Feature: An extraordinary life – Gerry Zwart

BRAVERY HONOURED: Gerry Zwart (OAM), 90, with the medal he accepted from Israel, on his parents’ behalf, after a woman his family saved tracked him down 75 years later.

The Righteous Among The Nations medal given posthumously to the Zwart family by Israel for providing a safe house for Jews.

Gerry Zwart's father, Marinus.

MAY, 2020// SENIORS Courage in

THIS is Gerry Zwart’s story. His parents received a prestigious award, but it really belongs to the whole family who willingly harboured Jewish children and dozens of resistance fighters.

It’s been a long time since World War II, but the defining moments of Gerry’s youth remain crystal clear.

The youngest of 12 children, Gerry was just 11 when the war started for the Netherlands, and his family’s world turned on its end.

As the 90-year-old sits in his cosy loungeroom at a retirement village in Nambour accompanied by his doting wife, Valerie, Gerry shares a haunting picture of how the war impacted on all the family, who became accidental heroes by turning their home into a “safe house’’ for Dutch migrant honoured for family’s heroics in Tracey Johnstone people hiding from the Nazis.

As the weather cooled, many of the Zwart family of 12 were relaxing inside their small house in the Dutch village of Blaricum, listening to the radio.

“I remember the first day of the war: it was May 10, 1940,” Gerry said. “All of a sudden we heard on the radio that the Germans had invaded.”

Nobody expected this news. Before then the Germans had come as far as France. But on that fatal May date the German army invaded Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

Gerry said the family’s first response was to head to a neighbour’s cellar. Only a week later the Dutch army capitulated and the German occupation forces arrived in town taking over public buildings and schools.

Initially life didn’t change too much, Gerry said. The children went about their normal activities. But when the general army was joined by the SS, that’s when things did change.

Gerry, who was the youngest of the Zwart children, learnt very quickly to keep quiet when confronted by the Nazis.

“When the SS came, you had to make sure you didn’t say the wrong thing,” he said.

He watched as the SS rounded up any local men and women aged from 16 to 45 to move them by train to Germany to work in the factories. His artist father missed the cut; he was too old. His mother was also left alone.

Gerry remembers the Jews within the Blaricum community were hardly noticeable until early 1941, when the word came through that the Germans had started rounding them up in Amsterdam.

With that news, Gerry’s sisters came home from school and asked his parents if two of their Jewish friends, both named Bela, could hide in the house, which was already home to eight of the Zwart family. His parents readily agreed.

In the next village his much older brother Hank had also taken in a whole Jewish family.

Soon after, “as things got tougher”, Gerry said his brothers built several hiding places in the Zwart house, in the roof, under the floor and behind false walls.

They also started keeping the doors to outside locked at all times. His mother, Maria, also told everyone to use a particular knock when they came to the front door.

If the knock was different, it meant there was a German ‘‘

The people were taken to a concentration camp. Of the three, only one made it back.

No Gap Eye Surgery

At The Eye Care Clinic, our eye surgeons and specialists care enough to see you as people, not just as someone with a problem. Dr. Svoboda and Dr. Lamont personally see you all the way through your procedure-right from the first visit till they are totally satisfied all is well.

Nor does this high level of care mean that you are charged an arm and a leg. We actively work to keep the costs as low as possible, and provide services including age related macular degeneration, cataract surgery, glaucoma, lid tumours, diabetic eye disease, iritis, laser surgery, dry eyes and lid malpositions. Those who are insured also enjoy the cost saving benefit of our No Gap Policy.

What’s more, there’s no need to travel out of the local area for the actual surgery as our surgeons operate in Tweed Heads.

When you want someone that takes a sight better care of both you and your health, ask for The Eye Care Clinic. You’ll see we really do care. Servicing the Gold Coast and Northern Rivers 6 Scott Street, Coolangatta Qld 4225 (07) 5506 6777

7049207ae

FUNERAL SERVICE Why paytoomuchh?

Price from $5,350 includes:

• Transfer of deceased • Quality coffin • Chapel service • Celebrant / Minister • Cremation • Doctors certificate • Memorial book • Floral Tribute • Death Certificate e

SENIORS \\MAY, 2020 fighting evil

hiding Jews from murderous Nazi invaders soldier outside. Gerry was 13 when he watched Hitler youth, with rifles slung over their shoulders, raid a home nearby where they found an illicit radio.

The family was arrested. Gerry remembers the young soldiers walking away from the house laughing.

“Next thing you know, they threw a hand grenade on the thatched roof and the house burnt down completely,” Gerry said.

“The people were taken away to a concentration camp. Of the three, only one made it back.”

The Blaricum villagers stayed strong and together, and silent about what the Zwarts were doing.

Gerry’s sisters brought their schoolwork home so the two Belas could keep up their study. The teachers were not told, nor did they share their suspicions.

Early morning was when the village was cut off and raids occurred. The villagers quickly passed the news to the Zwarts, who hid the two Belas.

About six months before the war ended, while Gerry was visiting one of his brothers, there was a raid.

His brother hid in the ceiling but sent Gerry to see what was happening.

Out on the street a German soldier called him over.

“I said, ‘I’m not 16 yet, I’m only 15’. He said, ‘You look old enough’,” Gerry said. He was sent down the road, past other soldiers, to the assembly place with 30 other boys. They were marched off to the next village, where the boys were locked in the schoolyard.

“It came to dinnertime and half the Germans went off for a dinner break. It was winter and dark. We knew the area very well.

“I said to my mate, ‘When we get the chance we can leap over the fence and go into the apple orchard’.

“When half the staff were gone, we jumped the fence and ran. I never ran so fast in my life.

“The Germans were yelling for us to come back and then they started shooting. You could hear the bullets hitting the trees around you.”

Gerry figured the Germans didn’t know where he lived so he headed for home. If Gerry hadn’t escaped, he knew he would have ended up working in a Germany factory.

Between the raids, village life continued almost normally. There was no electricity, gas or fuel for stoves, so improvisation was a must. Food, when available, was rationed.

“There was one stage where you couldn’t buy food,” Gerry said.

“You walked around with a pocket full of money, but it wasn’t worth a cracker.”

Valuables became currency for food.

When the war ended in 1945, the two Belas finally emerged as the 16-year-old Gerry joined the villagers dancing in the streets.

By his early 20s, Gerry said he had “had enough of Europe” and wanted to get out. He headed to Australia, following one of his brothers, met his wife and settled into a rural working life.

It was only recently that one of the girls, Bela van Praag, who now lives in Israel, decided the Zwart family should be honoured.

After an extensive search through Holland, she and her son Lex turned to Facebook to track down Gerry in Australia. It was the secretary of the Horticultural Media Association of Queensland, of which Gerry and Valerie are life members, who saw the post and then helped Bela to make contact with Gerry.

“One day the telephone rang,” Valerie said. When she cautiously answered, the male voice at the other said, “Please don’t hang up. This is Israel calling.‘’

Lex went on to explain his story and how the then 92- year-old Bela had nagged him to find the Zwart family.

Seventy-eight years later, Gerry last year accepted Israel’s posthumous gift of the Righteous Among The Nations award on behalf of his parents, Marinus and Maria Josepha Zwart.

It is Israel’s highest honour, which pays tribute to non-Jews who risked their lives to help Jewish people during the Holocaust when six million lives were lost.

Gerry acknowledges it is an award for his whole family, who in their various ways were all champions of protecting and saving many lives.

Gerry and his older Zwart siblings in the garden at home in the Netherlands.

Bela van Praag tracked Gerry.

The Righteous Among The Nations declaration.

In 1952, a young Stephen made his own discovery at the new Fleay's Fauna Reserve ... a giant earthworm, while out at work with the bulldozer driver.

MAY, 2020// SENIORS Born to love

Son of famed Coast naturalist gives insight into

Alison Houston

GENERATIONS of kids have visited the David Fleay Wildlife Park at Tallebudgera, but only two grew up there: David and Sigrid Fleay’s son Stephen and his sister, Rosemary.

Stephen, now retired and living in Portugal after a national and international career in TV and radio journalism, took time to look back on those days for Seniors News.

When Fleay’s Fauna Reserve, as it was first known, began in 1952, he said, the entrance fee was two shillings for adults and sixpence for children.

“Rosemary, my sister, was working all week back then helping out, collecting entrance fees, cleaning cages and feeding the animals, birds and reptiles.

“One of my jobs (at 10) was to pick grass for the collection of guinea pigs.”

Stephen recalls picking bearded lizards off trees on the way back from Burleigh Heads State School for the fauna reserve’s collection.

“My father took a photograph of me covered with these critters, which was published in the

‘‘

His father’s first book was studied by a teenage David Attenborough.

Brisbane Telegraph newspaper,” he said of becoming labelled ‘The Lizard King’.

Stephen was also often called on to do a “howling start-up” with the family of dingoes, resulting in a dingo chorus that “could be heard all the way to the town of West Burleigh”, 2.2km away.

He even made his own scientific discovery, a giant earthworm, as he rode along with the bulldozer driver “inspecting what subterranean creatures would be disturbed by the excavations” for the park’s new carpark.

“My father was quite excited as he had never seen or known about this species,” Stephen said.

By the time he made the move to Queensland, Stephen’s father had already chalked up many feats, including in 1933 taking an iconic photo and film of Benjamin, the last captive thylacine in Tasmania.

At Melbourne Zoo, he started an Australian section and succeeded in the first captive breeding of emus and koalas, as well as other birds and marsupials.

Most famously, in 1943 he bred the first platypus in captivity at Victoria’s Healesville Sanctuary, where he was the first director

Stephen with Vicky the dingo during a dingo chorus.

SENIORS \\MAY, 2020 wildlife

amazing animal adventures

from 1939-47 and consultant until 1951.

“This made international good news in the midst of World War II,” Stephen said.

His father’s first book in 1944, We Breed the Platypus, was “studied by a then young British teenage naturalist, David Attenborough”.

“Sir David wrote to me here in Portugal stating how this book had been an influence on his early life with natural history,” Stephen said.

With his father wanting to carry out his own natural history research, the family made the move north to what was then called Queensland’s South Coast, not renamed the Gold Coast until 1958.

Stephen recalls how hard it was to leave their Victorian home, Piccaninny Cottage, set in bushland at Badger Creek, where they had their own private collection of animals, birds and reptiles, including Rosemary’s pet, Keith the wombat.

He said one of the first Queensland properties the family considered was Paradise Island, “which was available for around £7000 – yes, the entire island!”

However, it was deemed unsuitable due to being too low-set, and eventually they were shown the 80-acre (32-hectare) Tallebudgera site, which had just been sold but which the purchasers were convinced to part with at a profit.

Stephen said the most complex part of the building process, including cages and gates, was the platypus enclosure, known as ‘The Platypussary’.

It had “a special pool and sleeping compartments for these delicate part-aquatic animals” to make the surrounds as close to nature as possible in a philosophy that was well ahead of its time.

David is quoted as saying: “We’re not in the job of sacrificing animals for the sake of showing them and I don’t have a lot of time for many modern zoos.’’

It is noteworthy that no one other than David Fleay successfully bred and reared a platypus until Healesville Sanctuary in 1999, and Fleay’s remains the only park on the Gold Coast where you can see platypus.

Rosemary FleayThomson’s 2007 book Animals First, tracing her father’s trailblazing journey, is available online and Stephen’s YouTube channel, Favenchi, includes a number of videos on the subject.

To ensure Fleay’s survived, David and Sigrid Fleay sold the land in the early 1980s to the State Government for a nominal amount, and it became heritage listed in 2001.

You can become a Friend of Fleay’s for just $10, and $5 annual registration, make a donation, or volunteer at www.fleayswildlife.com.au/.

Entry to the park (currently closed due to COVID-19 restrictions) costs $24.70 adults, $11.20 children over 4, and $16.30 pensioners. Phone (07) 5669 2051.

UNIQUE CHILDHOOD: Stephen was crowned The Lizard King for this photo with his robe of lizards by dad David Fleay, which was published in the Brisbane Telegraph.

Better Than Bingo! Got a hankering for a new hobby? Discover everything you desire with Seniors online. There’s exclusive travel offers, the stories that matter to you, big win competitions, plus every exciting event happening near you! Seniors –redefining an exciting retirement!

14 MAY, 2020// SENIORS NEWS Rescuers call for a hand

Cash-strapped cat group asks for donations for fundraiser

Alison Houston

THE animal world is feeling the flow-on effects of coronavirus restrictions.

Smaller rescue operations have been overrun since the RSPCA and pounds closed their doors to intakes.

Best Friends Felines, which operates from the Gold to the Sunshine Coasts, brought 40 cats into care over just 21 days last month as well as, uncharacteristically, three pugs.

Founder Nikki Chapple said the group had never reached out to the public before, but with increased demand and no way to raise money due to current restrictions, they were forced to ask for help.

“We have always been extremely proud of our fundraising and been able to meet the gap between adoption fees and vet work largely through our events, which we work tirelessly on, but at the moment our hands are tied,” Nikki said.

BFF takes rescued strays, cats on death row at the pound or ownersurrendered cats, and places them into loving foster

ADOR-ABLE: That's where this ginger kitten Able, pictured with Nikki Chapple at the vet, got his name. Able is one of hundreds of kittens and cats needing help to be rehomed this year by Best Friends Felines.

homes, where they remain until they “find their forever home”. They have a “no kill” policy, have all vet work completed on the cat while it is in their care – including desexing, vaccinating, microchipping and worming – and are particularly strict on cats being indoor-only dwellers.

Nikki said BFF had earned a reputation for taking “the difficult cases” – those with special needs, requiring medical care or which are difficult to home, including black cats, which strangely still carry the stigma of old superstitions.

The group also runs a Last Litter program to lessen the number of unwanted litters by rehoming kittens and desexing the mother free of charge to the owner.

Nikki said she was conscious of the fact that many people and businesses were struggling and had already given much to charity, but encouraged anyone who could to donate a few dollars or items such as food and litter.

BFF is also organising an online craft auction for midJuly and would be grateful for donations of handmade goods including sewing, knitting, woodwork, painting and pottery.

“That’s a way seniors could really help us, as it’s one thing we can do to flesh out our funds at the moment for this vitally important service,” Nikki said.

Items sent to BFF to midJune will be photographed and assembled in a Facebook album for auction, and there is no necessity for them to be cat-themed.

Becoming a foster carer is another way seniors can help. A number of the existing volunteers are in their 60s and 70s, including one dedicated woman at Bonogin who cares for “bottle babies”, which need to be fed every three hours – not a job for everyone.

BFF was established in 2015, after Nikki moved to Brisbane from country NSW, where she had been involved in the Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES).

She quickly discovered that dog rescue operations outnumbered cat rescues 10:1, despite the fact that cats could have up to four litters in a season.

Having grown up on a farm with “a bit of a menagerie”, she decided to help “in a small way”.

She had no idea that by 2019 BFF would be one of the biggest rescue operations in Southeast Queensland, 100 per cent volunteer-run, with more than 100 foster carers looking after 250–300 animals at any time, and with a budget of about $180,000.

For more information, find BFF on Facebook at @BestFriendsFelines, go to bestfriendsfelines.com, email inquiriesbff@gmail .com or phone the service on 0417 699 375.

Special cafe has plenty on its plate

THE Brett Street CAFE (Community Access For Everyone) team is cooking and providing up to 150 meals a week to at-risk people during these trying times, confirming the cafe’s mantra of being good for people and good for the community.

The social enterprise cafe is in the newly upgraded Tweed Heads Civic and Cultural Centre plaza complex.

From April 20, subsidised meals have been available to eligible people under the My Aged Care Meal Services and National Disability Insurance Scheme, and regular customers can also buy the meals at an affordable price for themselves, their family or elderly friends.

Tweed Shire Council community services co-ordinator Joanne Watters said providing this kind of service was vital for the community at present as people were either isolated, had limited access to food and supplies or were unable to shop.

“Brett Street CAFE is still open for regular business but has reduced its operating hours due to COVID-19 restrictions, so we now have the capacity and infrastructure to expand and offer an alternative service to meet a high demand during this crisis,” Ms Watters said.

“Customers can order on the phone, at the cafe or through our website, and there will be options for payment and pick-up. We are also looking at delivery and collection from dropoff points.”

Opening hours are 8.30–11.30am Monday to Thursday. To view the Community Meals to Go menu, how to order and options for pick-up and delivery, go to brettstreet cafe.com.au. To find out about other community services, see tweed.nsw. gov.au/CommunityServices.

Feel good from head to toe SWITCHED ON: Diane Bohlen enjoys a fitness class online at Elements Retirement Living during isolation.

WHILE social distancing and self-isolation remain the new normal, it is important for seniors to keep their minds and bodies as healthy as possible.

Lifestyle factors have a significant impact on your immune system, so making small changes can ensure you are supporting your health.

Elements Retirement Living managing director Chiou See Anderson believes exercise is essential.

“Continue to move your body,” Ms Anderson says.

“There are so many YouTube videos available online to help you stay active. Depending on your current level of fitness, you can search for videos on yoga, tai chi, meditation, strengthening and more.

“Do not be overambitious in the first week. Instead, set pragmatic goals Exercise, nutrition, sleep vital Kerry Heaney and build up your fitness gradually. Before long, you will be wondering why all those people spend their money and time going to the gym!”

ATP Science’s naturopath, nutritionist and herbalist, Nicole Brown, says a diet rich in anti-inflammatory and nutrient-dense foods is essential for good health and supporting an immune system so it can respond to viruses.

“Try to include a wide variety of colourful fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, high-quality proteins and a variety of wholegrains,’’ Nicole said.

“Avoid processed foods, refined sugars and excess alcohol as these can have a suppressive effect on our immune system.”

Social distancing and isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness and low moods.

Staying in touch with family and friends during

Diane doing another exercise that helps her to stay healthy and energised.

this time ensures you feel supported and connected with your community.

If you are tech-savvy, Skype or FaceTime will allow you to see your loved ones as if they were there with you. If you don’t have access to technology, try writing letters to your neighbours or even friends of the family.

“Connection is important, even when we can no longer meet for a coffee or gather for a meal,” Ms Anderson says.

“If you previously had a regular game of bowls, or met to discuss a new book, you can continue to maintain this network by scheduling a group chat via phone or video. The number of residents at Elements Retirement Living who are reporting an increase in phone contact with people whom they previously neglected is phenomenal.

“Somehow the time we used to spend rushing around has now been converted to purposeful time spent catching up with past acquaintances and long-lost relatives.”

Head scientist and naturopath at ATP Science, Matt Legge, said sleep was closely tied to our immunity.

“Certain disease-fighting substances are released or created while we sleep, and our bodies need these hormones, chemicals and proteins to fight off disease and infection,” Mr Legge said.

“Sleep deficiency decreases the availability of these substances, leaving us more susceptible to each new virus or bacteria we encounter.”

Mr Legge suggests going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. He recommends avoiding screen time from TV, computers and phones for the hour before bedtime as the blue light they emit can suppress melatonin production.

“Do something relaxing before bed, such as taking a bath, reading a book, listening to soft music or trying meditation,” he said.