Motria Batum

Story

My Mum, Motya was orphaned by Stalin\’s starvation of the Ukraine in the 30\’s & taken from Uman north to Kiev. She noticed that those who were good at sports received better food & treatment. While small in size she excelled at skiing & shooting, winning at the regional level.

When the Germans invaded, the Russian army fled Kiev. Many locals hated the Communists because of Stalin\’s oppression & heralded the Germans as liberators. They weren’t. Needing labour back home they herded the young into stock carriages to ship them west where mum was billeted to a farmer in Salzburg. At first the farmer\’s treatment was hard, but this began to change after the defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad. The farmer\’s chicks were constantly being taken by eagles despite his best effort to shoot them. Mum once asked if she could try and brought them down with two shots. The farmer snatched back the gun & she never saw it again.

Luckily, Salzburg was in the American sector at the end of the war for the Russians persecuted anyone who had helped the Germans, even unwillingly. Mum met dad Ivan after the war. His story is too long to tell here, except to say that he was also taken from the Ukraine. They lived & worked with the now good farmer & my brother Boris was born in 47. Eventually the Austrians wanted all foreigners out of their country. Going back home was not a healthy option, so with some lies they were shipped by the Yanks to an Italian embarkation camp. This is where their name was unknowingly recorded as Batum not Batun. In camp options of countries accepting Europe\’s refugees were offered based on skills, they chose Brazil. Just before sailing by brother contracted scarlet fever & they were held over until next lot of refugees arrived. While waiting they heard bad rumours of Brazil and of the large numbers of sheep (therefore meat) in Australia. They switched.

The journey aboard the Fairsea was a horror for Mum as she was pregnant & very seasick. She lost so much weight that it was life threatening and was singled out for special attention. They landed in Melbourne in 49 where the authorities provided a sumptuous meal, but overeating on rich food caused most passengers to be sick at both ends. It was now that they realised that their name had changed, but because of the lies to the yanks kept silent. The family was eventually moved to Scheyville army barracks outside Sydney where Dad worked for the railway & my sister Maria was born in 50.

They saved a deposit and found a cheap perfect tiny farm (with stock) on the south side of Eastern Creek a mile from Riverstone.While we were there it flooded three times, so much for the perfect farm. They began saving another deposit after the first flood. I, Peter was born in 55 and remember two floods. In the 61 flood I was sent to Stewart House (a truly remarkable organisation run by teachers) for a month while my parents cleaned up. Another flood occurred in 65 while our new house was being built in town.

Dad worked for the railway at Clydeburn until retirement while Mum worked at various daytime cleaning jobs. Mum once told me of a long term women client who had a silly teenage son who spent all his time messing with cameras when he should be studying for something useful. He is the now famous director Bruce Beresford.

Every evening for as long as I can remember Mum left home at 4 returning at 10 to wash dishes in a chinese restaurant in Windsor. It was a 4 mile walk & two trainrides everyday. She was a remarkably fit woman.

Riverstone (Rivo) was a tough working class town on the outskirts of Sydney with a huge meat works. In the 50\’s & 60\’s there was a large influx of migrants. This melting pot of a town in hindsight seemed like some kind of unintentional social experiment. In high school, a teacher once asked how many of the class\’s parents were born overseas, the result was a 50/50 split. Well, the experiment worked pretty successfully. Maybe it was because there was no one dominant group of migrants but a smattering from everywhere. Maybe the hardworking locals respected the hardworking migrants trying to build a new life. Who knows, but it was a good place to grow up and we all became Aussies.

The biggest problem my folks faced was language. They spoke broken English and this caused them a series of hardships. Classes were distant & at night. On reflection a teacher should have travelled with the men on the bus and train every morning returning to teach the families while they were at camp.

Their kids grew up, married & had kids. Dad passed away in 91, Mum is in an aged care hostel. I think they were pretty happy with their lot in Australia. They had some tough times but survived. I suspect a life in Brazil would have been far tougher.

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