The Many Faces of Mackay – Our Cultural Heritage Identity Heritage Roots Intimacy Every human being, to be mentally healthy, must have the feeling of belonging. When we have a sense of belonging we can be intimate. We can feel. We can connect. If we cannot develop this feeling of belonging, then we will feel lost or disconnected. To be disconnected from life is like walking around during the day not knowing the Sun exists. To have the feelings of intimacy is warm, glowy, joyful, loving and connected.
Belonging SPONSORS
Every human being, to be mentally healthy, must have the feeling of belonging. When we have a sense of belonging we can be intimate. We can feel. We can connect. If we cannot develop this feeling of belonging, then we will feel lost or disconnected. To be disconnected from life is like walking around during the day not knowing the Sun exists. To have the feelings of intimacy is warm, glowy, joyful, loving and connected. I guess you could say I am still searching for my own sense of belonging. I found out that my father had survived three years in the *Auschwitz Concentration Camp [a Nazi Death Camp] before being liberated by the Allies in Europe. I knew he was Polish by birth and came to Australia in 1951 as a displaced person. He met and married my mother in 1952 and in 1953 I was born at the Cottage Hospital New Norfolk Tasmania. I had always felt a sense of disconnection from my heritage, not quite knowing who I was or where I was from. A little like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. I have since discovered some long lost relatives in Poland and know deep within, that I need to make a journey to the land of my father’s birth if I am to truly find my sense of Belonging. Mackay is my home, but Poland, Germany, Ireland & Scotland are my heritage. I am one of the Many Faces of Mackay. Photographer:
Ann Fitzgerald - born 1953 [Australian] Polish/German/Scottish/Irish
Father: Leopold Antoni Kaizik Mother: Irene Grace
born 1922 [Polish & German parents] born 1933 [Scottish & Irish parents]
*Auschwitz, town in southern Poland, site of the largest concentration camp and death camp run by Nazi Germany during World War II (1939-1945). The name Auschwitz is commonly applied to the complex of death and concentration camps near the town. Prisoners were transported from all over Nazi-occupied Europe by rail, arriving at Auschwitz in daily convoys. When the Soviet army marched into Auschwitz to liberate the camp in January 1945, they found about 7600 survivors abandoned there, my father was among them. In 1946 Poland founded a museum at the site of the concentration camp in remembrance of its victims. SS camp commandant Rudolf HĂśss admitted to a minimum figure of two and a half million deaths at Auschwitz, but the estimates of deaths at the total camp complex range from two and a half to as many as four million.