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People from the Book
More than fifty years after this photograph was taken, Horst Kutzner from Hobart could name nearly every man. It was an unexpected telephone call and it solved a puzzle. Who were the workers on the cover of the book, Echoes on the Mountain (2006)? Find out in my new book!
RALPH WEHSE – returned to a bombed out Berlin as a 15 year old, moved between eastern and western sectors and with his brother was injured in a Russian grenade attack.
KARLHEINZ BENNEWITZ – Less than a year after enlisting in the Kreigsmarine in 1945, he was captured and marched from Italy to become forced labour in camps in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
FRED LOERCH – A fifteen year old German conscript and POW. His story is about Bronte Park – the Hydro camps, Hydro workers and the camp cat.
HORST KUTZNER – Had his 22nd birthday in Bronte Park. Came from Neukölln, Germany. Horst spent fourteen years with the H E C in Tasmania.
GUNTER LION – Gunter recalled his stories, A retreat into Hell and, Australia here I come! Luckily there were no bullets with my name. Recollections of war time and peace time.
OTTO GUENTHER – Ursel, Otto’s wife, translated a diary that he wrote of his life-changing journey to Australia leaving Bremen on 29 May 1951 and arriving in Melbourne on 18 July 1951. Otto finished his pianting on the right of Liawenee in 1952.
HORST BRAEMER- from a Russian POW camp to Australia. The Liawenee Lads were Berlin contractors who arrived and worked together in one of Tasmania’s bleakest centres. These men and their families held regular reunions after leaving Liawenee.
The MONTMORENCY, a German ship, arrived in the Tamar River, Launceston in June 1855 with political and religious refugees. Ludwig and Christinia Dornauf were two who worked on farms around Longford that had offered sponsorship. This family and many others settled at Germantown, now Lilydale and farmed through the generations. A descendant, Ian Dornauf still farms in the Moltema district.
THE DUTCH – read about a Dutch group called the G7 who were the first seven families who moved to a place they called Little Groningen in southern Tasmania, after their home town in Holland. The Dutch were builders and businessmen and were responsible for construction all over the state of Tasmania.
A POLISH STORY – George Otlowski, as a teenager, escaped from Soviet occupied Poland to climb the Carpathian Mountains and join other Polish troops and the British Army. He fought side-by-side with the Australians at Tobruk in Africa and later settled in Hobart, Tasmania. His is a story of valour and hard work as with other Polish soldiers who knew they could not return to their home country.
MARATHON MAN – Vlastik Skvaril. Vlastik is retired and has been called “Fantastic Vlastik”. He has run the length and breadth of the continent of Australia and the island state of Tasmania raising funds for children with cancer – Camp quality, CanTeen and Make-A–Wish-Foundation. In 2009 he scootered from Darwin to Adelaide. His latest mission early in 2011 is one in which he plans to pull a rickshaw. Watch this space! He and his family escaped from Czechoslovakia to become admirable Australians.