After ten years of working on the Polish Festival @ Federation Square, I have discovered that the Polish community in Melbourne has a remarkable and proud history in this city.

Yet it made me think about my own personal history.

As children of migrants or more correctly put “displaced persons”, we always associate our family history as being over there, in my particular case being shared between Poland and “Kresy” (a term that refers to the eastern lands that formerly belonged to Poland such as eastern Lithuania). Recently, it dawned on me that my family now has a 66 year history here.

My mother Alina arrived in Sydney on the SS Protea, with her family (parents, two sisters and brother-in-laws), in March 1949 and were posted to stay at Bathurst Migrant Camp. The weather concerned my Grandmother, so she requested that the family be allowed to move to Melbourne on leaving the camp. My father Adam arrived in January 1950 on the SS Dundalk Bay with his sister, having escaped Poland with communist soldiers chasing him across the border to Germany. ON arrival to Australia, he was sent to Bonegilla Migrant Camp before returning to Melbourne.

Both my parents came from privileged backgrounds. None of which would have prepared them for the War or being displaced persons in a country so vastly different from their homes.

Regardless of qualifications, displaced persons, 16 years and older at the time, were either classified as labourers (men) and domestics (women) and were signed up for a two year work contract. My mother’s contract required her to work at the Riveria Hotel in Carrum. 60 years later we returned there to celebrate her anniversary of arriving in Australia. In 1951, she was able to transfer to the Royal Women’s Hospital in Carlton, where she worked as a nurse’s aide. My father’s contract required him to work at Spencer Street Station (Southern Cross Station). On the odd occasion I have taken a stroll around Southern Cross Station hoping to bump into his ghost or at the very least relive the stories he had shared about this period of his life. During this period their English left something to be desired and I can recall on many occasions sitting around the table listening to both parents relating funny incidences as a result of language and culture barriers. This typified my parents. No matter how hard a situation there was always a funny side that would help them, and later the rest of us, get through.

The beginning of our family was set into motion in 1951, when my parents meet at a Polish Community function held at Roma House in Elizabeth Street. So the romance began. Or as my mother will tell you, the earnest pursuit by my father began until she finally had to give in.

As a single man, my father first lived in Altona. He would recount with much nostalgia how Altona consisted of fields where he could spend endless hours rabbit hunting. Later he moved to Royal Parade, Parkville. My mother’s family first settled in Bonbeach. She tells us of stories how her clothes in the wardrobe were always covered in sea salt. Then her whole family got together and bought a house in Rowell Avenue, Camberwell. Once again it was my grandmother’s influence that resulted in where my mother’s family and ultimately the rest of us settled. She liked the tree lined hilly feel of this area. Being the strong matriarchal figure there was no budging her, so here we remained.

It is clear that geography would never have bought my parents together so I am grateful to the Polish Community in Melbourne.

My parents were married in St. Ignatius Church St Richmond in August 1954. As historically the centre of Polish religious life in Melbourne, St. Ignatius has become the church for all our special family events with two generations have been married, baptised and buried here.

Prior to their nuptials, they bought a house in Canterbury. It was a timber Edwardian house in need of lots of love and attention on a block approximately one acre. There my parents settled and proceeded to start their family. For those of you who remember The Sullivans, well we lived in the area that was the setting for this iconic Australian TV series, in fact only a few doors away from the Kaufman’s shop. We grew up knowing it as Mr Willies shop. It was a very white Anglo-Saxon neighbourhood and we were the migrant family that settled right in the middle of it. Our neighbours were used to the Italians who ran the local greengrocer or the Greeks who ran the local fish and chip shop.

But Poles were rare, we were the neighbourhood novelty with our strange language and customs but it was not long before our “odd” ways were part of the local community.

I always remember these times in Canterbury with great fondness. Our house was open to all visitors and seemed to be filled with people on the weekends. During the summer months, my mother would create the most amazing meals out of seemingly nothing and serve them alfresco in our vast back yard under the most amazingly huge weeping willows. These times were filled with much laughter as my father would entertain guests with hilarious stories and countless jokes. At other times, there would be heavy discussion about some political issue. In winter, the entertaining would move in doors. Since those days there have been countless events and memories. As a result as I drive with my nieces to various locations around Melbourne these days, I have discovered that there are very few locations where I cannot recount a story which shares a piece of our family history here in Melbourne.

And now my involvement in the Polish Festival @ Federation Square has become an important part of our family’s history here in Melbourne. I hope that in the future this event will help others discover and value their personal history here.