Searching For Sid

The story of Sid Price is not a simple one. It explores notions of race and ethnicity while at the same time demonstrating family respect and warmth, combined with a mix of acceptance and rejection for and by Sid. His story, and the recounting of it by those people who knew him, crosses the artificial boundaries drawn on the map of what it means to be Australian, of what it means to be aboriginal, of what it means to be German and the way nationalist sentiments attach themselves to stereotypical images that are not in the service of doing good. In the centre is an officially and unofficially adopted man who rejects his birth family and culture and joins a family of third generation German and English immigrants on farming country in Victoria. Serving in WW2 he is captured by the German army during the battle for Greece. He escapes at least three times, once from Stalag VIIB, and eventually joins Mihailović’s forces in Yugoslavia. By the time Sid was involved with the Yugoslavian partisans the English were morally, and by 1943 crucially, materially supporting Tito who was fighting against Mihailović, as well as the Germans and Italians. Sid and his mates were eventually re-captured and interred in Stalag 344, Lamsdorf. Luckily Sid was repatriated before the infamous Lamsdorf Death March. After the war Sid returned to Australia and took up where he left off with the Borneman’s. He remained an essential part of the family fabric until his death in 1989. This story is about family knowing, something harder and more resilient than nostalgia. The word that comes closest is trust. An implicit, inbuilt trust that resides in the centre of being - das dasien ist rund (being is round) - that is understood without speaking its name.