Immigrant Tales: From Prussia to Australia

The Charles Dickens

It is mid-July 1877. Henriette Krause is at least seven months pregnant when the Charles Dickens, the three-masted steamer that left Hamburg on April 5 arrives near Brisbane. The ship's 510 passengers have now been traveling for three and a half months. They should be rejoicing upon nearing Australia's shores were it not that many are ill, plagued by typhus and measles. The stench is unbearable.

Henriette is near tears. The stoic endurance that has carried her through the last months is almost exhausted. She longs for space and fresh air, away from the cramped conditions of the ship. She is tired of having to sleep in a 1,8m by 45 cm space alongside hundreds. Her husband, Gustav, is as ignorant as she is about why they cannot disembark. Surely they have not come all the way from their homeland in East Prussia to be barred from setting foot on Australian soil? 

What is taking so long?

Soon the rumours circulate. The captain addresses them. They will be sheltered on nearby Peel Island. The health officer has inspected the ship. He has ordered them to be quarantined.

It will be seven more weeks until Henriette disembarks in Brisbane. Finally. She is now almost due to give birth.  Her bones strain under the weight of her swollen belly. Everything is surreal, here, at the Ipswich Depot where her husband enlists for work. The last five and a half months suddenly overwhelm Henriette and she reaches for her belly, gripping onto Gustav. It all comes back to her. What they have just lived. The unrelenting nausea. The monotony mingled with anxiety. She recalls those long stormy days and nights when the ship moaned dreadfully, while her and her companions were cramped in the damp darkness below deck. Their unwashed clothing, long imbued with sweat, dirt and salt, clung to their bodies giving off an inescapable odor that she would always remember; an odor that invited vermin and illness.  Some of their clothes had to be burned at Peel Island because they posed a contamination risk.

But then, a ray of light, a dash of hope. Gustav is smiling at her.  She hasn't seen him smile for months. He tells her that he has found an employment already. How efficient it all is now that they are finally arrived, here, in Brisbane. He is to go west of Toowoomba with his family where he will work as a labourer. The pay is low but he will be given some land to start anew. Their own land.

Their own land. It is a dream.

Henriette is relieved. It is just as well, she sighs.
Only a week later, she will give birth to the child that has journeyed with her all the way from Hamburg to Australia. It is a healthy boy.

Why would anyone go through this? Why? 

It is the question I asked myself. I am both relieved and horrified at this amazing feat. The human capacity to endure astounds me.

Krause family tree

Henriette had several children. The Krause seemed to have kept in touch with the German and Polish immigrant community in Queensland. One of Henriette's sons, Hermann Edward Krause, married Maria Martha Tewes who was herself born of German immigrants.

In turn their son, Allan Krause - my husband's grandfather - would marry a Polish immigrant.  When he died at 65, Allan was a true Aussie. He had enlisted to fight for Australia in WWII and was made a prisoner of the Japanese toward the end of the war. He would be marked by that experience.

My husband's father, Peter Krause, is effectively a mix of German and Polish. Like his ancestors, he is not averse to hard labor, honoring land and its produce, much like generations before him have done. His Australian wife is a tough cookie with an amazing open spirit and an endless curiosity. As a child, daughter of a long-distance drover, she rode to school on her large horse every day. Decades later, she has since travelled to China.

In Tara, in the year my husband was born, the townsfolk are not afraid to confront the tyrannical cops. Even if that means a fighting match. On the night of 19 August 1969,  Peter's wife feels the first pangs of labour. But Peter is not home. He has gone off to fight a cop. They send for him urgently; they come running to the ring and tell him to bloody hurry and that his son is being born. He has to get a friend to replace him in the boxing ring. And that's the climate into which Shane Krause makes his first appearance, some time before midnight.

Peter doesn't know it yet, but that little boy who interrupted his fighting match will grow up to be a screenwriter. 

In the early years of our relationship, Shane Krause would tell me that his last name was Prussian. By Prussian, he meant 'from the German-Prussian Empire' because Krause is a German name after all and one needs to distinguish the German-ruled Prussian Empire from authentic Old Prussia.

Old Prussia and its tribal regions

The region of Pomesania (left) is where the Krause family lived.

At the time they emigrated, it was part of the German-Prussian Empire.

Today it lies in Poland.

The Old Prussians were an ancient Baltic people. Fierce pagan tribes, they were likely extinguished by the evangelising medieval Teutonic Knights and, in later centuries, their numbers would have waned under the wave of migration that swept from Germany into Old Prussian land.

So the last name, Krause, is German. Alas, my wild fantasy of Shane being a direct descendant of some ancient oceanside clan that worshipped pagan deities, and sang deep-throated spiritual melodies like the one in this video, had to be tossed aside.

But my imagination was running wild, fueled by medieval scenes of sword-wielding knights riding from the West into Old Prussia, intent on ridding the land of these detested pagans, with the blessing of the Polish neighbours.  I had a vision that perhaps Krause had been the last name of some Teutonic Knight.

Teutonic Knight

by Andre Mazzocchetti

Picture this. He was a brutal man with noble convictions and let nothing cross what he believed was an honorable crusade. He was there, for sure, when the Teutonic Order defeated the Old Prussian tribe of the Pomesanians, and  when the Monastic State constructed the fortified castle that gave birth to the city of Christburg.

Reconstituted Christburg castle, now in ruins

Oh, it was all so believable and delicious. After all, Gustav Krause who came to Australia in 1877 with his heavily pregnant wife was in fact born in Christburg, today's Dzierzgoń. Surely that was a sign that his family had always been there for centuries? Ever since the time of the knights...

I pleased myself in this titillating fantasy. The idea that my very own Shane Krause was directly related to a Teutonic Knight was a historical novelist's porn.

Chrisburg

Who knows the truth. What is certain, is that some German family, perhaps several families, with the last name, Krause, did migrate to the region at any time between the 13th to the 18th century. Over this period, Christburg would be part of Poland for an extended time, hence the Polish name, Dzierzgoń.

By the time Gustav Krause was born in 1847, as far as he knew, his city was part the Kingdom of Prussia.  In this context, Christburg was part of West Prussia. But by 1871, when the German emperor, Bismarck, ruled and the German Empire was formed with Prussia as its leading state, Christburg eventually became part of East Prussia.
[Note: This is the reason why I found genealogical sources contradictory - some sources assert he was from West Prussia while some say he was born in East Prussia. It's all a matter of politics.]

And that's where I dug a little deeper and found the reason why Henriette Krause put up with being pregnant for an excruciatingly long journey.

In his essay on The Prussian-Polish Situation: An Experiment in Assimilation, William I. Thomas delves into Bismarck's policies, and the relationship between the Prussian-Germans and the Prussian-Poles.

After many centuries of Germans living side by side with Poles, one would expect intermarriage. And that is observable in my husband's ancestors.  Gustav Krause is a fine example of this multi-cultural situation. While his father was a Krause, his own mother with a last name of Reikowski, was Polish. Gustav had also wed Henriette Pukallus, also Polish. It is arguable that while the family spoke German, they most likely spoke Polish and felt partly Polish.

Having established that the family was as Polish as it was German, it really helped to explain why they would wish to leave at this time.

According to Thomas,
"as long as the peasant felt that the [German] government was friendly to him, he paid little attention to agitators. But in 1873 he was attacked by the government. At this point, Bismarck took a hand and decided to force the process of Germanization. He said he was not afraid of the Polish man, but of the Polish woman. She produced so many children. He undertook the task with apparent confidence, but he was profoundly deceived in his judgment of the peasant. He said that the peasant who had shed his blood so generously for Germany was at heart a true German [alluding to the recent Franco-Polish war]. The fact is, the peasant had been gradually losing sight of the fact that he was a Pole and the policy of Bismarck restored to him that consciousness."

Otto von Bismarck

Despite being part of the most powerful empire in Europe, one that had demonstrated its superior military might by recently defeating the French, Gustav and Henriette Krause were not enthused about their new German ruler, and with reason.

During the process of Germanisation, the German language became a substitute of the Polish tongue in the schools. Teachers who had no knowledge of Polish were favoured for employment by the education system. According to Thomas, "at this point the peasant knew that the government was his enemy."

There would be other reforms too, like the systematic purchasing of Polish land by the German government with the intent of settling it with Germans. Construction was also prohibited without a permit, which effectively denied Poles the right to build on newly acquired land, nor build further on the land they already owned.

It is no coincidence that when in 1877, Gustav and Henriette boarded the Charles Dickens, Henriette's brother, his wife and children - all Prussian Poles - were also on board.

Henriette's niece, Ottilie Ward, née Pukallus.

Ottilie Pukallus came to Australia on the Charles Dickens. 

She was then 2 years old.

They were all Prussian Poles who faced oppression by the German government. As a mixed blood person, Gustav Krause had not one culture, but two. With his Polish background and through his Polish wife's eyes, he could see the Polish perspective and identify with it. He could see the writing on the wall. He would have been supportive of leaving.

As for Henriette, pregnant or not, she was getting on that ship. If Bismarck had said that the Polish woman produced too many children, then Prussia was no place for a Polish woman to be making babies.

It was just as well, for in 1907 the German government passed an expropriation act, allowing it to seize any land which the colonisation commission desired but could not purchase. If you were a Pole and refused to sell your land, you were in for a horrid time.

So there you have it. After much research, my Teutonic and pagan fantasies have now long vanished. In their stead, reality - the tyranny of an imperial government intent on Germanisation; the desperate plight of a German-Polish family dissatisfied with their poor treatment and dreaming of a better world. All these things brought me my husband.

After all that, Shane Krause has kept his German name and most people do not know how complex his family's story truly is. On the face of it, he is descended from a “German immigrant". And so in a sense, Bismarck has had his way.

Candeau Drawings

Bourgeois Ladies

When I was a little girl and living in France, I stumbled upon gorgeous sketches. These had been drawn by some distant aunt or cousin of my grandfather, at the turn of the 20th century.

I can barely remember the artists' names but these drawings were so lovely that I wondered why they were packed away in a dusty folder, together with my grandfather's genealogy files and century old research documents.

Mes Petits Bretons - an homage to Brittany

Bretons youth in traditional costume, dancing over the sea 
with the outline of a Carnac dolmen on the horizon

My grandfather, Yves Candeau, probably noted my intense interest in his genealogy work because upon his last visit to Australia, he left all his original jaundiced files at my parents' home. The edited and digitised version of his work was copied multiple times, and shared with each of my relatives. But I had the privilege of seeing his old files in our lounge closet.

When I left home, I took with me Yves Candeau's files and the drawings that in my youth, I had longed to unveil.

This is what you see in this post and I'm so happy to be able to finally share them.

The words "Je pense a vous souvent" (I think of you often) 

appear on this lovely Art Nouveau sketch

Detail from Mes Petits Bretons (my ultimate favourite)


It goes without saying that if you wish to digitally use or reference any of these drawings (and any personal photos I have previously posted in this blog) please do not do so without my permission. On the other hand, any reproduction and printing of these drawings is out of the question. These drawings remain copyright and belong to Yves Candeau's descendants. Thank you. :)

Vietnamese Child

Peering into old family albums, while visiting my Vietnamese grandmother in France, revealed a treasure trove of historical wonders.

One afternoon during May, I found this wonderful photo of my grandmother, Phuong Lan.

Phuong Lan at ten

I was blown away, partly by the intensity of her gaze and the exoticism of the Vietnamese setting. I loved the way her hand reaches out to caress that leaf. It is a hauntingly beautiful photo. But its meaning deepens and inspires sadness once you understand my grandmother's past. 

You must know that my grandmother's mother, a Vietnamese princess, had eloped with a French man when Phuong Lan was only an infant. Princess Cong-Nu-Cuc-Phuong discarded her baby, leaving Phuong Lan with her father, never to return. Maybe I am imagining this but my grandmother's expression in this photo is so solemn that I can't help but feel that she would have deeply resented her  abandonment as a child.

She is ten years old in this photo and you will notice that her hair is completely shaved. I asked her why. In response, she gave a shy smile and answered, "That is the way we did things."

Since my return from France, I conducted a little research and I found that it is common practice in traditional Vietnamese communities to shave off a child's head. A newborn's hair is considered 'dirty' or not as healthy. It is believed that by shaving it off, one gives better chance for new, healthier hair to grow later. From a rational viewpoint, this practice would at least inhibit lice and other disease-carrying agents. 

Another interesting finding is that Vietnamese parents traditionally resort to practices that aim to 'confuse the evil spirits' who otherwise might harm their child. It is best, for example, to refer to a child with an unpleasant name rather than use words that praise how beautiful it is. The idea is that lurking spirits, feared for their ability to cause a child's illness or death, would not be attracted to an 'ugly' child. Similarly a girl, with a shaved head could look less attractive to the evil spirits hence ensuring that she is kept safe.

I mentioned in a post years ago, that when she married my grandfather, Yves Candeau, one of the conditions placed on my grandmother by her mandarin father was that she ought to never cut her hair. At this time, when she was twenty-four, her hair had grown long and healthy, down to her ankles. I ignore whether the shaving she had been subjected as a child had paid off, but she certainly had an abundant bunch of gorgeous hair as an adult!

And here she is in all her glory. 

She told me this is one of her favorite photos. 

Rahme Origins and Musings

Said Rahme

Those with a love of history will naturally become interested in their family genealogy at some point in life.
I developed a genealogical interest ever since I was able to read. How could I not. After all, my grandmother was a Vietnamese aristocrat and above the spiral staircase in my grandparents' home hung a gold framed portrait of some 19th century French ancestor, a slave trader who had died of Yellow fever in the Caribbeans.

This is the puzzling environment where I found myself growing up.

But I digress...
If you are interested, you can find ramblings on my family's genealogy from my blog, Les Nuits Masquees:

Tran Tien Family Genealogy
Candeau Family Genealogy (incomplete for now)

But today I want to talk a little of the other half of me. The Rahme side.
Because in case you do not know this already, I am half Lebanese.

The Lebanese Diaspora
So what does it mean to be a Rahme? Well first of all, just as there are Lebanese people who have emigrated all over the world, there are also Rahmes all over the world. Let us have a look at the top 10 countries in the world outside Lebanon where Rahmes can be found:

• Brazil
• United States
• Argentina
• Colombia - not a Rahme but Shakira is a fine example of a Colombian with Lebanese descent
• Australia - no surprises here, most of my Lebanese family lives in Australia
• Canada
• Mexico - Salma Hayek is a good example of a Mexican of Lebanese descent
• Venezuela
• France
• Saudi Arabia

Further down in the list depicted in this Lebanese Diaspora source, we find that Senegal also has a decent population of Lebanese immigrants. Interestingly, this is where my Lebanese grandparents chose to emigrate during the 1930s. It is also where my father was born and where I, too, was born.

Rahme - The Homeland
In Lebanon, Rahmes originate from the mountainous village of Bcharre, also written Bsharri, itself the capital of the Bsharri District in Northern Lebanon. The Bsharri District encompasses Mt Lebanon, an area rich in cedar wood (yes, it's that tree on the Lebanese flag). The area of coastal Lebanon was once the home of the Phoenicians who used cedar wood from Mt Lebanon to build their ships (and then supposedly discovered America long before Columbus). Lebanon itself has been populated by Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Mamluks and Ottomans.

Bsharri District has around 26 villages. But here, we are concerned with the actual village of Bsharri.

This happens to be the village where New York based writer Khalil Gibran was born.

Khalil Gibran's portrait of his mother, Kamila Rahme

Khalil Gibran wrote of his mother, Kamila Rahme:

"Ninety per cent of my character and inclinations 

were inherited from my mother 

(not that I can match her sweetness, gentleness and magnanimity.)"

Source:  http://www.aina.org/ata/20080415171605.htm

The source describes this Kamila as "graceful, pretty, strong willed".

One is tempted to leave it at that and bask in the glory of this exquisite Kamila and her deeply philosophical and melancholic son.
But we need to dig deeper...

Rahme - Meaning of the Name
The origin of the name Rahme comes from the Arabic root RHM, which means mercy or compassion. This is similar to the Aramaic root RHM. Both imply "to be compassionate" or "to have mercy".

Rahme is actually a diminutive name. Its complete form was once Rahmet-Allah where the possessive et implies of God. So Rahmet-Allah means, Mercy of God. While this might be obvious to many, I will re-iterate it here, Allah is the Arabic and Aramaic word for God. It is a linguistic term rather than a religious term. Allah means God, regardless of whether one is Jewish,  Muslim or Christian.

Culture and Historical Origins
Most Rahmes are Christians of one of two sorts: Maronite or Roman Catholic. For example, I was born into the Roman Catholic Church while many of my relatives are from the Maronite Church. Not that it matters much in family gatherings but it is worth pondering over.

How did this come about?
Christianity had existed in the area that is now Lebanon from as far as St Peter's time and possibly since Jesus' visit in Tyre and Sidon. In the Bible, references to Lebanon are made through Canaan, that is, the land of "milk and honey". Yes, that Canaan. Despite the lascivious reputation of the Baal and Ishtar worshipping Canaanites, it would appear that quite a number of them embraced Christianity through St Peter's influence.
Up to the 4th Century AD, these Lebanese Christians were attached to the Patriarch of Antioch in Byzantium. This was to change when many began to follow the preachings of an ascetic monk, St Maron, who was himself influenced by Orthodox Christian teachings. This, however was at odds with Greek Orthodoxy and the Maronite Christians were soon persecuted by the despotic Byzantine Emperor, Justinian II. It was at this point that led by St Maron, they sought refuge in Mt Lebanon.

Later, Maronites faced further persecution from conquering Arabs who formed the Umayyad Caliphate of which Mt Lebanon became part.

Note that the Western world did not know of the existence of these Maronite Christians until they were 'discovered' by the Crusaders. And much later, following the 16th century, Dominicans and Fransiscans sent by Rome began to convert some of the Maronites into the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore following the 16th century, my ancestors departed from the Maronite faith.

I found this interesting description of the people of Bsharri from a Mt Lebanon website:

In Lebanon, Bsharri natives are characterized as very courageous and fiercely tribal. They are especially known for their distinct accent when they speak Arabic. Unlike other parts of Lebanon, Aramaic was spoken in Bsharri well into the 1800s. As a result, Bsharri natives developed an unmistakably strong accent which lasts to this day and which they are very proud of.

I note here the words "courageous" and "tribal". I do not think these traits are inaccurate given that it was to escape religious persecution that the Maronite Christians of Lebanon settled in the village of Bsharri in the 7th Century AD.
At an altitude of 1,650 meters, the relative isolation of this mountainous village provided security from further persecution while at the same time, it demanded that the inhabitants cultivate a certain level of solidarity for community survival. This strong need for community support would have reinforced tribal sentiments. Courage goes without saying.

Famine - Why there should have been more Rahmes
Following the Umayyad and Abbasids Caliphate, Lebanon came into the hands of the Mamluks and later under Turk Ottoman rule. This meant that in WWI, when the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and Austria, Lebanon along with Syria, was drawn into conflict against the 'allies'.

Wow, my ancestors were part of the axis of evil. Fancy that!
But it gets a little dark right about here...

In 1915, Jamal Pasha, then Commander in Chief of the Turkish forces in Syria, initiated a blockade along the entire Eastern Mediterranean coast. This was to limit supplies to the enemy, that is, the English and French.

Unfortunately, this had disastrous effects. The lack of incoming food supply at a time when locusts had destroyed much of the country's crops caused a severe famine, notably in Mt Lebanon in Bsharri District where a third of the population perished.

I suppose that some of my relatives would have perished or suffered too.

The French Connection - Yep, there is always one
Now why is it, that many Lebanese, including the Rahme clan, can speak fluent French?

Following WWI, when the 'allies' distributed among themselves the land of those who had been defeated, France was given a mandate over Lebanon by the League of Nations. Naturally given past persecution under the Muslim Arabs, the people of Mt Lebanon, Bsharri village included, greeted the French as liberators. The French mandate, which favoured the Maronite Christians, lasted for 20 years.
In WWII, soon after France became occupied by Germany, Lebanon regained its independence.

Nevertheless today in Lebanon, Arabic is the first spoken tongue, and French is the second. Many Lebanese living in Lebanon would be fluent in both languages.

Following WWII, Lebanon took in an influx of more than 110000 Palestinian refugees. We know the rest of this story and the decades of conflict that ensued. This is not the place to dwell into it.

My Grandparents
So this is all very well. But who are my grandparents? And who is that sad guy in the first photo?

Said Rahme was born in Lebanon in 1912. I know that he would have certainly experienced the famine of 1915 and beyond since he was at least three years of age at that time.

In 1935, he married my grandmother, Mariam Yakoub, in Tyre before they both emigrated to Dakar, Senegal. I believe they took a ship to get there but I am unsure of the exact itinerary.

In Dakar, Said Rahme owned his own business as do many Lebanese who live in Senegal. Why on earth would they choose Dakar... Remember the French connection? Just as Lebanon was under French mandate in those days, Senegal too had been a French colony since the late 19th century. This means that Said Rahme not only spoke Lebanese Arabic but also French. I believe this would have facilitated the migration to Senegal.  Language is after all, an important consideration when emigrating to a country.

Growing up in Senegal, my father spoke French and Arabic. He also developed strong notions of Wolof, the main Senegalese dialect. In fact most of my older Lebanese relatives who have since emigrated to Australia, understand a bit of Wolof. They've often called themselves the 'African-Lebanese'. Amusing but true! Isn't it amazing how culture can mutate? I am sure I could digress right about here but I won't...

In 1937, Said Rahme was voluntarily enlisted in the "Troupes Coloniales", that is, France's colonial military troops. It was during WWII that my father was born.

Said Rahme's Colonial Recruit Booklet in WWII

Following WWII, I know little of my grandfather's life but I believe that money was short and indeed this led to my father discontinuing school in his early teens in order to contribute to the financial comfort of the family. Said Rahme had six children in total, four boys and two girls. This, together with family hardship, did not stop my grandparents from opening their hearts to another baby, a female relative whose mother had died in childbirth, such that Said and Mariam's children eventually numbered seven in total. They are now all living in Australia.

When my father was 16 years old, I note that Said Rahme took an interesting journey into Lebanon. He actually died not long after that and was quite ill so perhaps this was a final trip to his homeland before the inevitable.

The journey is fascinating and can be traced using the visa stamps on his Lebanese passport.

He boarded a ship in Dakar on 17 April 1959. The vessel took six days along the Western coast of Africa then across the Mediterranean all the way to Marseilles in France where he arrived on 23 April.
The next day, he boarded another ship which, as far as I can make out from the Cyrillic letters on the stamp,  took him to the port of Piraeus in Athens, Greece. This journey took five days so that he arrived on 29 April. He then traveled from Piraeus to Alexandria, Egypt arriving in Egypt on 1 May. And finally, he took another ship to arrive in Beirut, Lebanon on 3 May.
The entire journey from Dakar to Beirut took him just over two weeks!!

Said remained in Lebanon for just under six months and returned to Dakar in the same way, starting from Beirut and travelling via Alexandria, Athens and Marseilles.

At some stage during his residency in Dakar, Said Rahme along with his wife and children acquired the French Nationality. Here is his French identity card. This was why my father was a French national even before he married my mother who was French by birth, and why I also became a French national.

I never knew my grandfather since he died in 1966. My father was not even married then and so my mother never met Said Rahme.

He remains, for me at least, quite an enigmatic figure. According to family accounts he was kind and peaceful. In photos, I note the melancholic air in his eyes. I think to a degree, my father can be quite melancholic too and this same dreaminess is a part of me in many ways.

There are possibly more stories I could draw from interviewing my family but that will have to do for now. Perhaps another time, if you will forgive my self-indulgence.