The Hetper Family in Australia

The Hetper family came to Australia as Polish refugees from war-torn Poland.

Polish Roots
The Hetper family can be traced back to Ignacy Hetper in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Ignacy Hetper married Rozalia Hoffmann and they had at least one son, Jan, born 8 March 1819 (1823?). The marriage of Jan Hetper and Karolina Fischer resulted in 12 children, Wilhelm, Karol Aleksander, Leopold, Leon, Josef, Klementyna, Anna, Maria and two other children who probably did not survive. Karolina Fischer, born 2 February 1830, was the daughter of Paweł Fischer and Zofia Krzyżanowska. Leopold, born 5 March 1857 (1856?), married Józefa Kisielewska they had 4 children together; Zygmunt Aleksander, Jadwiga, Janina and Stanislaw.

Jaworzyna
In 1905 Leopold came to Muszyna and bought the property called "Jaworzyna" (we call it "Jaworzyna in Muszyna" to distinguish it from Jaworzyna the alpine area).  Leopold was the mayor of the Muszyna region although not in the current sense of "mayor" - probably something between mayor and manager.
Zygmunt was born in Krynica 6 September 1887 and married Aleksandra Hetper (a cousin) - they had one child together -  Jerzy,  born 23 September 1915, during World War I.  Zygmunt  qualified as a chemical engineer.  

Zygmunt, together with other pioneers, explored and mapped out the area which is now the Jaworzyna alpine area.  Zygmunt was meticulous in his notes, and his vision for the area as a resort area was clear.  Zygmunt's history, together with that of his colleagues and those that continued the work, can be seen today in a small museum near the summit at Jaworzyna. His research was abruptly terminated by the outbreak World War II - entries in his diary stopped and it was put away into a place of safe-keeping. Zygmunt had received military training and was an officer in the Polish Army.

The Battle of Hel
Jerzy was a Polish marine leading up until Germany's invasion of Poland and he was stationed at the garrison in Hel when the first shots of World War II were fired. It is unclear at precisely what time the Hel garrison came under fire, however, while the German battleship, the Schleswig-Holstein shelled the Westerplatte garrison, the Hel garrison was the target of air attacks. The two garrisons are separated by only 22 km of water and the Schleswig-Holstein was closer to the Westerplatte garrison, probably because the Hel garrison was a more formidable target due to its heavier guns.

The 182 Polish soldiers at the Westerplatte garrison held out for 7 days, and when battle was over, between 15 and 20 Polish Soldiers were killed and 53 were wounded in the action. The losses for the German force of some 3,400 soldiers were greater: between 200-400 killed and up to 700 wounded.  The Hel garrison held on for much longer, in fact, the Battle of Hel was the longest-defended pocket of Polish Army resistance against the German invasion.  During the battle, one of the four 152 mm Bofors Polish guns at Hel found its target and hit the Schleswig-Holstein but it was not significantly damaged. The German destroyer, probably the Leberecht Maass, hit on 3 September, was extensively damaged, although is not clear if Leberecht Maass was hit by the Gryf or the Polish 152 mm coastal battery at Hel. The anti-aircraft batteries brought down between 46 and 53 German aircraft.  I remember my father (Jerzy) telling me that they had run out of ammunition for the big guns and they were firing the wooden practice shells that bounced off the German ships.  

The Hel Garrison also needed to defend itself from a land attack via the narrow connecting peninsula, and to impede the German advance, Polish military engineers detonated a number of torpedo warheads in the narrowest part of the peninsula, separating the tip of peninsula from the mainland.  After 32 days they surrendered, and the survivors were rounded up into makeshift prison camps.

Forced Labour
Jerzy was sent to a forced labour camp in Germany, probably because he had had forestry experience. We know little about what happened there, but we know that after a couple of years there, he had been involved in a fight with none less than the camp commander, and fearing execution he escaped and made his way to Poland and, within Poland, to Muszyna where the family home was.  He was re-captured and sent to Auschwitz and tattooed with an Auschwitz number.

Zygmunt murdered in Charkow (Katyn)
On his return to Muszyna, it is unlikely that Jerzy would have known of his father's fate, for Zygmunt had been murdered in Charkow in 1940 in the Ukraine by the Soviet soldiers. The prisoner of war camp often referred to as Katyn actually consisted of three prisoner of war camps, Katyn, Kharkiv (Charkow), and Mednoye.

Surviving Auschwitz
Jerzy managed to survive through hard physical work, knowledge of machinery, and many practical skills. I remember him telling me that in exchange for a haircut, he would get paid a potato or some other small item of food. In another account, he told me of the scar on his foot, the consequence of an infected wound, and how, after some days of not removing the boot, maggots had cleaned the wound. At another time during his incarceration in Auschwitz, he had suffered severe food-poisoning and ate charcoal to cure it.  

As Russian and Allied forces closed in on German occupied territories, commanders of Auschwitz and other concentration camps hurriedly destroyed evidence and abandoned these then less-secure camps, retreating to more strategic installations. The camp commanders called for volunteers with specific skills from the ranks of the prisoners as labour for the Mauthausen-Gusen camp. When the call came for prisoners who were mechanics, Jerzy eagerly volunteered.  He, and many others were transported to Mauthausen to work in the Messerschmitt factory. My father told me stories of leaving pieces of cloth in engines during their final assembly as acts of sabotage.

Mauthhausen-Gusen was finally liberated and people tried to find their families, friends, homes and personal possessions. The newly formed United Nations set up a reconstruction organisation - the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). UNRRA had established Displaced Persons camps.

Post-war

Jerzy married Mieczysława Woznica in Germany and they lived in Straubing, Germany, near the Czech border. In May 1947, their first child, Halina, was born in the nearby town of Mallersdorf, some 25 km from Straubing.    

Journey to Australia
In 1950, Jerzy, Mieczysława and their three year old daughter, Halina, boarded the ship bound for Australia and arrived 18 October 1950.

Immigrant Camps
Together with many other European immigrants, the family was housed in former army barracks at Greta in NSW, near Newcastle. The barracks clad in galvanised iron where ironically or aptly named "Silver City" and these were the setting for Thomas Keneally's and Sophia Turkiewicz's film of the same name. Not all the buildings were clad in galvanised iron - others were clad in oiled timber - these became known as "Chocolate City". The family celebrated the 1950 Christmas in the camp along with 9,000 others - the Greta camp's peak population.  It is estimated that about 100,000 migrants passed through the camp between 1949 and 1960.

Labour Scouts
Factories and other employers would often visit the camps looking for workers, and Jerzy took up James Hardie's offer for people to work for the Fibro factory in Brisbane.

Brisbane
The Family moved to Brisbane in April 1951 and Jerzy set about building the family home in Graceville when not working for Hardies. Jerzy could often be seen riding his bicycle with one hand and using the other hand to balance long piece of timber on his shoulder.  In July 1951, their son, George, was born.

The family established a milk bar-delicatessen across the road from Graceville railway station. Bicycles were a popular form of transport in much of Brisbane and the connection points with tram and railway stations were well-equipped with bicycle racks. As I remember it, Graceville station had racks where bicycles were hung from the front wheel under fibro-roofed open racks in double rows. The business was quite successful and become well-known for milkshakes, smallgoods and pies. The milk was delivered in huge milk cans from the nearby Sentinella diary farm, Jerzy made sausages and pies.

The house in Graceville was a double block and one half of the property was an orchard with a huge chook run towards the rear. A large mulberry tree overhung part of the chook yard and there were various garden beds in the yard.

I, David, was born in 1955 and the family lived in Graceville until the end of 1960. Jerzy decided to move the entire family to North Queensland. In July 1960, Jerzy and his son George, then 8 years old, drove from Brisbane to Mareeba in the family's green Chevrolet Ute to set-up a home to which the rest of the family would then come. On the way, Jerzy and George were mistakenly detained in the Graeme Thorne kidnapping investigation.

Mareeba
The house in Mareeba was a rudimentary building, being the farmhouse for the tobacco farm that we were to share-crop with. The other people in the share-cropping arangement were the Gasiewski family, also a Polish family. The partnership soon broke down and Jerzy found a place in the nearby township of Tolga, some twenty miles (32 km) from Mareeba.

Tolga
The property in Tolga was nine acres and wholly contained a huge concrete slab that had been the floor of a military "igloo" or hangar used during the Battle of the Coral Sea.  At one end of this slab was a large weatherboard clad shed and Jerzy built a small house at the other end.  

The rest of the family joined Jerzy and George during 1960 Christmas break, travelling by the "Sunlander" train to Cairns. I started school in grade one at the Tolga State School in 1961 along with my brother George in grade five. My sister Halina, then 14, entered grade 9 at the Atherton State High School, some three miles (5 km) from Tolga.

Jerzy took a job at the local timber mill and did various carpentry and cabinet-making jobs in the local area and later he worked for the Forestry Department as a field worker. 

Mum continued her relationship with Charles, and after a time  my parents' marriage began to break down.  Jerzy took a job as smallgoods manager with Woolworths in Cairns but it meant a considerable amount of travelling, so he took lodging during the week in Cairns, returning home for the weekends.

Cairns

This section was written by David Sentinella.
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