They worked on a farm. The sheep were their only friends, and their enemies were the dingos. It was Australia during the 60’s and “they” were my dziadziu and my babcia
Dziadziu and babcia migrated to the “land girt by sea” in 1945, during the off set of the Nazi regime. Of course at that time they were anyobody’s dziadziu and babcia, they were Jack and Josephine. Josephine’s sister, Lydia, had been killed two weeks before they were set to board ship, and every day she talked about her.
“Caroline, she was so smart, so beautiful. More beautiful than all of the girls who think they are beautiful in this country. The girls here are skinny and no colour in their cheeks. Lydee was tall, with skin the colour of olive and hair like chocolate!”
When dziadziu and babcia came to this country they had nothing but 20 Polish zloty. The Germans took their home, all their belongings and whatever money they had left was spent on escaping. They did not care where they went, as long as they were gone! And despite all of this, dziadziu felt sorry for “the black people with flat noses”. He would tell me how loud girlish screams often woke him in the middle of the night.
“…But of course Caroline, everybody minded their business because everybody had a shot gun.”
He would sit on his favourite rocking chair on the porch, cigarette in one hand and a glass of Jack in the other.
“…and I would watch, every night, the same man walk out of the house where the lady she would scream from, his hat covering his eyes. I think this is so that people do not look into them. Very bad man, Caroline, very bad.”
Dziadziu always ordered babcia to stay inside at nights. But everybody knew that the “very bad man” was only after “women with flat noses.”
Babcia felt really ill. It was a warm winter day. She spotted a gypsy walking by selling tarots and other mystical accessories. In the old country this was common, but here, in the heat of the Australian outback it was a novelty.
“Please, please gypsy, please come to me. Look at me. Why do my stomach pain, and my head spin and my skin sweat? What is happening to me? Please gypsy, tell me.”
The gypsy looked at her.
“My darling, you are a carrying a child and she is a girl.”
“No ! Pregnant I cannot be"
“Yes. She will be a girl with blue eyes and porcelain skin. She will look like a doll”
“No.”
“Yes, and if I am right, and a girl with blue eyes and white skin is born to you in 9 months you will name her my name, Maja.”
Aunt Maja was born 9 months later.
She attended the local Christian missionary school, and would arrive home every day with a new story about an Aboriginal student being abused or bashed by their teacher.
“Mamma, today Shelley was beaten by the teacher because she sneezed loudly. Mamma he punched her and kicked her but she did not cry. When she got up she had blood on her face, and the black skin around her eyes had turned blue! "
Babcia hated the schooling system here. She always told me that they taught “rubbish”, that the children there could never become more than farmers and barmen, even if they wanted to. But more so because of the violence and abuse that the kids were exposed to.
“If we wanted violence, we would have stayed in Polska!”
One-day aunt Maja came home crying. Babcia was pregnant with mum, so it would have been around 1964.
“What is the matter, Maja?”
“Mumma mumma today Felicity called out in class. Mr Woodcroft grabbed her by the ears, threw her to the door. He broke her nose. And then he made us cane her for one hour. One hour, mumma! We all had to take turns. “Teach the black peoples to stay quiet”, he was saying. She was crying mumma. I was saying “sorry Felicity, sorry” while I was hurting her. She is my friend.”
Babcia began to cry. She always told me that when her children were sad so did she because they were a part of her. This time though, I think it was because she was thinking of “Polska”, and the abuse that she and her sister endured.
“Bloody hell! When we were in the old country the Germans dragged us out. They killed us, they tortured us, and they took away our homes. Now, we are in this desert, and the white people do the same to the blacks! Why did we come here? Here, where the same thing happens?”
Dziadziu was yelling at babcia about what Maja had endured. He suggested returning to Polska, now that the war was over, perhaps start a new life in Warsaw, but babcia would not be able to travel such a long distance while pregnant.
After dinner Dziadziu walked away from the wooden table that he had built, washed his hands, filled his glass and went to sit on the front porch. As he exhaled his first breath he heard the screams again. He ignored them, filling himself a second round. The screams became louder. This time there were two women. After a long time of staring at the millions of stars in the sky, the flimsy screen door opening interrupted him. A girl ran out, crying. He just watched. About 5 seconds later the man swung the flimsy screen door open, running after the girl, breaking it as it crashed behind him. The girl was out of sight, and so he turned around and started walked
He was not wearing his hat tonight.
He noticed dziadziu on the front porch. Dziadziu recognised him straight away.
That night Dziadziu couldn’t sleep. He got up, put on his robe and crept down the stairs. He placed his palm on the doorknob, ready to turn it. He stopped, realising that bad things would happen if he twisted it open and stepped outside. He did it anyway.
He opened the neighbour’s door. Babcia told me that nobody locked their homes in the Australian outback in the 60’s, because they all owned a shotgun or a rifle, and would place it at the head of their bed while they slept.
Dziadziu crept up the stairs. He saw the thin, almost lifeless body of a “flat nosed person” lying on the landing. He crept over her and opened the door of the master bedroom. There was Mr Woodcroft, his gun leaning on the post of his bed. Dziadziu told me that he slept in that shape of a star, with his legs and arms spread really wide. He flinched just as dziadziu approached him, but then continued sleeping.
Babcia recalls hearing a loud sound, which caused the pigs to screech and the cows to grunt. The “flat nosed person” ran to Mr Woodcroft’s side, and began to clean the blood splattered across the walls and the wooden floorboards with her white apron. Dziadziu walked away slowly.
When he opened the front door, Aunt Maja was downstairs with babcia, who had their suitcases waiting. They all scurried into the ute, slamming the doors loudly.
Nobody uttered a word while dziadziu drove. His only stop was at a hospital when babcia fell into labour.
Until hearing this story I always wandered why mum was born was born in Goondiwindi.
