was found driving on the wrong side of the road three days later in Sydney.”
This is the most persuasive narrative I have seen about the psychic breakdown of Cornelia Rau.
Those who spoke to her six years later, even after her ordeal at the hands of the Australian
government as a suspected illegal immigrant, were aware of how obsessed she still was with Kenja.
Cornelia repeatedly claimed that she had been sexually assaulted while at Kenja. When 60 Minutes
asked her why she had refused to give her real name to immigration authorities, she spoke of her fear
of being captured by the sect. In an email, Christine describes the impact of her sister’s Kenja
experience like this: “In Cornelia’s case they managed to focus on a few cracks in her psyche and split
them wide open, leaving her defenceless.” She has in her mind the image of a stonemason’s chisel.
Cornelia never recovered. At first she was diagnosed with “bipolar disorder”, later with “schizo affective
bipolar”, finally with “chronic schizophrenia”. In February 1999, after the first psychosis, she tried to
resume work with Qantas. But her career slowly collapsed. In September, on arrival back in Australia
from a crisis-filled trip to Europe, Cornelia’s parents managed to convince Queensland authorities to
apprehend her at Brisbane airport before she boarded a flight to Indonesia. Cornelia assaulted and bit
members of the federal police. She was committed to a mental hospital for four weeks. On a later
occasion she was apprehended after leaping from a moving train in Italy. On another the family had to
ask Hamburg police for help. Throughout these years she passed from one medical crisis to another.
Cornelia resisted drugs and hospitalisation. She frequently went missing. “Over the past seven years,”
Christine wrote in February 2005, “we and our parents, Eddie and Veronika, have helplessly watched
Cornelia deteriorate into a secretive, suspicious, frightened and unpredictable person whose behaviour
was at times bizarre.” The sense of chaos, pain, fear and anger that the Raus experienced during
these tempestuous years will be unsurprising to the thousands of families who have battled with the
serious mental illness of one of their members.
During 2003 Cornelia began careful plans to escape from Australia and the hospitalisation and
medicalisation she detested. In July 2003 she attempted to obtain a German passport under a false
identity. The attempt failed. At the beginning of 2004 the family arranged for her placement in a
psychiatric hospital. Due to the scarcity of beds, Cornelia moved between Royal North Shore and
Manly. On February 19, following a hearing at the Magistrate’s Court, from which she demanded that
her parents be absent, Cornelia was required to stay in Manly Hospital for the next six weeks. She
seems now to have resumed preparations for her escape. On March 1 she was issued with a
European passport. On March 17, one day before she was due to be released from Manly Hospital on
a community treatment order requiring fortnightly appearances at a clinic for injected medications, and
after almost clearing out her bank account, she absconded. Shortly after, accompanied by an unknown
older man, Cornelia was spotted at Coffs Harbour by an old Qantas colleague, David Livingstone. He
noticed her blank stare.
On March 29, now alone, Cornelia was observed in Hann River at Cape York, Queensland, sitting by
the side of the road. Next day she got a lift to Coen, where she was offered a free bed for the night.
The Coen constable, James Foy, was called. Cornelia told him she was a German tourist, alternatively
Anna Brotmeyer or Anna Schmidt. Foy contacted the Department of Immigration (DIMIA) compliance
officer at Cairns, John Wisegibber. He could discover no record of Anna’s arrival in Australia. On the
following morning, when she was already 15 kilometres out of Coen and walking north, Cornelia was
invited, as they say, to accompany Constable Foy to the police station. Anna continued with
inconsistent stories about both her name and the length of time she had been in Australia – either two
weeks or, alternatively, two years. She produced a Norwegian passport she had stolen and a wallet
containing $2,300. Foy received instructions from DIMIA to exercise the power accorded him under the
Migration Act and to detain Anna as a suspected unlawful non-citizen. He was instructed to drive her to
the Cairns watch-house.
In Cairns, interviewed by Wisegibber and other DIMIA people, Anna first provided two separate names
and two variations, then settled on Anna Schmidt, the daughter of Veronika and Siegfried. She
explained that the money was given to her by her parents three years ago. She had not seen them
since. The Brotmeyers, it turned out, were “friends from overseas”. Anna now recalled that she had
been in Australia for 18 months or two years. The DIMIA officers called upon the honorary German
consul in Cairns, Iris Indorato, to help. She spoke to Anna for two hours in German and discovered
that she had made it to Australia by walking across China, hiring a Russian people smuggler for 1,000
euros, then being delivered by boat from Indonesia to a place near Darwin off the Australian coast.
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