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About the Author
Born in early in 1935 in Warsaw, Poland, Sophie Maj was the first child of school teachers Jakub and Maria Grinberg. There would be one more child, a son, who would figure largely in Sophie’s life. Her first years were spent happily in a close Jewish community on the outskirts of the capital, despite the growing threat of Nazi power in Germany. Her parents were secular in belief and like many of their relatives and friends were on the left politically. The expansion of Hitler’s regime into Poland in 1939 and the persecution of Jews began a tragic trajectory for her wider family as for so many other Jews. 
Most were to perish in the Warsaw Ghetto or in Treblinka; Stalin put two of her father’s siblings to death. Sophie’s family escaped Germany into Russia and there survived the war despite harsh conditions, feeling fortunate to be alive. Returning to Poland now under a Communist regime, Sophie trained as an engineer at the prestigious Warsaw Institute. There she met her future husband, Marian Maj, who was of Catholic background but like Sophie, non-religious and left-wing. The couple married in 1957, the year they graduated, a time when Jews in Poland once again found themselves under racist social pressure. The Polish government lifted the ban on migration for Jews, many of whom left for Israel. Sophie’s parents had a contact in Australia who was encouraging, and the young couple decided to join Sophie’s family and migrate there.
With a background, then, that fostered a strong sense of human rights and social justice Sophie arrived with Marian in Melbourne in December 1958. Their first son was born in 1962; a second son would follow in 1967. Sophie Maj was accustomed to a community that not only tolerated working mothers but expected women to work. Sophie gained an appointment in 1961 to the position of Senior Demonstrator in the Department of Metallurgy in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, the only woman on the staff; women were to remain rare in Engineering for several more decades. Over an admirable career Sophie contributed continuously and energetically to teaching and research in her discipline, including initially the completion of research towards a Masters degree in a little known area of metallurgy. Although she retired from the Department in 1997, but continued for several more years to teach her specialist area on a part-time basis. Throughout her long career Sophie Maj took a rounded approach to academic issues with a generously wide engagement in concerns of career development, professionalism and the social responsibilities of public tertiary institutions.
Sophie Maj’s intense love for work, family and life emerge with clarity in her vivid and compelling narrative. We may rejoice in her insightful and courageous perspectives, and her contribution to the intellectual and political development of her adopted country. She is to be congratulated on her wonderful autobiography.
From the forward by Patricia Grimshaw
Max Crawford Professor of History,
University of Melbourne
