The Gypsies’ Prediction

I always thought that maybe the gypsies had
something to do with my coming to Australia.

One day Karl-Friedrich Liebach – our boss – announced: ‘Some gypsies approached me today. They offered to read the hands of all the employees. I paid them, what they asked for. That means, everyone of you can have their hands read, if you wish. And please do not pay them anything extra, because I’ve paid them enough already.’

I nearly missed the gypsies. It was lucky, that I caught them near the stairs, when they were about to leave. When I asked, could they foretell my future, one of them politely took my hand. She looked briefly at it Then she said:

‘You’re a lover of beauty. However you’re not going to stay here. In fact I can see you going to a far away country.’ With these words she and her partner hurriedly left the building.

During the years after the war, people with relatives in America were always dreaming of going to America for a better life over there. Indeed, people with relatives in America were very much envied, because it was assumed, that if you had relatives over there, you had a good chance of being accepted as a migrant.

None of my relatives lived overseas. However migrating to an overseas country was very much on my mind. Yet I assumed, that I had hardly any chance to be accepted as a migrant. In those days, I certainly never thought, that I might be able to go to Australia. However, this fortune teller had seen, that I had a desire to leave Germany.

It turned out, that some five years later I actually migrated to Australia! Did the gypsies really have anything to do with that? I wonder.