Victoria Valchev- Zabukovec

Story

Though born in Bulgaria, my family lived in Hungary. My father was an Orthodox priest sent to serve the large Bulgarian market gardening community in the University town of Pecs in south western Hungary. While there, my father completed a Law Degree. Hungarian became my second language & I also had a German lady tutor. By the age of 10, I was fluent in 3 languages.

In 1944 the Soviet Army had advanced to the outskirts of the town, & we, along with thousands of others, headed west. A few refugees who had shortwave radios knew that the invasion forces of the American, British & French were coming from the south west after the Normandy Landing. General Patton\’s U.S. Third Army reached Bavaria, just as we got there. Other refugees met up with the British & French forces.

At the end of World War II, VE- Day, 8 May 1945, there were more than 22 million foreigners in Germany: prisoners of war, forced labourers, & Displaced Persons of all kinds, particularly Eastern Europeans, who had fled communism.

The Allied military authorities assumed the responsibility for all DP\’s, assembling & caring for them until UNRRA could take over. The Soviet Union did not allow UNRRA into the Soviet occupied Zone, so the government of the US, UK & France had to make their own agreements with UNRRA, thus it was 1946 before the latter took over from the military. The Soviets were interested in Repatriation, but not Rehabilitation & definitely not Resettlement.

The aim of Resettlement was not in the UNRRA Charter; therefore, a new organization had to be established, the International Refugee Organization (IRO) with the necessary legal base for its mandate & function, which included recruiting donor countries, transport of every kind, including ships for long & short haul distances, in a post-war world that was short of shipping. By 1948, the ‘One-up-manship’ of the encroaching Cold War, resulted in the Berlin Airlift, which also reduced available shipping for long haul destinations.

My family ended up in a Yugoslav DP Camp, because the recruiting officer thought that a priest would be good for a camp. He suggested that if my great-grandfather was born in Macedonia, that made us Yugoslavs. Bulgarians were not eligible at the time. In 1946 a Yugoslav Repatriation Commission described conditions in the Balkans as a workers paradise. My mother believed him. She took my 10 year old sister with her, but I refused to go. I\’d rather not remember of what happened next.

By 1948, I had done a veritable tour of DP Camps, first for attending school & later for being ‘processed’ for migration to Australia. From Alt Oetting, Landshut, Bad Aibling, Rosenheim, Munich, Augsburg, & finally to Bremerhaven, where I embarked the Norwegian ship ‘Svalbard’ which took 6 weeks to get to Sydney. I was a 17 year old girl, alone & heading for Australia, which I knew next to nothing about, but tempered by fate, resilient youths learn fast.

My career in Australia began as a cleaner in Lobethal Hospital. I met my future husband, Boris Zabukovec, in Woodside Migrant Camp. We both proceeded to work in Holden, Phillips & Chrysler in Adelaide, cycling to work from Fulham. I was asked to leave work when I was 7 months pregnant. After my first son was born, I continued working part time, waitressing, as we were building our own house. I became a good bricklayer.

After my second son was born, I became a telephonist. I offered 2 rooms in our house & shared kitchen to a migrant family in return for child minding. This enabled me to study for a B.A. Degree and a Post Graduate Dip. Ed., at Adelaide University. It took me twelve years to do it. I had three children by then. My husband looked after the children while I was at lectures, tutorials and the library, after working as a full time teacher during the day. History, English Classical Studies and German were my subjects in the Senior School.

In 1977 I became the founding Administrator of Ethnic Radio in Adelaide, which became Radio 5EBI-FM. In 1982 I became the Project Officer for the future Migration Museum, at the History Trust of S.A.

My first historical novel, ‘The Second Landing’, took nine years to research and write. It tells the story of the Eastern Europeans who came to Australia between 1947 and 1952. My latest manuscript ‘Brightness of Black Ink’ is set in the 9th century A.D

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