The only Australian aboard our Heintzelman voyage, Edna Davis (1906-1985)

Updated 20 November 2023

There was one Australian aboard the November 1947 voyage of the Heintzelman from Bremerhaven, Germany, to Fremantle, Australia.  She was Edna Davis, described by the West Australian Newspaper on 29 November 1947 as 'formerly principal of a school for young children in Melbourne'.  Miss Davis had been in Europe since August 1945, working with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, known as UNRRA, and the International Refugee Organization, IRO, in the US Zone of occupied Germany.  

Her return to Australia on board the Heintzelman had been arranged by the IRO, responsible for organising its voyage to Australia.

'These people are a very good type,' she told the West Australian reporter.  'I have been working with various people in Europe for the past two years, and I am of the opinion that the Baltic people are more like the English than those of any other country that I have met.'

Another Perth newspaper, the Daily News, reported on 28 November that Edna Davis had run onboard classes in English, since the Baltic refugees mostly spoke German among each other.  The classes were held three times a day, for elementary, intermediate and advanced students.

She told the Daily News that most of the men were rural workers, a fact that Australians would have welcomed even more then than now.  She added that others were 'engineers, chemists, architects, watchmakers and musicians'.  She advised that, 'They were specially selected by the Australian Commission in Germany. All had been separately interviewed and had undergone a strict medical examination. The Balts were pleased with the friendly and sympathetic treatment received from the Commission'.  The Commission was Australia's immediate post-War representation in Germany, run by the Australian military.

Source: Perth Daily News, 28 November 1947

We are fortunate in having had the Daily News publish a photograph of Edna Davis, above on the right, with her name spelled 'Davies' this time.  She is together with one of the Lithuanian passengers who actually preferred to be known as Birute and whose last name usually was spelled Tamulyte.  Birute was sent to Canberra to work, stayed, married and raised two sons.  She died in Canberra in 2016, aged 83.

When I first posted about Edna Davis, in April this year, I wrote that, 'I have been told that the Australian woman on the voyage married one of the men on the same trip.  Who that was I have yet to find out.  That information might help in the discovery about more of Edna Davis' early and later life.  Do you know more?

The community of people who, like me, are descended from passengers on this Heintzelman voyage or very interested in it came to my immediate aid.  Peter Pildre knew that Edna Davis had married Elmar Rähn, who was part of the 1924 Estonian athletics team at the Paris Olympics.  In Australia, Elmar became a teacher at Trinity Grammar, Kew, in Melbourne — specialising in athletics, of course.  He had organised a Trinity scholarship for Peter on the basis of his athletic ability.  I hope to make Elmar Rähn's life the subject of a separate entry.

Jonas Mockunas turned up an issue of the Journal of the Holocaust Survivors '45 Aid Society which included a mention of Miss Davis' role in Germany.  Writing about his life there from April 1945, Salek Benedikt described how his group were looked after in an UNRRA children's home in the village of Winzer, near Deggendorf, in Bavaria.  UNRRA Team 182, consisting of 15 volunteers from 11 countries, ran the home.  Among them was Edna Davis from Victoria, Australia, who he recorded as a nurse.

All 15 members of the Team are in this photo, so Edna Davis is in there somewhere,
perhaps third from the right.

Source:  Holocaust Survivors '45 Aid Society

Edna Davis was one of three Australian women recruited by UNRRA to perform welfare work in the immediate aftermath of the War.  They were packed, ready to leave, when they were told that the Australian Government had refused them passports.  

The official explanation was that the Government had a policy of preventing persons who could assist in relieving the Australian 'man-power' shortage from leaving Australia if the work they were to perform could be done by persons available on the spot.  The Government stated that it had been told that if the Australian women could not leave by 6 August 1945, others from the US would fill their places.  The Government could not allow them to go 'while there remained an acute shortage of woman-power for the care of patients in repatriation, military and other hospitals and the dire need for women for textile and other industries'.

When I first read this, I thought, hang on, two of the women were teachers.  What did they have to do with the care of patients in hospitals or woman-power in the textile industry?

The two teachers were Edna Davis and Valerie Paling, both from Lauriston, a private girls' school in Melbourne.  Ms Paling was described as bitter about the Government's decision.  'As there was no ban on male UNRRA appointees going abroad it seemed to her like sex prejudice', said some reports.  She clearly was a woman ahead of her time.

Not only were the women packed, but they had resigned from their work, gone to a great deal of trouble arranging for necessary documents, and each had received 13 injections.

The Government backed down and the Prime Minister himself, Ben Chifley, announced on 3 August that the women would receive their passports.

In case this initial refusal to issue passports seems way too restrictive by modern standards, we must remember that World War II still raged in Asia.  The 6 August deadline above happens to be the day on which an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  While the Germans had signed their unconditional surrender on 7 May, Japan did not announce its surrender until 15 August.  World War II in the Pacific did not end until 2 September, the day that the Japanese Foreign Minister signed its instrument of surrender.

For a comparison, think of how the Australian Government restricted overseas travel in the early days of the COVID-19 regime here.

Jonas Mockunas also turned up an online issue of a periodical called Lauriston Life, which had an article confirming that Edna Davis had resigned from the position of principal of Lauriston's Junior School.  She is known to have not only worked at the UNRRA children's home in the village of Winzer, but to have been in charge of the Wartenberg Children’s Centre, also in Bavaria.  Unaccompanied children received care here while efforts were made to find family members for them.  She also made several journeys across Europe returning groups of children to their homes.

Apart from her marriage to Elmar Rähn, we know little about what happened to Edna after her return to Australia.  The Australian version of Ancestry gives access to death indexes

advising that she died in 1985 in East Melbourne.  A search on the Victorian Government's Births, Deaths and Marriages Website gave a date of 22 November 1985.  

The death certificate then purchased shows that the cause of death was 'alveolar cell carcinoma of lung', which she was thought to have had for about 6 months.  Might this be air pollution in the immediate aftermath of World War II in Germany catching up with her?

The death certificate also confirmed her 1947 marriage — in Western Australia.  Edna and Elmar had met in Germany but had another four weeks to get to know each other on board the Heintzelman.  Now that I have a copy of their marriage certificate, I can report that no time was wasted once their ship docked.  They were married 3 days later, on 1 December 1947.  Both were living in the Graylands Camp.  There were two witnesses to the Church of England ceremony, O Pilais and E Pabeel, both unusual family names by English or Estonian standards:  perhaps they had been among the hundreds of Perth and Fremantle locals who came forward to entertain the new arrivals. There were no children of the marriage.  

Edna was 79 years old when she died, born in Newtown, Tasmania, to David Manton Davis, an inspector of schools, and the former Alice Mary Whitham.   A separate search through the Libraries Tasmania Website provides a birthdate of 16 April 1906.  Some family trees on Ancestry show that she was the middle child in a family of 5 children, the older of the two daughters. 

Electoral rolls and rate books give us some more information about Edna's life after her marriage in Perth in December 1947.  As Edna Mary Rahn, home duties, she was paying the rates on a property on Curraweena Road in the City of Caulfield, Melbourne, in December 1949 and December 1950.  It was a 5-room, weatherboard house said to have a 'population' of 3 people.

We know from a probate notice published in the Melbourne Argus of 27 January 1950 that the third person was Edna's mother, Alice Davis, a widow formerly of Kempton in Tasmania.  Perhaps Edna had been engaged in 'home duties' because she was providing care for her mother.

The Melbourne Weekly Times newspaper of 10 October 1951 has Mrs Rahn employed as the social worker for the War Widows Guild of Australia (Victoria).  She certainly was doing social work with young refugees in Germany.

In 1954, an electoral roll shows her having moved to South Road, Brighton, but again gives her occupation as 'home duties'. 

The first Olympic Games in the Southern Hemisphere were held in Melbourne between 22 November and 8 December 1956.  To make these the "friendly Games" and perhaps because hotel accommodation would be taxed by the influx of visitors, Melbourne residents were asked to offer homestays.  The Melbourne Argus newspaper of 29 September 1956 had a 3-page spread illustrating the offers.  Melbourne Opens Her Homes and Hearts included 'Former Olympic athlete Mr. E. Rahn and Mrs. Rahn, of South road, Brighton' who would 'have as their guest a visiting Dane'.

Elmar appears to be inspecting the roses in the front garden of the Brighton house.
This double-fronted brick veneer with roses lining the walk to the front door would have been
a far cry from the housing Elmar knew in his home country.

The living room of the Rähn household,
captioned by the Argus, 'A fire for a cosy room'

Source: The Argus, 29 September 1956

By 1963, Edna had moved to High Street, Armadale (now Prahran), declaring her occupation to be 'teacher'. Elmar Emil Rahn, also a teacher, was at the same address.

On the 1967, 1968, 1972 and 1977 electoral rolls, she remained a teacher but her address had changed to Illawarra Road, North Balwyn.  Elmar is absent from these rolls, having died as early as January 1966. On the 1980 roll, when she was aged in her 70s, her no occupation was stated and her address had changed to Dixon Street, Malvern.

There are no rates records digitised for these addresses, so perhaps the property on Curraweena Road was sold and Edna returned to renting her accommodation with Elmar.

Australia at this time had laws requiring retirement age of 65 for all, although women could retire and claim an aged pension at the age of 60.  Edna reached that age in 1966, but clearly continued teaching.  In 1977, she was aged 70 or 71, but continued to give her occupation as 'teacher'.  Either this was an oversight or she was still able to work at this age in a private capacity.  It certainly does suggest a love of teaching, just as her life exemplifies service to others.

Sources

'843 'Splendid' Balt Migrants Arrive', The Daily News (Perth, WA), 28 November 1947, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79814996, viewed 5 November 2022.

Ancestry.com.au, All results for edna mary rahn, https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=edna+mary_rahn&event=_australia_5027&count=50&event_x=_1-0&location=5027&name_x=p_p&priority=australian

Bars, Jenny, 2014, 'Miss Paling and Miss Davis: Humanitarian workers in post-WWII Europe', Lauriston Life, edition 3, October 2014, https://www.lauriston.vic.edu.au/.../downloads/page0032.pdf, downloaded 10 April 2022.

Benedikt, Salek, 2002, ' "Wir Fahren Nach England"', Journal,  Holocaust Survivors '45 Aid Society, Issue 26, Autumn, p 4-6.

Blandford, Nick, 4 May 2018, 'Material on Elmer Rahn', email.

'I Hear on my Rounds ... Australians with UNRRA', The Argus (Melbourne, Vic), 4 December 1945, p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12156653, viewed 5 November 2022.

Libraries Tasmania, https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=edna&qu=davis&qf=NI_INDEX%09Record+type%09Births%09Births, viewed 6 November 2022.

'Melbourne Teacher Aids European Children', The Herald (Melbourne, Vic), 3 August 1946, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245542437, viewed 5 November 2022.

Mockunas, Jonas, April 2022, post to General Stuart Heintzelman/First Transport Facebook group.

Pildre, Peter, April 2022, post to General Stuart Heintzelman/First Transport Facebook group.

'Pretty Girl Migrants', The Daily News (Perth, WA), 28 November 1947, p. 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79814870, viewed 5 November 2022.

Public Record Office, Victoria, Rate Books 1855-1963, digitised by Ancestry.com.au.

'To Their New Land', The West Australian, (Perth, WA), 29 November 1947, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article46819538, viewed 5 November 2022.

'Unaccompanied Children, Work of Melbourne Women with U.N.R.R.A.' The Age  (Melbourne, Vic), 7 September 1946, p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206366640, viewed 5 November 2022.

'War widows want higher allowance', The Weekly Times,  Melbourne, 10 October 1951, viewed 14 December 2022.

'Workers for UNRRA: Passports Refused to Nine Persons',  The Riverine Herald, (Echuca, Vic; Moama, NSW), 1 August 1945, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article116615757, viewed 5 November 2022.

Wikipedia, UNRRA  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Relief_and_Rehabilitation_Administration for more details.