Hans Bischof

Story

Born in Koenigshan (Sudetenland) near the Silesian border, we were of German origin, living in a region that belonged to Czechoslovakia. My parents had a small dairy farm, my earliest memory of WWII is 1944-45 when the first German refugees from the east came through, then the remnants of the defeated German Army, followed by Russian troops.

In 1946 we were evicted from our farm by the Czechs and transported to a refugee camp. My grandmother, mother and six children aged from three to eleven years old, (I was the second oldest). My father was held as a German POW in France. Shortly after we were bundled onto goods trains and our long journey to Germany began.

We arrived at another refugee camp near the city of Magdeburg; from there we were allocated to a village in the area and we resumed our schooling. My father was released in 1948 from the POW. camp. In 1949 the Soviets declared their zone the DDR (East Germany); unfortunately we found ourselves two Km. from the border- on the wrong side. In 1950, at the age of fourteen, I left school without hope of further education or job prospects in the DDR. My parents decided that an apprenticeship as a baker/pastry cook would be the best choice in these harsh post-war times. My father went with me by train to Kuchen a small village in the south of western Germany to learn my trade; there were also relatives living nearby, I only saw them at weekends and I was very lonely and homesick.

I grew up quickly over the following three and a half years; with my apprenticeship at an end, I soon realised that there was a big world out there just waiting for me to explore. In 1954, I moved to Bad Godesberg near Bonn (West Germany) Ð and lived there until early March 1958. During that time, a friend had introduced me to travel brochures about Australia, I decided to have a closer look at it. So I went to the Australian Consulate in Cologne to get all the information required for an assisted passage. I was convinced and certain that this was the right thing to do. I was now twenty-one years old, soon all my papers were in order and through German friends in Canberra Ð Luise and Eberhard Funk Ð even an offer of employment.

I took a train to Bremerhafen; my ship Ð the ‘Skaubryn\’ Ð was to leave port on March 14th, 1958. Soon I fell in with a group of bachelors, we ended up hanging out together. We were going to conquer the world, until the night of March 31st.

We were just settling down as usual in the bar, when we noticed the engines stopped, shortly after the alarm sounded. At first we thought nothing of it; fire drills were a common Monday occurrence since we took to sea, but when smoke started to drift up from the engine room, I went back to my cabin to pick up my passport and some other papers, leaving all my other gear. I thought I\’d be right with just my shorts, shirt and thongs as we assumed, the fire would soon be under control. Around 11:00pm, though it was elderly persons, women and families with children first into lifeboats. Bachelors and crew last, at least we had some room to move; we were put on rowing duties straight away. The sea was calm and the weather mild. Between 6:00-7:00pm I recalled a ship steaming the other way; the ‘City of Sydney\’ had turned back to pick us up at around 1:00am the next morning. At dawn we saw numerous planes circling above as we started to set sail for Colombo, Ceylon. Late afternoon on April 1st, we were transferred to the Flotta Lauro liner ‘Roma\’, which had sailed from Colombo. We continued northwest to Aden in Yemen, passing the still burning wreck of the ‘Skaubryn\’.

In Aden, all single men were transported to ”Little Aden’; the site of a BP refinery and British military post. Eleven days later our sea journey to Australia continued, this time on the ‘Johan van Oldenbarnevelt\’.

Our first port in Australia was Fremantle, where we arrived on April 29th. We went ashore straight into a pub, I still recall the lack of tables and chairs, the length of the bar and the spittoons at your feet for cigarette butts. This was my first impression of Australia!

After landing in Melbourne early May, I boarded a train to Canberra and took up residence at the ‘Capital Hill Hostel’ Ð the site of today\’s Parliament House. I cycled daily to Civic Centre where I worked for a time in a bakery. After a few months I got ‘itchy feet’ so headed south to Adelaide via Melbourne. Through a contact from my ‘Skaubryn\’ trip, I got a job as an electrician\’s assistant with BHP at Iron Baron, near Whyalla. I spent the next twenty one months there and enjoyed life in the bush very much.

In 1960, I went back to Canberra and worked for a short time with a plumbing firm.

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