The Voyage of Their Life

by Diane Armstrong

  Few passengers could sleep the night before the Derna berthed at 29 South Wharf. Kitty Lebovics emerged from her cabin red-eyed. Never had she felt so abandoned since the day the war ended and she discovered at the age of thirteen that she was alone in the world. The future she had contemplated with such equanimity had now arrived, and it terrified her. What did Australia hold for her? Why had she crossed the seas to live among strangers? Through friendships and flirtations she had become attached to her fellow orphans in Dr Frant’s group. The close proximity, shared experiences and vicissitudes of the voyage had melded them into one big supportive family, but now they were about to be dispersed. Some were staying in Melbourne, others would travel to Brisbane, while she was bound for Sydney. What would happen to the bond they had formed?

  Topka, always so strong for others, locked herself in the cabin and sobbed as the enormity of the situation overwhelmed her. She had brought her three young sisters to a foreign land and was responsible for them. How would she be able to take care of them? What would become of them when they arrived? Where would they go?

  In her distress, she heard Dr Frant’s firm voice outside the cabin. ‘Topka!’ he called in the peremptory tone that made opposition unthinkable. ‘Topka! Pull yourself together! We have to get the children organised. Unlock the door!’ She blew her nose, mopped her streaming eyes, straightened her slim shoulders and opened the door. He looked searchingly into her face and patted her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll see, everything will turn out fine.’

  Too excited to finish breakfast, Lars Meder stuffed bread and marmalade into his mouth, gulped down his coffee and rushed out on deck so as not to miss a moment of this occasion. Only two more days and he’d see his father again. Reaching into his pocket he checked that the crisp pound note was still there. He was glad he hadn’t spent it on one of those fizzy pink drinks he had coveted in the bar. Now he’d have a whole pound to spend in Auckland.

  Suddenly he stared. Something was moving in Port Phillip Bay. Had he imagined it? He frowned and leaned over the rail, straining to see it again. He held his breath as a column of spray fanned out and a moment later a powerful black fluke sliced through the water, flipped over and disappeared beneath the waves. A whale! He rushed to tell his mother. It had to be a good omen.

  Rain was pattering on the water at seven in the morning when Major William Weale, the Aliens Registration Officer who had boarded the vessel in Fremantle, returned with two members of his staff. While they checked passenger cards, x-rays and medical certificates, Major Weale had been asked by Tasman Heyes, the Secretary of the Immigration Department, to investigate the alleged infiltration of the Derna by Communist agents. In a departmental memo Mr Heyes expressed his personal doubts about these claims, saying that they had emanated ‘from a person who gives evidence of anti-Semitic tendencies and some of whose statements are, to say the least, exaggerated’. Although they were obliged to investigate the matter, he urged Major Weale to take every precaution to ensure it was given no publicity and to warn all parties concerned against speaking to the press.

  Major Weale lost no time in seeking out Colonel Hershaw about the allegations made in the letter he had handed to the authorities in Fremantle. ‘You should speak to Verner Puurand,’ Hershaw told him. ‘He was the one who reported these Communist incidents to me.’ Before leaving the cabin, he hesitated for a moment and lowered his voice. ‘You should know that Puurand is fanatically anti-Communist,’ he added.

  A few minutes later, the cabin door opened and a stern-looking man of medium height with a bony face and a receding hairline stepped inside. First the major questioned Puurand about his allegations regarding the Polish couple, Guta and Dick, who according to him had spent so much time on deck talking to members of the crew and stirring them up. But when the major asked him specifically what they had said, Puurand was forced to admit that he had never actually overheard their conversations.

  Next Major Weale asked for details about the so-called Communist propaganda that he had accused the Jews of spreading. Puurand replied that while discussing the merits of various types of government, some passengers had said they preferred the Soviet system. As proof of his allegations about Soviet songs that caused unrest among the crew and passengers, he mentioned that someone had played Russian records on a portable gramophone. When Major Weale probed for details to substantiate his claims about spreading propaganda, Puurand was unable to name the songs or give a single instance of unrest. In the end, all he could say was that some of the Baltic passengers had felt resentful when they heard those songs.

  The next person interviewed by Major Weale was Dr Frant. When asked about the Jewish passenger who had upset Puurand by singing Russian songs over the PA system, Dr Frant explained that the man in question was a professional singer who had been asked by his companions to sing some folk songs to relieve the monotony of the voyage. Because of the vagueness of Puurand’s accusations, Major Weale decided there were no grounds for interviewing Sam Fiszman, the Polish couple or the singer.

  Proceeding with his investigation, Major Weale questioned the chief purser about various aspects of the voyage. As soon as he mentioned Colonel Hershaw, the vehemence of Adnan Molvan’s reaction startled him. ‘That man was the biggest and only nuisance we had on board!’ he said.

  The last person to be interviewed was the master of the Derna, who said that he had had a very long and tiring voyage as a result of poor-quality coal. He’d had to restrict fresh water supply as the passengers were wasteful, and he’d taken the necessary precautions not to run out of water. When questioned about the escort officer, he said that Hershaw had been divisive in favouring the Baltic people, voicing anti-Semitism on board ship and creating general ill-feeling. ‘Hershaw came to me with a report about some allegations of Communist activity and asked me to sign it, but I said no,’ Captain Papalas said. ‘There was no such activity among the passengers that I or any of my officers ever noticed.’

  Amid the chaos of departure, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, which had become irritatingly familiar over the past ten weeks, was blaring full blast once again as the passengers lugged bags, baskets and hold-alls past companionways heaped with boxes and bulging suitcases. They rushed back to their cabins to pick up forgotten belongings, screamed at their children to stay close to them, scribbled last-minute names and addresses of their ship-mates, wished each other luck and promised to stay in touch. Cabins that for almost three months had seemed as confining as prison cells now appeared secure and comforting. Helle and Lea clung to each other. With tears in their eyes, they reassured each other that they would write and visit. Vala was grief-stricken when she said goodbye to Archbishop Rafalsky. An island of calm amid the shouting and jostling, the prelate raised his almost transparent hands over the heads of Bob Grunschlag and Abie Goldberg as he blessed them and wished them peace in their new lives.

  The relationship between Colonel Hershaw and Dorothea had become so frosty that she left the ship without saying goodbye. As she walked down the gangplank, her curly hair bouncing around her eager face, her red leather bag in one hand and her Triumph typewriter under her arm, she didn’t look back.

  But now that it was too late, she wanted to kick herself for being such a fool and not demanding payment for the secretarial work she had done. He had never even broached the subject, but had behaved like a generous patron, buying her a skirt and blouse in Port Said when he should have paid her a salary. And he’d had the gall to ask for her little silver signet ring as a memento. What cheek. She was sad that she wouldn’t see the first officer again, but as for Ogden Hershaw, if she never saw him again it would be too soon. At least he had written her a reference, condescending though it was.

  ‘It is hereby certified that Miss Dorothea Ritter served as my secretary and executive assistant during the recent voyage from Marseilles to Melbourne with six hundred displaced persons from various European countries, a period of some two months.

  ‘Miss Ritter showed herself
most capable as a clerk, secretary, interpreter, troubleshooter and in numerous other ways, giving me invaluable aid during the extremely tedious and trying voyage. I was favourably impressed by her tact, resourcefulness and—rare in a female—her ability to think logically and act on her own initiative.’

  Colonel Hershaw, however, was feeling particularly pleased with himself. He had just completed his detailed report about this appalling voyage, which he’d begun with the words: ‘It is recommended most emphatically that this ship, being in its present condition entirely unfit to carry passengers, shall not be used by the IRO for transport of displaced persons.’

  He had itemised the sloppiness of the crew, the criminal lack of medical facilities, the lack of hygiene, the abysmal incompetence of the doctor, and the uncouth behaviour of the chief purser whom he described as a bandit. Although he praised Dr Frant for his unstinting medical assistance, he criticised the Jewish passengers, especially those who had worked for UNRRA, citing the Yom Kippur contretemps as an illustration of their demanding nature and lack of gratitude. He mentioned ‘undercover radical propaganda’ and destruction of the ship’s equipment by a group of Jewish youngsters. As though writing a military report, he concluded: ‘Despite vigilant efforts on the part of my security forces, none of them were apprehended.’

  In contrast, the escort officer praised the wholehearted co-operation he’d been given by his Baltic group who had just presented him with a letter of appreciation he would always treasure. They wrote:

  ‘The ninety-nine Baltic passengers en route to Australia under the auspices of the IRO wish to express their gratitude to the organisation which has made it possible for them to become resettled in security and freedom in this new homeland of ours…

  ‘We have among us The Hon Ogden Hershaw who, thanks to his ability to foresee unexpected eventualities, and meet them with tact and kind understanding, has made easy for us this otherwise difficult voyage among these fifteen other nationalities.

  ‘We Baltic people have forever in our hearts deep thanks and sincere appreciation to a fine Canadian officer and Gentleman. God bless Him!

  ‘As a token of that appreciation, which cannot be properly expressed or interpretated we ask you, our Dear Colonel, to receive this small gift in the sincere spirit in which it is given, that it may always remind you of the Baltic peoples who love freedom and the democratic principles of the Western World.’

  It was signed by Verner Puurand, Commander (retired) Estonian Navy, Pastor Friedrich Stockholm, and R Bode as the Latvian spokesman.

  As Colonel Hershaw was about to disembark, he noticed Emanuel Darin, one of the former UNRRA employees he had crossed swords with during the voyage. Darin was one of the ‘Jewish ringleaders’ he had referred to in his report. Striding towards him, the Colonel extended his hand with a jovial smile. ‘I do hope that we can put the unpleasantness of the voyage behind us,’ he said in a hearty tone.

  Emanuel’s expression could have frosted boiling water. ‘Your behaviour on the ship was disgraceful,’ he retorted. ‘I intend to write to the IRO about it. I hope they never employ you as an escort officer on a migrant ship again.’ And with that, he turned on his heel and strode away.

  It may have been this exchange that prompted Ogden Hershaw to add the final paragraph to his report. ‘As a Public Relations man I am keenly aware of the sad fact that no amount of useful and constructive publicity issued by us can ever outweigh the odd bad mark against us in the public opinion. In the present case, where we carried several quite aggressive Jews, the effect of such publicity will no doubt prove dangerous to our goodwill, particularly in countries like the USA who, after all, pays the bulk of IRO expenditures, and whose public opinion is considerably influenced by Jewish sentiments and agitation.’

  Pushing for a spot against the rail, passengers leaned out from the ship and scanned the crowd on the wharf, desperate to catch sight of relatives or friends. Occasionally someone shrieked as they recognised a cousin or a friend they hadn’t seen in years, rushed down to the wharf and ran into welcoming arms. People hugged each other, wept, and marvelled that they were together again. Some couldn’t stop talking, while others could only stand in silence, too choked to speak.

  An ambulance was waiting to take Halina Kalowski and her newborn daughter to the safety of a maternity hospital. The officers from St John’s Ambulance made their way up the gangplank and with jolly voices tried to cheer up the worried little woman who clutched a baby no bigger than a doll. Everyone was eager to disembark, and in an effort to avoid a dangerous crush, the first officer ushered women with children down the gangplank first. As the St John’s Ambulance officers came forward to help them carry the babies, several women screamed, panicked and started to run back on board. They were concentration camp survivors whose instinctive reaction was to flee from black-uniformed officials trying to take children from their arms.

  As she walked off the ship holding little Anneke in her arms and Tarno by the hand, Silva Rae said goodbye to the purser. Apart from the glowing reference he had written in appreciation of her assistance, he had also given her a souvenir of their friendship. On the back of a photograph of them walking together on deck, he had written in tiny writing the first line of the romantic song from Lehar’s operetta, The Land of Smiles: ‘You are my heart’s delight.’

  Mattie and Katina Travasaros stood white-faced beside their mother, eyes straining to see their father. Would they recognise him from the old, worn photograph their mother had shown them so often? When she had talked about him he had sounded like a character in a story book, but now they were about to see him in the flesh. What would he be like? What would it be like to have a father? And, most important of all, would he like them?

  As they scrutinised the people below, her mother suddenly pointed to a man in a felt hat staring up at them. ‘It’s your father!’ she screamed. Grabbing their bulky packages, they rushed down and she fell into the arms of the man she hadn’t seen for ten years. George Travasaros looked at the daughter he had last seen when she was swaddled in a blanket. Looking into her father’s face, Mattie held out two sticky buns she had taken from the table at breakfast. ‘I wanted to bring you something,’ she said shyly. ‘This is all I have.’

  Ginette, a big bow tied on top of her fair hair, clung to Mrs Frant, who dreaded the moment when she would have to part with the child she’d come to love. A sense of desolation washed over Ginette at the thought of having to say goodbye to her friends and being alone among strangers again in a strange land. Her aunt’s last words in Paris echoed in her mind. ‘Tell your aunty in America what a bad girl you were and how much trouble you caused me.’ But her aunt had tricked her. Ginette now knew that she had been sent to a place called Australia, and not America at all. A young man with curly hair smiled as he passed her, his Leica slung over his shoulder. It was Abie Goldberg who had comforted her that first day when she had sobbed in the train, and had later taken photos of her when she had been Miss Derna. ‘Good luck!’ he called.

  A shrill voice rose above the din on the wharf. It belonged to a woman in a turban fashionably tied on with a scarf that trailed down over the shoulder of an elegant dress with padded shoulders. ‘Ginette! Ginette Wajs!’ she kept shouting.

  But above her, at the rail, her dead sister’s child was screaming, ‘I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go! I want to go back to Paris!’

  My father’s bridge partner Leon Ament stood on the wharf alone, surrounded by passengers being greeted by friends or relatives. Watching all the reunions, he felt as though he was the only one who had nobody waiting for him. He didn’t know a soul in Australia and had no idea where he was going to stay. He was looking around when a familiar face caught his eye. It was the man who had worked as his medical secretary in the Polish town of Stryj, who had wandered down to the dock to see if he knew any of the passengers. As soon as he saw his former boss, he said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing. You’re sleeping at my place.’ Suddenly Melbourne lo
oked more welcoming.

  Down on the wharf, reporters from Melbourne newspapers were already waiting, eager for first-hand accounts of the overcrowded hellship bringing Jewish Communist agitators to Australia. At a time of world-wide anti-Communist paranoia and Australian xenophobia, this story was bound to fuel the immigrant debate. Their grey felt hats pushed back from their sharp faces, spiral notebooks and cameras with big flash bulbs in their hands, the journalists besieged the ship in search of sensational stories, pretty girls and quotable quotes.

  What they found exceeded their expectations. The gaunt bearded man in a black cassock with the photogenic aura of a Biblical prophet was Archbishop Theodore Rafalsky, who had been appointed to establish the Russian Orthodox church in Australia and New Zealand. The elegant old lady with the sad face was an émigré Russian aristocrat, Princess Nadezhda Meschersky, who was actually related to the doomed Romanovs. Crowding around her, they listened enthralled as she told them in a tragic voice that she was penniless. ‘All I have left in the world is myself and my clothes,’ she said. Looking around for attractive young women, they swooped on Dorothea Ritter and Gilda Brouen, and pens flew as they described the unsanitary, overcrowded conditions, terrible food and stuffy cabins.

  One enterprising reporter found the young Greek couple, Philip and Germaine Georgiades, who had left the ship in Fremantle and taken the Adelaide Express to Melbourne instead. ‘It was a disgusting voyage. The water was murky and it was rationed. They said we’d be travelling third class but it was really tenth class,’ Philip said. ‘We decided to spend our own money on the train trip rather than spend one more day on board!’