Helmi Liiver Samuels (1921-1971): Not wanted here? by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 11 May 2024.

Helmi Liiver was born in the small village of Kotsama, Viljandi county, in the centre of Estonia on 13 March 1921. She died in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 12 March 1971 – just one day before her 50th birthday.  She was one of the 30 Estonian-born women selected to join the first party of refugees from WWII travelling to Australia on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

Helmi Liiver's photo from her Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When former NSW Premier, Jack or JT Lang, was expelled from the NSW Branch of the Labor Party in 1943, he started his own Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist) and represented it in the lower house of the Federal Parliament from 1946 to 1949. As a former Premier, his views would have been newsworthy anyhow, but the House of Representatives gave them even more status when he claimed that Australians were being displaced in their own land, thanks to the Chifley Labor Government bringing in Displaced Persons. In April 1949, he obtained much publicity for his claim that the Government was bringing in Communists among the displaced persons.

Helmi Liiver had her answer published in the Smith’s Weekly issue of 7 May 1949. She wrote, “In view of your recent articles on the lives of Displaced Persons, I feel that yours is the only newspaper that is prepared to publish honest facts and that you are a friend to whom I may submit a protest against the statements of Mr Lang.

“May I introduce myself as a girl born in Estonia in 1921 during the period in which my country was freed from bondage with the help from Great Britain and other Scandinavian States.

“I suggest that it would be educational for Mr Lang to obtain a book recording the history of our country and he will then appreciate our economic recovery, progress, and development. The facts will prove that our standard of democracy and education is equal to the best in the world.

“We have a prior history of domination by foreign powers and practical experience of what Communism means; hence the reason why we are new Australians.

“My father served with the Imperial Russian Army fighting Japan in the Far East and later again in Europe in World War I. On the collapse of the Russian Army he immediately joined the Estonian Army to push the Russians back from our country. Revenge, they say, is sweet. Definitely so with the Russians, who, on occupying our country, arrested my father and sent him to Siberia and I pray that in the meanwhile the Creator has seen fit to take him to Heaven.

“Has Mr Lang a daughter? If so, will he compare her life with mine?

“I am an only child and my parents were farmers and owners of freehold land and I was regarded as a woman of substance. I arrived in this country with a small suitcase and no money. I was fortunate enough to be given immediate employment at the camp, but it was three weeks before I received pay and felt that I could buy a chocolate.

“Since being in this country I have developed a skill at dressmaking and now have a reasonable wardrobe and the best part of £100 in the bank.

“Believe me, Mr Editor, the going has been hard, but we are of the spirit and type that are not quitters or second-rate people.”

Helmi’s Bonegilla card shows that she started working for the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) in the Bonegilla camp on 15 December 1947. Smith’s Weekly said that Helmi was writing to them from the Bonegilla CES, indicating that she still was working there in April 1949. She was one of the 33 women who had been selected in Germany to work as a typist in Australia.

The front of Helmi Liiver's Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

As for the “best part of £100” she had saved in less than 2 years, the Reserve Bank’s inflation calculator says that in 2022 it was worth more than $6,300: what a saver!

By the time she was advertising her application for Australian citizenship in two daily newspapers, with full residential address, as then required by law, she had moved to Melbourne. According to her citizenship application, she had left Bonegilla in May 1949 and lived for one year in Mentone, which was then probably on the fringe of urban Melbourne. She moved nearer to central Melbourne, at 427 Chapel Street in South Yarra in May 1950.

A certificate of naturalization was granted to her in Prahran, Melbourne, on 26 January 1954, Australia Day.

Helmi is at the far right of this group of Estonian women waiting for their train to Bonegilla to move off from Port Melbourne on 9 December 1947:  her height of 178 or 180 cm visible

Source: Melbourn Sun, 10 December 1947, via Põder collection, Estonian Archives, Sydney

At the other end of the train journey, Helmi (nearest camera) and Helgi Nirk
(white sunglass frames) leave the train together at Bonegilla

Source:  Collection of Helgi Nirk, now in the Estonian Archives, Sydney

At some stage her path crossed that of one Sidney Ernest Samuels, known as “Sammy”. He had been a colonel in the Australian Army but gave his occupation as engineer when he married Helmi on 19 December 1962. He was 28 years older than Helmi, and this was his second marriage. His first wife, Elise Maria Schrey, had died only 24 days before this marriage.

Helmi gave her occupation as accountant. This was a favoured career for bright women and men among the First Transporters, like working in information technology is today. Both have the advantage of not needing a full range of English language skills for success.

Their marriage was to last less than a decade. Sammy died first, of coronary artery disease with myocardial scarring, on 20 February 1971 aged 77. The death may well have been sudden, since a coroner’s inquiry into it was held on 29 March 1971.

By then Helmi was dead too, having died 20 days later on 12 March from systemic lupus erythematosus, the most common type of lupus. Given that, even now, it takes an average of 6 years for diagnosis from when the patient first notices their symptoms, Helmi may well have been ill for all 8 years of the marriage.

I was told that Helmi had been a friend of Helgi Nirk when they were still in Estonia. They were born two years apart and grew up in different counties. Helgi studied agricultural science at Tartu University. Helmi had studied architecture, possibly at the Tallinn Institute of Technology, now the Tallinn Technical University.

I think it more likely that they met in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. Despite the slight age difference, they had much in common given that both were the only children of farmers of some wealth. The two of them shared a room in the Bonegilla camp until Helgi was sent to Melbourne’s Austin Hospital to train as a nurse.

As you can see above, Helmi nominated Helgi as her closest relative, her “cousin”, on her Bonegilla card. She gave Helgi’s address as Austin Hospital, Melbourne, so this must have been added after Helgi left Bonegilla on 3 January 1948. Helgi did not reciprocate though, having “Nil” next of kin on her card.*

Helmi was a good friend across nationality lines. It was she who recommended that Lithuanian Viltas Salyte, later Kruzas, be employed by the CES in Bonegilla after she had left already for Canberra on 22 December 1947. Three weeks later, Viltis was asked to return to Bonegilla and stayed there until April 1949. I hope to have more about her on this blog soon.

I’ve been told also that, after Helmi’s death, Sammy’s family visited their Moorabbin home to remove and discard everything that Helmi had owned. The way it was put to me made the destruction sound like a case of intolerance of someone from another country, another culture.

Now that I’ve looked at Sammy’s death certificate, I can see another explanation. He had 3 children from his first marriage. The middle child, his only son, was the same age as Helmi. The son had a sister who was 4 years older and another sister who was 2 years younger. The destruction, if it occurred, could well have been caused by their distaste of having a woman of their own age take the place of their mother and so soon after her death.

There is another possible cause of the antipathy. The Samuels’ marriage certificate shows them living at the same address. While this probably is the norm now, it certainly would have raised eyebrows 60 years ago. And they may well have been living together while Sammy’s first wife was alive, compounding the children's distress.

Indeed, someone has written beside the name, Helmi Samuels, on the marriage certificate, 'Deed Poll'.  In other words, she married Sammy as Helmi Samuels, not Helmi Liiver.  This tends to confirm the idea that they had been living together for some time before the marriage, long enough for Helmi to change her name legally.

It was a sad end for the former Helmi Liiver.

FOOTNOTE

* Geni.com calculates that the relationship between the two is that Helmi was Helgi Nirk's second cousin twice removed's husband's niece's husband's first cousin.

SOURCES

‘Advertising’, The Age (Melbourne) 2 February 1953, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206118801, accessed 22 May 2023.

‘A New Australian Replies to Lang’, Smith's Weekly (Sydney),7 May 1949, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article235982182, accessed 26 May 2023.

‘Australians Becoming the Displaced Persons — Mr. Lang’, Border Morning Mail (Albury,) 6 November 1948, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263793577, accessed 26 May 2023.

Fitzgerald, Hilja, personal communication, 10 March 2001.

‘Lang's Charge on Reds as Migrants’, The Sun (Sydney), 18 April 1949, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231069599, accessed 22 May 2023.

Lupus Foundation of America, 'Lupus facts and statistics', https://www.lupus.org/resources/lupus-facts-and-statistics, accessed 26 May 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A434, Correspondence files, Class 3 (Non British European Migrants); 1949/3/7658 ATTACHMENT, SS General Heintzelman [Nominal Roll].

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A435, Class 4 correspondence files relating to naturalisation; 1949/4/760, Liiver, Helmi — born 13 March 1921 — Estonian.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947; 765, LIIVER Helmi DOB 13 March 1921.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42); 18/180, LIIVER Helmi born 13 March 1921; nationality Estonian; travelled per USAT GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; LIIVER, Helmi : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1134.

‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’, Reserve Bank of Australia, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 24 May 2023.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, ‘Certificate of Marriage, Sidney Ernest Samuels and Helmi Samuels’, 19 December 1962, Certificate 1678/62.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Deaths in the State of Victoria, ‘Helmi Samuels’, 12 March 1971, Certificate 5673/71.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Deaths in the State of Victoria, ‘Sidney Ernest Samuels, 20 February 1971’, Certificate 7135/71.