How our family came to call Australia home. Based largely on her father’s memoirs, Sigrid Smee will talk about the often-violent events before, during and after World War II that led to her family’s decision to come to Australia. Her father was one of a number of German scientists and engineers brought out by the Australian Government. Arriving in 1951, her family found life very different and at times challenging, with kind friends replacing the family they had left behind. It was not until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that they were reunited with their relatives in the former East Germany.