Once this book’s protagonists had entered Australia, they had—willingly or unwillingly—begun to transfer ideas and knowledge from their former “homeland” to their new “hostland.” Some of these transfers were successful, others less so. However, all of them introduced at least some kind of new cultural, social, or professional elements to their new society. Austrian refugees in Australia “showed enormous enthusiasm and initiative in promoting and participating in all kinds of cultural and sporting activities,” as historian Marlene Norst wrote almost 40 years ago.1 Although, as previously stated, Australian public opinion largely opposed the influx of new arrivals, voices became louder that publicly advocated the positive cultural and professional achievements of refugees.
Despite all the said difficulties, the refugees could make some contributions towards Australia’s progress. They have established, or helped to establish, several new industries, such as the manufacture of optical and chemical products, leather bags, accessories, hand woven cloth, model frocks, chocolates, etc., and influenced slightly the general taste towards European styles and taste. In the cultural sphere they contributed towards
establishing a more tolerant and progressive attitude to art. Some cooperated in awakening a greater consciousness and feeling of responsibility among Australian Jewry. But the progress has to be brought about almost against the wishes of the Australians and is accepted only as a present, but not against cash, without which a refugee finds it hard to live. […] It might also be mentioned that some kind of European touch was added to Australian city-life through the establishment of Viennese coffee-houses, nicely decorated, with music, and magazines on the tables; in the window-display of refugee fashion shops; through the presence of the Viennese ballet-mistress Bodenwieser; by the work of European interior-decorators and lending-librarians; and in beauty-culture.4
There appears to be a determined effort by the existing body, the Jewish Welfare Society, to retain under its control the large body of Refugees in this state. Again, I ask Why? Among the refugees here, we have many capable men and women. People with culture and ability. People who are not children or backwards. They know what they want. They would prefer to ask for it themselves and not through or with the approval of another society.5
Refugees have warmly welcomed the formation of the Association of refugees. Numerous applications for membership have already been received. […] A number of matters in connection with the Aliens’ Control Regulations have already been taken up and assurances of sympathetic review of these have been given. The attention of the authorities has been drawn to certain anomalies and whilst it is not desired unduly to raise the hopes of refugees it is likely that not unfavourable results will follow from these representations.10
At that time, the Association of Jewish Refugees was the only organization for refugees consisting solely of refugees and “where the spokesmen themselves were refugees.” A member of parliament described the association as a “vital force,” whose “submissions have been treated seriously by the authorities.”11
While in 1942 the Association of Jewish Refugees in Victoria had begun to successfully influence authorities and to lobby politicians and members of parliament, refugee agency in New South Wales, the other major Australian refugee destination, was still in the hands of the ajws and its Migrant Consultative Council. Developments in Victoria, however, triggered a change in New South Wales as well and in 1943 public demand for an independent organization that allowed refugees to exercise collective agency themselves grew steadily. “The necessity for a united and independent organization of all refugees has become obvious during the last few months,” the Sydney Jewish News claimed in September 1943.12 Roughly a month later, the Association of Refugees was formed in Sydney. In contrast to the Association of Jewish Refugees in Victoria, the New South Wales organization regarded itself as more inclusive, aiming “to represent all European refugees from Nazi oppression as a united
Both organizations, the Association of Jewish Refugees and the Association of Refugees, had managed to make refugee issues publicly visible by promoting themselves at different political levels. The outbreak of the Pacific War and the military expansion of the Japanese army further affected the status of many European refugees. As historian Michael Blakeney noted, Australia began to rethink its restrictive migration policy, in the sense that it “accepted the strategic role of population growth in the defense of the nation, and immigration’s central role in that growth.”17 The reconsideration of migration as a strategic factor furthered the acceptance of aliens in Australia.
Since refugee questions had become more publicly discussed, the attorney general (first law officer of the British crown in Australia) set up the Aliens Classification Committee in early 1943 to deal with refugee questions in greater detail.18 The committee, led by its chairman Arthur Calwell, very soon concluded that “it was both absurd and unjust to treat refugees from Nazi Germany as enemy aliens.”19 Accordingly, in its first interim report, the committee recommended distinguishing between “refugee” and “enemy” aliens. The recommendations were accepted and, in October 1943, the National Security Act was amended to include the term “refugee alien” in the sense that it described
an alien who has no nationality, or whose nationality is uncertain, or who is an alien enemy in respect of whom the Minister of State for the Army, or a person authorised by that Minister to act on his behalf, is satisfied
(a) that the alien was forced to emigrate from enemy territory on account of actual or threatened religious, racial or political persecution, and (b) that he is opposed to the regime which forced him to emigrate.20
Four years after the first refugees from Nazism had become “enemy aliens,” they were able to apply for reclassification and thus have reached a certain degree of official recognition.
This section of the book highlights refugee agency and particularly elements of the processes of cultural translation between Austria and Australia that had become important for the refugees as “cultural translators” and “agents of knowledge” and subsequently held a prominent position in their or their descendants’ memories. This will be crucial in order to shed light upon these highly individualized processes of knowledge transfer. It will reveal which elements of their cultural capital the refugees regarded as important, and will indicate what knowledge they tried to introduce into their new society. Furthermore, we will see, how they adapted their translations. Most of the translations were not successful, or only became broadly recognized after they had undergone an extensive adaption and deformation process in order to become more suitable for their new environment. Since there were great differences between the Austrian and the Australian culture and society during that time, ideas and concepts that might have been highly successful in continental, metropolitan Europe were not necessarily welcomed in Australia.
Some of the ideas and concepts the refugees sought to introduce only became successful after the war, because of modernization and multiculturalization processes that took place in Australia once the country had introduced a large scale migration programme that brought hundreds of thousands of new people into the country who would not have fitted the strict Australian immigration criteria before the war.21 Among them were many so-called Displaced Persons with a Central and Eastern European background, whose cultural capital did not differ much from the Viennese prewar refugees. Highlighting the sometimes long-lasting adaption process of ideas and knowledge will provide particularly interesting insights into parts of the discipline of the history of knowledge which are not very well researched yet.
Many social and economic domains benefited from the exchange of refugee knowledge between two very different societies, despite or probably
In order to translate and adapt their knowledge, it became crucial for them to promote themselves and their cultural capital to bridge the gap between the “cultural keyboard” of their “hostland” and that of their “homeland.”26 In order to master this process, they needed some time to acculturate in their new environment. Understanding how these acculturalization processes worked, how they dealt with these differences and how they exercised personal and collective agency and promoted their ideas is of great interest and will help to clarify the complex and understudied processes of translation of knowledge and ideas between different cultures and societies. The biographic perspective on this book’s protagonists ultimately reveals what historical actors did to make the implementation of their knowledge and ideas successful. Not only will this be of interest from a history of knowledge perspective but the results can also be fruitfully used to learn from the past more generally by observing how refugees successfully or unsuccessfully implemented their cultural capital. In
the encounter between the exiles and their hosts led to a process of double deprovincialization. The exiles were deprovincialized by the movement from one culture to another. They also helped to deprovincialize their hosts by presenting them not only with different knowledges but also, still more important, with alternative ways of thinking.29
This holds particularly true for the translations of ideas and culture undertaken by this book’s protagonists from their highly urbanized Central European avant-garde culture which placed high value on education, arts and culture, into a society that was about to replace its semicolonial British settler identity focused on the idea of a companionship-centred, “workman’s paradise” through the formation of a more multicultural collective postwar identity.30 As we will see, the result of this clash of ideas and views produced some very interesting results in many different fields of social, cultural, and economic life.
Since this book’s 26 protagonists came from a wide variety of different backgrounds, a very important task of this section is to present their cultural translations in a clearly arranged way. There are different ways to organize such an extensive analysis: one could be to arrange the data according to the relevance this book’s protagonists placed on their own translations. We could order them according to their own assessments of how they recalled them: as a “success,” a “failure,” or something in between. A different form of organization, which this book chooses, is to arrange their translations according to the cultural or professional domain the protagonists located them in. Such a topical order makes sense, as it aids the identification of different types of translations—both successful and unsuccessful ones—within the same field and thus allows us to compare them. It is also important to keep in mind that many of this book’s
- –entrepreneurship
- –cultural activities and academia
- –education
- –community service and political activism
Since, as mentioned, many of this book’s protagonists translated knowledge in more than one field of their social and professional life, their translations will also be described in more than one of these categories. Additionally, a perspective on knowledge that has been lost has been added to analyse some of the translation attempts this book’s protagonists remembered as being unsuccessful.
7.1 Entrepreneurship
Many translations took place in the refugees’ professional environment. Frequently, their flight changed their social position. Most of this book’s protagonists had lost their financial livelihood and their middle-class status on entering a society with a different language and different social codes, rites, and other habits and customs. Since their fellow Australians were accustomed to playing on a different “cultural keyboard,” in many cases, the worth of the cultural capital the refugees had earned in Vienna was questioned and had to be renegotiated. To use an obvious example: it was hard to succeed, even for an accomplished and renowned artist or an art historian, in a new host culture that put no particular value on contemporary arts. The same held true for many professional fields, as we will see.
As this analysis shows, a devaluation of all three types of the refugees’ cultural capital (i.e. in its embodied, objectified, and institutionalized forms) occurred once they had left their territory of origin. Therefore, it became the primary aim for those people who “struggled desperately to make a living,” as the Austrian-born refugee child and historian Marlene Norst noted, to establish themselves in an initially strange and new environment. Besides securing their financial livelihood, they also sought to replicate or regain their former
In addition to the devaluation of their cultural capital, the refugees had the disadvantage of being a “stranger” in a new land,32 arriving in a more or less isolated society, either with reduced financial means or even without any financial capital at all. Not recognizing a “refugee status” until 1942, the Australian government regarded them as regular immigrants and ultimately expected them to provide for their own needs and their own costs of living.33
Furthermore, the refugees had been disadvantaged on the labour market, since the Australian government pursued a strict Australia-first policy and never tired of repeating that no Australian-born citizen would lose their job because of an immigrant. In one of many similar statements aiming at reducing the heat of public feelings about migrants on the Australian job market, minister of the interior, John McEwen declared in March 1939, “if it’s found that alien migrants were affecting the job of Australians, the Federal Government would not hesitate to shut down on the granting of entry visas.”34
If it was said that businessmen in general were well off, this statement should be qualified. Those who were accustomed to speculate in stocks and shares found Australia a hard field. Those who would deal in landed estates and properties cannot do so, because they are not allowed to buy properties. Many branches of business are so monopolized that newcomers have no chance of getting in.35
Charles William Anton’s life provides us with interesting insights into how a migrant used his European cultural capital centred on a typical Central European hobby and leisure pursuit to create an entirely new type of business in his host society, which furthermore benefited his professional development in Australia. It shows how he promoted his knowledge and how he adapted it to fit the needs of his Australian fellow citizens, thus creating new demand. In Austria, he acquired institutionalized and embodied cultural capital,
During his youth, Anton had discovered the Austrian mountains around Vienna and had very soon become “enthused with what ski touring had to offer.”37 He therefore became closely involved with the German and Austrian Alpenverein (Alpine Club)38 and enjoyed the benefits of its dense network of Schutzhütten—“simple huts offering security and shelter”39—across the Alps. From around 1900, mountaineers began to tour the Alps on skis during the winter. Subsequently, the Alpenverein lured ever more enthusiasts and established a ski suborganization in 1906.40 In order to realize its ambitious hut-building schemes, the governing body of the Alpenverein transferred single projects to independent chapters, whose members raised most of the costs by selling shares.41 Anton made extensive use of the Alpenverein’s infrastructure and acquired knowledge of the organization’s structures and the value of a dense network of shelter huts in alpine areas.42 He learned where suitable locations for huts could be found, how they were built, and how they were maintained. As one of his acquaintances later wrote, “Charles and his friends—with a pack on their backs—would finish up almost every night in a different alpine Hütte.”43
After the March 1938 Anschluss, Anton had used his contacts to English companies to find a job with the Australian Jewish insurance broker company Bennie S. Cohen & Son Pty Ltd.44 He spent his last months in Europe travelling
Like many other Austrian refugees, Anton sought to join the Australian army after the outbreak of the war. For him, this step was a crucial move toward his new identification as an Australian citizen. “I sincerely hope that you will give me the chance to do my bit in this war,” he wrote to a recruiting officer in 1940.51 In contrast to the United States, Australia did not admit foreigners into its army at that time. However, in 1942, the country loosened its stance vis-á-vis so-called aliens in the army—undoubtedly spurred by the need for manpower and labour. It established 39 unarmed “employment companies” or “labour companies,” 11 of them largely comprised of non-British citizens. They were established to ensure that the Australian Defense Force had enough manpower dedicated to essential labour tasks to maintain the war effort and support the fighting forces.52 In total, about 1,200 refugees served in those companies during the war.53
In March 1942, Anton joined the 3rd Australian Employment Company in New South Wales.54 After the outbreak of the war, resentment toward “enemy
After the end of the war, the Allied powers held an “inter-Allied ski race” in New South Wales. Servicemen from different countries participated in this major event.56 Anton joined the Australian team and experienced his “first taste of Australian skiing,” as he later recalled.57 After his demobilization in December 1945, he continued to work as an insurance broker and later established a successful business in Sydney. The ski races, however, had reawakened his passion for ski touring.58 In spring 1946, he started to explore the main range of the Australian Alps, finding “superb runs, comparable to some of the best in the European Alps,” and “began to dream of opening it [that country] up for others.”59
Support for the project was unanimous and […] the meeting felt confident that it could look forward to practical assistance from the trust […] Finance was arranged […] and […] the site has been tentatively chosen […] During this meeting, [the] Ski Tourers Association [sta] came into being.66
On our first weekend at the Chalet, a short, noisy man appeared. In no time, he had introduced himself as Charles Anton and just as fast he had told me that I should be the one to help him with his current project. He had organized a few other volunteers along with two of the Kosciusko State Park Trust’s Land Rovers.72
Anton was always looking for new ideas that helped him exercise agency and promote his knowledge. As he described in the Australian Ski Yearbook, he discovered in 1946 “that there was snow—and we could ski on it—[…] in the summer.”73 Only a year after the sta was founded, Anton established summer ski races,74 which for many years, attracted “larger numbers of visitors” and thereby succeeded in promoting his ideas, the sta, and skiing in general.75 Anton was convinced that the “freakish nature” of the races would “produce a welter of favorable publicity,” as he put it.76 In 1953, he established the Golden Eagle Run, a high-speed downhill run that was expected to be the fastest course in Australia. Here, again, knowledge from Austria was used to support the project’s success. Anton, as he later stated, was inspired by “famous international courses including the Chamois Run in Kitzbühel and the Kandahar Run in St. Anton.”77 The former Czech Olympic downhill racer and St. Anton ski instructor Tony Sponar helped him to develop and set the course according to European Alpine standards.
Anton’s enthusiasm and commitment, combined with active marketing and an inclusive policy of being open to anyone interested in ski touring, very quickly turned the sta into the largest ski club in Australia.78 His marketing
In addition to his ski projects, Anton had always maintained his insurance business. During the 1950s, his main focus switched from the Jewish migrant community toward new customers from the ski trade. He was able to connect his business to the needs of an emerging Australian skiing industry and a nationwide Alpine ski club and attracted many clients from the skiing community, as one of his friends later stated.83 Another friend of his described his “tireless commitment to working 15 hours or more per day in order to come along with the high demands of two full-time jobs.”84 One and a half decades after his arrival in Australia, Charles William Anton had become an established name in the Australian skiing community. He was president and founder of a major Australian ski club and a member of the Ski Council of New South Wales, the state controlling body of the Australian National Ski Federation.85
During the mid-1950s, the ski industry changed in Australia: new environmental and safety policies were making the erection of new huts on exposed mountainous terrain more difficult. Skiing in general had also changed dramatically, turning from a leisure activity for a handful of affluent people into a mass industry.86 Ski tows, hotels, and private lodges had mushroomed in the original
During his later years, he was focused on the expansion of Australia’s winter sports industry. He unilaterally renamed the sta as the Australian Alpine Club to emphasize its national significance. Along with the new name came an
Anton’s life’s work in Australia is an interesting example of how a refugee successfully portrayed and advertised his cultural capital as unique and exotic in his new host society. Drawing on his experiences and his derivation as a member of the “Alpine nation of Austria,” the marketing expert and actual city dweller Anton had, after years of persuasion, managed to convince his Australian environment of the need for an Alpine ski and touring club, as well as of the uniqueness of his cultural capital to realize his plans. He had exercised intense public agency and also knew how to get newspaper coverage for his projects.
Marie Bergel and her husband, Otto, are further examples of migrant entrepreneurs who used their cultural capital to succeed economically by introducing various elements from their former home society into their new host society. In Vienna, Bergel had acquired crucial embodied and institutionalized cultural capital in the field of trade. Her family’s impoverishment after the First World War may have fostered her entrepreneurial spirit, which would later become of great importance when she escaped to Australia. She built up a footcare agency in Vienna during the 1920s and 1930s, despite being married and raising two children.93 The breakdown of the Habsburg Empire and the negative economic development she experienced in the small-state republic of Austria drove her to seek an affiliation with Scholl, a major American company.94 She subsequently persuaded her reluctant father to accept an exclusive contract as an agent for Scholl Footcare. “I went down on my knees and told him: Please, it is an international firm; it is a gift for us. This is what I want to do,” she later recalled.95 After her father agreed, she ran the agency as her own business. “It was my project,” she later proudly stated. As this example shows, her family must have belonged to the liberal and progressive Jewish middle, or upper middle class. Obviously, the family had pursued more open gender roles that allowed a daughter to become active and independent within the framework of the family business. At first, she established a large network of customers by going “from door to door, selling products out of a suitcase,”96 a type of work that was not considered appropriate for a young woman from the
After her forced escape to Australia, she moved to Adelaide, because she was told of better job opportunities there. A German friend of hers, who had moved to Sydney in 1933, had written in a letter to “get into a smaller city, because migrants are pouring down from the ships by the thousands in Melbourne and Sydney, looking for work there.”98 And indeed, Melbourne and Sydney had become the main hubs for incoming refugees from the German-speaking areas in 1938 and 1939. More remote and provincial cities, such as Adelaide, Perth, or Brisbane, had not received larger shares of refugees at that time and the competition for low-income jobs was ultimately not as intense there as it was in the two largest Australian metropolises.
Her strategy of moving to Adelaide due to better job opportunities worked out. Shortly after her arrival, she found a job in a department store. However, after a few months, she realized that she wanted to work again in the field of chiropody, where she could draw upon her cultural capital, her knowledge, and her skills. Since her financial capital was not sufficient to open up her own clinic, she made a plan to work independently for another business: “I went to a hairdresser and suggested […] to work with them as a chiropodist,” she mentioned in an interview.99 In October 1939, one month after the beginning of the Second World War, she had quit her previous job and started a cooperation with a local hairdresser, offering “foot treatments in his shop in return for a commission.”100 Like in Vienna, she engaged intensely with customers and advertised her business in local newspapers, promoting it as “foot service and orthopedic chiropody and massage from London and Vienna,” as a newspaper advertisement still in the possession of her daughter shows.101 Another advertisement from October 1940 announces her as “Madame Bergel of Dr. Scholl’s Foot Hospital, London. Chiropodist.”102 Contact with her clients mainly took place on a personal level. The nature of her business supported this practice. In Austria, Bergel had primarily led an import agency. Her business had focused
During the war years, the Bergels were searching for additional opportunities to earn a living. After their arrival, her resourceful husband, Otto Bergel, who had worked in Vienna as the manager of a wine trade business and had described himself as an “expert in wines,”103 used his European knowledge to open up a fruit juice production company, Pomelle Fruit Juice Cellars, in Adelaide with an Australian partner, “who wanted to make apple juice, however could not succeed with it,” as Bergel’s daughter recalled.104 This was mainly because of a lack of knowledge of the demands of the Australian market. The product was obviously not very well known in Adelaide at that time. Everybody asked us “were you making cider? And we said, no apple juice,” Bergel recalled in an interview during the 1990s.105 The venture was not successful and soon Otto Bergel withdrew from it. After having “sold goods from door to door,” and having not felt “well” doing so, as Marie Bergel later mentioned,106 Otto and his wife opened up a grocery store in Adelaide’s suburb of Unley in October 1941. “We decided that the only possibility [to create a successful business] with this pending war is to have a grocery shop,” she later mentioned probably pointing toward their memories of the food shortages in Vienna during the First World War.107 They used the shop to offer all kinds of different continental European food Australians were unaccustomed to. Besides providing coffee, a drink that was difficult to acquire at that time in a society mainly accustomed to drinking tea, Marie Bergel prepared and sold some typical Austrian products such as Liptauer (a spicy cheese spread made with sheep’s milk cheese, goat’s cheese, quark or cottage cheese) and cottage cheese from skimmed milk. In contrast to their first juice company, her ideas were successful, and “at the end it [the store] was like a club,” she noted. They had many Australian customers who got used to buying the exotic products the Bergels offered their clients.108 In order
The entrepreneurial Bergel family remained economically active and innovative in Australia: after having sold their grocery store, they founded a candy factory in 1958. Here, again, Otto Bergel’s knowledge of the food and beverages industry along with Marie Bergel’s knowledge of the retail business proved to be valuable. The company succeeded—at peak times the Bergels employed 11 people, as their daughter recalled in an interview.110
The Bergel family offer yet another interesting example of how European knowledge was successfully employed and adapted to fit the needs of the Australian society. They had witnessed the housing shortages in Vienna before and after the First World War and had seen how the municipal Viennese government had reacted by building multistorey apartment houses. Also, they were used to the high-density housing of European cities, where most people lived in apartments. The architecture of Adelaide at that time was entirely different. There were only very few apartment buildings. Most houses were single-story homes.111 The lack of building material during and after the Second World War created a significant housing shortage in Australia. This was exacerbated by rapid population growth through immigration and the high birth rates of the “baby boom” that began during the 1950s.112 Medium-density housing, and therefore apartment buildings, became more common in this period.113 During the late 1950s, Otto Bergel became interested in the real estate market, as Marie Bergel mentioned in a later interview. During the early 1960s, he had gathered former Viennese and German refugees around him to form a company that bought investment houses and properties. “They built up the first three-story unit house in Adelaide,” as his wife later stated.114 The company became successful and by the time of Otto Bergel’s death in 1962, it had grown considerably. Here again, the introduction of ideas from Central Europe was facilitated by a cooperation among migrants, who set the idea in motion and thus served as drivers of innovation.
We will encounter Gerhard Felser more than once in this chapter since the graduate of the Viennese college Hochschule für Welthandel was actively translating Viennese cultural capital in different social and professional domains. Before escaping Vienna in 1938, due to the persecution of his Jewish wife by the Nazi authorities, the entrepreneurial cost accountant described by the German newspaper Die Woche as a “Vollblut-Wiener”115 (someone who sees himself as Viennese through and through) had secured himself a job as an accountant and secretary for the Australian company H. & E. Sidegraves in Sydney, which was engaged in work for the Ministry of Ammunition.116 Since his employer Harold Sidegraves had also sponsored his and his wife’s visa application, the couple did not have any problems in getting to Australia.117 Thus Felser had a crucial advantage over many other refugees, especially in the field of accounting, as he had the backing of an Australian businessman who acted as his sponsor and employer. As a 1942 article shows, German and Austrian refugee accountants were usually unable to find a job, even if they “had passed their Australian accountancy examinations” and many of them were “driven into work as pedlars, canvassers, insurance agents, and bad debt collectors, jobs,” as the author of the article pointed out, “Australians would not like.”118
Felser clearly prioritized acquiring the language of his hostland and mastered English very quickly. He also enrolled in accountancy studies to complete the Australian accountancy examinations, since his Viennese degrees were not recognized in Australia. His Viennese professional education and his years of business experience in accounting gave him a head start vis-à-vis other, less experienced, students. He began studying for an accountancy degree immediately after his arrival, as one of his cvs from the 1960s indicates, and qualified within 12 months with the Association of Accountants of Australia, taking first
A 1944 report by the Commonwealth Investigation Service (cis)—which kept a file on Felser—shows that his work for H. & E. Sidegraves was regarded as very successful, not least because he had introduced a method of accounting from Vienna that was new to his Australian work environment: “Applicant is very well regarded by H. & E. Sidegraves who state that the system of accountancy, etc. which he put into operation in their firm is a distinct improvement on other systems used by previous accountants employed by them.”120
While working in his first job in Australia, Felser used his spare time to acquire Australian degrees and to extend his network of business contacts in Australia. As he had done in Vienna, he built up professional networks and joined various professional bodies, such as the Australian Society of Accountants and the Chartered Institute of Secretaries, and exercised agency to promote his cultural capital and his knowledge. In 1940, he pursued the next step in his professional career and applied for the position of a full-time lecturer in accountancy at Melbourne University.121 He did not succeed against the Australian competition. One year later, however, he was offered a teaching assignment in Cost Accounting for the postgraduate research group of the Association of Accountants—a direct result of his personal engagement with this organization.122 In addition to his lecturing activities, he started researching and publishing in the field of accountancy. The same year, one of his research papers was awarded the Greatrex Prize for the Best Essay on Accounting Research of the Association of Accountants.123 Felser continued with his publishing activities for decades and over the years published articles and books on taxation and wages in German and English.124
Obviously Felser was very successful in promoting his cultural capital and convincing his new environment of his capabilities as an accountant. The year 1941 brought another major professional step for him. After having finished his Australian accountancy examinations, he was legally qualified to open his own accounting practice. By November 1941, he had saved enough financial capital
Additionally, due to his wife’s Jewish roots, Felser managed to get access to Sydney’s Jewish community, and “the Jewish community in and around Sydney brought their work to him,” as one of the managing partners in his company later confirmed.129 Felser’s engagement with his fellow Austrian refugees and the Jewish community had opened his business to a growing market. In fact the Jewish community in Australia had more than doubled its size due to the prewar and postwar refugee migration from Europe and had risen to 48,436 people by 1954.130 In 1943, he intended to hire a skilled cost accountant with training in “factory organization,” however, he later complained that such a person “of course, at the present is unobtainable.”131 At that time, he mentioned in a letter, his practice kept all the books for around thirty firms and he had about 100 clients on his record.132 He also described the workload he and his employees faced at that time: “As I cannot let down my clients, which are all, in one way or another connected to Australia’s war effort, I work now—as well as my staff—up to 15 hours a day.”133
I only mention as an example Protector Safety Industries Ltd. (of which I am director), which I have helped to nurse for 25 years and which, from very small beginnings has grown into a public company with branch factories in Auckland, Johannesburg and London and with over 50 resident expert representatives in the whole world.135
After the war, when tens of thousands of expelled Austrians tried to regain their robbed assets, he temporarily expanded his company and opened up a branch in Vienna “to assist refugees regain lost possessions,” as a cis report from November 1946 revealed. Another report indicates that his Viennese branch remained active at least until 1949.136
Accru Felsers has been advising German-speaking businesses in Australia for 78 years, ever since we started as one ourselves. As a result, we lead the German inbound mid-market today. Our many longstanding clients from Germany and Austria include some of the world’s largest and most successful high-tech manufacturers. Our strong and valuable European partnerships include Advantage Austria, the German-Australian Chamber of Commerce, Roedl & Partner accountants in Germany, and international outsourcers. Accru Felsers partners also participate in German business delegations and speak on issues affecting German business in Australia.144
Felser’s economic success relied to a certain degree on his focus on an ethnic niche market. He had quickly accepted the devaluation of his Viennese institutionalized cultural capital and thus had completed the Australian accountancy examinations, which allowed him to practice as an accountant in Australia.
Irma Weiss is an example of how refugees used their professional knowledge and their cultural capital to build a life in a new and unfamiliar environment, even at a more mature age and without exercising much agency. The trained milliner Irma Weiss arrived in Australia with her husband, Hans, in May 1939. The couple had run an artificial flower making business in Vienna, where they had acquired a certain degree of wealth through their work and moved into the 1st district, Vienna’s prestigious inner city.145 Like many others, they had been deprived of their financial capital—altogether the equivalent of about 2,000 pounds—by the Nazis and forced to shut down their company, as they later claimed in an application to buy a property in Australia.146
After their arrival in Australia, they restricted themselves to a frugal lifestyle, aiming at saving capital to build up a business and to buy a house.147 For the first two years after their arrival, they lived in a boarding house in Sydney’s suburb of Bondi together with other German and Austrian refugees.148 They managed to set in motion the first part of their plan the same year they arrived. In late 1939, Hans and Irma Weiss opened up their own small factory in Sydney’s Pitt Street with the help of their daughter and son-in-law, who was also a refugee.149 The company, called Greenwood Artificial Flowers, was built upon decades of experience with their business in Vienna. Official reports described it as a “similar business” to the one they had “previously operated in Vienna.”150 They grew their new family business despite the fact that the war had begun just when they founded their company. Like other refugees, they faced initial resistance, in their case from the association of the manufacturers of artificial flower makers, who feared pressure from introduced European competition.151 Official reports described their business as a “very small factory,”152 in 1940; they had only very few assets, totalling 20 pounds of worth in property
In contrast to other refugees, the Weiss family did not seem to exercise much personal agency to promote their cultural translation. They transferred their business from Vienna to Sydney, without changing much of its nature. They did little advertising for their business, except for a very few job advertisements in the Sydney Morning Herald. They were not known to have had many contacts to other Australians. Most of the time, they stayed within the close social framework of their family. In a 1940 immigration report, the Bondi postmaster mentioned “they were frequently visited by married daughters and sons-in-law (all Austrian refugees).”158 Despite their Jewish denomination, they also did not engage much with Jewish or refugee communities. Another report indicates that “they were registered as a member of the Jewish Welfare Society, but never attended meetings,”159 while a further report noted, “they belonged
Eventually, Ernest managed to get a job. We had many letters of introduction, we met a lot of people. Ernest was introduced to the Laycocks, owners of Laconia Woolen Mills. They employed him as a foreman.161
However, the depression still left many people unemployed and the factory workers went on strike because they said this sort of job should be given to an Australian. It had not been proofed that Ernest had qualifications not obtainable in Australia of an Australian born citizen. The case came to court. The Laycocks won, and Ernest was installed as a foreman.162
The strike took place in August 1940 and was one of many examples for the discrimination of (particularly Jewish) refugees because of employment
After eventually starting to work in his position as a foreman, Bowen managed to gain the trust and appreciation of his fellow employees, particularly because “he introduced new working rights,” as his daughter later remembered.166 His education and his knowledge of workflows helped him to rise up the career ladder, as his daughter further recalled. Only a year after the strike, he managed to buy a newly built house in the suburb of Blackburn.
Shortly after that, Bowen gave up his job at Laconia Woolen Mills and, together with a partner who had also escaped the Nazi Reich, opened an import agency for an Indian textile company called sapt. Here again, his prewar networks proved to be essential. He had already been in contact with this company in Austria before his escape, when he had managed the family factory, as his daughter recalled.167 In his new entrepreneurial occupation, he travelled frequently to India. The business became successful and Bowen operated two offices, one in Melbourne’s Collins Street and another one in Sydney’s George Street.168 One of his strengths in building up this new business in Australia may have been his eloquence, which formed part of his cultural capital, as his daughter recalled: “He had much safety in dealing with other businessmen of different backgrounds. That was part of his upbringing.”169 Besides that, he had access to valuable contacts among members of his pre-escape business
His old, loyal workforce welcomed him back with warmth and affection, sharing with him their terribly meagre rations of butter or fat. His sense of belonging was rekindled and in spite of deprivations he felt he had gone home and was accepted as belonging. Other businesses, he managed to keep in effect benefited from his partner [in Australia].173
For the next few years, Bowen travelled back and forth between Europe and Australia, managing the operation of his Austrian and his Australian businesses. As his daughter recalled, “his wife also wanted to return to Austria with the children, however, he vetoed it because he feared National Socialism could return to Austria.”174
During the 1950s, like many people who had experienced the cruelty of Nazi persecution and expulsion, Bowen increasingly suffered from depression. As studies show, the experience of being powerless, of helplessly facing
Bowen is a good example of a refugee who could not entirely break with his past and his old homeland. He had used his specialized cultural capital to build up a decent existence in Australia, relying on his interwar connections and his transcultural experiences to become engaged as a mediator in the long-distance trade between Asia and Australia. Despite his anglophone education, however, Bowen was one of only two members of our sample group to move back to Austria, after having the opportunity of buying back his family’s factory, which the Nazis had robbed him of in 1938/39.
Kurt Selby was one of those refugees who started his own business in Australia because of a lack of job opportunities. He had no previous experience as an entrepreneur and, as his daughter recalled, believed that “it would have been better to be employed by a company because of different benefits such as superannuation, pensions, etc.”177 In Vienna, Selby, or Silbiger as his original German birthname was, had worked as a tradesman in leather goods for the Jewish leather wholesaler Arnold Reininger.178 He had worked there for 10 years, from 1928 to 1938, until the Nazis forced Reiniger to shut down his shop and flee the country.179 Reiniger’s company worked, amongst others,
Selby arrived in Melbourne in late October 1938 with only a suitcase and five pounds of financial capital, as his daughter recalled.182 He was in the fortunate situation that a cousin who had migrated to Australia in 1929 supported his visa application and launched an application for admission of relatives to Australia only two months after the Anschluss.183 His cousin, furthermore, helped him to settle in Melbourne. During the first weeks after his arrival, he stayed with her.184 Later he moved into a boarding house. His cousin had helped him organize a job in the knitting mills in Melbourne’s suburb of Collingwood, where many of the refugee arrivals found their first employment. The job, however, did not last for long and for unknown reasons, he lost it only two days after he started it.185
I have saved 35 pounds so far. Have to borrow 35 pounds from M. Kohane [his cousin]. I need 10 pounds for my work. I will focus my business activities on women’s stockings and underwear. I have many customers now. I hope it will continue this way. My plan is to open up a stockings shop and you will run it. I have already familiarized myself with the business very well.186
Selby’s early economic success was linked to his focus on and his engagement with a certain target group: initially, he exclusively concentrated his activities on migrants and the Jewish community. “Many of his clients and his environment consisted of German speakers and Jewish refugees,” as his daughter later recalled. Since it was possible for him to focus on the target group of German-speaking, Jewish refugees—people who had similar values and had learned to play on a similar cultural keyboard—it was much easier for him to get his cultural capital and his ideas recognized and appreciated, especially since his knowledge of English was at first very limited, as his daughter remembered: “He had severe problems learning the language. He used to point at the goods he wanted to buy. […] He learned the language always with an accent and he found it hard. He was a people’s person but he linked in with people from the same background.”188 Moreover, it was much simpler to exercise agency within the framework of his target group, as the refugee community in Melbourne consisted of no more than a few thousand people and thus information about new migrant businesses spread quickly and without widespread and costly advertising efforts. “It was a lot safer for him (personally and economically), working within the Jewish community,” his daughter recalled. “For him, Australia was a wonderful place. It was backward but a place of opportunity.”189
On August 29, 1939, Selby and his wife, who by then had arrived from England, changed their name by deed poll from Silbiger to Selby. Two days later, the Second World War started with the German attack on Poland. Despite their name change, the Selby’s maintained intense contact with German-speaking
Very likely inspired by what he had learnt in Europe when he had worked for Bata, Selby sold his garments—mainly ladies’ dresses and jackets—through an instalment payment system. Instalment payment had boomed in Europe and even more in the United States during the interwar period. It was partly responsible for the consumer revolution that took place in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s and had brought many new goods such as telephones, refrigerators, and radios to many new customers.194 The system
Selby’s economic success story in Australia confirms the old German proverb “Not macht erfinderisch” (necessity is the mother of invention). Selby managed to build up two successful companies, although he had no previous experience as an entrepreneur. Like some of the other refugees, he initially used his connections to the refugee community and the Jewish community to start his business. As shown, his focus on this group helped him greatly. The shared cultural ties between him and the other members of the refugee community made the start of his business smoother and helped him to exercise agency to gain appreciation for his knowledge. From this position, he consequently expanded his clientele to also address Australian-born clients and all of those who came to Melbourne as Displaced Persons after the war.
Kurt Selby was not the only member of our sample group to establish a successful garment retail business in Australia after their escape. Helen Roberts, who moved from Vienna to Sydney, also became successful in this field, despite having no previous experience in the garment business. In Vienna, Roberts had lived a sheltered, middle-class life. After having finished a Hauswirtschaftsschule, a high school that prepared young middle-class women for household duties, she had married a Jewish dentist, who was 13 years older. “We moved into a very nice apartment,” she later recalled.196 The daughter of Jewish-Christian parents, she was regarded as a Mischling by the Nazis and since she was married to a Jew, she had “no protection,” as she later noted. She thus had to flee the country. In March 1939, Helen Roberts and her husband, Richard, arrived in Sydney by plane. Upon their arrival, they discovered that he was not allowed to practice in Australia and would have to requalify in order to be able to work as a dentist. “That was ridiculous because he had fantastic qualifications as a doctor, but they were not accepted,” Roberts recalled of their situation in 1939.197
A friend of mine had a shop in Mascot and we bought it because he was moving to Vienna. It was a sportswear shop, Mascot Fashions it was called. I ran the shop for quite a number of years. And then one day, after six years, somebody came and said he wanted to buy the shop. And from then on, I had various shops in the city.200
Roberts clearly succeeded in establishing Mascot Fashions. When she sold it, she was able to invest in new businesses in the garment retail industry. Similar to Kurt Selby’s story, Helen Roberts used her connections and her involvement with the refugee community to build up a solid business which she, in later years, expanded and grew. She came into contact with garment retail while working for former Jewish refugees and took over her first business from other former Austrian refugees, the handover of the purchase price even took place
Mr. Tandler was in the employ of this firm for only a very limited period. During that time we found him to be all that one could wish to have in their employ, but unfortunately for Mr. Tandler, we have on our staff a designer who is capable of filling all our requirements in that direction and it was not possible for us to make use of his ability.202
The same month he lost his first job, he was hired by a Melbourne-based company called Platers, a firm that produced silverware. Tandler had plenty of experience in that business field and was able to establish himself as one of the company’s top designers. He introduced designs he had learnt and developed in Vienna and adapted them for Australian buyers. “He is a man of considerable ability as an architect, designer, pattern maker, draftsman and skilled
As his daughter confirmed, he worked in various positions as a designer and draftsman for different companies. Between 1942 and 1944, he was employed in the drawing office of a company that had acquired “large war contracts.” He designed “jigs and tools […] and special machines and equipment for the
Richard Tandler successfully used his Viennese cultural capital to foster his career in Australia, which followed similar patterns as in Austria. First, he started working as an employee and established himself as a designer. Once he was settled, he opened his own business. His Viennese cultural capital and his objectified cultural capital played an important role in that process, since he could rely not only upon knowledge but also upon objects, such as drawing tools, sketch books, publications, or furniture, to realize his work in Australia. He exercised agency mainly within the framework of the Jewish community. This helped him with getting orders, however, it also, together with the fact
Tandler’s cultural capital sustainably affected the life and career of his daughter Sue Copolov. Born in 1928, she spent the first 10 years of her life in Vienna, before escaping to Australia with her parents and her twin sister. Influenced by her father’s cultural capital and his professional habitus and probably also by what she had seen and learned in the family’s silverware factory in Vienna, she became interested in drawing, sketching, and design very early. After her family’s escape to Melbourne, she had initial “problems communicating in school” and it took her “about three years to learn the language,” she claimed.216 After the settling in process, however, she finished her high school and studied commercial arts at Prahran Technical Art School,217 a late-secondary and tertiary art school with a long tradition dating back to the mid-19th century.218 Asked how she came to choose her profession, she stated: “my father has influenced me very much. He used designs and design techniques that were unique in Australia. He was a very gifted man.”219 Her career development thus highlights the pivotal role that sociologist Pierre Bourdieu accorded to the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital, by which children—and particularly migrant children—are endowed with parental cultural capital during the process of socialization.220 Inspired by her father, Copolov chose to become an industrial designer. Probably due to the booming textile industry in postwar Australia, she focused her education and her future work on textile design. After graduating, she started a job in the dress fabric division of Prestige, a large Melbourne-based fabric mill. During that time, she developed design patterns combining influences from her Viennese cultural capital and what she had learnt and acquired from her father with her Australian education and the influences she took up in her new homeland. The mix of different influences turned out to be successful and her work was awarded with several prizes during the 1950s. Contemporary newspaper articles mentioned “the charming re-arrangement of Australian flora and fauna,”221 that brought her the first prize in a 1955 Australia-wide design competition. After having married her
Copolov’s career shows how refugee children successfully used their and their parent’s cultural capital and combined it with what they learnt and saw in Australia. The development of her professional career highlights how the adaption and entanglement of her former and her new homelands played out successfully. Due to her incorporated and institutionalized cultural capital, Copolov was able to become an award-winning designer in a large and prestigious Australian company. When she left that company to start a business on her own, she received support from Melbourne’s Jewish community, where she found customers and could exercise agency more easily. Her language skills and her Viennese cultural capital ultimately supported her efforts to establish contact with an Austrian textile and wool manufacturer, leading the way to the establishment of a trade company during the 1980s.
Now, they introduced to Australia the first honeycomb door. At that time there were only two types of doors, the first was made of solid timber, the second consisted of a timber frame with a sheet of plywood on either side. So, what they were doing was they had taken out a patent. They were using eggshell cases to put them between the sheets and that would serve as an insulation against the noise.233
In developing their business idea, Hearst and his partner were drawing on designs invented in prewar Germany: the so-called chipboard and lightweight honeycomb doors were the two main innovations that changed the global market for doors after the Second World War. Both were invented and patented in Germany during the 1930s, where either Hearst or his German partner Petzall may have learned about them.234 Introducing this Central European innovation to Australia turned out to be a great success: “They opened a company called the Door King Company of Australia and they were sending their doors all over the country,” his son later described.235
But they managed to survive. […] After the second squeeze, they had to consolidate everything. They relocated their production facilities. They set up a new factory and then the business started to grow again and then there was another building boom. […] They had lost their property during the credit squeeze, but we bought it back again and redeveloped it.238
And then we decided to get into the diy market. So we redeveloped the site and we built the first market—as a sort of a precursor to Bunnings superstores239—with only 20,000 square feet. But it was a start. It was a model business. And in 1988 we built another huge premises out in
Tullamarine, in Gladstone Park. And there we built a store with 40,000 square feet. It was called “Tradesman’s Entrance.”240
John Hearst’s businesses can serve as a good example of how imported migrant knowledge affected economic development in postwar Melbourne. He and his partner had brought with them very specialized embodied cultural capital: Hearst was a businessman and a trained cabinetmaker, Petzall an architect with experience in furniture design. Their business development was highly influenced by what they had learnt and seen in Europe, from the designs of their furniture to their patented honeycomb doors to the practice of becoming independent from external suppliers, a practice Hearst learnt in his parent’s company in Vienna. At first, Hearst and Petzall started their business as a typical migrant business in the financial safety of the migrant community. As they expanded, however, their business quickly began to operate statewide and nationwide. By 1982, when Hearst passed away,241 the different businesses he and his partner had built up had become a large-sized venture that employed more than 100 people.242
7.2 Cultural Activities
German and Austrian refugees left a very sustained and consistent footprint in Australia’s cultural life. Many refugees became prominent in the sphere of culture and entertainment. In particular, Austrian refugees “provided decisive impulses to music, theatre and dance,” as historian Konrad Kwiet observed.243 Refugees furthermore transformed and enhanced Australian aesthetics in a range of art and design disciplines.244 As of 1942, most refugees were still in the process of settling in and establishing themselves, the greatest part of their cultural footprint only became visible later, particularly after the end of the Second World War, when most of them were naturalized. As we have
Many refugees encountered a country with different values, and different customs and traditions. “They were grateful the country had accepted them and offered them shelter, however, at the very beginning could not really identify themselves with the Australian lifestyle and customs. Particularly the Australian cultural life was a ‘cultural wasteland’ for many of them,” as linguist Birgit Lang puts it in her book about the German-language theatre in Australian exile.248 Many of the refugees, including some of this book’s protagonists, congregated to jointly practice and support some of the cultural activities they knew and liked from their time in Vienna. The most frequently found cultural interest groups were private German-language theatres that “satisfied the refugees’ hunger for entertainment and culture.”249
It was May 24, 1941. My wife, Erna Felser, and myself had just moved into our new apartment at 21a Billyard Avenue, Elisabeth Bay, close to the port. We wanted to give a housewarming party for our Austrian refugee friends. When we planned that party with a friendly couple, Alfred and Elsa Baring, we developed the idea of hosting a series of short theater plays to bring back memories to our lost homeland in a funny way, at least for one night.251
The success we had proved us right. When the curtain lifted in the very last scene and the audience saw the panoramic picture we drew from Vienna, including the Great Bear Constellation, they, at first, became entirely silent. What followed then were standing ovations. We heard the
audience sob and there was no one who did not have to wipe away their tears.252
Due to the success they had among their refugee friends, they decided to repeat the programme and subsequently staged it in Felser’s apartment and other refugee homes. The audience consisted exclusively of refugees from a Jewish Austrian background. Most of them had a middle- or upper-middle-class background and had lived a good life in Vienna. Many lived in a “depressive atmosphere,” had not fully mastered the English language at that point, and in their jobs had to be satisfied with “lower positions,” as Felser described it. Thus, a theatre that promised to take them back to the good old gemütliche (comfortable) Vienna was very much welcomed by many of them.253
Despite the considerable acceptance of Felser’s idea among the members of the refugee community, they faced a serious legal problem that threatened to end the successful execution of their idea. Like most of the other refugees from Germany or Austria, the Felsers and the Barings were classified as enemy aliens and thus had to follow strict restrictions, including the prohibition on private gatherings, which made them feel like third-class citizens, as Felser later recalled.254 In order to get permission to continue with their private shows,
In order to play in front of larger audiences but still in a private framework, the Felsers and the Barings decided to move their performances out of the Felsers’ apartment into the backyards of the houses of refugees who were willing to host them. At that point in time, their audience was still restricted to German-speaking Jewish refugees, mainly from Austria. Like Felser, some of them had already had financial success with their jobs or businesses and had moved into houses with gardens and backyards large enough to host the performance of the travelling theatre. “For this purpose, we had to build a travelling stage that was made of wood,” Felser later recalled of the beginnings of his theatre.256 In order to fit their audiences’ expectations, they called their theatre Wiener Kleinkunstbühne (Vienna Cabaret Stage). On November 24, 1942, they had their first official performance in front of an audience of about 30 people.257 Felser had decided to perform typical Viennese popular plays, such as Das Märchen written by Curt Goetz and Anatols Hochzeitsmorgen by Arthur Schnitzler.
One of the problems they encountered was obtaining copies of the original texts of the plays. To a certain extent, they could draw on their private libraries, or the libraries of refugee friends, thus on objectified cultural capital the refugees had saved from the Nazis’ clutches.258 Their first season was a great success. Together with a group of volunteers, the Felsers and the Barings delivered several performances in private backyards that attracted growing audiences. At peak times, they played in front of up to 114 people.259
Thanks to the efforts of the Association of Refugees and my own efforts for Austrian refugees, the Aliens’ Classification Committee had finally realized that we were not “enemy aliens.” They gave us the new status of “refugee alien” which provided us with practically the same rights Australian residents had. The most important thing was that this new status offered us the opportunity to apply for Australian citizenship.262
The reasons can be found mainly in our changed position in Australian society which came together with new professional opportunities. Many of us worked hard to build up our economic existence during those years. When most of us had become financially stable, our passion for
the theater rose again and we were able to dedicate many hours to our hobby.265
With more time and financial means at their disposal, Felser and his partners decided to expand and to move into a larger theatre: the Independent Theatre in North Sydney, which provided them with 380 seats for an increased audience. They still addressed Central European migrants as their main clientele. As Felser described, they had gained a “loyal core audience of about 1,000 people” that consisted mainly of “prewar migrants from Austria, Germany, and Hungary.”266 They sold their tickets in the migrant community and in migrant shops in the city, which served as “booking offices.” However, they also introduced the Australian habit of preselling their tickets for one season in advance. This adopted practice led to them selling half their tickets in advance.267 Because of the fact that the audience consisted mainly of refugees from Austria and Germany, their programme was still centred on “unproblematic plays that reminded their audience of ‘the old days back home’,” as Felser put it.268
The Little Viennese Theatre, which presents its works, in German, is doing well. More than 4200 people saw their last offering, the continental operetta Pardon my Love, in six evening performances and one matinee. Ten years ago, the group would give only one performance of a play, and didn’t attempt more than two shows a year. Now they give seven performances of each production and their policy is to give six shows a year—two comedies, two operettas and two serious plays. All profits, incidentally, go to Australian charities. In September the company will fly
to Melbourne at the invitation of the Melbourne community for a brief season at the Melbourne University Union theatre.269
One of the least-known and-on-the-box-office-count-most-successful of Sydney’s little theatres is Das Kleines Wiener Theater (The Little Viennese Theatre), a group which started doing German language plays about three years ago. The theatre does five performances of each play—mainly light modern comedies—at the Independent on Sunday nights, and every show is booked out—the group claims a regular audience of 3,000.270
There were, however, also voices that claimed that the gathering of the German-speaking minority in the form of a club or a theatre would hinder assimilation. An extensive article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled “Sydney Now has its Minority Problem” suggested that the “best way to assimilate the migrants, would be to get them out of their clubs and into our own.”271
During the 1950s, the Kleines Wiener Theater developed its repertoire according to the needs of its main clientele—German, Austrian and Hungarian Jewish refugees in Sydney. Exile and migration and the situation “in between” the cultures were pervasive. The theatre centred many of its plays on the identity bias between Austria and Australia and a comparison of the cultures, as Birgit Lang noted.272 In 1957, Felser’s engagement in his theatre came to a halt due to tensions with the Barings over the question of how the quickly growing operation could best be handled. Felser, who favoured a “serious professionalization of the stage,” as he later stated, decided on December 10, 1957, to resign as president and director of the Kleines Wiener Theater and to turn his attention to other tasks.273 After that, the theatre, which survived off its German-speaking core audience, successfully continued its existence until it lost its raison d’être “when the Jewish Austrian refugee generation became older or died,” as Felser put it.274
In 1954, three years before Felser resigned from the Kleines Wiener Theater, he had become a member of the board of directors and the financial director of the Independent Theatre in North Sydney. With this move, he extended the range of his cultural activities beyond migrant circles. His new voluntary occupation can be seen as another important step toward his public recognition and appreciation in Australia, since “his peers in the board of directors were mostly Australian-born professionals with a university background or a background in the dramatic arts,” who were “mostly invited to join the board because of their good connections to the government or the industry,” as he later recalled.276 After his resignation from the Kleines Wiener Theater, Felser sought to bring to the Independent Theatre his knowledge of German theatre productions and suggested the board open up its own German-language section.277 His idea was accepted and, in 1958, Felser became the director of the newly founded Kammerspiele Sydney, which operated as a branch of the Independent Theatre. Felser relied on supporters who had previously worked for him at the Kleines Wiener Theater, such as the university lecturer Kurt Hommel from the Institute of Germanic Studies at the University of Sydney, as well as former or active members of the Kleines Wiener Theater, whom Felser could persuade to participate.278 During his involvement, he developed an excellent relationship with Erik Langker, a renowned Australian painter who was also active in supporting Sydney’s music scene and can be seen as “one of the fathers of the Sydney opera house.”279
However, there was another reservoir of potential audience which was never even tapped by the Kleines Wiener Theater—namely those postwar migrants of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. This was a group of people comprising 10,000 Austrians alone, who came to Sydney, not to mention the large wave of migration from Germany.280
In order to meet the demands of that group of people, which consisted mainly of working-class or rural migrants, whose cultural capital differed strongly from that of the middle-class, urban prewar migrants who were forced to leave their homes. “Some of them were people who had never been to a theatre before. Thus, we had to pitch the idea of attending a German-language theatre first,” as Felser recalled.281 In order to gain access to his new customers, Felser got in contact with German migrant organizations and the German Goethe Association. He organized pieces of their repertoire to be played in gyms and public halls in the suburbs, where many of the new arrivals lived. Alongside that, he advertised his theatre in various German-language newspapers, such as Die Woche, Die Woche in Australien, and Der Anker.282 Felser’s focus on migrants also went beyond the German-language audience. With a friend and journalist from Poland, he organized plays in languages other than German. In 1959, the Kammerspiele hosted three Polish plays, but was unable to develop the plan further because of a lack of financial capital.
Despite the venture’s difficult financial situation, Felser managed to guarantee a continuous regular performance. Due to his excellent business relations with German and Austrian partners, he secured financial support from the Federal Republic of Germany in 1960. When he became Honorary Consul-General for the Republic of Austria, he used a business trip to Vienna, as he
Felser’s involvement with the Kammerspiele lasted a decade. In 1968, when he was about to extend the theatre’s repertoire to English-speaking audiences, with an English-language performance of Arthur Schnitzler’s Anatols Hochzeitsmorgen (translated as The Affairs of Anatol), the sudden death of his wife, Erna, brought an abrupt halt to his engagement, which resulted in the end of the Kammerspiele Sydney.284
Gerhard Felser’s intense cultural activities bear witness to the urgent need of the German and Austrian prewar refugees to satisfy their cultural demands. The dramatic arts, the theatre, and the opera were part of the cultural capital of most of them. Their displacement to Australia had created a void, which a few people such as Gerhard and Erna Felser, Elsa and Alfred Baring, Karl Bittmann or Peter Watkins were able to successfully fill. As the main driving force behind his own passion for the theatre, Felser mentioned the following: “The main point was that we were able to offer a certain group of people something that brought their old homeland a bit closer to them—namely serious theatre in their own language.”285 Starting from this initial intention, with the help of many different refugees and their own ideas and cultural capital, Felser and others managed to create several long-lived institutions that had—after initial local resistance—even gained the recognition of their new host society and become an accepted part of Australia’s multicultural postwar life. The success, especially of Felser’s second venture, the Kammerspiele, was due in no small part to his intense efforts to exercise public agency, to organize funding, and to extend the core audience to other (language) groups.
Sylvia Cherny (née Sylvia Mahler) was 17 years old when she arrived in Melbourne. In Austria, she and her brother had lived with their father, the Jewish industrialist Robert Mahler, in a rural town in western Lower Austria. “My father set great store by music appreciation: he played the violin and held chamber music evenings once a week,” Cherny later recalled.286 Her father’s passion ultimately spread to his children and Cherny had developed a deep passion for music and the dramatic arts during her youth in Austria. In the years prior to her escape, she had attended piano and singing lessons.
The Watkins household celebrated the music scene. In her memoirs, Sylvia Cherny described that her home “became the scene for many parties and social occasions, which Peter and my mother organized to perfection. Many of their friends had artistic talent and performed sketches they had written themselves.”290 Thus the Watkins family had begun to organize refugee gatherings in a similar way to the Felsers and the Barings had done in Sydney: “This was a major form of home entertainment during our early years and led to Peter forming a German-speaking theatre group, which performed plays in rented theatres and exchanged visits with a similar group in Sydney.”291 The “German-speaking theatre group,” Cherny was referring to was an organization called the Theaterfreunde (Friends of Theater). Sylvia Cherny’s stepfather had founded the organization together with the migrant Peter Halphen, who had gained some experience as an actor at the Viennese Kainzbühne before moving to
Sylvia Cherny’s memories of her early cultural preferences indicate again the role of the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital, by which children—and particularly migrant children—are endowed with parental cultural capital during the process of socialization. Cherny had developed a fondness for music and theatre during her youth and had developed this passion supported by her new family in Australia. We also see, however, how the different cultural elements of her old and her new homelands intertwined when she came in contact with new forms of English theatre play while her mother and her stepfather were rather engaged in building a German-language exile theatre scene in Melbourne.
The field of art criticism was a part of Australia’s cultural domain that was only developed after the entry of migrants from Europe to the country. For decades, Gertrude Langer played a substantial role in establishing modernism in Queensland’s cultural and artistic scene. Originating from a wealthy Jewish industrialist family, Langer was a student of the progressive art historian Josef Strzygowski, who tried to switch the horizons governing his colleagues’ understanding away from a Euro-centric perspective to a broader view that compared art throughout the course of history in different areas of the world.293 He has thus been described as an “early champion of world art history.”294 His alternative geography of art emphasized affinities and lines of descent that went completely against the grain of contemporary art-historical opinion and, crucially, “turned Europe into a province within a much larger global artistic territory.”295 Despite his increasingly nationalist and antisemitic language,296 which ironically contradicted his global outlook, Strzygowski managed to become “a major figure on the art-historical landscape.”297 He
After her escape to Brisbane, she found herself in a cultural domain that differed greatly from fin-de-siècle Vienna. Australia, at that time, was regarded as “predominantly a conservative, isolated, pastoral society.”305 Art history as
Well the landscape was the least that worried me. What worried me was rather the city. I mean, the architecture worried me very much and […] just the lack of culture. I mean, I could not believe it that there wasn’t a professional theater and things like that. The orchestra was something dreadful at that time […]. Except for a few visiting companies, things were pretty bad. The art gallery in those days […] was something dreadful, you know, it was nonexistent.314
Soon after her arrival, Langer tried to become involved in the cultural life and make herself known in her new hometown. However, despite her obvious qualifications, she could find neither a job nor a voluntary position in the art sector. Her status as an enemy alien and a woman did not support her position. Initially, she encountered what was described as a “boycott by the establishment” serving to keep her out of the few existing voluntary and professional positions.315 A few months after her arrival, she therefore started to exercise agency and to promote herself. She gave salon-style lectures in “art history” and “art appreciation” in her private home,316 and initiated a media campaign in local newspapers. Langer and her husband had saved their important objectified cultural capital in the form of their comprehensive art library, and she centred her teaching on the “reproductions, prints and books of her library.”317 Langer’s lectures filled a vacuum and stimulated public interest318 and, consequently, her popularity grew from lecture to lecture, as did her audience, which consisted of “all sorts of people.”319 “I might start with six people and all of a sudden have 12 and then I had about 18 and I took them in two groups,”
As we approach music, we do not ask what sounds in nature correspond with the sound in the sonata […] We do not take in the single sounds separately, but try to find the theme. We feel in the first instance […]. And here is the beginning for an understanding […] Art is not and never must be imitation of nature, but interpretation.331
Since existing conservative institutions of Brisbane’s art world did not appreciate her engagement, most of her early attempts to become involved with official organizations failed; her efforts with the Queensland Arts Council were blocked for some years, as she recalled.332 She also tried, unsuccessfully, to become a trustee of the Queensland Art Gallery. In an interview, she later claimed, “the art gallery never made use of me. My brain was a little bit picked in the background.”333
Langer had become a prominent figure in Brisbane’s art scene during the early 1950s, despite the fact that she was not affiliated with any organization, mainly because of her successful actions to exercise agency. However, in a later interview, she admitted that she felt she had not fully used her knowledge, and remembered being “very frustrated” because she was “given no opportunities whatsoever.”334 Langer’s private lectures were in high demand. During the 1950s, the number of her regular students increased to over 100, attending 30 lectures per year. Although she had become a prominent lecturer, she never managed to teach at a university. The art school at the Central Technical College had long been criticized as “old hat” and only introduced a Fine Arts diploma in 1970, long after Langer had introduced her salon-style lectures.335 “That is really what I would have liked, to lecture at the university, but there
Autumn 1952 brought a first change in Langer’s situation when the Brisbane daily newspaper Courier-Mail hired her to become its official art critic. Traditionally, newspaper art reviewing in Queensland was a minor piece of journalism and did not require any specific training. Prior to her appointment, reviews were written by a variety of journalists, literary critics, music critics, and even poets, but never by someone trained in art.337 Initially reluctant, because of the “terrible state of art criticism” at that time, Langer hesitated to accept the offer.338 But finally, on March 16, 1953, her first two art critiques were published.339 To succeed in her new job, Langer had to develop new techniques and styles to present her knowledge to a broad audience largely unfamiliar with the topic. “Not that I was trained for critiques […] I hadn’t written critiques before but the main thing is I had the knowledge,” Langer justified the move.340
When reviewing art, she benefited from her knowledge of methods of analysis and comparison that she had acquired at the University of Vienna.341 The translation and adaption process was not always easy. She later claimed she had the biggest problems with the “popular” style of writing that she felt “wasn’t worthy of an art historian” because she “was constantly trying to coax people to have a look at it [art].”342 The lack of space for her reviews, as well as the “many misprints” in the newspapers, further worried her.343 However, her new position advanced her popularity in Queensland and cemented her role as an opinion leader. It not only helped her achieve her aim of “gaining a wider public to educate toward the arts”344 but also provided a quintessential
Without any hesitancy I class the following artists not only as outstanding […] but also as really fit to compete in this important Australia-wide contest […]. [While] John Rigby, from promising beginnings has developed into a fine artist with that characteristic manner of expression which one calls style and I feel sure, he soon will win wider recognition … [and] Molvig is an interesting painter. His semi-abstract “Landscape Arrangement” and “Burnt Landscape” are strong and impressive.351
The latest opus from the sneering pen of Gertrude Langer was directed at that capable brush Robert R. Jackson who portrays the Australian landscape as it is, not through the jaundiced and perverted vision which Gertrude Langer seems to delight in. For some time now the vapourings of this lady, claiming to be an ‘expert’ on modern art, have been carefully analysed by a group of conscientious artists who see nothing wrong in ‘giving recorded beauty’ of nature to the people.355
Over time, Langer’s reviews became a fixture of the Courier-Mail. She continued to write them until the week before her death in 1984,356 thus becoming the longest serving modern art critic on a newspaper in Australia.357 Langer improved her writing by learning from others. She actively sought out the advice and writing of art critics in other states or abroad, and she became a foundation member of the International Association of Art Critics Australian Division.358 Her appointment as art critic made her “the authority” in Brisbane’s art world and she was described as “feared and respected.”359 The most important changes in her professional career, however, took place in 1960 when
The very same year, she ceased her lecturing activity, knowing that her new task would require her full attention. When she took over, the organization was de facto nonexistent.361 “It was going badly,” Langer stated, “all that happened was what New South Wales Division of the Arts Council brought across the border.”362 Langer had no experience in managing arts; however, she commenced her new appointment with commitment: “I just wanted to do this exciting work, because it fulfilled me so much doing something for all the arts.”363 Although she had never worked as a cultural administrator, she possessed the skills to become successful: “Everything I had learned fell into place. I knew what was a good poster for publicity. My interest in the theatre and all that strong influence from seeing the best in Vienna and Paris and places like that made me very discriminating in my choices and only promoting the very best.”364 Langer knew her plans would require sufficient funding. The organization had only 500 pounds in its bank account when she took over the presidency. She started a series of fundraising events, hired volunteers, and organized media support through her newspaper connections, thus dramatically increasing the available financial means.365 She later claimed that her success was connected to her publicity: “Through writing for the paper and lecturing I had made a name, so people even in the country knew who I was. I think it really helped.”366 Her appointment gave her the unique opportunity of combining her two major
Langer remained president of the Queensland Arts Council until she retired in 1975.372 During that time, she managed not only to extend her imported cultural capital and adapt her knowledge to new conditions but also to create new migration-specific knowledge by combining practices and ideas from two cultures. During her 14 years of presidency, the Queensland Arts Council grew from a practically nonexistent body with a budget of 500 pounds to the largest arts touring organization in Australia with 15 regular staff members, 50 rural subbranches and an annual turnover of 1.2 million dollars.373
Langer’s professional career in Australia is an exceptional example of how a translator’s continuous struggle to exercise agency can become successful over a long period of time. Langer had brought with her institutionalized, embodied, and objectified cultural capital that had not existed in Queensland at the
I remember them as sheer joy […] it was much more dynamic than a classic ballet has to be. We had improvised music by a top-class musician. Everything became alive in a dance-like fashion. So, the dancing started the moment you got into the classroom. We had also training, because at that time in Vienna the Swedish gymnastics had entered the dance scene and we had to train stomach muscles as well as body movements in a certain style. The body had to develop in a healthy way through gymnastics. Bodenwieser was a person who never put herself into the foreground. For her dance was what it was all about.376
Exiner continued her dance education during her school years and ultimately completed it with a four-year diploma at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts, where Bodenwieser was a professor of dance.377 She described the education and the choreography taught by Bodenwieser
Bodenwieser had lost her occupation because of her Jewish heritage after the Anschluss, and subsequently fled to France.381 Through a diplomat friend, she was invited to organize a group of her former Viennese students and colleagues to perform at the Centennial Festival of Bogotá, Colombia.382 Knowing of Exiner’s insecure and dangerous future in the Nazi state, Bodenwieser invited her to join the dance troupe. Out of a “need for security,” as Exiner later mentioned, she dropped her medical studies and joined the Bodenwieser Ballet.383 Six months later, her unusual route of escape brought her to Australia where she accepted the invitation of a friend who had fled there earlier and the two opened a dance studio called the Studio of Creative Dance together.384
Viennese Dance Recital. A novel and artistic performance was presented by Misses Daisy Pirnitzer and Hanny Kolm at the Union House Theatre, within the University, on April 23, in an exhibition of Viennese creative dancing, given by them and their students. To music by Bach, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and others, as well as two original compositions by the accompanist, M. Lorber, interpretations which aimed at faithful and sympathetic presentation of the musical compositions in a
corresponding dance medium, interested and delighted a large audience. The technique differs from that of the familiar ballet […]. The work of Misses Pirnitzer and Kolm was most accomplished, both in their many individual items and in the work of their pupils.386
After a while, however, she realized that she could not simply transfer and implement what she had learnt in Vienna and began to adapt her cultural capital. She felt that performing professional dance, although positively received in her new homeland, did not provide enough income as she later recalled, and she developed the plan of starting a career in teaching dance. Thus, she applied what she had learnt and later practiced at the Bodenwieser Academy in Vienna. “We had to teach to earn a living,” Exiner said of her switching focus toward teaching.387 At first, she gave classes for adult women, but soon provided education for children, working as a teacher in movement and dance in primary and secondary schools.388 Her publicity may have helped her in taking that step. In addition, she started a media campaign, advertising her studio in local newspapers, particularly in the Argus and in the Australian Jewish News.389 This work, as she later noted, “led to invitations by teachers’ colleges to offer the then still novel creative approach to dance to their students.”390 This was also the period when she started her own family. On February 7, 1949, she married the Austrian migrant Robert Exiner, with whom she had three children.391 Knowing the value of education and the importance of having her cultural capital officially “institutionalized” and thus acknowledged, Exiner finished teachers training at the Mercer House Teacher’s College in Melbourne’s suburb of Malvern, where she subsequently worked as a lecturer.392 During that time, she began to distance herself from her previous focus on technical training and increasingly embraced a creative approach to dance that could be used to foster children’s development.393 In 1960, she was appointed senior lecturer in movement and dance at the State College of Victoria in Kew. In
Another important factor in advancing her career was her willingness to embrace a global mobility. She always extended her knowledge and cultural capital by learning from different methods and approaches in various regions of the world. In 1961, she travelled to Europe. In London and Vienna, she studied Rudolf von Laban’s work on “Modern Educational Dance” and adopted it for her own purposes. Exiner later recalled studying and adapting Laban’s ideas as a “proverbial turning point in her style of teaching.”395 During the 1970s, she did some study and research in Europe and the United States. Through this, she came into contact with dance as a form of therapy.396 She continually improved her knowledge by learning from her transnational contacts and, eventually, became involved in dance as therapy. She collaborated with leading Australian psychologists and was invited by psychiatric hospitals to provide dance therapy for dysfunctional patients. As one of the few professionals with transnational knowledge and contacts in Australia, she ultimately became one of the leading figures in dance therapy. She published broadly in the new field and created some highly recognized works. In 1982, she opened a dance studio in Fitzroy, Victoria and developed a graduate certificate in dance therapy for the University of Melbourne. Due to her interdisciplinary and multifaceted education, which was unique in postwar Australia, as well as her willingness to improve and adapt her knowledge, Exiner left a deep impression on the Australian dance scene. When she died in Melbourne in 2006, she was a leading figure in developing and teaching dance therapy and advancing modern dance in Australia. She not only brought her prewar knowledge and education to Australia but also acted as a transnational mediator of cultural capital by building and maintaining networks with dancers and educators in Australia, Europe, and the United States, creating new knowledge, ideas, and university curricula.
Like Gertrude Langer, Hanny Exiner came to Australia with highly specialized cultural capital that was unique in her new homeland. She was able to get a foothold in Australia through the invitation of a friend and consequently managed to import and adapt her knowledge. Unlike Langer, however, Exiner encountered much less resistance. The media accepted her quickly and received her work largely positively almost as soon as she arrived. Her career shows the importance a lifelong development of cultural capital and expertise
Paul Hirsch possessed knowledge in a cultural field that was particularly difficult to transfer to Australia. Using his pen name, Paul Hatvani, he had made a name for himself as an Expressionist writer in pre- and interwar Central Europe. Growing up in Vienna and Budapest before the First World War, Hirsch learnt very early to deal with ruptures and conflicts deriving from transcultural migrations. He had also realized how to use these differences to extend his knowledge, his cultural capital, and—more generally—his experiences as a writer.397 When he moved to Budapest in 1904, the 12-year-old felt very alienated: “I did not speak a word of Hungarian. I had to live, think and learn in an alien language area,” he later wrote.398 Due to his school education, he came into contact with the young and just developing literary genre of Expressionism, which he began to develop a lifelong passion for.399 At the age of 16, he translated Hungarian writers into German.400 At this time, one of his teachers had recommended he use the Hungarian pen name “Hatvani” in order to become more accepted by a Hungarian readership.401 Despite his young years and his migration background, he became well connected in the Hungarian literary scene and established contacts with Expressionist writers such as Frigyes Karinthy and Mihály Babits.402
In 1911, Hirsch moved back to Vienna to study mathematics and chemistry. Here, again, he described feelings of alienation, which he combatted by focusing on writing and seeking connections to the large writer’s scene in Vienna. He regularly met other people and engaged himself in Viennese and German literary circles. He made friends with Albert Ehrenstein and Hermann Broch403 and got in contact with the editors of the literary journals Der Sturm and Die
During the Frist World War, Hirsch was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and was sent to serve in an industrial chemical factory in Moravia. During that time, he continued writing for Bohemian newspapers and, like his idol Karl Kraus, produced different pieces that showed his anti-military ideology and more particularly his “critique of the barbarization of the language caused by war propaganda.”409 After the war, he returned to the newly founded Republic of Austria, finished his studies, and took a job in industry.410 “My interest in the writing, however, remained unbroken,” he later wrote.411 He published prodigiously during the 1920s in different Expressionist journals,412 mainly using his existing literary repertoire (biographies, critiques, poems, theoretical pieces), but also extending it with texts with a transnational profile. He travelled a lot during these years: these experiences were reflected in works such as “Der russische Mensch” [The Russian man], or “110 Prozent” [110 percent],
After his escape from Vienna with his wife Marianne, he arrived in Melbourne ten days before the outbreak of the Second World War.415 Like most of the other refugees, Hirsch arrived in a strange land without having had the time to prepare himself ideologically for his new homeland. “We knew little about this country, neither about everyday life, nor about opportunities, advantages and disadvantages,” he later recalled.416 His flight to Australia was another major rupture in his life. Again, he had to learn a new language and had to integrate himself into a new language area.417 But there was a big difference between his escape to Australia and his earlier relocations. His 1939 escape was involuntarily and brought him into an area that differed much in terms of the culture from his earlier locations in Central Europe.
During his initial years in Melbourne, Hirsch received much support from his sister-in-law. She offered accommodation for the first three years after his arrival and introduced him to her friends and to members of the migrant community.418 At first, he made new contacts and acquaintances mainly among the German-speaking migrant community. “At the beginning, when we [he and acquaintances] met there were no Australians around,” as he later recalled.419 Due to his background in chemistry, another migrant had asked him to join him in opening up a textile factory, a professional field where migrants had been particularly active.420
Hirsch had severe difficulties with his latest relocation. Like many refugees from Vienna, he regarded his new environment as a “cultural wasteland.”421 As he later complained, Melbourne’s literary and cultural life was only of “local importance and the sparse intellectual elite” was mainly focused on technical
His situation worsened with the outbreak of the war. As the language of the enemy, Hirsch’s passion, the German language, became more and more taboo in public. As a citizen of the German Reich, Hirsch, like most other refugees was declared an “enemy alien.” The German philologist Stephen Jeffries, who studied Hirsch and his literary remains, noted: “In Australia, given the atmosphere of mistrust and hostility during the war, there was no question of writing or publishing at all. […] In all likelihood, he [Hirsch] assumed that his public critical activity had come to an end.”425 Hirsch confirmed that assumption in a letter to a friend in which he wrote that he had no opportunity to think about literature in Europe, because he was too much focused on integrating himself into the structures of his new homeland.426 Instead, he increasingly focused on modern English-language literature. He subscribed to the weekly Times Literary Supplement, which he described as the “best literature journal in the world” and began to study contemporary English and American authors, such as Lawrence Durrell, Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Cornelius Ryan, Erich Heller, and also the Australians Patrick White and Morris West.427 Nevertheless, his feelings of alienation increased during the 1950s and early 1960s, as his nephew confirmed in a later interview.428
The lack of like-minded people with similar interests in cultural activities led to his social seclusion. Letters he exchanged during these years give an insight into this process of isolation: “Unfortunately, I have to confess that, for years, we get more and more isolated here. There are hardly any people to have
Economically, Hirsch experienced dramatic times. His involvement in the textile factory may have caused him financial difficulties and between the 1950s and his retirement in 1964, Hirsch muddled through professionally with various odd jobs. In 1962, he wrote ironically to a friend: “As you may have noticed, I am an expert in losing jobs.”431
The death of his friend, the writer Hermann Broch, who had fled to the United States, may have refreshed his interest in writing and he wrote a biographical article about him. This piece, which is extant in his literary estate at the Monash University library, is special in two ways: it is the first and one of the very few articles that Hirsch wrote in English, and it is the very first piece he published in Australia. During the 1950s, he continued writing, “however only for myself and as a hobby,” he noted.432 He had also started to read German contemporary classics and ordered from Vienna complete issues of the journals Die Fackel and Die Aktion.433 His passion for writing German-language texts may have also returned and he tried to publish again. Due to his isolation, however, he faced major obstacles. In 1954, the German-language journal Der Monat published his first biographical postwar publication, about his idol Karl Kraus.434 Despite being published under his previously well-known pen name “Paul Hatvani,” the article did not receive much attention. This is not surprising, since the German restorative and conservative literary climate of the mid-1950s did not support the modernist development Expressionism had introduced during the 1920s.435 Furthermore, there was not much interest in
Hirsch’s retirement in 1964 was one of the crucial turning points in his life. However, not for the reasons one might suspect. A friendly fellow migrant and painter, who was in charge of designing the annual desk diary for the National Gallery of Victoria asked him to write its text and its labelling.437 Hirsch delivered the work, which was his second postwar publication under his real name, not his pen name. The diary received praise from the press and helped Hirsch to appear in public again for the first time since the early 1930s. Because of his work, he was asked to join the National Gallery Society. It also helped to end the isolation which he had described in numerous letters. From then on, Hirsch increasingly participated in the cultural programme of his hostland, as he wrote in a letter in late 1965: “You see, we started a kind of a slightly bohemian social life (auf meine alten Tage) [in my old age].”438
Clearly unnoticed by Hirsch, the German literary scene had changed during the late 1950s and 1960s, when Expressionist authors and texts experienced a gradual renaissance.439 The first studies of Expressionism, as well as
This person [Professor Zohn] referred me to the German Literature Archive in Marbach. The head of the institution, Dr. Paul Raabe, immediately wrote back to me and informed me that they had urgently sought me, or rather “Paul Hatvani,” since 1945. They have also published some old texts of mine, etc., etc. Dr. Raabe immediately took care of the publication of my Expressionism article and brought me into contact with different publishers. […] Since then, I have—more or less—become a writer again.441
His article, entitled “Über den Expressionismus” [On Expressionism], was his second postwar publication in a German literary journal. Unlike his 1954 article about Karl Kraus, the text received a great public response and publishers began to take an interest again in the writer Paul Hatvani. This development also reflects the changes in the literature market. There was an increased demand for Expressionist literature and authors during the mid- and late 1960s.442
The following decade was a very productive time for the writer Paul Hatvani. Between 1965 and 1968, he published 11 articles. He mainly used text forms he had used before his flight (biographies, theoretical texts, reviews, poems). However, he also included his exile experiences in his writings. Texts such as “Der Intellekt und seine Feinde” [The intellect and its enemies],446 written in 1967, or “Australien ist heute ganz anders” [Australia is today quite different]447 show a first critical intellectual engagement with his hostland, as well as his position as a cultural mediator and translator who wished to explain his new homeland to a German readership. Stimulated by the demand in the literature market for exile authors448 and animated by Paul Raabe of the Marbach archive, Hirsch began to extend his repertoire toward an analysis of his own expulsion experience. This led to the most important transformation of his writing. Like other exile authors, Hirsch used an essayistic biographical style to write short stories, in which he mixed abstract stories and facts.449 In one of his letters, he stressed his intention not to mention the names of
The early 1970s brought another transformation of Hirsch’s literary repertoire, triggered by the demand from the market. The newly formed academic exile research led to an increased interest in the life stories of exiled authors. Publishers became more daring and identified an audience for autobiographical exile writing.452 In 1972, Hirsch had been introduced to Hans Bender, the editor of the journal Akzente, who encouraged him to write down his exile experiences in Australia. Hirsch, who was at first reluctant to write “from an autobiographical and thus a personal and quirky perspective,” as he wrote, overcame his reluctance and started an intense two-year reflection process about his situation and the exile in Australia.453 As a result of his reflection, he published in 1973 his most famous autobiographical text “Nicht hier nicht dort: Australien” [Neither here nor there: Australia].454 At this point, his writing style had changed considerably in order to fit the needs of the contemporary literary market. Instead of abstract short stories, his last works were clearly autobiographical, undoubtedly reflecting his own experiences, with himself as the main protagonist.
Paul Hirsch’s forced migration to Australia is a fascinating example of how knowledge and cultural capital runs the risk of being lost during a relocation process. However, it also shows how cultural capital and skills can be enriched and extended by transcultural migration experiences and by the mediator’s hybrid position in between the cultures. For decades, Hirsch had severe problems making new contacts in Australia. Due to the difficult political position the German language had and the virtually nonexistent market for German literature in Australia, he ceased his writing activities for years. Nevertheless, we can see the importance of the migrant community for Hirsch. All of his
7.3 Political Activism, Community Service, and Education
There were also other cultural and social domains some of the refugees had become actively involved in as cultural translators or mediators. Most of this book’s protagonists located themselves to the left of the country’s political spectrum. Some even became involved in Australian political or social movements and thus expected to participate in the shaping of their community. An extraordinarily high proportion of six out of 26 members of our sample group worked as school teachers in Australia. This might be related again to their cultural capital: members of the Viennese Jewish middle and upper classes, as we have seen, developed a liberal worldview that placed a particularly high value on education.455 Chapter 3 showed that the social class most of this book’s protagonists came from had a strong regard for education. Almost all of them had enjoyed the privilege of an excellent school education far exceeding the Austrian average. In Australia, they carried on the positive picture of learning and the value they ascribed to education. This might also have helped them in forming stronger identifications with their hostland, as studies about migrant teachers have shown.456 There was also an increased need for teachers due to Australia’s rapidly increased postwar population. However, it was not only the growing population which was responsible for the increased need for education and teachers, increasing diversity and prosperity, furthermore, created and sustained a demand for a prolonged education, as historian Geoffrey Sherington stated.457 And especially in the rapidly growing suburbs,
Viola Winkler (née Viola Anneliese Hübsch) became a teacher by chance in Australia. The daughter of a Jewish pensioner and his 30-years-younger wife, who operated a kindergarten, came in contact with education very early through her mother’s occupation. After graduating with a diploma in art and design from the Bundeslehranstalt für Textildesign, a technical high school for textile design in Vienna,459 she took a position as a designer and draughtswoman for an industrial company close to Vienna.460 During that time, she perfected her skills in drawing and painting and additionally worked as an award-winning artist. Among other things, she was commissioned by publishing companies to draw illustrations for their books.461 As described in Chapter 5, Viola Winkler’s career came to an initial halt after she fled to Sydney because of antisemitic persecution. Despite her excellent incorporated and institutionalized cultural capital, Winkler had considerable trouble finding a professional occupation in prewar Sydney. She arrived with high expectations, as she later explained, but soon realized that she would have to accept a devaluation of her capital in her new environment. “I thought I would find work in some art fields. I found out that no design company exists. Everything was imported. People were not used to refugees and kept away,” as she recalled.462 In a later interview, she noted: “I had the greatest difficulties finding a job, especially as a draughtswoman in the textile field.”463 After months of studying the job announcements in the newspapers and travelling to job interviews all over the city, she finally found employment in her line of work. She recalled that process as follows: “After a long struggle I found work. I read the newspapers job announcements and had no knowledge about the geography of Sydney and travelled much through the whole city to different job interviews. Finally, I found work as a commercial
After her husband lost his job as an engineer due to his status as an enemy alien and his short-term internment in the Tatura internment camp, the Winklers had to look for further means to stay afloat financially. For that, they relied upon Viola Winkler’s cultural capital as an artist, as well as her newly acquired skills as a potter, as she recalled: “My husband rented a small workshop, which I used to create little figures out of clay. We sold hundreds of these figurines and made a living out of it. This was crucial, because it was only after the end of the war that my husband was allowed to take up his job as an engineer again.”466
By combining her design skills and her newly gained knowledge of pottery she acquired in Australia, Winkler managed to access a niche market. The business went well and Winkler continued it after her husband got his job as an engineer back. She was even able to expand her production. After the war, she built a larger workshop and employed two people who worked for her, “making hundreds of copies of my sculptures,” as she later stated.467
When Judi [her youngest daughter] was five years old [in 1951], Kurt read in the newspaper that schools were searching for young people from abroad who had acquired a knowledge of the arts to employ them as art
teachers. Actually, I did not want to apply, because I was not a teacher and had enough to do raising our four children. However, because of Kurt, I finally applied, mainly because I was convinced that they would not hire me. But I got the job and, for 22 years, I worked in a position that made me incredibly happy.468
Her new position as a teacher enabled her to take up a role as a cultural mediator, translating and mediating knowledge between two cultures. Asked what she liked the most in her job, she stated: “I was not only able to work with children, which was great fun for me, but I was also privileged to show them the beauty of art as well as my experience abroad.”469 Due to the shortage of teachers, especially in schools with a high proportion of migrant children, Winkler, as a professional and recognized artist, was allowed to temporarily work without a degree in teaching. She then enrolled at the University of New South Wales to acquire a diploma in education, which allowed her to be fully recognized as a teacher in Australia.470
Winkler started her teaching career with big reservations. “Becoming a teacher was the most unthinkable thing for me because of my foreign accent and lack of teaching experience,” she later recalled. The first school where she taught was a “very underprivileged high school” with a very high share of migrants. She noted, “75 percent of the students were migrants.”471 She learned a great deal from this experience. As recent studies show, Winkler’s new position may have shaped her own as well as her students’ identifications, since migrant teachers are frequently “regarded as being able to contribute by acting as role models for migrant students—they take on the role of bridge-builders between migrant parents and the school system or language translators.”472 In
Winkler’s professional achievements and the adaption of her cultural capital again demonstrate the necessity of adapting life paths and knowledge, especially during times of displacement. When she felt that working in textile design would be unlikely to be possible, because of the low demand for textile designers in Australia, she expanded her knowledge and became a potter. This allowed her, despite her status as an enemy alien, to become economically successful and get her knowledge accepted in her new society. From that position, she took a further step and became an art teacher, which allowed her to mediate her cultural capital and her own experience abroad, as she specifically recalled.
Henry Teltscher was among those young refugees who were born in Austria and came to Australia as adolescents or young adults. He is a good example of how young refugees could quickly rise to high positions within the education system and of how that rise was benefited by their intercultural experiences. Although his family’s background as industrialists in the textile printing industry had predetermined his future professional path, as he mentioned in his autobiography, he came to teaching at college level because of entirely new opportunities posed by his forced displacement to Australia. As he later wrote, “there had been a general understanding that I would follow in Papa’s footsteps and work in the textile printing industry.”474 All of his educational efforts were directed toward that aim and in his autobiography he described the importance his cultural capital acquired in Austria had for him. According to him, education and the values he acquired in his homeland “were both more significant in shaping my interests and my life general. Many of my interests and attitudes were formed at an early age and haven’t changed a great deal. I am thinking of such diverse things as my interests in science in general and in biology in particular.”475
His professional journey reveals the unique opportunities that would have not been there without his displacement to Australia. After the Anschluss,
Due to his desire to follow in his father’s professional footsteps, Teltscher looked out for a job in the textile industry. “Even though I had found medical laboratory work in the army enormously satisfying and even though biochemistry clearly was the subject that interested me most in my Melbourne Technical College course, I still thought in terms of looking for a job in the textile industry,” as he later recalled.481 Despite the fact that he had acquired specialized, institutionalized cultural capital from an Australian college, he struggled at first to find a job.482 After a while, as he wrote, he managed to follow his father’s path and started a position as a laboratory assistant with the company Silk and Textile Printers of Rushcutters Bay, New South Wales.483 Teltscher, who in the
Despite an offer to start a PhD at the University of Melbourne, Teltscher decided against a career in research in order to continue teaching at the Melbourne Technical College. Soon after his decision to remain at the college, he was approached by the principal to form and build up a new department of applied biology, mainly “because I was the only one in the Department with biological interests,” as he later stated.485 This fact indicates that Teltscher, with his migrant and Australian knowledge, was obviously fully accepted by his new environment. Teltscher remained at the Melbourne Technical College for the rest of his professional career. He rose there to the position of the head of the department of applied biology in 1968. When he retired in 1980, he headed a department consisting of 25 full-time and 40 part-time lecturers, and 25 technical staff, as well as 1,300 students.486
As Teltscher’s example shows, there were also opportunities for migrants to rise within academia in the country and its administration. Since the country was in midst of a process of growth and diversification, experts were needed to fill certain positions. Thus it was easier, particularly for younger migrants who had acquired specialized and institutionalized cultural capital from Australian
Hans Eisler was another one of this book’s protagonists who had come to Australia at a young age “busting to join the army to fight Hitler,” as historian Glen Palmer wrote.487 He enlisted in one of the labour companies and after his release profited from the government’s Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. Like Teltscher and Winkler, he became a teacher after having tried out various jobs. He was also one of those refugees who became politically involved in their new homeland. After a short period of two years, from April 1940 to December 1942, when the party was banned, the Communist Party of Australia (cpa) had experienced a quick upward development. The party’s membership ballooned and by 1945, the cpa controlled 275,000 of the 1,2 million registered trade unionists. It was estimated that the Party had the support of between 25% and 45% of trade union members at that time.488 After his release from the army, where he served from 1941 to 1946 as an ordinance officer, 22-year-old Eisler had also joined the Australian Communist Party, where he met his first wife, a union representative.489
At first, I worked for a place called E G Cramen in Ross Street/Glee [New South Wales]. I did some processing work there. Then, I got the sack the day before we got married [December 1946]. I guess that was politically motivated. My English was not so good at that time. […] However, I was in the union and they got me the Christmas pay.493
After that experience, he decided to reskill himself. Like Henry Teltscher, he was eligible to apply for the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme for ex-servicemen. He was able to obtain a scholarship to get his Australian leaving certificate. Additionally, he took up a night job to earn money. He recalled this important step in his life as follows: “So while my wife was pregnant in 1947, I studied. I worked at night and studied during the daytime I went to Sussex Street Tech. It was a technical school for ex-servicemen. I studied there and suddenly I realized that I could learn.”494 Eisler increasingly placed value on education and joined a local college, the Associate of the Sydney Technical College, later on, from where he subsequently received a diploma.
During that time, his sociopolitical commitment developed further. He became interested in trade union activities and was subsequently elected representative for his company, a paper manufacturer in Ascott, New South Wales.495 In 1951, he decided to leave and become a teacher. “I did a one-year course and in 1952 I started teaching. I started off at [a high school at] Gardner’s Road,” as he later recalled. During his first year in his new position, he, together with others, organized a strike against the headmaster, as he described: “I was involved in the first teachers’ strikes in 1952. I was striking about the conditions
Eisler increasingly began to involve himself in his community and started several different clubs and organizations throughout his life. In 1952, at Armadale, he ran a football club and also played in the local rugby league. In 1953, after his wife died, Eisler had to take care of his three young children. He did not seek contact with Jewish organizations, as he felt that he had found his home in the Communist Party in those years, as he mentioned later. His cultural capital and his upbringing might again have influenced him here: he had described that the Jewish faith did not play a big role during his childhood in Vienna.
In that situation, in 1953, however, Jewish welfare organizations, who had heard about his tragic circumstances, approached the single father of three and offered him a place in the Jewish Chip Chase migrant hostel, which had been founded just three years earlier.498 This offered Eisler security and a new home as well as a new sense of belonging for himself and his children. He later recalled the community spirit he encountered there: “I stayed at Chip Chase for two years, in 1954 and 1955. I got every help there. In return of teaching English to the migrants—I met many of them there, they looked after the kids. We were like a big family.”499 Over the following years, he was able to consolidate his life. He remarried and focused on his career as a teacher. In 1962, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New England (Armidale, New South Wales).500 After finishing his university education, he increased his engagement in community projects. He taught maths
I was in charge of much of the teacher education and organizing the structure of schools. I started 64 schools. I did that in conjunction with a Scotsman. We were the heads. They wanted to have an independent school system and my job was to design a “Malawi certificate.” I was there for two years.504
He described his work in Africa and the experiences he had as mostly rewarding. However, after two years, in 1968, he returned to the Sydney area because his “marriage broke down,” as he later recalled.505 After a divorce and a custody lawsuit, he went back to being a teacher. He was appointed subject master for math at various high schools and kept up his social engagement as a referee and sports coach. He also publicly advocated reforms to divorce law and even
Eisler’s diverse career and his social commitment was the product of the melding of different forms of cultural capital and opportunities. In Vienna, he had enjoyed a good school education but had to leave school without having it institutionalized, because of the Anschluss and his subsequent flight. In Australia, he joined the army and had, like Henry Teltscher and other young migrants, benefited from a scholarship of the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme that allowed him to take his leaving certificate and acquire university education and, ultimately, gain cultural capital, institutionalized in Australia. Like Teltscher, Eisler also decided to become a teacher. His social engagement was also influenced by his Viennese cultural capital. Because of his upbringing, he had an affinity with political socialism. In Australia, after his arrival, he found a temporary home in the Communist Party, where, as he recalled, he finally found acceptance from Australians.507 After a while, he reduced his political commitment and began a life-long engagement with different social projects. He recalled that he was very enthused about his teaching position. “I did it because of my passion for teaching. The money has never worried me,” he later mentioned in an interview.508
Norst, “Introduction,” xvi.
For a comprehensive depiction of refugee agency in Australia, see Strobl, “Collective Refugee Agency.”
Kwiet, “Re-Acculturation.”
George M. Berger, “Australia and the Refugees,” Australian Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1942): 65–76, 66.
Sydney Jewish News, 9 July 1943, p. 7.
Australian Jewish Herald, September 3, 1942, 3.
Suzanne D. Rutland, “A Changing Community: The Impact of the Refugees on Australian Jewry New South Wales—A Case Study,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 31 (1985): 90–108, 97.
Australian Jewish Herald, September 3, 1942, 3.
n.a., “An Independent Association For Refugees WHY NOT?,” Sydney Jewish News, July 9, 1943, 7.
Australian Jewish Herald, September 3, 1942, 3.
n.a., “An Independent Association For Refugees WHY NOT?,” Sydney Jewish News, July 9, 1943, 7.
n.a., “Association of Jewish Refugees,” Sydney Jewish News, September 3, 1943, 2.
naa: M1415, 268, Personal Papers of Prime Minister Curtin.
naa: M1415, 268, Personal Papers of Prime Minister Curtin.
For more information about the resistance vis-à-vis the inclusive direction of the association, see the following contemporary article: Australian Jewish News, December 10, 1943, 5.
naa: M1415, 268, Personal Papers of Prime Minister Curtin.
Blakeney, Jewish Refugees, 47.
Neumann, Across the Seas, 73.
Neumann, Across the Seas, 73.
Hasluck, The Government, 595.
Jayne Persian, Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians (Sydney: New South Publishing, 2017); Jayne Persian, Fascists in Exile: Post-War Displaced Persons in Australia (London: Routledge, 2023).
Palmer, Centre of the Periphery, 1.
Strobl, “Gertrude Langer.”
Richard Haese, “Civilizing Australia,” Thesis Eleven 106 (2011): 121. See also Haese, Permanent Revolution.
Lässig, Jüdische Wege, 29.
Lässig, Jüdische Wege, 29–30.
Burke, Exiles and Expatriates, 3.
Burke, Exiles and Expatriates, 16.
Burke, Exiles and Expatriates, 16.
Conway, “Gender in Australia,” 353.
Kwiet, “Re-Acculturation,” 43; Strobl, “Social Networks,” 77.
Schuetz, “The Stranger,” 499–507.
Stats, “Characteristically Generous,” 179.
National Advocate, March 8, 1939, 2.
Berger, “Australia and the Refugees,” 66.
Leon Smith (friend of Anton and his successor as president of the aac), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Sydney, March 2016.
Sponar, Snow in Australia, 24.
An increasing number of different sections of the Alpenverein introduced antisemitic regulations especially after the end of the First World War. Anton, obviously was not affected by these discriminating regulations. On the one hand, he was a baptized Catholic and did not identify himself as Jewish, on the other hand, the Alpenverein consisted of many different sections with much independence. Many of them did not, or only hesitantly, introduce the antisemitic regulations, known as the Arierparagraph, and even in 1938, there were still some sections left that had not introduced it.
Anneliese Gidl, Alpenverein: Die Städter entdecken die Alpen (Vienna: Böhlau, 2007), 113.
Gidl, Alpenverein, 249.
Gidl, Alpenverein, 147.
Gidl, Alpenverein, 147.
Sponar, Snow in Australia, 24.
naa, Charles William anton, sp11/15, Anton Charles William.
naa, anton Charles William, A435, 1944/4/1110.
naa, Charles William anton, sp11/15, Anton Charles William.
Strobl, “Social Networks,” 75.
naa, Charles William anton, sp11/15, Anton Charles William.
Warren Peck (friend of Anton and former president of the aac), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, June 2016.
Leon Smith (friend of Anton and his successor as president of the aac), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Sydney, March 2016.
naa, Stella Schwarz and Charles William, A12217, L1.
June Factor, “Forgotten Soldiers: Aliens in the Australian Army’s Employment Companies during World War ii,” The Birstein Project, accessed January 21, 2022,
State Library of Victoria, P 325.21, M58, Migration and the Refugee.
naa, Anton Charles William, B883, nx181034.
Charles William Anton, “Alien Labour Companies,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 1, 1942, 3.
Peter Southwell-Keely, Out on the Tops: The Centenary of the Kosciuszko Alpine Club (Gordon: nsw Perisher Historical Society, 2009), 109.
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Wendy Cross, Australian Skiing: The First 100 Years (Sydney: Walla Walla Press, 2012).
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Leon Smith (friend of Anton and his successor as president of the aac), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Sydney, March 2016.
Jill MacDonald, “Our Backward State,” Australian Ski Year Book (1950), 44; and n.a., “We Have Neglected Our Snowfields,” Sunday Herald, September 28, 1952, 7.
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Wendy Cross, Twenty-One Years of the Australian Alpine Club (Melbourne: Massina Print, 1972), 26.
Jim Darby, Thredbo 50: 1957 to 2007 (Mount Macedon: tsm Publishing, 2006), 12.
Don Richardson, “The Lake Albina Project,” Australian Ski Yearbook (1950), 37.
Richardson, “The Lake Albina Project,” 38.
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Leon Smith (friend of Anton and his successor as president of the aac), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Sydney, March 2016.
Leon Smith (friend of Anton and his successor as president of the aac), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Sydney, March 2016.
Cross, Twenty-One Years, 4.
n.a., “New Alpine Cabin to Be Highest House in Australia,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 8, 1950, 2.
Sponar, Snow in Australia, 21.
Margaret Anton and Charles William Anton, “Drift Skiing in Mid-Summer,” Australian Ski Yearbook (1949), 57.
Charles Anton, “Summer Slalom,” Australian Ski Yearbook (1952), 57.
Leon Smith, “Charles W. Anton” (unpublished essay, Sydney, 1986) (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Cross, Twenty-One Years, 13.
Charles Anton, “sta-Report,” Australian Skiing Yearbook (1954), 82.
Leon Smith, “Charles W. Anton” (unpublished essay, Sydney, 1986) (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Philipp Strobl, “Charles Anton, Cultural Agent,” Inside Story, accessed November 25, 2020,
n.a., “Tyrolean Ski Hut at Kosciusko,” Australian Women’s Weekly, September 9, 1953, 23.
n.a., “Young Couple Furnish Flat as Chalet,” Australian Women’s Weekly, September 23, 1950, 44, 45.
Charles Anton, “Kareela Hutte,” Australian Ski Yearbook (1959), 98.
Leon Smith, “Charles W. Anton” (unpublished essay, Sydney, 1986) (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Warren Peck, “In Memoriam Charles Anton” (unpublished eulogy, in the possession of Warren Peck).
n.a., “Lifesavers—In the Snow,” Australian Women’s Weekly, August 23, 1961, 5.
Strobl, “Migration, Knowledge Transfer,” 2006.
Strobl, “From Niche Sport to Mass Tourism.”
Leon Smith, “Charles W. Anton” (unpublished essay, Sydney, 1986) (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
Charles Anton, “Brief History and Aims of the Australian Alpine Club (Incorporating Ski Tourer’s Association of Australia),” brochure, February 1963 (in the possession of Leon Smith).
n.a., “Offer for Thredbo Company Accepted,” Canberra Times, November 10, 1961, 26.
Warren Peck, “In Memoriam Charles Anton” (unpublished eulogy, Melbourne, 1966).
Strobl, “Social Networks,” 61.
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Newspaper advertisement (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
n.a., “Advertising,” The Advertiser, October 22, 1940, 3.
naa, D4880, bergel Otto born 1903, Marie age 35, Annemarie age 7 1/2, Johanna age 3—Nationality: German—Arrived Adelaide per Anchises 22 January 1939.
Joan Lynn (Bergel’s daughter), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, February 2016.
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
Joan Lynn (Bergel’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
Compare Susan Marsden, Twentieth Century Heritage Survey, Stage 1: Post Second World War (1946–1959). Overview History (Keswick: Adelaide, 2004), 43–44.
Marsden, Twentieth Century Heritage Survey, 43.
Marsden, Twentieth Century Heritage Survey, 44.
Interview with Marie Bergel, n.d. (sound recording), n.d. (in the possession of Joan Lynn).
n.a., Die Woche, November 19, 1969.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
Berger, “Australia and the Refugees,” 67.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
Berger, “Australia and the Refugees,” 67.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
Aaron Watson, “Speaking in Tongues,” Acuity Magazine 05 (2016).
Rutland, “Australia and Refugee Migration,” 77.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
Jürgen Tampke, The Germans in Australia (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 141.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
naa, A6119, Felser Gerhard Richard.
Watson, “Speaking in Tongues.”
Gerhard R. Felser, Die Kammerspiele Sydney und deren Vorgeschichte: Ein Kapitel zum Theater in der Emigration—Ein Vierteljahrhundert deutschsprachiges Theater in Sydney, Australien 1941–1968 (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000), 13.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
Watson, “Speaking in Tongues.”
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
Accru+, “The Accru Felsers Story,” Accru+, accessed January 24, 2022,
Watson, “Speaking in Tongues.”
Accru+, “The Accru Felsers Story,” Accru+, accessed January 24, 2022,
naa, A12508, Wiess Hans born 19 April 1885; Irma age 51; nationality German; travelled per strathmore arriving in Sydney on 16 May 1939.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, C123 Weiss, Irma (Austrian—naturalised British subject) [Box 134].
Richards, Destination Australia, 148.
naa, C123 Weiss, Irma (Austrian—naturalised British subject) [Box 134].
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, A261, Applicant—weiss Irma; Nominee—kornfein Else; nationality Austrian.
naa, A261, Applicant—weiss Irma; Nominee—kornfein Else; nationality Austrian.
naa, C123 Weiss, Irma (Austrian—naturalised British subject) [Box 134].
naa, A12217, Hans and Irma Weiss—purchase of property Ashfield nsw.
naa, C123 Weiss, Irma (Austrian—naturalised British subject) [Box 134].
slv, Annemarie Mutton, papers, ca. 1930–1987. [manuscript], ms box 2685/9–10.
slv, Annemarie Mutton, papers, ca. 1930–1987. [manuscript], ms box 2685/9–10.
Comp. Gouttman, “Was It Ever So?,” 58.
n.a., “Strike Over Alien Foreman,” Herald, August 29, 1940, 3.
n.a., “Strike Over Alien Foreman,” Herald, August 29, 1940, 3.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
slv, Annemarie Mutton, papers, ca. 1930–1987. [manuscript], ms box 2685/9–10.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Martina Kopf, Trauma und Literatur: das Nicht-Erzählbare erzählen—Assia Djerbar und Yvonne Vera (Frankfurt/Main: Brandes & Apsel, 2005); Strobl, “Ich habe nie die Absicht gehabt,” 67.
Dymia Schulze (Bowen’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Vienna, March 2017.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
naa, A12508, 21/4033; A certificate of employment from his Austrian employer described his occupation as “Platzvertreter und Ledermanipulator” which would translate best as a salesman in leather goods and sales representative, employment references (in the possession of Eleanor Hart).
n.a., “Steuersteckbriefe und Vermögensbeschlagnahmen,” Neues Wiener Tagblatt, November 9, 1938, p.a.
Sanjeev Kumar, The Bata Shoe Company, 1876 to 1970: Appraisal of Strategic Global Choices (Toronto: Rotman, 2017), 15.
Kumar, The Bata Shoe Company, 15.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
naa, A261, 1939/1044, Selby Kurt.
naa, A12508, 21/4033, Selby Kurt.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, February 2016.
Letter from Selby to his fiancée (in the possession of Eleanor Hart), translated by the author. Original text in German: “Habe jetzt 35 P. erspart. Muss mir von M. Kohane 30 P. borgen. 10 P. brauche ich zum arbeiten. Ich arbeite nur mehr mit Damenstrümpfen und Unterwäsche. Habe schon viele Kunden. Hoffentlich wird es weitergehen. Mein Plan ist ein Damenstrumpfgeschäft und du wirst es führen. Habe mich schon schön eingearbeitet.”
naa, A261, 1939 1044, Selby Kurt.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
Norst and McBride, Austrians in Australia, 127.
Ursula Wiemann, “German and Austrian Refugees,” 120.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
For an overview of the history of instalment payment, see Philipp Strobl, “Creating Consumers—Globalgeschichte der Teilzahlung bis 1939,” Historia Scribere 2 (2010): 185–198; Martha L. Olney, “When your Word is not Enough: Race, Collateral, and Household Credit,” The Journal of Economic History 58, no. 2 (1998): 408–431; Johannes Bähr and Andrea H. Schneider, Teilzahlung im Wandel der Zeit. Von der Kreditanstalt für Verkehrsmittel ag zur Diskount und Kredit ag 1924–1951 (Munich: Piper Verlag, 2006); Marie-Emanuelle Chessel, “From America to Europe: Educating Consumers,” Contemporary European History 11, no. 2 (2002), 165–175.
Eleanor Hart (Selby’s daughter), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, February 2016.
sjm, au022, Helen Roberts Oral History Interview (audio recording).
sjm, au022, Helen Roberts Oral History Interview (audio recording).
sjm, au022, Helen Roberts Oral History Interview (audio recording).
sjm, au022, Helen Roberts Oral History Interview (audio recording).
sjm, au022, Helen Roberts Oral History Interview (audio recording).
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Letter of reference from Kempthorne (in the possession of Sue Copolov).
Letter of reference from Platers Proprietary Ltd. (in the possession of Sue Copolov).
The stereoscopic 3D-projector and the glass slides are still in the possession of his daughter Sue Copolov.
Berger, “Australia and the Refugees,” 72.
Edquist, “Vienna Abroad: Viennese Interior Design in Australia,” 30.
Edquist, “Vienna Abroad,” 29.
Letter of reference from Mitchell & Co (in the possession of Sue Copolov).
Letter of reference from Mitchell & Co (in the possession of Sue Copolov).
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Edquist, “Vienna Abroad,” 9.
Edquist, “Vienna Abroad,” 9.
Edquist, “Vienna Abroad,” 30.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
n.a., Australian Jewish Herald, February 25, 1955, 7.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Swen Sieben and Clemens Lechner, “Measuring Cultural Capital Through the Number of Books in the Household,” Measurement Instruments for the Social Sciences 2, no. 1 (2019): 1–6, 2.
Argus, February 14, 1955, 8; n.a., Australian Jewish Herald, February 25, 1955, 7.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Sue Copolov, in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, August 2017.
Interview with John Hearst, n.d. (sound recording) (in the possession of Gary Hearst).
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, March 2017.
naa, A435, 1945/4/1812, Hearst John.
naa, B884, Hearst John.
Interview with John Hearst, n.d. (sound recording) (in the possession of Gary Hearst).
Interview with John Hearst, n.d. (sound recording) (in the possession of Gary Hearst).
Interview with John Hearst, n.d. (sound recording) (in the possession of Gary Hearst).
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, March 2017.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, March 2017.
Comp. James Campbell and Michael Tutton, eds., Doors: History, Repair, and Conservation (London: Routledge, 2020).
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, March 2017.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, March 2017.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author, Melbourne (sound recording), March 2017.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son) in discussion with the author, Melbourne (sound recording), March 2017.
Bunnings is an Australian chain of large hardware stores.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author (sound recording), Melbourne, March 2017.
n.a., “Family Notices,” The Australian Jewish News, May 14, 1982, 29.
Gary Hearst (John Hearst’s son), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, March 2017.
Kwiet, “Re-Acculturation,” 43.
Steven Cooke and Anna Hirsh, “Somehow the Ill Winds of War Have Been Favourable to Me: Travel, Training and Trauma in the Life and Works of Louis Kahan,” in Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer on Alternative Routes of Escape from Nazi Terror: Mediations Through Migrations, ed. Susanne Korbel and Philipp Strobl (London: Routledge, 2022), 199–216, 199.
Richards, Destination Australia, 147.
slv, P 325.21, M58, Migration and the Refugee.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 8.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 9.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 12.
“Es war am 24. Mai 1941. Wir, d.i. meine Frau Erna Felser und ich, hatten kurz vorher mit mühsam erkämpfter Bewilligung der zuständigen Behörde unsere Wohnung gewechselt und waren vom Vorort Dover Heights in die Stadtnähe in eine Wohnung am Hafen, 21a Billyard Avenue, Elisabeth Bay, übersiedelt. Wir wollten nun eine Handvoll Freunde aus unserem österreichischen Einwandererkreis zu einer „Housewarming Party“ einladen. Diese „party“ besprachen wir mit einem befreundeten Ehepaar, Alfred und Elsa Baring, und da entstand plötzlich die Idee, eine kleine Aufführung von kurzen Szenen zu veranstalten, die uns die verlorene Heimat für einen Abend in lustiger Wiese wiederbringen sollte.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 13.
“Der Erfolg am Abend gab uns dann recht: Als in der letzten Szene, dem Heurigenabend, der Vorhang aufging, und sich das ganze Panorama darbot, samt von rückwärts beleuchteten Fenstern und Sternen, bei denen der schon jahrelang nicht mehr gesehene Große Bär prominent zu sehen war, da war es zunächst vollkommen still, dann brach ein stürmischer Applaus aus, und man hörte die Zuschauer schluchzen und es war keiner, der sich nicht Tränen abwischen musste. Dies wiederholte sich an jedem der drei Abende, an denen wir diese Vorstellung aufführten.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Die Kammerspiele Sydney, 13–14.
“Das Groß dieser Gruppe bestand aus gutem, meist auch intellektuellem und gebildetem Mittelstand, Menschen, die in guten Verhältnissen gelebt hatten und die ihre Heimat meist mit nichts in der Tasche über Nacht verlassen mußten. Wenn manche auch von Ressentiments zerrissen wurden, und nach außen hin geistigen Kontakt (einen anderen konnte es ja während der Kriegsjahre nicht geben) ablehnten, so hatten doch alle, eingestandenermaßen oder unterdrückt Heimweh nach der alten Heimat und den alten Zeiten. Hier in Sydney waren sie zwar vor Verfolgungen sicher, aber durch die politischen Gegebenheiten Bürger nicht zweiter, sondern dritter Klasse. Unter dieser Situation litten alle seelisch, und ein Theater, das das alte gemütliche, lustige Wien bot, war ein willkommenes Ventil, dem seelischen Druck dieser aufgezwungenen Umstände wenigstens für einen Abend zu entrinnen. Dazu kam noch, dass die wenigsten die Landessprache wirklich beherrschten und dass sie sich mit minderwertigen Arbeiten als Verkäufer, Fabrikarbeiter, o.ä. zufriedengeben mussten. […] Man lebte mehr oder weniger in einer depressiven Atmosphäre und lief daher unseren Aufführungen in Scharen zu.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 15.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 15.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 16.
“Für diesen Zweck mussten wir eine Art Wanderbühne schaffen. Wir konstruierten aus hölzernen Vierkantstangen ein Bühnenportal,” see Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 17.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 18.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 17.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 18.
Neumann, Across the Seas, 73.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 49.
“Dank der unermüdlichen Bemühungen der ’Association of Refugees‘ für Hitlerflüchtlinge im Allgemeinen und von meiner Seite für die Österreicher, hatte das ‚Klassifizierungskommittee für Ausländer‘ endlich eingesehen, daß wir keine ‚feindlichen‘ Ausländer waren und einen neuen Status des ‚Flüchtlingsausländers‘ geschaffen, der uns alle Privilegien der ‚freundlichen‘ Ausländer gab, uns also praktisch mit Inländern gleichstellte. Das Wichtigste daran war, dass wir über Antrag die Australische Staatsbürgerschaft erwerben konnten.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 25.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 25.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 25.
“Die Gründe hierfür waren hauptsächlich darin zu suchen, daß sich durch unsere veränderte Stellung in der Gesellschaft nunmehr für jeden von uns beruflich und geschäftlich bisher verschlossene Wege öffneten und jeder die sich ihm bietenden Möglichkeiten zur Gründung einer beruflichen Existenz ergriff. Dies erforderte aber auch intensive Arbeit und erst im Jahr 1948, als die meisten ihre Existenz konsolidiert hatten, erwachte wieder die Lust zum Theater und bot sich wieder die zeitliche Möglichkeit, viele Stunden einem Hobby zu widmen.” [author’s translation], Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 26.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 27.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 27.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 27.
n.a., “Arthur Polkinghorne’s Sydney Diary,” The Sun, August 28, 1951, 11.
n.a., “Stage Whispers,” The Sunday Herald, July 30, 1950, 12.
n.a., “Sydney has now its Minority Problems,” The Sydney Morning Herald, September 2, 1950, 11.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 21.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 33.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 33.
naa, A1209, Professor Gerhard Felser—Honour.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 46.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 49.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 49; Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 69.
“Langker, Erik,” Design & Art Australia Online, accessed November 30, 2021,
“Es gab aber noch ein Reservoir an potentiellem Publikum, das vom Kleinen Wiener Theater bis dahin nicht angesprochen worden war—nämlich die in den späten vierziger und dann in den frühen fünfziger Jahren vehement einsetzende Nachkriegsemigration, die allein an Österreichern 10.000 Personen nach Sydney brachte, von der großen Welle der deutschen Einwanderer ganz zu schweigen.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 54.
“Zum Teil handelte es sich um Menschen, die bisher überhaupt noch nie in einem Theater gewesen waren, und denen erst die Idee eines deutschsprachigen Theaters schmackhaft gemacht werden musste.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 55.
Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 55.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 71.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 72.
“Vor allem sprach aber dafür, daß wir einer bestimmten Gruppe von Menschen etwas bieten konnten, das ihnen die Heimat wieder näher brachte, nämlich seriöses Theater in ihrer eigenen Sprache.” [author’s translation], in Felser, Kammerspiele Sydney, 154.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 6.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 34.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 36.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 36.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 40.
Cherny, Who is Sylvia?, 40.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 73.
Strobl, “Gertrude Langer,” 19.
Orell, “Early East Asian Art,” 1.
Mathew Rampley, The Vienna School of Arts History: Empire and the Politics of Scholarship, 1847–1918 (University Park: Pennsylvania State Press, 2013), 185.
For a chronological description of Strzygowski’s increasingly antisemitic tirades, see Rampley, “Art History,” 462.
Rampley, Vienna School, 214.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 19.
Rampley, Vienna School, 159.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 19.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 19.
“Wiener Kunstgeschichte Gesichtet,” accessed July 25, 2017,
Fisher, “From Vienna to Brisbane.”
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 88.
Palmer, Centre of the Periphery, 1.
Richard Haese, “Civilizing Australia,” Thesis Eleven 106 (2011): 118–127, 121.
Haese, “Civilizing Australia,” 118.
Haese, “Civilizing Australia,” 118.
“Breaking New Ground: Brisbane Women Artist of the Mid Twentieth Century,” Queensland Art Museum, accessed July 25, 2017,
For a depiction of Queensland’s cultural life up to the 1940s, see M. J. Richards, “Arts Facilitation and Creative Community Culture: A Study of Queensland Arts Council” (PhD diss., University of Queensland, 2005), 90.
Hamilton, “Provincial Art World,” 201.
Helen Fridemanis, Artists and Aspects of the Contemporary Art Society Queensland Branch (Brisbane: Boolarong Publications, 1991), 1.
Betty Churcher, “Betty Churcher on the Impact of the Art Critic Gertrude Langer,” Art and Australia 30, no. 4 (1993): 514.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 39.
Ute Heinen, “Gertrude Langer als österreichische Kunsthistorikerin und Emigrantin in Australien,” in Grenzen überschreiten: Frauen Kunst und Exil, ed. Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann and Beate Schmeichel-Falkenberg (Würzburg: K & N, 2005).
Queensland Art Gallery, ed., In Memory of Dr. Gertrude Langer O.B.E. (Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 1985), 4.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 45.
Heinen, “Langer,” 199.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 45.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 45.
Churcher, “Langer,” 514; nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 45.
Heinen, “Langer,” 193.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 45.
“First Lecture on Art,” Brisbane Courier-Mail, March 30, 1940, 9.
Hamilton, “Provincial Art World,” 202–203.
Judy Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern in Brisbane: Gertrude Langer and the Role of Newspaper Art Criticism,” Queensland Review 20, no. 2 (2013): 203.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 67.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
“Miya Exhibition Opening,” The Telegraph, September 17, 1946, 8.
“The Better Understanding of Art,” The Telegraph, April 12, 1940, 5.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 105.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 75.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 72 and 96.
Fridemanis, Artists and Aspects, 20.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 72.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 206.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 66.
“Gertrude Langer, The Courier-Mail’s New Art Critic, Found Dalgarno’s Art Stimulating,” Courier-Mail, March 16, 1953, 2; “Gibson Art of ‘Even’ Quality,” Courier-Mail, March 16, 1953, 2.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 68.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 62.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 62.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 62.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 208.
Hamilton, “Influencing the Modern,” 205.
Gertrude Langer, “A Chance to Reconsider those Old Favourites,” Courier-Mail, September 30, 1954, 2.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 73.
Gertrude Langer, “Art Society Exhibition,” Courier-Mail, September 7, 1954, 2.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 68.
“Art Critic Criticised,” Courier-Mail, October 8, 1953, 2.
“A Waste of Paint,” Courier-Mail, October 13, 1953, 2.
“Criticism of Art Critic,” Queensland Times, October 29, 1954, 7.
Sinnamon, “Modernism and the Genius loci,” 160.
Genocchio, The Art of Persuasion, 12.
Heinen, “Langer,” 196.
Nancy D.H. Underhill, “Langer, Gertrude (1908–1984),” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed June 20, 2017,
Fridemanis, Artists and Aspects, 3.
For more information, see Richards, “Arts Facilitation,” 66.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 98.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 124.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 15.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 106.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 124.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 98.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 100.
nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 124.
Underhill, “Langer, Gertrude (1908–1984).”
Richards, “Arts Facilitation,” 110.
“Obituary,” The Canberra Times, September 21, 1984, 6.
Heinen, “Langer,” 198; nla, Gertrude Langer Interviewed by Barbara Blackman [sound recording], Oral trc 1171 (transcript), 133; Richards, “Arts Facilitation,” 66.
Strobl, “Gertrude Langer,” 28.
Virginia Stewart and Merle Armitage, The Modern Dance (New York: Dance Horizon, 1970).
nla, 513110, Hanny Exiner interviewed by Michelle Potter, 1994.
Bond, “Honoring Hanny Exiner,” 99; Strobl and Korbel, “Mediations Through Migrations,” 11.
Johanna Exiner and Denis Kelynack, Dance Therapy Redefined: A Body Approach to Therapeutic Dance (Springfield: Charles C., 1994), xx.
Strobl and Korbel, “Mediations Through Migrations,” 11.
Strobl and Korbel, “Mediations Through Migrations,” 11.
Bond, “Honoring Hanny Exiner,” 100.
Steininger, “The Emigration of Gertrud Bodenwieser,” 101–104.
nla, 513110, Hanny Exiner interviewed by Michelle Potter, 1994 (audio recording).
n.a., “Advertising,” The Argus, July 28, 1944, 28.
Meredith Bowman, “Tributes,” Ausdance (2007): 27.
n.a., “Viennese Dance Recital,” Advocate, May 2, 1940, 28.
nla, 513110, Hanny Exiner interviewed by Michelle Potter, 1994.
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
See, for example, n.a., “Advertising,” the Australian Jewish News, February 4, 1955, 11; or n.a., “Advertising,” The Argus, January 16, 1954, 42.
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
n.a., “Family Notices,” The Argus, February 7, 1949, 10.
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
Bond, “Honoring Hanny Exiner,” 101.
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
nla, ms Acc05.022, Papers of Hanny Exiner, 1939–1995 [manuscript].
For more information see: Strobl, “Ich habe nie die Absicht gehabt,” 59.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Paul Hatvani, letter to Ferenc Karinthy, 1.4.1975.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Paul Hatvani, letter to Ferenc Karinthy, 1.4.1975.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Stephen Jeffries, letter to Mr. Rozsics, 10.4.1984.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Hans Tramer, 25.4.1966.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Ferenc Karinthy, 1.4.1975. See also Strobl, “Social Networks.”
Hatvani, “Expressionismus,” 178.
n.a., “Paul Hatvani,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 24, 1966; Wilhelm Haefs, “Der Expressionismus ist tot… Es lebe der Expressionismus. Paul Hatvani als Literaturkritiker und Literaturtheoretiker des Expressionismus,” in Expressionismus in Österreich: Die Literatur und die Künste, ed. Klaus Amann and Armin Wallas (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994), 453–485, 457.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Victor Suchy, 1968.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Victor Suchy, 1968.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Victor Suchy, 1968.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Victor Suchy, 1968.
Strobl, “Exil und Autobiographie,” 63; mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, “neither here nor there,” exhibition, 1990.
Hatvani, “Expressionismus,” 178.
Hatvani, “Expressionismus,” 178.
Haefs, “Expressionismus,” 459.
Paul Hatvani, “Der russische Mensch,” Die Waage 4 (1923): 296–300; Paul Hatvani, “110 Prozent,” Der Querschnitt 10 (1930): 474–475.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Ferenc Karinthy, 1.4.1975.
naa, A12508, 21/2086, Hirsch Paul.
Paul Hatvani, “Australien,” 567.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Hans Tramer, 25.4.1966.
naa, A12508, 21/2086, Hirsch Paul.
Hatvani, “Australien,” 571.
naa, A435 Hirsch Paul.
Lang, Fahrt ins Blaue, 8.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Paul Hatvani, n.d. (paper about the intellectual development of Australia), unpublished manuscript.
Hatvani, “Australien,” 569.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Leslie Bodie, unpublished manuscript, “Paul Hirsch-Hatvani—As we know him,” n.d.
Stephen Jeffries, “Confronting the Void. Paul Hirsch-Hatvani’s Writing in Australia,” Antipodische Aufklärungen: Festschrift für Leslie Bodie, ed. Michael Clyne (Frankfurt/Main: Springer, 1987), 165–173, 166.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Hans Tramer, 25.4.1966.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Fritz Czuczach, 20.10.1966.
Frank Pam (Hirsch’s nephew), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, October 2016.
“Ich muss ja leider gestehen, dass wir hier seit Jahren vollkommen vereinsamt leben und dass es kaum Leute gibt, mit denen man ein irgendwie interessantes Gespräch führen könnte.” [author’s translation], see: mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Fritz Czuczka, 20.10.1961.
“Vielleicht hat mich dies fremd gemacht und schwerfällig, und vielleicht ist dies schuld daran, dass ich nur schwer sagen kann, was ich sagen wollte” [author’s translation], see mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Fritz Czuczka, 26.5.1962.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Fritz Czuczka, 31.3.1962.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, “neither here nor there,” exhibition, 1990.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Kohn, 28.10.1967; mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Leslie Bodie, Neither here, nor there; not here, not there. Paul Hirsch-Hatvani, unpublished manuscript, n.d.
Paul Hatvani, “Karl Kraus und die Nachwelt,” Der Monat 70 (1954): 411–412.
Ernst Fischer, “‘Kaum ein Verlag der nicht auf der Wiederentdeckungswelle der Verschollenen mitreitet’: Zur Reintegration der Exilliteratur in den deutschen Buchmarkt nach 1945,” in Fremdes Heimatland. Remigration und literarisches Leben nach 1945, ed. Irmela von der Lühe and Klaus-Dieter Krohn (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2005), 71–93, 78; Klaus Amann and Armin Wallas, “Einleitung,” in Expressionismus in Österreich: Die Literatur und die Künste, ed. Klaus Amann and Armin Wallas (Vienna: Böhlau, 1994), 9–18, 11.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Fritz Czuczka, 1.7.1961.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Willi Braun, 10.9.1974.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, handwritten notice from Paul Hirsch, 12.11.1965.
Frank Krause, Literarischer Expressionismus (Göttingen: Isd, 2015), 53.
Haefs, “Expressionismus,” 454.
“Dieser [Prof. Zohn] wies mich dann an das deutsche Literaturarchiv in Marbach: postwendend erhielt ich von dessen Leiter, Dr. Paul Raabe, Antwort: Ich, respektive ‘Paul Hatvani’ wird seit 1945 dringendst gesucht, man hat alte Arbeiten von mir nach 1945 wieder gedruckt, etc., etc.. Dr. Raabe veranlasste sofort, dass mein ‚Expressionismus Artikel‘ publiziert wird, brachte mich mit diversen Zeitschriften in Kontakt […], und seither bin ich wieder mehr oder weniger Schriftsteller geworden […].” [author’s translation], see: mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Ferenc Karinthy, 1.4.1975.
Christiane Dätsch, Existenzproblematik und Erzählstrategie. Studien zum parabolischen Erzählen in der Kurzprosa von Ernst Weiß (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009), 7.
Frank Pam (Hirsch’s nephew), in discussion with the author, Melbourne, October 2016.
Strobl, “Ich habe nie die Absicht gehabt,” 71.
Strobl, “Ich habe nie die Absicht gehabt,” 71.
Paul Hatvani, “Der Intellekt und seine Feinde,” Literatur und Kritik 2 (1967): 584–590.
Comp. Paul Hatvani, “Australien ist heute ganz anders,” Neues Österreich, November 1, 1966.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, Leslie Bodie, Neither here, nor there; not here, not there. Paul Hirsch-Hatvani, unpublished manuscript, n.d.
Richard Critchfield, “Einige Überlegungen zur Problematik der Exilbiographik,” in: Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch 2 (1984): 41–55, 41.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Hans Bender, 6.7.1973.
For example: Hatvani, “Damals: Besinnung auf die Zeit”; Paul Hatvani, “Irrwege,” Akzente 18 (1971): 71–75; Paul Hatvani, “Die erste Nacht,” Wiener Kunsthefte 7 (1974): 109.
Fischer, “Kaum ein Verlag,” 82.
mul, ef 830.912 H669.1 A6/C, letter to Hans Bender, 27.11.1972.
Hatvani, “Australien.”
Silverman, Becoming Austrians, 5.
Elin Ennerberg and Catarina Economou, “Migrant Teachers and the Negotiation of a (New) Teaching Identity,” European Journal of Teacher Education 44, no. 4 (2021): 587–600.
Geoffrey Sherington, “Citizenship and Education in Postwar Australia,” Paedagogica Historica 34 (1998): 329–342, 333.
Jill Conway, “Gender in Australia,” 350.
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
Winkler, “Augenblick,” 308–311.
Der Wiener Tag, October 4, 1936, 12.
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
“Ich hatte große Schwierigkeiten, eine Arbeit zu finden, vor allem als Musterzeichnerin für Stoffe.” [author’s translation], see Winkler, “Augenblick,” 308–311 (audio recording).
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
“Dort habe ich viel gelernt, das mir später noch sehr viel weiterhelfen sollte: modellieren, glasieren, Waren im Ofen brennen,” [author’s translation], see Winkler, “Augenblick,” 308–311.
“Er hat eine kleine Werkstatt gemietet, in der ich Figuren aus Ton hergestellt habe. Wir haben Hunderte dieser kleinen Figuren verkauft und damit unseren Lebensunterhalt verdient. Erst nach Kriegsende durfte Kurt wieder als Ingenieur arbeiten.” [author’s translation], see Winkler, “Augenblick,” 310.
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
“Als Judi fünf Jahre alt war, hat Kurt in der Zeitung gelesen, dass die Hochschule junge Leute aus dem Ausland mit Kunstwissen als Kunstlehrer suchte. Ich wollte mich zuerst nicht bewerben, weil ich keine Lehrerin war und eigentlich schon genug mit der Erziehung unserer vier Kinder zu tun hatte, doch Kurt zuliebe habe ich mich dann doch beworben, vor allem weil ich dachte, sie würden mich ohnedies nicht nehmen. Doch ich bekam die Lehrstelle und arbeitete 22 Jahre lang in einem Job, der mich unglaublich glücklich machte.” [author’s translation], see Winkler, “Augenblick,” 311.
“Ich durfte nicht nur mit Kindern zusammenarbeiten, was mir schon immer Spaß bereitet hatte, sondern konnte ihnen auch noch die Schönheit der Kunst und meine Erfahrung im Ausland näherbringen.” [author’s translation], see Winkler, “Augenblick,” 311.
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
Ennerberg and Economou, “Migrant Teachers,” 589.
ushmm, usc Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Viola Winkler, Oral History, vha Interview Code: 5134 (audio recording).
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 146.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, i.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 51.
naa, mp1103/1, E40801, Teltscher Henry.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 126.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 132.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 140.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 146.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 146.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 146.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 149.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 163.
Teltscher, The Glückspilz, 163.
Glen Palmer, “Reluctant Refugee,” 277.
Alistair Davidson, The Communist Party of Australia: A Short History (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1969), 93.
Glen Palmer, “Reluctant Refugee,” 277.
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
“Big” Jim Healy and Lawrence Louis (Lance) Sharkey were trade unionists and leaders of the Communist Party. For more information on the Communist Party and how they used refugees to extend their reach and exercise agency, see Stuart Macintyre, The Party: The Communist Party of Australia from Heyday to Reckoning (London: Allen & Unwin, 2022); Maria Döring, “Die ‘Flüchtlingskrise’ der 1930er Jahre als Propagandamittel der in Australien erscheinenden kommunistischen Zeitung ‘The Worker’s Weekly’,” in “They Trusted Us—But Not Too Much”: Transnationale Studien zur Rezeption deutschsprachiger Flüchtlinge in englischsprachigen Medien in den 1930er Jahren, ed. Philipp Strobl (Hildesheim: Universitätsverlag Hildesheim, 2020), 99–114.
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
Suzanne D. Rutland, “The Transformation of a Community,” Israel and Judaism Studies, accessed November 30, 2021,
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
n.a., “Divorce Change Welcomed,” The Canberra Times, August 9, 1973, 13.
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).
ushmm, Oral history interview with Hans Eisler, Accession Number: 2009.214.61 | rg Number: rg-50.617.0061 (audio recording).