sandr020

Over the years in this blog, I have tried to show how Australia’s most creative and productive citizens were once terrified refugees and migrants, forced out of their own countries and waiting to be accepted by Australian society eg Judy Cassab: from Hungary ,  Scottish migrants ,  the Evian Conference of 1938,   Holocaust survivors from Poland ,   child deportees from Britain,  recent boat people , the Dunera Boys ,  Nicholas Winton’s train loads of children and Viennese refugee Richard Goldner . Australia would have been a very bland, conservative country, if it was not for the large minority of Australian citizens in every generation who were not born here (26%). My year at school would have had five children in it, rather than the 120 I met in 1953. Jane McAdam is law professor and director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at NSW University. McAdam and Fiona Chong’s new book Refugees: Why See...

50,000 Jews lived in Kishinev (now Ukraine) in 1900, 46% of the total population. Kishinev was the 5th largest Jewish city in the Russian Empire city after Warsaw, Odessa, Lodz and Vilna. Thanks to the book, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (Steven Zipperstein, 2018) and to my grandfather. Rumours of attacks surfaced before Easter each year in Kishinev. Acc­usations of ritual murder in Pavel Krushevan ’s anti-Semitic newspaper, Bessarabets , remained ugly; there were rumours of menacing anti-Jewish meetings held in the back room of a Kishinev tavern, and leaflets calling for the beating of Jews were left in bars and cheap restaurants. By then Bessarabets had launched a semi-secret, anti-Semitic soc­iety. Against this backdrop, Jewish anxieties were heightened. Jewish shop owners took home bank records, receipts and financial doc­u­ments for safekeeping. Employees were told that shops could stay shut after the Passover festival. Heartbroken fathers claimed their children'...

Queen Victoria ’s unsatisfactory grandson, Prince Albert Duke of Clarence , second in line to the British throne, desperately needed a bride. Earlier attempts to marry this useless duke off to foreign princesses had failed, so Queen Victoria was relieved when, in 1891, Mary of Teck (1867-1953) loved the prospect of becoming Britain’s queen and immediately accepted the duke’s hand. But this plan had to be abandoned when the duke died of pneumonia soon after the engagement. Instead Mary became engaged to his brother, the Duke of York , who in 1910 was crowned King George V and she his queen consort. King George V and Queen Mary at their coronation, 1911 Queen Mary of Teck and King George V had 6 children, of whom 5 survived to adulthood. Mary lived through the reigns of her sons, King Edward VIII and King George VI . In 1952, her eldest grandchild became Queen Elizabeth II and in 1953 Queen Mary died at Marlborough House, aged 85. Royal librarian Owen Morshead asked James Pope-Henness...

In 1870, the vast area called Rupert's Land was transferred from the Hudson's Bay Company and purchased by the new Dominion of Canada. The sudden shift of authority and resultant uncertainty among the inhabitants of the region erupted into the Red River Rebellion of 1869-70 . It was essential that order be restored by the newly formed federal government in Ottawa. In 1872 a colonel in the Canadian Militia was dispatched into the Northwest on a governmental fact-finding journ­ey. He recommended that a regiment of 550 mounted riflemen be organised to preserve order in the terr­it­ory, and to protect the surveyors and railway builders who were working their way to the Pacific coast. In Ottawa, 1st Prime Minister Sir John Macdonald (1867–73) was soon aware of the viol­ence in the USA’s western plains and did not want these problems repeated in Canada! In May 1873 Macdonald successfully introd­uced a bill to est­ab­lish a police force in the territor­ies: Manitoba, parts of Sask­a...

A Scandal in Bohemia by Gideon Haigh (Hamish ­Hamilton, 2018) tells an incredible story.  Mollie Dean (1905-30) was a very attractive Melburnian, a young woman who had great plans for the future. Many men said she was an excep­t­ional person, with great vital­ity and was a good conversation­al­ist. Women (like playwright Betty Roland ) said Mollie was sul­try or sullen-looking. Everyone agreed she was slim with dark bobbed hair and simple makeup. And that she was forceful and Bohemian, wanting to energet­ically discuss art, culture and pol­it­ics with the males. Clearly Mollie was a rising star, writ­ing a novel that would be call­ed Monst­ers Not Men . Mollie’s family was already problem-filled. Her father George, a tough school prin­cipal, died during her childhood. Her mother Ethel Dean was manipul­at­ive, controlling and physically violent. Ethel had just one plan for Mollie: to quickly marry her off, to a specific groom - mechanic Adam Graham (the Deans’ lodger in Elwood ...

My entire ancestry comes from Russia, my in-laws all came from Czecho­slovakia and our descendants live in Aus­tr­al­ia and Israel. Thus I no personal connection to Sudan. None­theless the Sudanese have been savaged by racist attacks from Australia’s conservative Federal Government. We need to act! The BBC News 18th Jan 2018 noted that Melbourne is a place of stunning architecture, celebrated lane ways and tree-lined boulevards, of major cultural and sporting events. For seven straight years, Melb­our­ne’s 4.2 million inhabitants enjoy top-level healthcare, infrastructure and education in the World’s Most Liveable City . So why would Australia's Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton say Melburnians were scared to go out to restaur­ants, for fear of violence? And why would his conservative ally, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull , concur? This serene city has reputedly witnessed spor­adic eruptions of youth gang violence. Many of those involved have been African Australians, the Mini...

In July 1918 Bolshevik revolutionaries, acting on Mos­c­ow’s orders, shot Czar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, four daught­ers (Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia), their son Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich and four servants. Their bodies were taken from the Yekaterinburg cellar, in the Urals, and buried in the forest, yet a rumour got out that the body of the Grand Duchess Anastasia had not been accounted for. Did she hide in the closed cellar? Since 1918 many women have presented them­selves as the missing Anastasia (or another sister). However only Anna Anderson and Eugenia Smith gathered substantial support. Thank you to True Crimes and Curiosities for much of the information . The princesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Alexander Palace, 1916 Olga, Alexei, Anastasia and Tatiana Under house arrest in  Tsarskoe Selo , 1917 Last known photo of the Romanov siblings A] In 1920 Anna Anderson tried to commit suic­ide and was sent to a mental health centre in Be...

Ellis Island  is a small is­l­and in New York Harbour located in the up­per bay near the New Jer­sey coast. By the time Samuel Ellis became the island's private owner in the 1770s, Ellis Island developed into a harbour fort, ammun­ition and ordinance depot, and finally an immigration station. When the British occupied New York City during the Rev­ol­utionary War (1775–83), its large naval fleet sailed freely into New York Harbour. The Continental Congress voted for independence in 1776. The Federal government eventually purchased Ellis Island from NY State in 1808. When the government realised its strategic value in defending against British invas­ion, they built a series of coastal fortificat­ions in New York Harbour. This was even before they knew about the War of 1812 between the USA, the UK and their respective allies. But the fort was not needed in the 1812 War and served only as an ammunit­ion storage. They built a parapet for 3 tiers of circular guns, plus two earthworks f...

Dennis Andrew Nilsen (b1945) was born in Aberdeenshire. His father was an alcoholic and his parents divorced early, so Dennis was sent to his adored grand­parents. Sadly when grandpa died, the traumat­ised 6 years-old was shown his grandfather lying in his coffin. The lad joined the army in 1961 at 15. His first three years in the army were spent undergoing training at the Aldershot Barr­acks. This was a very happy time for Nilsen who thrived on the hard work, dis­cip­line and comradeship of army life. He was no longer an outsider. Nilsen's chosen army trade was in the catering corps - he trained as a butcher in Aden, Cyprus and Berlin. When Nilsen reached the rank of Corporal, his successful army career had lasted 11.5 years, but he disliked the Army's role in Northern Ireland and left. In Dec 1972, he enrolled in the Metropolitan Police , hoping to recapture army-type comradeship. He was fas­cin­ated seeing autopsied bodies in a morgue. But he wasn’t happy and resigned in D...

In 1861 Herman Webster Mudgett was born to a respected New Hamp­sh­ire family. In childhood he was fascinated with skeletons and soon became obsessed with death. Mudgett changed his name to H.H Holmes and studied medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School . While a student, Holmes stole cadavers from the labor­at­ory, disfig­ured them and then planted the bodies as if they were killed in accidents. His passion for death had started early in life but his criminal skills began in med­ical school; it was only then he collected on fake insurance policies. Holmes was a very good medical student. In 1884 he passed his exams easily and in 1885 he moved to Chicago where he worked at a pharmacy as Dr Henry Holmes. When the owner of the business passed away, Holmes convinced the wid­ow to sell him the shop in 1887. Holmes hired the Conner family from Iowa to work in the shop and keep the books, and the widow was never seen again! Holmes married a few times, often to more than one woma...