Eberhard Frank, 79, has successfully sued the Australian government for the right to have ‘Palestine’ officially recorded as his place of birth after it was removed on his application last year.
Eberhard Frank is surrounded by the history books that line the walls of his living room at his home in the Adelaide Hills.
He is a man who cares deeply about his heritage.
The son of German immigrants to the Middle East, he was born in 1940 in what was then called ‘British Mandated Palestine’ or ‘British Mandatory Palestine’.
“For all my life I’ve been told by my parents that I was born in Palestine, I have a birth certificate headed ‘Government of Palestine’ which states I was born in Jaffa, Palestine,” Mr Frank, now 79, tells SBS News.
He was naturalised by Australia in 1952, but when he went to renew his Australian passport last year he was shocked to find on the application his place of birth had been automatically recorded as ‘unspecified’.
The form had been filled in automatically and ‘unspecified’ was typed in the place which had previously stated the ancient city of ‘Jaffa, Palestine’ on his past applications.
“To me, it was an offence against my dignity and my rights,” he says.
Read the article by Jarni Blakkarly in The Australian.