Alois Zeitlhofer
| First name | Alois |
|---|---|
| Last name | Zeitlhofer |
| Country of Origin | Austria |
| Date of Birth | 27/05/30 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1954 |
| Submitted by | Alois Zeitlhofer |
Story
Austria in 1954 was still suffering from the war years. Young people saw little prospect of a bright future & immigration to a prosperous country looked attractive. Single, although engaged to an Austrian girl, I decided to give it a go. I attended high school & technical college in Steyr, Austria, then started work as a radio technician in Styria. Australia was looking for immigrants, providing assisted passage for £10- per person for an obligation to stay for a minimum of two years. So the risk was not so great, you could always return in two years time.
I was the youngest son of four brothers & three sisters, none of whom would ever consider immigrating. As the youngest I was able to get a better education. In May 1954, I sailed from Bremerhaven Germany. Not having been on a boat before, by the time we reached the English Channel I was violently seasick & keen to get off in Naples since I thought I would not survive the journey. Sailing into Naples with clear blue skies & calm waters, things looked much better & I was happy to continue. Out of the five week voyage I was sick for about three weeks. Port Said in the Suez Canal was a stop I remember. It was very hot, Arab Traders offering their wares. I was persuaded to swap my good, though old, watch for a beautiful new one which unfortunately stopped working by the time we left port.
We first arrived in Fremantle & then went to Melbourne where the train took us from there to the immigrant camp in Bonegilla NSW. Having a certificate in radio & electrical engineering from Austria, authorities could not easily place me. Others worked in fruit picking, railways, forests & sugar cane fields. A good friend who departed three months earlier worked in Mt Gambier, SA. He told them I could stay with him, bordering with a Dutch immigrant family. So I left Bonegilla by train & headed for Mt Gambier. This is when life in Australia began. I obtained work as a radio technician in a Radio Sales & Service business where I stayed for eight years becoming life long friends with the proprietors.
So the first impressions of Australia were good & it was not long before any thoughts of returning to my homeland disappeared. My fiancŽ arrived in 1955. We managed to buy our own home soon after & started a family. During that time I studied a professional electrical engineering course by correspondence. I soon realised I wanted to broaden my experience. The Woomera Rocket Range in SA was looking for engineers & technicians & in 1962 we moved to this desert town of 5000 people. The work was interesting & rewarding. Later I transferred to the NASA Deep Space Tracking station at Island Lagoon, Woomera. NASA provided specialist training in the United States for six months which was great.
From Woomera we moved to Melbourne for 12 months, working for the Department of Civil Aviation. However the shock of moving to Melbourne from a small town & the type of work made me look for change again. I was successful in obtaining a Senior Technical Officer position in Canberra with the Bureau of Mineral Resources. The family by then had grown by five (four boys & one girl).
We liked Canberra right from the beginning. Work was very interesting with occasional field work involving all States of Australia including some of the most remote parts. It involved largely design & installation of earthquake seismic stations.
In 1993 I retired, bought a holiday home on the south coast & in 2007 we are still in good health, enjoy travelling, bowls, & a bit of golf. We have travelled back to Austria a number of times as well as China, Tibet, Vietnam, South Africa, & of course many parts of Australia.
We never regretted immigrating, although the family left behind are now equally well off & happy in their situations. We have our own family in Australia & the children are all very prosperous in their professions & we are hoping that our eleven grandchildren will be equally successful. A part of our success in Australia is due to the fact that my wife & I made it our top priority to become fluent in English & become part of the way of life in Australia.