Rozalia (Rose) Cetinich

Story

Rozalia married Ivan Cetinich in Broken Hill on 11th Nov1950. Rose and Ivan\’s four children, Raymond, Marlene, Peter and John were all born there & have since left the city to reside in different cities of Australia. Rose lives in the family home in Broken Hill.

When the war finished, half of Europe was bombed and the government started talking about immigration to other countries; first Argentina and then Australia and America. There were thousands and thousands of people emigrating to escape from their country, Hungary, Bulgaria, Holland; all those parts; even from Russia. They all escaped after the war because there was nothing to go back to. I spent two and a half years in a camp called Bonyoli. [Italy]. The camp was a hospital that Mussolini had built for TB [Tuberculosis] patients. There were about thirty thousand people in the camp. It was like a city and in the evening when you\’d walk outside, it was like going for a walk in a town. Every day people left & others came; you just had to wait till they called you. Immigration officials told us each morning if we were to see the doctors. If you were on the list, you waited in a tent to see the doctor.

Then you waited for a week or two to see the Australian or American consul. They asked you why you wanted to emigrate. ‘Well,\’ you said, ‘there was nothing at home\’. Yugoslavia was really poor before the war; after the war it was worse and so we decided to leave. The Australian Consul came around and asked everybody, ‘Are you prepared to take a two year job that the Australian Government is going to offer you? If you are prepared to do that, then sign this paper. If you are not prepared to do that, we don\’t take you\’. Naturally we said yes & signed the paper. Then we waited two months or more before we left Italy to come to Australia because there were so many people. I was walking in the camp & I heard my name called [sound system]. I had to report to the American office. I said ‘Goodbye! I\’m going to Australia!\’

We left Naples on the 26th Sept, 1949 & arrived in Sydney on the 24th of October. Some people were still in their beds & they popped up their heads when I started shouting, ‘We can see the land; we can see the land!\’ Everybody ran up on deck to see the land! We came through Sydney Heads in the morning & we came close to the beach and couldn\’t go any further. We had to wait until another boat left the port. Everyone was on deck saying, ‘Oh this boat is not going under the Bridge [Sydney Harbour]. It wouldn\’t get under the Bridge!\’

They transported us from the boat to the train to Bathurst. There were five hundred and fifty people on the boat and each had a number. I was in the second lot for breakfast, lunch or tea. The same thing happened when the train came. They took the first lot to Bathurst & then came back to pick us up at eleven o\’clock at night. We arrived at seven o\’clock in the morning- but not to the railway station. We were out in the bush! It was the camp for the soldiers during the war. When the train stopped we looked out the window and what did we see? We saw bush, rain, magpies whistling, crows were whistling and we said, ‘Oh my God, where have we come? What\’s here? There\’s no camps here, no houses, nothing!\’ We had to wait until the army trucks came, & they took us to St Mary\’s camp.

On the 22nd of December I travelled by train to Katoomba where the authorities had arranged employment in a guest house for me. I cleaned the rooms but in the mornings I had to get the tea, coffee and toast ready in the kitchen. I washed the cups and saucers. Men washed plates because there was no washing machine. I met Ivan, my husband four days after I arrived at St Marys Camp, before I went to Katoomba. He was working in a factory as a fitter. He took me to Broken Hill to meet his parents.

I loved it here [Broken Hill] at the time because it was winter. Then my husband, well he was my boyfriend at the time, said ‘Would you like to live here?\’ I said ‘I think I would like to live here\’. When I came, I was the only girl from Slovenia in Broken Hill. We came here in Nov1950 & when that hot weather came around I said, ‘Oh my God\’. No air-coolers; no fridge. There was water restrictions; there was no water in Umberumberka; no water in the water storage dam at Stephens Creek. They carried water on the train from Menindee. From 8am to 4pm, there was no water at all.

I wanted to become naturalised after Ivan and I were married. When the papers arrived, I had to go the court. The judge asked me would I understand what he was saying and I said ‘I\’ll try to!\’ But I did what he asked me. I said to my self once I was here. ‘If you want to live in this country, you have to start to learn the language\’. So I did.

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