Schwartz - The May Beetles: My First Twenty Years

Afterword
by Morry Schwartz

Israel By April 1949 Hungary was moving towards Communism. Sensing a new threat, the Schwartz family decided to leave their new life and business behind.

On the thirteenth of May, 1949, with the aid of people smugglers, Baba, Andor with the fourteen-month-old Moshe on his back and Andors cousin Joli walked under cover of night through a Carpathian forest to the Czechoslovakian border.

They reached Koice, then travelled by train to Vienna, where they spent time in a Displaced Persons camp. Deciding to migrate to Israel, they took a train to Bari in Italy, then boarded a rusty old battleship, the Atzmaut. Three days later, on the fast day of Tisha BAv (the fourth of August, 1949), they arrived in the port city of Haifa.

They settled in a newly established agricultural village, Moshav Shafir, near Migdal Ashkelon. All the inhabitants were young refugee families from Hungary. It was a difficult pioneering life, lived at first in tents. They built houses and worked the land and created new lives for themselves.

On the twenty-eighth of August, 1952, Baba and Andors second son, Eli (Alan), was born.

Life became easier over time. For a while Andor served in the army. Baba began teaching herself English, for by 1958 they had decided to leave Israel. Andor was ambitious and longed for a life in the West; for her part, Baba was keen to reunite with her sisters, who were already living in Australia.

Baba, Moshe (Morry) and Andor in Shafir, circa 1950.

Joli, Moshe (Morry), Baba and baby Eli (Alan), 1952.

Andor, Eli (Alan) and Baba ploughing a field.

Enjoying entertainment in Shafir. Andor sits on the far left; Yehuda Rabin is next to him. Fourth from the left is Yossi Mondshein, and Moshe is to his left.

Marta (left) with Atara Gutman, Babas beloved cousin, in Tel Aviv, circa 1952.

Baba in front of the Kadima theatre, Tel Aviv, 1952.

The Schwartz family on a stopover in Manila on the way to Australia.

Australia In 1949 Boeske and her second husband, Laci Schneck, had migrated to New York. A few months earlier Erna, Sanyi and baby Bill had travelled to live in Melbourne, and a year or so later Marta and Ernest joined them.

Even though Andor and Baba had very little money, Andor decided the family would travel to Australia in style. In September 1958 they boarded an Air France propeller plane, and four days later having stopped over in Manila they arrived at Essendon Airport.

At first life in Melbourne was dispiriting and difficult. Andor worked as a labourer, including time at General Motors Holden, while Baba taught Hebrew and was an overlocker in a shirt factory.

Six months after their arrival they borrowed money and bought a dairy farm in Nar Nar Goon, Gippsland. Andors farming instincts returned and they spent two happy years there, becoming Australians. The easy kindness of their neighbours after a fire in the kitchen of their little fibro farmhouse was a heartwarming welcome to their new country.

In 1962 they sold the farm at a good profit, but unwisely bought a caf, the Manhattan, in Dandenong, where they lost what they had made. With what was left they bought a milk bar in Richmond, but walked away from it within weeks.

Laid low but undaunted, Andor again borrowed money and bought a boarding house. This was to be the beginning of his career as a successful developer of property.

The familys third son, Danny, was born on the sixteenth of August, 1962. Soon after, they moved to 74 Balaclava Road, Caulfield, which was to become their long-term family home.

Baba worked alongside Andor as he built a successful business, but she used all her spare time to read and study. She graduated with a degree in English Literature from Monash University, and she taught herself Italian.

Andor published his memoir, Living Memory, in 2003, when he was seventy-nine. He passed away at the age of ninety on the twelfth of April, 2014.

Baba moved into an apartment in the city hotel that Andor built. There, she thrills at the views of the Yarra River, the bay and the Dandenongs. She continues to read, write, cook, bake and entertain her family and her many friends.

Top: Ernest and Marta Schwarcz and Bill, Eva, Erna and Sanyi Gross in Melbourne, circa 1952.

Bottom: At Essendon Airport to farewell Boeske, who was visiting from America, 1960.

Top row: Sanyi, Andor, Ernest.

Middle row: Erna, Baba, Boeske, Marta.

Front row: Bill, Morry, Alan, Eva.

Marta, Erna, Baba and Boeske at Essendon Airport, 1960.

The Schwartz family in the driveway of their long-term Melbourne home in Caulfield.

From left: Baba, Alan, Danny, Andor, Morry.

The Schwartz family at Oscar Schwartzs bar mitzvah in 2001.

From left: Danny, Andor (who was sometimes affectionately called Bandi), Morry, Alan and Baba.

Not in these photographs are: Babas beloved daughters-in-law, Anna, Carol and Uschi; Carol and Alans children, Thea, Hannah, Oscar and Ruby; Dannys daughter, Delilah; Theas children, Hunter and Bonnie; and Annas daughter, Zahava, and grandchildren Lilith, Boaz and Hephzibah.

CHAPTER 1

Before the Beginning

On my birth certificate, issued in Hungary in 1927, I am Margit. In Australia, on letters sent to me by officials, I am Margaret. But more than Margit, and much more than Margaret, I am Baba, my name since childhood. It means baby, and it was what my older sister, Erna, called me after I was born. It stuck, and Baba has been my name all my life.

I was born in Nyrbtor, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants in the easternmost province of Hungary, bordering the semi-pagan backwoods of Romania to the east and the slightly more civilised land we now call Slovakia to the north. Nyrbtor sits on a plain, surrounded by farms. It was not the glory of Gods creation. It was a rural town with dusty streets; trees lined the main roads acacias, with delicious scent. It was an