One man’s stand for refugees

At the height of his career, Ron Baumann was rubbing shoulders with high-profile clients and some of the biggest names in music. People such as Bon Jovi, the Eagles, Taylor Swift, Van Halen and P!nk float to the top of sparkling anecdotes about the front-row seats, corporate boxes and private shows Ron organised as part of his job selling special-access packages to VIPs.

“What’s not to love?” he says, looking back on those work-hard, play-hard days. “I got to go to gigs! I got to meet the musicians!”

For many years, Ron lived in the inner-Sydney suburb of Newtown, just around the corner from the Asylum Seekers Centre. Once a month, he’d pop in with a donation – usually cash, occasionally food or some second-hand PCs.

The refugee experience was something Ron knew and understood. His mother’s parents had survived the Jewish ghettos of Hungary and the horrors of Nazi occupation before making their way to Australia. His father’s parents, also Hungarian Jews, were less fortunate. Ron’s paternal grandmother perished in the Holocaust; his grandfather remained in communist Hungary.

Ron’s own parents grew up in the ghettos and began their married life under Soviet rule. With the help of the UN, they fled Hungary after the 1956 uprising. Ron’s mother had been eight months pregnant when the family fled. Ron was born in Israel, where the family lived for three years before crossing the seas to settle in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

“My parents never talked about it. They didn’t want to talk about it,” Ron says. “My mother occasionally mentions something about someone who died, but very rarely.”

The silence of his parents and grandparents was part of Ron’s experience, growing up in the Jewish community around Dover Heights. Those years left him deeply attuned to the anguish felt by those seeking refuge.

Speaking out, supporting others

Ron built his career in corporate entertainment and, like his father – a pioneering mechanical engineer – kept his personal history separate from his professional life. It was only in retirement that he began to speak out, advocating for refugees in letters, phone calls and social media posts, reaching out to politicians and decision makers to argue for the rights of people seeking safety.

All the while, he maintained his support for the Asylum Seekers Centre and also the Refugee Council of Australia. In 2018, he attended the annual conference of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugees – and encountered something new.

“I didn’t even know this kind of work existed, you know?” he says. “For me, supporting asylum seekers was all about food, shelter, education, jobs. But Kaldor doesn’t go down that track. It looks at the legal side of things, which would never have occurred to me back then, but which is crucial. They’re very clever people.”

Conversations with the team at the Kaldor Centre and founders Renata and Andrew Kaldor – whose experience as central European refugees resonated with him – deepened Ron’s sense of connection. He became a supporter soon afterwards.

Now in his late 60s, Ron lives off the Queensland coast in a self-built tiny home made from recycled and upcycled materials. After years of curating glamorous experiences for clients, he’s embraced his long-delayed “hippie dream” and living a gentle vegan lifestyle.

Ron’s decision to sell up in Sydney and move to Queensland prompted a reassessment of his finances – and his Will. After some thought, he nominated the Kaldor Centre as a beneficiary.

“They’re the organisation I trust the most and that can do the most with it, because no-one else is doing what they’re doing,” he says. “I know they’re going to do the right thing.”

You, too, can help protect the rights of people for generations to come by including UNSW in your Will. For more information, contact Janet Hall at giftsinwills@unsw.edu.au or +61 478 492 032.