eBook Listing

How did a seven-year-old boy born in a small Polish town get caught up in the dislocation, losses and trauma of the Holocaust, one step ahead of the advancing Nazis, yet

survive? Despite hunger, fear, loneliness and loss, with the help and guidance of others, Zwi Lewin eventually came to Australia which he gratefully embraced.

 

Though a successful businessman and now patriarch of a large family, he has never forgotten his 'sack full of memories', and has spent a lifetime remembering the family members lost to him.

 

Now, without bitterness or sentimentality, he tells his story in this moving memoir, creating a vivid account of the places and people on his journey, the different languages he had to learn and his wonderful subsequent family life in Australia.

‘For some, especially those who’ve been born in the twenty-first century, the accounts of my early years may seem like the reports from a planet in a different galaxy. If so, I cannot altogether blame them. There are times when I feel just the same.
‘But I hope, as they read about my inter-planetary travel, and as perhaps some of my friends and Nosson’s join them for the journey, they’ll be able to share the adventure. For that is what life with Nosson was: a marvellous and thrilling adventure … I know what a blessing it is to have friends and family. Life has been good to me. I try to do whatever I can the best way I know how.’

Nechama Werdiger has had a long and fascinating life. Growing up under the Soviet Union’s harsh antisemitism, she endured the war years as a child in Uzbekistan where thousands of Jews sought refuge from the Holocaust. She and her family managed to escape to Poland and France before arriving in 1949 in Australia. Through hard work, a strong sense of family and unswerving faith, she and her husband Nossom built a successful new life in Melbourne. Generous, wise, kind and caring, Nechama will inspire you with her life story.

Louise Davitt, a young Australian anthropologist, and Zeno Wolde, an Ethiopian doctor and fellow anthropologist, research and explore isolated villages and tribal lands in Ethiopia, making fascinating discoveries about the people, the environment and themselves. While working for reform to lift poor peasants out of poverty, they fall in love and marry then have a child. Zeno's work takes him away from home for long stretches of time, then he disappears. Louise visits family in London and is diagnosed with HIV, contracted from Zeno. With effective management and drugs, Louise copes with her serious illness and its stigma - a stigma that at the time in Ethiopia and Kenya, made it impossible for Zeno to seek appropriate treatment. She meets a Norwegian doctor, Haawkon Davos, and builds a new career with its reach and compassion for people with HIV/AIDS, especially across Africa.

'A moving tale of cross-cultural endeavour dealing with problems that for millions of people are all too real. Rees' knowledge of this complex world is evident; his compassion for the powerless shines through.' - Cate Kennedy - author of Sing and Don't Cry: a Mexican Journal

A teenage boy, an only child, is forced to leave his German homeland and loving family. For the first time in his life he finds himself utterly alone and ill-prepared for what lies ahead. Armed only with a small suitcase, a ten-shilling note and his mother's advice echoing in his ears - 'Learn to speak English as quickly as you can' - he is gradually forced to face the shocking prospect of losing his home and family forever.

This is the true story of Lutz Eichbaum's admirable achievement in navigating his way through World War II, one of the most treacherous and cruel periods in world history. He witnessed the drama and injustice of four traumatic historical events: the violence of Kristallnacht, the mercy rescue of the Kindertransport program, the horrific voyage on the Dunera and subsequent years of deplorable and isolated internment in Australia. He found hope, friendship and solace in the impressively organised internment camp community as they continually appealed for justice and finally earned the right to recreate themselves in a strange country.

Lutz Eichbaum [Ernie Everett] is one of the youngest of the renowned 'Dunera Boys'. While interned in Australia, the internees set up and administered their own township with Hay currency (which is now a valuable collectors' item) and an unofficial "university". When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the prisoners were reclassified as "friendly aliens" and released by the Australian Government. Hundreds were recruited into the Australian Army and about a thousand stayed when offered residency at the end of the war. Almost all the rest made their way back to Britain, many of them joining the armed forces there. Others were recruited as interpreters or into the intelligence services.

Nothing remains of Hay camp except a road called Dunera Way and a memorial stone which reads: This plaque marks the 50th anniversary of the arrival from England of 1,984 refugees from Nazi oppression, mistakenly shipped out on HMT 'Dunera' and interned in Camps 7 & 8 on this site from 7.9.1940 to 20.5.1941. Many joined the AMF on their release from internment and made Australia their homeland and greatly contributed to its development. Donated by the Shire of Hay - September 1990.

Tully's great-great uncle Michael was hanged for murder more than a century ago. According to family lore, he was attacked in a pub - accused by his attacker because as an Irish immigrant he was taking work from locals. At a time when anti-Irish prejudice was rampant during an economic depression, he never stood a chance of justice.

 

The bare bones of the story are more or less 'true' but have been fleshed out using the author's imagination. Michael's family emigrated from County Donegal in Ireland to Tyneside in northern England sometime in the 1890s. They had planned to go to America but their ship never turned up in Cork. The title, On an Alien Shore, is taken from James Horsley's poem 'An Emigrant's Sigh'.

 

Although these sad events took place long ago, the themes are very relevant today, with so many refugees, asylum seekers, 'economic migrants' and resurgent racism.

 

"On an Alien Shore presents a vivid background of the poverty and squalor of late 19th century Tyneside with its slums, its appalling working conditions, its pubs and prisons. Against this background plays out a well-told story of romance, family love and pride. It is in marked contrast to most period melodramas because of its emphasis on the empowering role of the union movement. Most of all, On an Alien Shore stands as an indictment both of unthinking racial prejudice and of laissezfaire capitalism. In both these regards it is not only an insight into history, but a monitory tale for today." - Tim Thorne

It is the late 1960s. Rebellion and "doing your own thing" is in. But while the majority of Australians flock to the beaches, one young man heads inland to find his patch of dirt and follow his dream.

 

On the banks of Moonan Brook, surrounded by inhospitable and barely accessible bushland, a local on his horse stumbles across this twenty-three-year old with his inappropriate vehicle, a dog named Doggo, and a girlfriend sitting under a tree reading a book. He listens as the pale young city-slicker with a mannered accent tells him he wants to go bush.

 

What drives him over the next fifty years to build and maintain a bush hut in challenging terrain will captivate the imagination as the dreamt-of patch materialises, a hut is built and grows, and the forest "tamed".

 

Henry Lawson or Henry Thoreau?

 

Along the way we catch glimpses of his fellow travellers who come and go over the years, each contributing in their own way to the fulfilment of one man's unwavering vision.  Romances form and fade, friendships will span generations and continents. And through it all threads the forest: its plants, its creatures, its quiet power.

 

Until finally, time dictates a letting go .…

Twenty-five years after Gabrielle Gouch left her native land, Transylvania, communism collapsed and the author returned to Romania from Australia to visit her half-brother Tom who told her stories about his life under communism. Though the story is factual, the author uses her strong eye for detail and the techniques of fiction to create this engaging and thought-provoking account about ordinary people in turbulent times. These sad and funny tales are interleaved with the story of the rest of the family from which Tom became estranged.

This memoir portrays the exodus of Jewish families from Romania and their arrival in the Promised Land, a dream come true for some but a shock for others. It explores issues of identity, disability, emigration and family relationships against a background of the major political events of the time from a perspective that challenges some accepted views.

This is the story of an emotional journey by an aging woman who still wants love and sex in her life and who is desperately trying to hold on to her long hair, her good looks and her youthful figure. Carole Lethbridge discovered at the age of 65 that she wanted romance back in her life after recovering from a serious bout of cancer. Her friend suggested she give internet dating a go as the chance of meeting someone suitable where she lived in the Blue Mountains was virtually nil.

Online Dating After Sixty describes her internet and other dating experiences, as well as her responses to retirement, aging and friendship, many humorous conversations with local women and friends about aging and sex. Within days of her profile becoming live on RSVP, a 68-year-old guy walked into her life. The following week he was in her bed and she was besotted. He turned out to be a dishonest, uncommitted, unfaithful Lothario who was active on four other internet dating sites while involved with her. After having online contact with another 38 guys, she comes to the conclusion that finding a suitable and honest guy on internet dating sites wasn't like finding a needle in a haystack - it was more like finding a needle that had been dropped into the Pacific Ocean from an orbiting satellite!

Nonetheless, Carole did eventually find a partner through the internet and has now settled down to a happy and contented relationship.

The bumbling and eternally famished Grafton Everest appointed as the first Australian Secretary-General of the United Nations? A secret game of Australian Rules football skilfully played by Tutsis and Dinkas in a tiny African state?
In this novel our hapless hero reaches the culmination of his haphazard career. Despite Grafton’s fervent hope that it will be a purely honorary position, he finds himself forced to actively head an organisation not only made ineffective by its Byzantine organisation, but threatened by a deadly conspiracy within its own ranks.
Our woebegone world leader not only endures attempted kidnappings and assassination but finds that a mysterious young woman who has been assigned to write his biography is possibly not who or what she seems. On top of this unwanted intrigue, Grafton discovers that, despite having no desire to save the world, or anything else, he is an essential part of a plan, implemented by a rough-edged Australian diplomat, to avert a looming global disaster – a plan which, strangely, seems to involve Australian Rules football.

‘Pandemonium is a work of comic brilliance, a perfect consummation of the uproarious Grafton Everest series’ – Nigel Marsh, Smart, Stupid Sixty
‘Grafton Everest is a wonderful creation whom I would place without question in the ranks of Phillip Roth’s Portnoy and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim.’ – Barry Humphries

Seen through the eyes of an illiterate twelve-year-old boy, Nava Semel's moving, at times lyrical fiction explores life in the Palestine of the 1930s - a world where a young Jew is prepared to undertake multiple marriages to threatened East European women for patriotic reasons alone; where a boy's closest friends are a dog named after his hero Johnny Weissmuller (the screen Tarzan of blessed memory), his brother's first wife, and the girl next door. Semel weaves a rich evocation of love and pain and promises, written with eloquent humanity and verve.

The most amazing Jewish story of Gallipoli and the ANZAC Light Horsemen ever published in Australia.

John Henry Patterson (1867-1947) was a non-Jewish British army officer who sought to help the Jews to create a Jewish state in Palestine. He was involved with such major figures as Vladimir Jabotinsky and Trumpledor.
Jabotinsky and Patterson also believed that Jews, within the boundaries of a Jewish state in Palestine, would treat peaceful minorities with much more compassion and tolerance than they themselves would be treated if they attempted to be the peaceful minority.

Jews have made a profound on-field and off-field contribution to just about every sport in Australia. Their feats have encompassed world championships, AFL premierships, Olympic selection and medals. Their legacies in sports administration and business are many: saved sporting codes, reinvigorated national competitions and mended the bodies of champion athletes. They have climbed Mount Everest and the major peaks of the world.

Yet their stories of courage, resilience and ingenuity are largely untold. Until now.

For the first time, leading journalists, writers and broadcasters have come together in this edited collection to share a new and compelling perspective on Australian Jews. People of the Book they have always been, but People of the Boot they are now too.

Featuring the AFL peace team breaking barriers; Jessica Fox and Olympic glory; Michael Klinger's path to vindication; Sir Frank Lowy's soccer transformation; The Maccabiah Bridge collapse two decades on; St Kilda's 1966 yom kippur premiership; the moral fortitude of the NRL's Todd Greenburg; Larry Kestelman's hoop dreams; and much more...

 

So begins JFK Miller’s account of his ten-day jungle trek along Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Track. The journey was effectively two journeys. The external journey was the physical ten-day trek over the track. The internal journey was the emotional aspect, including what Miller brought to the experience — the mental illness of depression — and what he gained from it.

A highly regarded text on the intersection of mass media and sports. First published 1987; this edition with new foreword 2013.

This book is a brief introductory inquiry that, in the early chapters, provides a broad historical overview of the development since the early nineteenth century of modern spectator sports and mass communications - each of which began as distinctive and emerging forms of leisure and popular entertainment. In subsequent chapters the book proceeds to examine their progressively intertwined and, by the middle of the 20th century, increasingly symbiotic relationship (described as 'a match made in heaven'); a strategic and financially attractive alliance that ultimately proved irresistible to both parties with the emergence and global spread of broadcast television services.

Our societies are growing more unequal, more hierarchical, meaner and less human every year.

Voters appalled by the direction of current politics respond to leaders that articulate a cohesive and genuine progressivism. This book provides the framework for politicians and activists to deliver that vision, organised around the themes of cooperative solutions to social problem-solving and a social contract centred on rights and the equal dignity of all people.

Drawing on contemporary Australian examples, 'Politics for the New Dark Age: Staying Positive Amidst Disorder' shows how the partisan divide recurs in policy debates from civil rights, to inequality, to economic growth, to the environment and foreign policy. It argues that we should recommit to fighting for our democracy in order to manage these social differences and channel them into opportunities for social progress.

As a former Australian diplomat with ten years' experience writing political analysis for government, Anthony Skews is well placed to provide a comprehensive introduction to left-wing thought for the contemporary 'post-fact', politically polarised era.

Above all, this book argues for an alternative future.