Sharon

“I came to Australia as a damaged grown up adult, and it took me years to heal, so my perspective of the national Australian pride is not full. It [assimilation] penetrates, it’s
accepted, it’s tolerated, and I think the third generation it is absorbed. I don’t know about the second generation, - Holocaust survivor, Kitia Altman”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“When we came and rented the North Perth home, my father had a little ice chest, and on top of the ice chest was a radio. And we were sitting at our lunch time on Sunday eating dinner after church, and my Mum says, ‘Look where we’ve ended up. We’ve got a table cloth on our table, we’ve got food on our plate, and we’re listening to music.’ That was a big thing for my mother. - Mrs Helen Doropoulos, Greece”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“Very much. Very much a melting pot. You don’t draw lines anymore. There’s no such thing as ‘bloody this’ or ‘bloody that’. There’s no such thing anymore. We all Aussies. And the Aussies respect us as Aussies. I am accepted as an Australian and I feel like one too. - Ibolya Cabrero-Kovacs, Hungarian Freedom Fighter”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66

“Europeans the Poles or Balts coming in here … we brought here knowledge with us and our culture with us, but we assimilated … assimilated is not one way, it’s a two-way street. - Fred Ritzkowski, German”
― Peter Brune, Suffering, Redemption and Triumph: The first wave of post-war Australian immigrants 1945-66