Our home in Sonnenberg Hefenhofen?Amriswil in the Canton of Thurgau.
Sonnenberg, around 1965
We had our interview at the Australian Embassy. We had our medical examination. We waited and waited and we didn't hear from the Australian Embassy. We did not know if we had been accepted. At the end of August, we couldn't stand this situation any longer. I went by train to Berne to make some inquiries. At the embassy, I had to wait a long time, as I did not have an appointment. My turn arrived and I explained why I was here. The dark-haired, Australian girl who assisted me said:” Wait a moment” and disappeared. After a while, she returned, smiled and waved our passports and said here are your entry visas, just like that, no fuss at all. I was perplexed. I did not know what I expected. It was so easy just like here is your breakfast. I took the passport with the precious visa and sat down to read the entry. It said: Visa for Australia then followed the visa number, the type of visa and the date of issue, the 28.8.1974 and the period of stay said indefinite so we could stay forever! I was so thrilled and happy to receive the entry visa to Australia. I wanted to skip and sing when I left in high spirits the Embassy building. I looked for the next Telephone box and rang Peter to tell him the good news and we told each other how fortunate and joyful we were. We were very lucky indeed as from the first of September Australia did not take more migrants for this year as they had reached the set quota of 110’000 people until the end of 1974.
We booked quickly our cabin on the Galileo Galilei, as not much time was left to do so and our adventure began.
We had letters, ¼ acre of land, room for a tennis court, one block from the beach, this was definitely not for us we wanted more. We had dreams of the real thing, farmland!
On the map we travelled and crisscrossed the continent poring over charts of rainfall
and temperature, not realising we were like kids running free. The continent was vast and strange, unknown to us, but we worshipped on its altar with our enthusiasm, our urge to embrace and love this land of dreams.
The children were promised ponies, beaches with silvery sands, jewels to play with!
Our promise was freedom and a life neither of us had experienced. Every day would be unexplored our minds were open to negotiating any hurdles.
The final voyage of the Galileo Galilei to Australia was the beginning for our family fascinated by a thousand voices a singsong of hope and expectation.
Ready, to go
I packed all our books and while I filled the container, I got lost leaving through some of my favourite writers, Nicolai Gogol, Richard Llewellyn, Alya Rachmanova, Somerset W. Maughan and Goethe, I like to read from time to time some lines from Faust, I could never leave him behind, carefully I wrapped those I loved best into tissue paper, the others I just stapled into the box and sprinkled some insecticide powder in between the written words that kept them safe, until they arrived on the other side of the world.
We did not pack mundane, everyday things but the containers were quickly bursting full and Peter fitted and secured the lids. I would have liked to pack much more, favoured gardening tools, watering cans and I would have loved to take three intricately, hand-carved Stabellen {chairs} but it seemed so trivial to pine for small possessions when there were such huge changes in our lives laying before us. The three containers stood prominently in the middle of the empty living room ready to be picked up by Danzas, remained me this was for real we were ready.
For our big hop from Europe to Australia, we had no other choice than the matronly, Galileo Galilei. We received our visas at the end of August. The ship was to sail in the second week of October. When we hastily booked our voyage, all the cabins on the upper decks were already booked out. Somebody had cancelled a cabin on E-deck, it had only four-berth and we were five. We took it, we would manage, and it was only for around five weeks. At this time there were only two ships that sailed all the way from Europe to Australia and the Greek ship was booked out. We wanted our children to see how far away Australia was, that’s why we wanted to travel by ship and not by plane.
The weeks and days came and went; with us busy sorting out our old life and make preparation for a new one. The morning of our departure from Switzerland was here. It was busy, a little unreal too as the Elysian Fields emerged from their shadows!
Danzas had picked up our containers two weeks ago and send them off. They were probably already somewhere on their way to Sydney where they would be stored until we were ready to claim them.
The house was finally sold, though in the endeavour we had to cope with some unforeseen episodes. The first person who arrived to look at the house was a lady. She wanted us to know that she was very rich and that she mainly moved in high society and she was looking for a house as she was in the process of a divorce. She told us more or less her life’s story. She came many times more and said she was very interested and she practically renovated the whole place while she sat on the couch and drank cups after cups of coffee, her blonde wig slightly askew she even asked for something a bit stronger I, fortunately, couldn’t provide. At a time I thought that she might move in with us, as she made herself once more comfortable on the sofa, that was the time when we still had a sofa! Then her visits petered out and we had other people that were interested to buy our house.
A lady who lived in a “chateau” wanted something smaller, she came a few times, yet she couldn’t make up her mind how small the house should be, we saw our house shrinking as she looked it over and over again and in the end, it was too small for her!
Then came a couple that had resided all their life overseas and they couldn’t make up their mind if they really wanted to settle in Switzerland. They never really expressed, that they wanted to buy it, but when we eventually sold the house they rang Peter and told him off, why he had sold the house, as they really wanted to buy it. Later we thought he just wanted to make us soft to drop the price, as they knew we were in a hurry to sell the place.
The next couple had two corgi dogs and said this house and big garden really suited them and they wanted to buy it. But then the husband got cold feet and was not sure if this was the right place. We got very low in spirit as everybody opted out of buying. However, his wife wanted this house badly and she was the stronger of the two. The day of the handover of the property was arranged. We met at the office of the Grundbuchverwalter” the clerk who oversees the signing of the contracts. We sat there and Peter and I and the lady signed but her husband teetered again, pen in his hand and hesitated to sign the contract. Peter and I sat on needles and willed him to sign. His wife gave him nasty looks and said sign now, he didn’t sign until the clerk lost his patience and told him in a very stern voice what for he came to his office if he didn’t want to sign the contract. His wife said again, sign and then he did. Peter and I looked at each other relieved and heaved a sigh that this was over and the house sold. The couple invited us for a meal in a restaurant, we went but we were both not hungry after the strain he had put us through. However, in hindsight, it was all rather comic.
My emotions ran high as I went from room to room, I didn’t kiss the walls, as I knew this was goodbye forever from this house. I still can see the empty rooms. I think the last impression is always the saddest. A last look at the garden, the primulas I had planted I would not see flowering next spring. Resolutely I told myself I shouldn’t linger, this was not Auf Wiedersehen, this was goodby and somewhere would be a new beginning.
I went to say goodbye to my friend Vreni, we used to mind each other’s children. She hugged me, she was so sad seeing me leave and cried.
What a tragedy and sadness had lurked around the corner of their lives.
Copyright: T.S.
