Meet Vasile Bagu, new member of Geelong’s 100 club
A Romanian immigrant, whose life has taken him from a prisoner of war camp in Munich to living in Belmont, has celebrated turning 100.
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Geelong’s 100 club has a new member.
Belmont resident Vasile Bagu, whose storied life includes time spent in a prisoner of war camp, cracked the century on November 15.
He celebrated on Monday at a tea party hosted by in-home aged care provider Home Instead, and on Sunday enjoyed a joint birthday party with his great-grandson Hunter, one.
Mr Bagu’s daughter Jo said she was “very proud and pretty astounded” that her old man had scored his century.
“He broke his hip at the end of March and had a big operation,” Ms Bagu said.
“That was amazing to survive that and the aftermath, he’s an incredible fighter.”
Mr Bagu began life in a small village in Romania called Ganesti.
He joined the Romanian air force as an apprentice mechanic at 15, before graduating shortly after.
In 1944, as the tide of WWII changed and Romania became an enemy of Germany, Mr Bagu spent time in a prisoner of war camp from September 1944 until May 1945.
He was freed by American forces when the war ended.
His next five years were spent in Germany after being displaced.
“It was basically a case of survival – trying to scrounge enough food, existing on rations,” Ms Bagu said.
“He remembers carrying a loaf of bread around under his arm to make it last.”
In 1950 Mr Bagu received a telegram from the Australian immigration office in Munich inviting him to meet.
Within a day of the meeting he accepted their offer to move, and by May 1950, was on a 1200 passenger ship with bunk-bed accommodation bound down under.
After spending some time at an immigration camp in Bonegilla, he took up an offer to work at the Ford manufacturing plant in Geelong, where he arrived in 1950.
He began living at the factory in Norlane, before working a bevy of other jobs including working on the Shell Refinery and as a teacher’s assistant.
He met his late wife Joan, with whom he had four daughters, in Geelong.
They had been married for 62 years when Joan died due to complications from Covid on Christmas Day in 2022.
Now he lives mostly independently at his Belmont home.
Ms Bagu lives with him due to him being legally blind for the last 10 years, and he receives some care from Home Instead.
He enjoys getting out for lunch, talking to people, taking Jo’s dogs for walks and watching tours through the Romanian countryside on YouTube.
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Originally published as Meet Vasile Bagu, new member of Geelong’s 100 club
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