Olga Frenklah

My mother, Olga Frenklah, was born in 1946, on the 13th of August.

Fascism had been defeated and Mozyr (USSR), where she was to be born, liberated. My grandfather and grandmother, having served with the Red Army for four impossible years, had met after their return from war, married quickly, and built their home.

Olyechka, a slight and beautiful child in pigtails and dresses sewn from parachute silks, showed tremendous drive. She excelled at school, and modifying her extraordinary flowing calligraphy to mimic that of her friends, would sit late into the night to write compositions for them, so that they too could achieve her grades.

This selflessness, a care and concern for others, were to be the defining qualities throughout her life.

She began to study music - piano - at a young age, and at 14 was offered a place at the pre-eminent College of Music in Belarus .

She arrived in a strange city to live as a lodger with various families for the next four years. Younger than the youngest of her classmates by 3 years, she excelled.

There were no pianos in the tiny Soviet flats where she boarded, so my grandmother arranged with the college's janitor to permit mum to come and practice from 6 am until the start of the school day. She would rise before the sun, in the winter walking through that Russian snow she so adored, to practice for hours, doing so again after school.

In 1965 my father, visiting his family, saw her standing, in a whisper-grey knee-length coat, with her best friend. He approached her: “Young lady, do you make friends with strangers?”

She replied: “I do”. Within two months, on the 23rd of June, 1965, they were married.

Their first child - my brother Zorik - was born 2 ½ years later.

The year after, my mother commenced studies for her second degree – a Bachelor of Education – completing the final exams whilst heavily pregnant with me.

The birth was traumatic - she was airlifted to the Belarus ' capital, Minsk , and her family told to say goodbye. She was not expected to survive, but, as she was to do again and again in these last three years, fought her way to life.

In 1979, with a desire to give their children a life free of institutionalized anti-Semitism, she and my father took us away from the Soviet Union . It was an arduous journey of many months.

On the 27th of February 1980, we arrived in Melbourne as refugees, with the barest of English and all our possessions packed into a few suitcases.

Mum tackled the task of learning a new language and culture in an alien land with the dedication, tenacity, and thoroughness that marked all her endeavours.

She worked extraordinarily long hours - teaching students piano at CBC, Xavier, Avila, and finally St. Kevin's College; keeping our flat spotless and organized before school, then rushing home after school to tutor private students until late at night.

She became the first teacher in a Victorian school to be given a full-time appointment to solely teach piano. She was immensely respected by her colleagues, her pupils and their parents. It was rare for any of her students in exams to receive less than “A” grades. She believed all to be capable of excellence, and gifted her students a love of music and learning, as well passing on her superb technical skills.

Her love for her family was boundless and she gave of herself to us in every way. She inspired us, nurtured us, educated us, set an example through her humility, and instilled values of humanity and fairness.

She loved to read, visit galleries and attend concerts and if we were unable to come, would share with us her experiences in remarkable detail. She had the most extraordinary eye, a superb memory, and a wonderfully broad knowledge of the world.

She worked at St. Kevin's until the day her leukaemia was diagnosed, even when, in her last few weeks there, she would faint on the way to work.

Her life over the last three years was marked by terrible illness, and she spent much of it in hospital, bearing all with the greatest courage.

At 1.50 am on Monday 11th April my beautiful brave Mama, aged 58, passed away.

She chose to do so at home, having beaten her leukaemia but suffered terrible side effects from the second of her bone marrow transplants.

She chose to withdraw from treatment rather than face indeterminable months of suffering in hospital, having already spent virtually the past 10 months interned.

Her struggle over those three years galvanised many hundreds of people to come and be blood-tested at organised drives. She was thankful to all who came and we take comfort from the fact that although no match was found for her, the drives produced life-saving matches for others.

For visitors to the Chevra Kadisha cemetery she sleeps peacefully and forever in Row D.

Olya's death has left bereft her two sons Ura and Zorik, and her husband of 39½ years, Lenya.