This chapter reviews the information gained in the preceding section. It seeks to locate, highlight, and analyse recurring patterns within the different translation processes that allow us to draw conclusions from the information gained from refugees’ memories and the other sources. This can help to create a better understanding not only of the performances of translation, adaption, and mediation of knowledge but also of the refugees’ strategies for exercising agency, which became crucial to their identifications and the ways in which their new society appreciated their capital. Our historic examples may also be used to increase the understanding of migration processes as shaping forces for a society.
When people migrate, as this book has shown so far, they never come empty-handed. Regardless of the existence or nonexistence of financial or economic capital, they bring at least their cultural baggage with them, which consists of their cultural and their social capital. This inflow subsequently leads to a process of knowledge transfer and, ultimately, as Peter Burke has shown, to a deprovincialization process of the migrants and the new host society.1 What a society, and not least of course the refugees themselves, make of that situation—what they make of that clash of ideas and cultural elements—is a crucial question that affects not only the refugees’ but also the host society’s future development.
During the late 1930s, Australia had regarded migration from non-British regions as a threat to the “British” nature of the country’s society. Consequently, non-British migration was restricted by all means. The country did not recognize a refugee status and migrants trying to enter the Australian labour market faced severe problems, especially when trying to enter professional positions which Australians regarded as “more sophisticated” and thus as unsuited to aliens. Moreover, the mostly Jewish group of refugees encountered different forms of antisemitism, frequently motivated by a real or imagined fear of a shortage of jobs and employment opportunities. Nevertheless, Austrian
Why was that so? Why did this book’s protagonists and their fellow migrants leave such a noticeable footprint over the years? The answer can be found in their cultural capital and the timing of their appearance in Australia: they came with the right ideas at the right time. When they arrived, they encountered a culture and society that differed considerably from what they had known. Their urbanized, densely populated, and culturally as well as economically developed, but also war- and crisis-torn, Central European home society was quite unlike the semicolonial British settler society focused on companionship and equality they encountered “Down Under.” A good example that surfaced through many biographies was the different perception of the value of education, which the refugees experienced in Austria and in Australia. Gender roles also differed between the two countries. Many refugees, such as Paul Hirsch, Viola Winkler, and Gertrude Langer, remembered the “culture shock” they experienced when entering a country that seemed to be so different in many ways from the life they were familiar with.
What they could not have known, however, at the time they arrived, was that Australia was about to experience a modernization and a multiculturalization process that sustainably changed the whole country and formed the basis of its diverse present-day society. When that development started after the war, the refugees could adopt a position as mediator between the traditional parts of the society, with which they had identified over the preceding years and the hundreds of thousands of Central and Eastern European Displaced Persons who came after the war. The stories of the cultural and professional engagement of most of this book’s protagonists, particularly Gerhard Felser, Charles Anton, Ernest Bowen, Annemarie Mutton, Sylvia Cherny (and respectively her stepfather Peter Watkins), John Hearst, and Marie Bergel, not to mention Gertrude Langer, show impressively how they had taken up such middlemen positions as cultural mediators.
At the time of their arrival, the striking gap between the urbanized Central European avant-garde society and the semicolonial British settler society had frequently presented them with many difficulties, especially when they tried to apply some of their ideas very quickly after their arrival. As they found out, their Australian compatriots were in many cases not ready to appreciate what had been widely accepted cultural capital in Central Europe. Values and cultural elements that this book’s protagonists held dear were in many cases novel and strange to their new fellow countrymen, who were accustomed to playing on a different “cultural keyboard.” Consequently, early attempts at translating cultural capital were frequently unsuccessful; it had rather to be
Business models and ideas that did not differ much from what the local Australian population had known were some of the rare exceptions, as the example of the Weiss family’s artificial flower making business showed. Little adaption or advertising was necessary to quickly integrate their business into the local market. There was an obvious demand for artificial flowers, which the Weiss family managed to meet.
Most others had a much longer and more complex struggle for public recognition. Many ideas only revealed their full potential when Australian society was about to transform itself and when it developed a multicultural collective identity with the beginning of Australia’s postwar mass migration scheme during the late 1940s. At that point, however, Central European cultural capital introduced by the refugees unfolded its full potential and left a vital imprint on many fields of social, cultural, and economic life Down Under.
In which domains were most of the translations located? The greatest part of this book’s protagonists’ translations, mediations, and adaptions took place in various professional domains, where numerous Central European ideas were successfully or unsuccessfully applied, ranging from the instalment payment system for garments and insulated doors based on German interwar patents to Alpine ski clubs and entire Tyrolean-style ski resort villages in the mountains. This high degree of professional translations can be explained by the fact that most refugees were forced to become entrepreneurs due to their initially discriminated against position on the Australian labour market, which left many of them no choice but to start their own business. Few of those who became successful entrepreneurs in Australia had operated their own businesses in Austria, and some of them did not actually want to become entrepreneurs, as Kurt Selby’s example showed. However, the lack of opportunities on the labour market had forced them to do so and they started businesses by relying on their Central European know-how and on what they had seen or learned in Europe, according to the German saying “Not macht erfinderisch” (necessity is the mother of invention).
The most lasting and noticeable influence of Austrian refugee knowledge and cultural capital can be located in the cultural domain. The highly developed cultural life of fin-de-siècle and interwar Vienna, where all of this book’s
What did this book’s protagonists do to promote their knowledge? We know that favourable historical, social, and physiological conditions have to be met for a translation to take place.2 If the members of the host society do not regard imported capital as valuable and necessary, devaluation or even a process of neglect takes place that could in some cases lead to the destruction and loss of knowledge. Accordingly, the relevance of specific bodies of knowledge can change fast and its fragile nature is a particularly interesting phenomenon. Knowledge that has been accumulated, adapted, and transformed over centuries can in some cases become lost in just one generation—even without displacement.3 Frequently, however, migration, and particularly forced migration, is responsible for such essential losses. Therefore, as Bourdieu suggested, migrants develop strategies to utilize their capital, if they want to become successful translators of knowledge and ideas, since the acceptance of cultural translators depends largely on their ability to promote their skills and knowledge in their new host society. This promotion process is also highly transcultural, as it usually led to the production of new forms of migration-specific cultural capital.4 As our examples reveal, only in very few cases did the British-Australian majority population accept imported Central European knowledge immediately and without hesitation or change. As we have further seen, the acceptance, appreciation, and, ultimately, the success of imported knowledge depended on the refugees’ very own willingness to exercise agency: this means that whether and how they made their capital known to the members of their host society was crucial for their translations’ success or failure. How refugees
In some cases, this book’s protagonists did not succeed with the import of their ideas and, consequently, knowledge and cultural capital that was valuable and appreciated before their escape did not retain its value in Australia. Paul Hirsch’s relocation to Australia was almost an example of how knowledge could be forgotten and lost. There seemed to him to be no demand for his literary skills in Australia. Despite several unsuccessful attempts to exercise agency to promote his knowledge publicly, Hirsch neither managed to live up to his former success as a German-language writer nor received any public reaction to his attempts for almost 26 years in Australia. Only a change in demand in the German postwar literature market and an increased interest in Expressionist and exiled authors led to his renaissance as a German-language writer and subsequently allowed him to reestablish himself in the position of a cultural mediator, who explained his experiences and his Australian environment to a German readership. Gustav Bratspies’s forced relocation shows in a tragic way how even specialized and institutionalized knowledge can be lost through multiple forced displacements. Bratspies, who had been a renowned “practicing architect, constructing buildings and working on railways around Europe,” as one of his relatives later stated, fled Austria with his wife and his son because of his Jewish heritage.5 In April 1939, he arrived in Singapore and, due to his sophisticated institutionalized and incorporated cultural capital, managed to get a job as a city planner for the local government there. After the war broke out, he and his family were deported to Australia, where they were interned as enemy aliens in the Tatura internment camp in rural Victoria.6 Bratspies was
For this book’s protagonists, creating an awareness of themselves and their knowledge and ideas was crucial to increase the value of their cultural capital. As we have seen, there were many different ways in which they managed to anchor themselves in their new society. Every refugee pursued a different strategy of creating awareness of their cultural capital and the personal agency exercised by refugees is highly individualized.10 This section highlights and summarizes patterns that became apparent when researching, analysing, comparing and writing down this book’s protagonists’ memories of their imported, translated, and transformed cultural capital. Altogether, four wider strategies stand out that refugees used to implement ideas within a certain target group, as depicted in Figure 10.
Refugee strategies of knowledge implementation in Australia
An exclusive focus on migrant communities and the migrant market may have helped many refugees to establish themselves and their ideas in their new homeland, since it was easier this way to get their knowledge more quickly and more readily appreciated, at least by a minority of their new homeland’s population. However, it also led to severe self-inflicted restrictions in terms of the scope of their clientele and their market. As Richard Tandler’s example shows, his exclusive focus on migrant society helped him to get orders for his architectural business, although he was never really able to live up to his professional situation in Vienna in terms of his business activities. Another
Most of this book’s protagonists extended their core market after a while and were increasingly addressing the needs of a general Australian target audience. Businesses such as that of Helen Roberts are good examples of how refugee entrepreneurs started their activities within the framework of a migrant community and extended them to reach a bigger market as soon as they had established themselves economically. Their ideas and their knowledge necessarily had to be transformed and changed as they were adapted to fit a bigger and more diverse target audience. As soon as John Hearst had grown his cabinetmaking business and started also to supply the growing Australian middle classes and the young home builders of the baby boomer generation, he focused on the much more profitable business of making kitchens and producing doors, and thus extended his product range considerably. The theatre repertoire Gerhard Felser offered after he had founded the Sydney Kammerspiele also underwent transformation and change when he extended his core audience to non-Jewish German postwar migrants, Polish Displaced Persons, and finally also an English-Australian audience. Most of this book’s protagonists had successfully pursued this strategy to get their ideas and their knowledge appreciated in Australia. The patterns of the transformation of their knowledge are frequently very similar. At first, the focus on the members of a minority community helped them to establish themselves. As soon as they were consolidated, they extended their reach. When they extended their clientele, they adapted their initial idea and opened it to a growing market or an extended audience. By doing so, many migrants became increasingly publicly visible, be it through public appearances, such as Helen Roberts or Annemarie
Other refugees had begun to address a wider audience after their arrival in Australia and thus tried to establish themselves outside the migrant community. As mentioned earlier, this was particularly difficult, because of the initial resistance of the local majority population. As Gertrude Langer’s example has shown, it sometimes took decades of convincing and exercising agency to get cultural capital fully recognized. Charles Anton also spent some years convincing his Australian environment of the value of his idea of an Austrian-style, alpine ski club in New South Wales.
Others possessed cultural capital institutionalized by an Austrian university but faced the problem that their degrees were not recognized in Australia. Gerhard Felser and Hanny Exiner were among those who reskilled themselves in their new home. They completed an Australian university degree, and thus institutionalized their cultural capital again.
All of the members of the sample group who immediately started to address a wider Australian audience ultimately succeeded with their plans—some earlier than others. Their success rested mainly on their strategy of highlighting the “uniqueness” of their cultural capital. Felser, Exiner, Langer, and Anton, for example, positioned themselves in a niche market, centred on their very own specialized knowledge. They strongly advertised and advocated their cultural capital as a unique and exclusive “import” from Central Europe, thus convincing their compatriots to accept and make use of it. In all cases, refugees had exercised intense agency and had worked with local media to make themselves and their knowledge known and available. Charles Anton, for example, advertised himself and his snow projects by relying upon seemingly Tyrolean or Austrian elements, such as mulled wine, roof raising, or Lederhosen parties, and Gertrude Langer and Hanny Exiner constantly highlighted their top-notch Central European education, thus seeking to convince their environment of the superiority of their cultural capital.
Another strategy some of this book’s protagonists used to implement their ideas within a certain target group was to focus their translations and mediations on overseas activities outside of Australia. They used their hybrid position in between the cultures and their cultural experiences to mediate or negotiate between different cultures. Some of the German or Austrian refugees in Australia, like Ernest Bowen and Sue Copolov, used their language and cultural skills as well as their interwar contacts to companies overseas to get into the transnational long-distance trade, importing goods from Europe or Asia to Australia. This sample group also consists of other examples of transcultural mediation processes: Paul Hirsch is a very rare example of someone who lived
As we have seen in all the examples, new knowledge originated from the transcultural “clash” of different meanings societies ascribed to different forms of cultural capital. How knowledge was accepted by a society was important. It is notable that the younger members of our sample group, particularly, managed to have their cultural capital accepted much faster. In many cases, service in the army helped them achieve that goal. Teltscher and Eisler, as we have seen, even benefited from a government education programme for ex-servicemen, the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. In their cases, they received a scholarship that allowed them to finish university education. This even enabled them to acquire respected teaching positions in colleges or high schools. Hanny Exiner and Viola Winkler also had to take up university degrees in Australia to have their Viennese institutionalized cultural capital fully accepted, which finally enabled them to gain a position in the Australian education system. This was much harder to achieve for Viennese refugees who did not have their cultural capital institutionalized in Australia, as Gertrude Langer’s decades-long struggle for a position at a university in Queensland showed.
As we have seen, the types and natures of this book’s protagonists’ translations differed greatly, as did the transformations of cultural capital, ideas, and knowledge after being applied in a new context. The analysis of displaced knowledge has shown us the fluid nature of ideas and knowledge. It also reveals how values and intellectual achievements that were regarded as crucial in one culture suddenly lost their importance when being displaced and moved to another context. How this book’s protagonists reacted to these difficult intercultural challenges and how they dealt with a devaluation of their cultural capital were the main issues to be highlighted on the preceding pages. Studying this book’s protagonists’ reactions to their displacement and the displacement of their knowledge has indicated the enormous importance of finding a market and a demand for their ideas. The most important task for all of them was to get their knowledge recognized and accepted. From an exclusive focus on minority communities, which offered a quicker appreciation of cultural capital because of shared values within those communities, or a focus on transnational markets, to the attempts to pitch ideas and knowledge “as unique” to a larger Australian target audience, this book’s protagonists implemented their cultural capital in very different ways.
Burke, Exiles and Expatriates, 16.
Podkalicka and Strobl, “Skiing Transnational”; Lotman, Universe of the Mind, 147.
Olshin, Lost Knowledge, 1.
Manz and Panayi, “Refugees and Cultural Transfer,” 133.
Jarolim, “Detention of Jews.”
naa, mp1103/1, Prisoner of War/Internee: Bratspies, Gustav; Date of birth—23 November 1895; Nationality—Austrian.
Jarolim, “Detention of Jews.”
naa: A997, 1944/54.
Jarolim, “Detention of Jews.”
Strobl, “Collective Refugee Agency.”
Comp. Strobl, “Social Networks,” 77; Kwiet, “Re-Acculturation.”
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 33.