'That German boy'

Paul Oestreicher's Jewish family escaped the Nazis in 1938. Once here, he was ostracised for being German. How did this committed pacifist end up leading a military Anzac Day service in East Germany?

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On the day after World War I began, my father, at 18, volunteered with enthusiasm to join the Bavarian Artillery. He survived the terrible Battle of the Somme, won two Iron Crosses and ended the war, defeated, in a military hospital in Alsace. Lieutenant Oestreicher (commissions were rare for Jews) was still well enough to walk. The medical officer shouted: "Lads, if you can, make a run for it, or the French will capture you." In 1918, he ran from the French. In 1938, with Jewish parents, he had to run from the Germans - all the way to New Zealand. My parents and I, now a refugee family, sailed on the SS Ormond.

The ship put in at Fremantle, our first sight of Australasia. We went window shopping in the main street, though not one shop was open. There was, however, a band and marching soldiers. My parents thought they had left all that behind. With little English, "Anzac Day" meant nothing to them. "Gallipoli" only added to their confusion. We had no inkling a second world war was only months away.

Three weeks later, aboard the Wanganella, we docked at Wellington's overseas wharf, since turned into luxury apartments. It was May 1939. I was 7.

Nine years later, at King's High School in Dunedin, I, like all the boys - except for an earlier Kings student, James K Baxter - had joined the army cadets. It was my school's turn to provide a firing party at the cenotaph on Anzac Day. Sergeant Oestreicher was put in charge of the squad. We trained hard for the day.

Richards, our Latin master, had been an officer in the war. Two days before Anzac Day, he took me aside. "Sorry, Oestreicher, we have made a mistake. The rules are that only privates can make up a firing party. You will have to drop out. Rules are rules."

I didn't mind. However, one of the squad, Paterson, went down with flu. His parents rang; might I take his place? "Sorry," I said, "I'm not allowed."