How I became an Australian twice

Citizenship ceremonies have a special meaning for me.

My parents, Libby and Henry, now deceased, migrated from what is now the Czech Republic to Australia in 1948, my father to lecture in mathematics at the University of Tasmania.

I was born in Hobart and, a couple of years later, my parents were naturalised at a ceremony in the Hobart Town Hall.

In the photo, which featured on the front page of the Hobart Mercury, you can see the local civic authority dressed in a most un-Noosa-like way, towering over the three of us.

Hobart was a turning point for my parents. During World War II, Henry, who had a Jewish father, was interned in labour camps. After the war, as Czechoslovakia steadily fell under Communist control, my parents, not then together, migrated separately, met up in Hobart and married.

They never returned to the Czech Republic.

They never wanted to. There were too many bad memories.

Henry had lost his father and most of that side of the family to the Nazi concentration camps.

When I was five, the family made a huge move from Hobart to Edmonton in Canada, where my father was appointed Professor of Mathematics at the University of Alberta. We became Canadian citizens and had to relinquish our Australian citizenships.

I was educated in Canada, completing school and my first degree, and then, under very different circumstances than my parents’ migration, I made my way back to Australia.

In the Sydney suburb of Mosman, 30 years after my parents had been naturalised, I became an Australian citizen again at a ceremony in the Town Hall. That’s me in the middle of the photo. The civic authority still wore a wig.

It is a joy that Noosa holds citizenship ceremonies several times a year. Whenever I attend one, I feel appreciative of living in our beautiful shire and very touched watching people make a commitment to our great country.

More than seven million Australians, 30 per cent of our population, was born overseas.

At citizenship ceremonies, I think of them and all that they’ve done for our country.