Independent at 99
“To be honest I am surprised I got this far,” says Walter Silzer when being interviewed on the eve of his 100th birthday. “I live on my own and I do my cooking, washing and ironing. They finally talked me into getting a cleaner but I did resist it for a while.”
Walter has two daughters, 5 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. “I am lucky – both families live in Adelaide and I see them a lot. I also have a great circle of friends and the biggest help in my life is Elizabeth.”
Walter and Elizabeth met 10 years ago in the Burnside Library and became good friends. Elizabeth, 86, has her own age related issues and is not very steady on her feet but she visits Walter almost every day.
In recent years, Walter had two replacement hip operations and also insertion of a plate in each shoulder, but he is still more active than many people years younger! “I try to keep going, walking every day for half an hour to an hour,” he says. “I walk to the bus stop and often to Woolworths on Kensington Road as well as around Kensington Oval. I use a stick now after my stroke in 2016.”
Every Tuesday morning he catches the council run bus to Norwood to do food shopping. “I try to avoid all the ready-made stuff,” he says. “My favourite dish is pasta puttanesca. I also like to cook a big pot of veggie soup and I like the Asian sauces. I love red wine and have a glass now and then – not every night!”
For 14 years Walter volunteered at Meals on Wheels and in 2015 was awarded the Pride of Australia Medal for his community service. The following year he was interviewed by The Advertiser in an article comparing people in their 90s with the Queen, who celebrated her 90th birthday that year.
Is he celebrating for his 100th birthday in November? “I had parties for my 90th and my 95th then last year we had a big party for my 99th – in case I didn’t make it to 100,” he says.
“Perhaps I would like to do some more travelling. I’d like to see Austria and Switzerland again.”
Walter says he takes nothing for granted. “I have had a wonderful life.”
Walter’s background:
Born and raised in Vienna, at the age of 19 Walter fled his family home when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938. “One of my grandfathers was Jewish so it was unthinkable that I would serve in the German Army.”
He went, at his father’s direction, to Switzerland and stayed with relatives. Though Switzerland was neutral young male nationals still underwent military training. This led to a shortage of men able to maintain essential services such as farming. And so it was that Walter found himself a refugee in a strange country and he was sent to a camp where he was one of only two non-Jewish men. Unlike the German concentration camps he was not a prisoner and was given regular time out to visit his relatives. He did manual labour, some farm work and took over the camp kitchen with the other non Jew, a former chef.
As war continued the Swiss Government started training the refugees so they could be employed after the war. Walter chose agriculture and after finally emigrating to Australia in 1947 he started his new life with his wife and worked on farms until he had his own property at Tooperang, near Mount Compass. He finally retired in 2002 at the age of 83 (after his wife’s death) and now lives happily at Kensington Park.
