Klaas Salomons
| First name | Klaas |
|---|---|
| Last name | Salomons |
| Country of Origin | Holland |
| Date of Birth | 22/10/38 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 23/08/50 |
| Submitted by | Klaas (clarrie) Salomons |
Story
Our family plus 3 other Salomons Families and one Otten (related) all lived in in the same village in the province of Drenthe in Nth east Holland.Our fathers were all peat cutters. They had read all the glowing reports about Australia, so they decided to leave Holland as they felt there were greater opportunities in Australia for the future of their families.
I can remember the journey very well, going with an old ship the Sibayak of app 11,000 tons; travelling for about 5 weeks; going through the Suez canal and calling into Port Said/Colombo/Fremantle/Melbourne; doing the King Neptune thing at the equater; as a boy with 3 younger brothers and with all my cousins running all over the ship. We could crawl under the life boats right to the edge of the ship, causing our parents great concerns at times. We had a great time – it was a real adventure for us. All the families settled in Melbourne.
It was very different, the gum trees were so different to the European trees; the bird life – we thought the parrots, etc, were just beautiful. Learning the language was difficult when first starting school. We were the first migrant kids at the East Bentleigh primary school. One thing that has caused some confusion, the head master decided to rename all of us, as we were not going to change them legally it has caused problems. But we never had any real difficulties with the other kids. We straight away started going to an Australian speaking church, not understanding much at first, but it didn’t take long to learn the language. The Aussies were very accepting of us. It helped my parents to learn the language quite fluently. We have never been sorry to have come to Australia.
Yours faithfully.
Klaas Salomons