Dear Readers           

My name is Ingrid Stephen, nee Barth, born in Tehran Persia, 28/09/1940.

Some six months ago I was asked to join a group of six people, only two I knew. These people, all different and in different parts of Australia, all with quite different lives, vocations and professions and not young, were brought together by a man who will tell you a story of such immense interest and world history, that needs to be told.

The common thread between us all is our start in life and how and why we are now in Australia all those 79 years later and writing this incredible history.    

Our fathers in June 1941 were taken prisoners of the war in Tehran Persia, now Iran. It was the Second World War and Churchill was worried about the English oil leases in this country and also worried that the Germans working, of course legally, and who had been asked to contribute professionally to Persia, were Nazis and would interfere with these oil installations.    

These men were taken on that fateful day (August-September), saying goodbye to their families  to a fate and destination unknown to them. The women and children were then sent back to Germany.      

These men were not to be reunited with their loved ones till more than nine years later and then in a far away country, Australia.      

All of us in this very valuable project have such interesting stories and have been brought together by an amazing man, Professor Pedram Khosronejad. He himself Iranian, realised that this is a totally unknown piece of history for his country, and for the country that these men were held captive in for so many years, Australia.       

It has been a huge honour for me to be found and thus involved in this amazing project and to meet the other people, now friends, who have the same history.

 

"Written by Ingrid Stephen,  H. Barth's daughter, 01/08/2020"

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