Half way Home
Door: Marion
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Marion
06 September 2011 | Maleisië, Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is half way home on our trip ‘Past and Present’. Thanks for joining us on our tour into the past and making this holiday into a very special one.
Canberra has been everything we hoped for, a beautiful city and thanks to the wonderful people at the Archives a great success. The missing pieces of my immigration years are falling into place.
In Sydney Joop told us to visit the Maritime Museum, his family name is written on the Wall of Welcome, a project that aims to have all the names of immigrants that have come to Australia. Some are not living anymore but their families have their names inscribed and three times a year there is an unveiling of new names.
I started a conversation with a lady working at the museum who had come to Australia some 12 years ago and told her my immigration story and of our first stay at the Woodside Immigration Camp. She said there had just been an exhibition on immigration and if I would like to talk to the curator.
Again we were in luck and we had an interesting talk about my research into the past. She was very interested in the reason why people, after making such an effort to go to Australia and leave everything behind in the ‘old country’, that they decided to leave Australia again.
I gave her all the information that I had about our family and she would see if she could find anything for me. We exchanged email addresses and within an hour she had sent me an e-mail full of links that I could look into.
These amazing encounters with total strangers who in some way or another have all contributed into making my memories come to life.
Rudolph, my husband, told me on the flight back that to him it was like a mirror into my past. Stories that I always told him about those days came to life. Walking in the Immigration Camp at Bonegilla and the Dutch exhibition, he could visualize what it was like for all those families, reading their stories and seeing the photo’s on location and not in some book or in a documentary. Searching the files at the National Archives and seeing the names of passengers who had actually came to Australia with us at the same time. The family Kramer, who we met at the Dutch Club on the second day. The family Peverelli, who I haven’t found yet but who knows… and the family Hoffman who, like us also went back and were again friends of my parents in Holland.
All these lovely people were like the aunts and uncles nephews and nieces we never had and now after nearly fifty years we are connected again.
All that is left to say is ...till we meet again.
Canberra has been everything we hoped for, a beautiful city and thanks to the wonderful people at the Archives a great success. The missing pieces of my immigration years are falling into place.
In Sydney Joop told us to visit the Maritime Museum, his family name is written on the Wall of Welcome, a project that aims to have all the names of immigrants that have come to Australia. Some are not living anymore but their families have their names inscribed and three times a year there is an unveiling of new names.
I started a conversation with a lady working at the museum who had come to Australia some 12 years ago and told her my immigration story and of our first stay at the Woodside Immigration Camp. She said there had just been an exhibition on immigration and if I would like to talk to the curator.
Again we were in luck and we had an interesting talk about my research into the past. She was very interested in the reason why people, after making such an effort to go to Australia and leave everything behind in the ‘old country’, that they decided to leave Australia again.
I gave her all the information that I had about our family and she would see if she could find anything for me. We exchanged email addresses and within an hour she had sent me an e-mail full of links that I could look into.
These amazing encounters with total strangers who in some way or another have all contributed into making my memories come to life.
Rudolph, my husband, told me on the flight back that to him it was like a mirror into my past. Stories that I always told him about those days came to life. Walking in the Immigration Camp at Bonegilla and the Dutch exhibition, he could visualize what it was like for all those families, reading their stories and seeing the photo’s on location and not in some book or in a documentary. Searching the files at the National Archives and seeing the names of passengers who had actually came to Australia with us at the same time. The family Kramer, who we met at the Dutch Club on the second day. The family Peverelli, who I haven’t found yet but who knows… and the family Hoffman who, like us also went back and were again friends of my parents in Holland.
All these lovely people were like the aunts and uncles nephews and nieces we never had and now after nearly fifty years we are connected again.
All that is left to say is ...till we meet again.
-
06 September 2011 - 15:22
Coks:
Prachtig verhaal, Marion! Werkelijk waar. Wat een waardevolle trip hebben jullie gemaakt deze zomer (en winter, in Australië dan). Een hele fijne reis naar huis en ik zie je over een paar maanden! Veel liefs, Coks, vanuit een zonnig Virginia. -
06 September 2011 - 17:06
Petri:
Marion en Ruud
Ja inderdaad het was een belevenis om jullie verslagen en fotos te bekijken ook ik ging 50 jaar terug in de tijd als peuter van de familie bedankt. Tot gaquw in Holland dan kunnen wij weer samen het op nieuw beleven bedankt.
Dikke kus je zus -
06 September 2011 - 21:30
Joop Mul:
Not quite a tulip living under the gum trees.......there must be another catchy phrase for having so many connections, with this island on the other side of the world.
Meanwhile, time for you to settle down to writing that best-seller about connecting with the past among the gum trees! -
03 Oktober 2011 - 09:56
Lisa Wood:
how amazing that you got to meet that wonderful lady in Canberra who was able to share an email with you :)
I find life is like that - people turn up in our life for a reason, and at the right time!
Looking forward to reading more about your journey.
cheers
Lisa from New Life on the Road.
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
