration camp, some 30,000 people occupied the town at any time, creating overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. This left us with an acute loss of privacy and lack of food, as well as constant uncertainty of what the next day or week would bring.
We were among the small minority who survived in the camp until liberation by the Red Army on 5 May 1945. During the four years from 1941 to 1945, some 140,000 people went through the camp. Of the 15,000 children under 14, between 120 and 150 survived. The odds for my survival were very long indeed.
But then another question arose: would we be able to return to normal life?
Returning to Germany, the home of our family for 700 years, would be impossible after what had happened. We instead returned to the town in the Czech Republic where we settled in 1936 as a temporary measure, but the dark shadows of those years made it imperative to move as far as possible from Europe. At that point in time, I felt no affiliation to Germany, but over many decades I have drawn closer, trying to establish bridges with today’s generation.
That’s how we came to Australia— the other end of the globe. Two of my uncles had settled here just before the Second World War in 1939. Both had served in the Australian Army, one in the Employment Brigade, the other as a doctor in the Army Reserve. That was an early connection—a convergence— between cultures.
We arrived on the 20 September 1947 with almost no knowledge of Australia and certainly not of its history, either civil or military. My late father served in the German Army as a loyal citizen in the First World War on the Western Front. He told me that he faced Australian Diggers in the trenches opposite, and they were regarded with some respect, but that was the extent of my knowledge of Australian involvement in that war. We landed to encounter a strange language and culture, but soon adapted and welcomed the opportunity to start a new life.
Up to this point, aged 14, I had only been to school for three years, and so I enrolled in Year 7 at Preston Technical School. My first lesson in Australian military history was in April 1948 when Anzac Day was commemorated, which prompted me to obtain more knowledge. During that year I also visited the Shrine on a school excursion. While it only gave me a very superficial impression, the various exhibits provided some harsh and lasting lessons of what transpired on the battlefield. This set me further on a path to learn more. The following year I attended Caulfield Technical School, obtaining a Junior Technical Certificate.
With my missed school years, higher education was out of the question so I entered an apprenticeship to become an electrician. In 1956, my connection with the military took another step forward when I was called up for National Service in the Australian Navy. I regarded this as part of being an Australian citizen, as all 18-year-olds shared this commitment. The fact that I had experienced conflict did not have any impact on this.
I later took up study at a mature age, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts at Deakin University and a Master of Arts at Monash University, with a major in Australian history in both instances. This allowed me to extend my knowledge and appreciation of Australia and its military history.
Our society has always had a strong desire to remember important events from our past. This has manifested in the establishment of museums and places of remembrance to provide personal stories of those affected so we can recall and relate, and educate future generations. Following my own desire to pass on memories, I have been involved in telling my story to school groups at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum, to school and community groups on my many visits to Germany over the past 40 years, and to school groups at the Shrine for more than a decade.
This makes an extraordinarily strong case for the convergence of different activities, that while serving a variety of representations I have had a strong relationship with preserving the history of our nation and educating future generations.
Sharing a significant birthday with the Shrine opening provides me with the opportunity to reflect not only of the passage of time, but how the impact of both personal and community reflections can tell a common message. Volunteering gives me a strong link to return something to the community that welcomed me and my family and provided a new life after the experiences of the Holocaust. It also allows me to connect with future generations to share a message that oppressors and tyrants must never be allowed to triumph.
When speaking to school groups at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum about my journey and experiences during the Holocaust, the question that is frequently asked is ‘What are your final words?’. The answer can be summed up in two words – never again.
Speaking to school groups at the Shrine, my message is along similar lines about ordinary people performing extraordinary feats when called on, and that war brings out the best and worst in humanity. As final words, I ask them a favour: tell those who did not come to the Shrine and their families about your impression of the Shrine and encourage them to come and visit and learn about our history.
Garry Fabian has been a volunteer at the Shrine of Remembrance for 10 years and a volunteer at the Melbourne Holocaust Museum for 20 years.
