Summary

Black and white image of a group of people including Dimka and Vojislav Stojkovic (at the back 4th and 1st from right) around the entrance of a building in a displaced persons camp in Kassel, Germany circa 1947. Dimka Stojkovic (nee Dimitrinka Nikolova Caraschobanova) was born in Bulgaria in 1919. After long and harrowing wartime experiences in German labour camps, she met her future husband Vojislav Stojkovic, a captured soldier from the former Yugoslavia, now Serbia. They ended up in the same refugee camp in West Germany, and were married there in 1947.

The couple migrated to Melbourne via Naples on the Protea in 1948. They went directly to Bonegilla Migrant Reception Centre in Albury, although they both quickly found work in Melbourne. In 1952 they had a daughter, Nada, and in 1956 another daughter, Lily. They purchased a house in Footscray in the 1950s and took in many boarders, mostly recently arrived migrants. Dimka died in 1998 and Vojislav in 1987.

Description of Content

A group of twenty people, women and men and two babies, in a garden outside a building. A woman stands on the exterior landing playing a piano accordion next to a man who holds a baby on his shoulders. A row of people stand in front of the landing, and a third row of people sit in front of them in a fenced garden. There are flowers growing in the garden. Dimka Stojkovic stands in the back row, fourth from the right; Vojislav Stojkovic stands back row, first from the right.

Physical Description

Digital image.

Significance

This photograph forms part of the Stojkovic family collection which represents the experiences of thousands of displaced persons and refugees from post World War II Europe and their efforts to survive both during the war and afterwards. It also illustrates the challenges faced by these migrants on arrival in Australia as they attempted to begin new lives often with limited English and little support.

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