The 89-year-old Yarralumla resident, who is passionate about genealogy and table tennis, has a sharp recollection of a remarkable life and his family's escape from the Holocaust.

He was born in 1928 in Gleiwich, a town - then in Germany - with a colourful history. Gleiwich, now Gliwice, Poland was where the Nazis enacted a covert attack on a radio tower which led to the Second World War. The area also served as a location for one of the many sub-camps of Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 and 1945.

Thankfully, Mr Witting said, his parents had the foresight to get out.

At the age of eight in 1936, Mr Witting and his family left Gleiwich to escape "rampant anti-semitism".

"I remember being abused at school," Mr Witting said.

"I was the only Jew at school, I was beaten up often and put down by the teachers. Once during swimming lessons - we were taught to swim by having a belt around the midriff suspended from a rope around a pulley on the ceiling which the teacher held - once, the teacher dropped me in the middle of the pool. I don't think he would have let me drown, I don't know, but I'll never forget that. Ever since, I hate putting my head under the water."

About that time, Mr Witting's father, an economist, lost his job because he was Jewish.

The family packed up and moved to Berlin, where both sets of Mr Witting's grandparents lived. Mr Witting and his sister went to a Jewish school, as they were no longer allowed to go to public schools. The family stayed in Berlin for the next two years.

"My parents tried to get out ever since we went to Berlin, but it was very difficult," Mr Witting recalled.

"Nobody wanted Jewish refugees."

Etched in his memory is the night of Kristallnacht on May 9, 1938, known as the Night of Broken Glass. The family's neighbours, a devout Baptist family who would later be recognised in the highest honour for hiding and assisting Jewish people, warned Mr Witting's father not to stay at home. He spent the night on the underground to avoid capture.

"The Nazis destroyed hundreds of synagogues and imprisoned about 30,000 Jewish men," Mr Witting said.

"They destroyed the windows of Jew's shops. It was a terrible thing."

Mr Witting recalled walking to school the following morning with his little sister and seeing the damage, seeing the broken windows and the graffiti that read, "Jews perish".

"My sister and I, we were 9 and 10 years old. We didn't know what was going on. We came to school and were immediately sent back home. That was something I'll never forget."

Less than a year later, the family was on the boat to Shanghai. Mr Witting said at the time, it was the only place they could get to.

"It was an open city, you didn't need any passport or visa or other documents to get into Shanghai. That's why a lot of refugees and criminals congregated there."

But shipping to the Orient was limited, Mr Witting said, so only very few Jewish refugees could escape.

The family was allowed to take a total of USD$10 equivalent on the journey.

At the age of 10 Mr Witting farewelled his grandparents and boarded the boat for China.

The family spent eight years in Hongkew, Shanghai's ghetto, an area of one square mile, about 2.5 square kilometres, that housed an estimated 20,000 Jewish refugees and about 100,000 Chinese.

Back in Berlin, Mr Witting's parents had studied trades to make themselves more employable. His mother studied hat-making, and his father learnt dry cleaning and laundering. But those skills were useless, Mr Witting said. They were no competition for the Chinese. Both his parents were employed for short periods initially, his father as a clerk of an import firm before he was fired when the war broke out, and his "enterprising and resourceful" mother sold leather goods to sailors. On one outing though, his mother was "relieved of her products and money" by thieves, which put an end to that.

The family relied on the charity of the existing Jewish community in Shanghai. A soup kitchen offered one meal a day. Mr Witting trained as a fitter and turner apprentice and was given a loaf of bread each day that he shared with his mother, father and sister.

They lived in one room of a house which had a toilet, unusual for Shanghai in those days. The rent was paid by an uncle in South Africa.

About a year before they moved to Australia, Mr Witting fell ill with malnutrition. After they were liberated by the Americans in August 1945 and the food supply returned, his health began to improve.

At 19, Mr Witting and his family finally made it to Australia, sponsored by relatives in Melbourne.

They got off the boat in the "paradise" of Brisbane before catching the train to Melbourne.

Sadly, just a few years after first arriving in Australia from Shanghai, Mr Witting's parents died, both aged in their mid-60s.

But Australia was good to Mr Witting and his sister. Aside from a news article announcing their arrival where their noses were enlarged in a touch-up, he said he never experienced any anti-semitism.

"I was always hypersensitive in this regard, but I haven't had any problems," Mr Witting said.

Although he did learn Judo for 15 years, just in case.

Mr Witting's first job was sitting down in a factory assembling propelling pencils.

"I've still got my first pay packet, I think it might have been six pounds a week."

Once he fully recovered from sickness, which was greatly helped by the "beautiful food" available, he served another apprenticeship - as his Shanghai training was not recognised in Australia - at Singer sewing machines as a mechanic.

For the next 13 years, Mr Witting worked full-time during the day and studied part-time at night.

"It was very difficult to get into university because my basic education has been very much neglected," he said.

For seven years he studied engineering at the Melbourne Institute of Technology to receive a diploma, before entering Melbourne University to study a Bachelor of Commerce, which took a further six years part-time.

He finished his apprenticeship at Singer and established his own sewing machine repair business, with capital provided by a relative.

Mr Witting sold his business when he became the technical advisor for an export company. He was sent to Germany in 1955 for training, where he met his late wife, Lesley. The Wittings went on to have three daughters, all born in Australia.

They moved to Canberra in 1965 for work with the Department of Trade. Mr Witting was seconded to the Department of Immigration and posted to London for three years, where he, his wife and their three young girls spent "the best three years of our lives".

Back in Berlin during Nazi occupation, many of Mr Witting's relatives perished.

Mr Witting's paternal grandmother died in 1940, and his maternal grandfather in 1941. His maternal grandmother committed suicide in 1942 after going underground to avoid deportation to a concentration camp. She was an insulin-dependent diabetic who was helped by many people during that time, Mr Witting said. In particular, the same family who had warned Mr Witting's father previously, and a doctor who removed the Jewish badge from her coat. Just five years ago, a researcher contacted Mr Witting with the details of his grandmother's death, and the badge was returned to him.

Mr Witting's paternal grandfather, a World War I veteran, was interned in a concentration camp where he suffered very badly, Mr Witting said. He survived the ordeal, was liberated from the camp and came to Australia in 1949. He died three months after Mr Witting's wedding in 1956.

During his subsequent trips to Germany, Mr Witting stayed in contact with the people who helped his family. He had the highest order of honour bestowed upon the family and the doctor, the Righteous Among the Nations. Mr Witting is still in contact with relatives of those people today.

Last year, Mr Witting and his eldest daughter Jenny returned to Germany to discover more about their family history. They visited Gliwich, the town where Mr Witting was born, and the school where he went as a child.

"We were fortunate that my parents, my sister and I were able to escape," he said.

"We came to Australia with nothing, and we had the opportunity to get a good education, earn some money, make a living and live comfortably. We will be ever-grateful."