Where Do You Come From?

Nado Aveling

Description

In telling her story, Juliana, the heroine of Where Do You Come From?, has to dig deep to face the ghosts of her past while at the same time dealing with the everyday struggles of a woman''s life. She is a feminist, a mother, a scholar and a witch whose story begins at a time when war and the threat of war shaped the world. Yet despite the ups and downs, she emerges triumphant as she approaches the end of a life that has been well lived.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528958226
• Langue: English

Extrait

Where Do You Come From?
Nado Aveling
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-10-30
Where Do You Come From? About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information © Chapter 1 Where Do You Come From? Where Do You Belong? Setting the Scene for My Conception How I Came to Have Foster Parents Life with Mama and Papa My Maternal Grandparents Other Relatives Wolfgang, My Stepfather Chapter 2 Were Members of My Family Complicit in an Oppressive Regime? My German Heritage Juliana Johann Hans and Franz Ruth (Not) Talking About the War Decoupling Responsibility from Individual Blame Chapter 3 A Good Girl or a Rebellious Child? Early Memories Memories of School Being the Middle Child A New House Trying to Understand My Mother Leaving Germany Chapter 4 Being a Migrant Kid Arriving in Australia Beginning to Settle In Our Life in Oak Flats Missing Mama and Papa Going to School and Making Friends An Ensemble of Admirers Wolfgang’s Stories Transition from School to Adulthood Leaving Home to Go to New Zealand Chapter 5 And They Lived Happily Ever After? Living and Working in Auckland Becoming Pregnant and Getting Married Having Adventures Driving Across the Nullarbor Making a Home in Perth Having Children and Being a ‘Good Wife’ Being Involved in Life as a Stay-at-Home Mum Returning to Europe Chapter 6 I Was Not a Good Wife Trouble Brewing in Paradise A Woman’s Work Is Never Done Caitlin and Richard Gough Whitlam and the Education Revolution Changing Gender Roles Breaking Up Taking Sannyas Being a Single Parent Chapter 7 An Indian Intermezzo Nanga Bush Camp Juliana and Harrison Going to Poona Travelling in India Confession Time Chapter 8 He Was Not a Good Husband An Eventful Year Life in Melbourne From Melbourne back to Perth Raising Children and Surviving in My Chaotic World The End of an Indecent Obsession Chapter 9 Reimagining and Reinventing My Life My Very Own Home Focusing on a Career Being an Academic The Magic of Study Leave Colleagues and Friends Chapter 10 Births, Deaths and a Marriage Five Births One Wedding… Wolfgang (1921−1988) Giselle (1938−2007) Ruth (1921−2014) Chapter 11 The Craft of the Wise Beginnings The Coven of E-Anna Remembering the Rituals; Remembering the People Chapter 12 Looking for David: A Melodrama in Three Acts Act 1: Time for Truth-Telling Act 2: Juliana and Joshua’s Excellent Adventures Paris Act 3: All Is Well That Ends Well Chapter 13 Returning to the Country of My Birth in Order to Better Understand My Life Flowers and Revolution Birch Trees and Studying Strange Customs in Germany Jewish Bonn The Burning Times Beilstein on the River Moselle On Food, Boredom and Doing Ethnography A Short Digression to Discuss Public Conveniences ‘Cheesemats’ and Other Wonders The Giant ‘Village’ of Berlin Football Hooligans, East Berlin / West Berlin and Käthe Kollwitz A Comment on German Reunification Meandering to Lindau on the Night Train Crossing the Baltic Sea to Finland Chapter 14 I Tried to Dance with What Life Had to Hand Me Who Am I and Where Do I Belong? Children Have Their Own Story Love, Independence and a Room of One’s Own Retirement A Retirement Adventure with Josh Looking to the Future
About the Author
Nado Aveling spent her working life juggling her role of mother to four children, with the demands of being an academic. With her children grown and retirement looming, she returned to writing poems and stories, a pastime that she had enjoyed as a child. Certainly, retirement afforded the creative space to think about the way women’s lives unfold. Where Do You Come From? is the result.
About the Book
In telling her story, Juliana, the heroine of  Where Do You Come From? , has to dig deep to face the ghosts of her past while at the same time dealing with the everyday struggles of a woman’s life. She is a feminist, a mother, a scholar and a witch whose story begins at a time when war and the threat of war shaped the world. Yet despite the ups and downs, she emerges triumphant as she approaches the end of a life that has been well lived.
Dedication
Dedicated to all the women who have a story to tell.
Copyright Information ©
Nado Aveling (2019)
The right of Nado Aveling to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528958226 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1

Where Do You Come From? Where Do You Belong?

Setting the Scene for My Conception
I am a feminist, a mother, a migrant, a scholar and a witch. This is my story; a story that begins, not with my birth or my childhood, but in an earlier time when war and the threat of war shaped the world. So, let me introduce my mother Ruth, who was born in 1921 in Bonn, Germany. It seems like the best place to begin.
Ruth was a ballet dancer and by all accounts was quite gifted as she was given free lessons. However, her parents did not understand her passion for classical ballet and despite almost insurmountable obstacles, Ruth pursued her dream for many years. Several entries in her journal are particularly poignant:
I can’t remember my parents ever coming to see me perform. Even when I passed my first examination, no one was interested. My mother didn’t have time for such nonsense and my parents used to say: “Why do you want to be a dancer? You can’t earn a living with that. Better learn to cook and run a household because you’ll get married anyway.” I was always needed to help at home and I did everything I was asked to the best of my ability just so I could go to my ballet lessons. The Ballet mistress, on seeing my hands, often said to me: “My goodness, Ruth what have you been doing?” I suppose the thought never crossed her mind that I had duties at home.
Sometimes, I got small parts for the matinee performance. When I was late home there was invariably a huge fight. It worked fairly well if rehearsals were early, but you never really knew when you were wanted on stage—if things weren’t going well it could be hours before our call because the ballet scenes were just a small part of the opera. Often, I used to watch from the wings and forget all about the time. That way I got to see all the major operas, even though it was in bits and pieces.
At the theatre, a well-known character actress took me under her wing. When she had the time she used to call me into her dressing room, where I was allowed to tidy up while she spoke to me. It was she who made it possible for me to take my second ballet exam in Vienna. She introduced me to the ballet mistress there and I immediately got a job as soloist. That was later after the war had started and my daughter Giselle was already born. But my husband and my mother put an end to that.
Ruth became pregnant at the age of seventeen and subsequently married Hans, the father of her child. Her parents were against the marriage, but the Nazi 1 regime encouraged young marriages and the state provided generous loans to young couples. In March 1939, Ruth’s daughter Giselle was born. Then war intervened and the promise of a happy family of her own came crashing down.
Seven years later in February 1946, Ruth gave birth to another little girl. I was that little girl who was born nine months after the cessation of World War 2 in Europe. 2 I was named Juliana after my maternal grandmother. As a child, I loved hearing Ruth—whom I called Mutti—tell stories about her life and was particularly interested in the details of my conception given that my mother’s husband had contested paternity. Whilst Mutti continued to insist that Hans was my biological father, as I grew up I began to have a sense that there were parts of her story that she wasn’t telling.
Bonn, my mother’s hometown, is a small university town on the banks of the river Rhine that lays claim to being the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. The magnificent bronze cast in his likeness has stood on the Münsterplatz since its unveiling in 1845 and surprisingly it escaped destruction when everything else was obliterated. During the raids on 17 th and 18 th October 1944, Ruth was away from home when the sirens sounded. Wanting to get back to Giselle, she decided that instead of taking refuge in the nearest public bomb shelter at the Münsterplatz she would press on. Had she gone to the public shelter my story would end at this point, as it later became known that hundreds of people had asphyxiated in that very shelter. My mother wrote in her journal that in subsequent years she would never cross the square because she believed that the dead were still buried there. On my occasional visits to Bonn, it has become my practice to have my morning coffee at one of the cafes located beneath Beethoven’s gaze and to ponder the twists of fate that made my birth possible.
Following the 1944 bombing raids, my maternal grandparents insisted that Mutti go to Dresden—a city renowned for its baroque and rococo city centre—where she would be able to live with her aunt Lisbet. However, given its reputation for being a safe city, Dresden had become a haven for refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army so accommodation was scarce. Hence, Mutti was billeted at a farm some distance outside Dresden, a city that would be bombed between the thirteenth and fifteenth of February 1945. My mother wrote in her journal:
You could hear the eastern front drawing closer and closer. Every day, the