"General Stuart Heintzelman" Passengers Reach Australia: the Official Report with Comments by Ann Tündern-Smith

In my very first blog entry more than 4 years ago now,  I advised that Australia's first refugees from World War II in Europe had reached Australia on 28 November 1947.  Even some of the passengers had forgotten the date and used to contacted me for confirmation.

The report below on the arrival at Fremantle, the passengers' stay at two former Army camps in Perth and their departure from Fremantle on 2 December, after a stay of less than 4 full days (4 nights and 3 days as the tourism industry now has to tell us) comes for a file held by the Western Australian office of the National Archives of Australia (NAA).

The file, series PP482/1 item 82, is called General Heintzelman – Nominal Roll – Arrived Fremantle 28 Nov 1947.  I bought a photocopy of its contents around 20 years ago, before digitising NAA files became a possibility.  Some good person has paid now to have it digitised, so you too can read through the whole file here.

Meanwhile, below is one of the highlights, on pages 88-89 of the digitised version.

s.s."General Stuart Heintzelman".

Fremantle - 28.11.47.

The Commonwealth Migration Officer,*

The Commonwealth Migration Officer is informed that the U.S. Transport "General Stuart Heintzelman" arrived at Fremantle on 23.11.'47 [sic] from Bremerhaven and had on board 843 persons travelling to Australia under the agreement signed between the Commonwealth Government and C.I.R.0.** 

2. On arrival the ship was boarded by the Quarantine Medical Officer and Officers of this Department, and after the Quarantine inspection it was found that two passengers - Mr. Stephanus Markelis and Miss Salma Pochla were considered by the Medical Officer to be suffering from Mental Instability, and one passenger, Mr. Karl Tarik, was suffering from Interstital Keratitis of the left eye. The Medical Officers considered that in these cases the people were unlikely to recover and they were prohibited from landing in Australia. They subsequently returned to Europe in the ship, leaving Australia on 30.11.'47. 

3. Another passenger ... was suffering from V.D. but the Medical Officer stated that in this case the man would respond to treatment in one week. He was subsequently landed into the Fremantle Public Hospital for treatment, detained there until 2.12.'47, and taken on board H.M.S."Kanimbla" on 2.12.'47 and placed in the ship's hospital for further treatment pending his arrival in Victoria. 

4. Immediately the ship was boarded, I was informed that a cable had been received by the Master from Germany relating to Miss Irina Traubers. The message read - “Irina TRAUBERS nominal roll No.829 ineligible on grounds of Security. Must not be allowed to land. Should be brought back on return journey. De Witt Chief of Transportation for Higham." This woman was prohibited from landing and returned to Germany on the ship, leaving Fremantle for Overseas on 30.11.1947. 

5. After the medical inspection, all male passengers who were landing were issued with a red or green ticket to wear in the lapel of their coats to indicate to which camp they had been allocated. The women who were all to be lodged at Grayland were not issued with these tickets. 

6. We also issued them with a typewritten slip of paper on which the men were asked to indicate the size of their shoes and the women, several body measurements. This was done to enable the Department of Supply & Shipping to inform Melbourne of the necessary sizes of clothing to be prepared and issued on the arrival of the Displaced Persons at Bonegilla Camp. A Representative of a clothing factory estimated the size of the men's clothing by watching them debark. 

7. On the completion of the debarkation, officers of the Supply & Shipping Department expressed their appreciation of our co-operation in this matter, and appeared very pleased 

8. The ship, having been granted pratique***, berthed at 0930 hrs. but owing to some trouble being experienced with the gangway (it fell down once and had to be moved once to allow a wharf crane to pass) debarkation did not commence until 1030 hrs. 

9. On debarkation, passengers were directed by our officers through wharf shed doors into the shed where a Customs examination of their hand baggage was carried out, and when completed they embussed for the Camps. This operation was entirely successful and completed at 1230 hrs, the last bus load arriving at the camp in time for lunch at 1300 hrs. 

The Heintzelman passengers finally get to 'debark' 
into a former fruit export shed which still stands 
next to Western Australia's Maritime Museum in Fremantle
Source:  Collections of Irina Vasins Kakis and Galina Vasins Karciauskas

10. On arrival at the camps the people were conducted to their living quarters. 398 persons were accommodated at Graylands Camp and 441 persons at Swanbourne Camp. 

11. During the night the heavy baggage was sorted in the shed by representatives of Gills' Transport Coy, and transported to the respective camps where it was ready for Customs examination at 0900 hrs on 29.11.'47. 

12, The Customs examination was carried out on the day of 29.11.'47 and officers of this Department completed Forms A.42 for all passenger on the same day. Certificates of Identity were left with the passengers to enable identification to be easily established on arrival at Bonegilla and so expedite the work of Alien Registration Officers at that Camp. 

13. On Sunday night, 30.11.'47, all those migrants who wished attended a free picture show at Claremont, and a dance organised by 6 K.Y. Broadcasters, was given on Monday night. 

14, On Monday morning all heavy baggage was loaded and transported to the wharf for loading into "Kanimbla", 

15. The onward movement for embarking in "Kanimbla" commenced at 0900 hrs. on 2.12.'47 and all passengers were checked on board the ship by 1130 hrs, when passenger lists and Forms A42 completed, were handed to Mr. Weale from the Melbourne office who was to travel East in the ship. S.S."Kanimbla" sailed from Fremantle at 1800 hrs. on 2.12.'47 with 839 migrant passengers on board. 

16. The migrants seemed happy and pleased at the reception they had been accorded in the camps, and expressed their appreciation of the efforts that had been made on their behalf***.  

FOOTNOTES

* 'The Commonwealth Migration Officer', to whom this report is addressed, would have been the most senior official in the Perth Office of the Department of Immigration.

** C.I.R.O. stands for 'Commission for the International Refugee Organization', usually called the PCIRO or Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization at this time.  See https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/books/9789210602198s004-c010 for a brief explanation.

*** Pratique?  Oxford Languages, as it calls itself now, says that the word is 'historical' (indeed!) and means 'permission granted to a ship to have dealings with a port, given after quarantine or on showing a clean bill of health.'

**** Our author does not detail the 'reception they had been accorded in the camps' nor 'efforts made on their behalf'.  Elmar Saarepere remembered, however, that locals had arranged that their first dinner be served using starched linen and cutlery from the best hotel in Perth. There was an orange waiting at every place. All were seated at the same time, and waited upon by hotel staff with a white napkin over one arm.

     Someone who witnessed the Heintzelman arriving and who later became a senior Immigration official, Ian Mckenzie, told me that the Western Australia (WA) Government thought that all of the passengers would be staying to work in WA.  This might explain the special arrangements for the first dinner.

    I have yet to find any correspondence between the WA Premier of the time, Ross McLarty, and the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, but we can be sure that it would be interesting reading.

"General Stuart Heintzelman” men to Iron Knob, South Australia, by Ann Tündern-Smith

The harsh desert area around Iron Knob is Banggarla Aboriginal country.

The first European known to pass through the area was Edward John Eyre in 1839. He noted large deposit of iron ore protruding from an otherwise flat landscape and climbed one of these many hills, probably Iron Baron, which is around 30 Km south of Iron Knob. A 1848 report recorded that copper, lead, zinc and manganese had been discovered in the area (Aussie Towns).

As reported in the previous blog entry, on Romualdas Zeronas, the name Iron Knob first appeared on South Australian pastoral lease maps in 1854. The town of that name developed close to an ironstone hill of the same name, near an even larger hill called Iron Monarch.

The first mineral claim in the area was pegged by Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd (later BHP) in 1897. Mining commenced in 1900.

Iron Knob, Middleback Range, Eyre Peninsula, South Australia -- the original iron ore
deposit mined by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) in 1900.
Behind it is the larger Iron Monarch

Source:  Wikipedia by Tnorm - Iron Knob.JPG, CC BY-SA 3.0

In 1939, a South Australian newspaper reported that in England, Iron Knob had been described as the largest known deposit of high-grade ore in the world (Recorder, 1939). A 1943 newspaper report said that the ore from Iron Monarch averaged about 64 per cent iron, with more than 60 per cent being regarded as high grade. The Iron Monarch ore was about 35 per cent better than English ores and 10 to 15 per cent better than the Lake Superior deposits in the United States (Advertiser, 1943).

Mining ceased in 1998 but the Iron Monarch mine was prepared for re-opening in 2013 (Wikipedia). Mining lasted for 5 years but started again in March 2022 after a three year break (Mindat.org).

Mining was in full swing in after World War II, when the General Stuart Heintzelman brought its refugees for the first time from Germany to Australia. Altogether 29 men were sent from Bonegilla to Iron Knob, in four groups.

19 February 1948

Name	Nationality
Cholmogorocovas, Jurgis	Lithuanian
Juotka, Petras	Lithuanian
Laurinavicius, Povilas	Lithuanian
Liaudinskas, Antanas	Lithuanian
Malickas, Stasys	Lithuanian
Maziliauskas, Romuldas	Lithuanian
Meskelis, Vilgelmas	Lithuanian
Miliauskas, Jeronimas	Lithuanian
Norkunas, Vytautas	Lithuanian
Samulis, Vincas	Lithuanian

16 March 1948

Bazys, Juozas	Lithuanian
Kucina, Nikolaus	Latvian
Kutka, Albinas	Lithuanian
Mesters, Peteris	Latvian

15 April 1948

Bergtals, Nikolajs	Latvian
Bergtals, Sergejs	Latvian
Ivanauskas, Adomas	Lithuanian
Järvekulg, Johannes	Estonian
Kiil, Rudolf	Estonian
Luekki/Lükki, Leonhard	Estonian
Muiznieks, Elmars	Latvian
Opincans, Peteris	Latvian
Smugajs, Edvards	Latvian
Valancius, Domas	Lithuanian
Zeronas, Romualdas	Lithuanian

29 April 1948

Kesa, Aleksander	Estonian
Kesa, Ernst	Estonian
Sprivuls, Rudolfs	Latvian
Stuknys, Vaclovas	Lithuanian

We have biographies on this blog already for three of the men, whose names are linked to these biographies in the different colour to the rest of the text. We will link more names as the biographies are added to the blog.

Sources

Advertiser, The (1943) 'South Australia's Most Important Production Centre ... Whyalla, the Iron Town, at War' Adelaide, South Australia, 31 July, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48762099 accessed 22 December 2024.

Aussie Towns ‘Iron Knob, SA’ https://www.aussietowns.com.au/town/iron-knob-sa accessed 21 December 2024.

Mindat.org ‘Iron Monarch Main Pit’ https://www.mindat.org/loc-158.html accessed 21 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1948-1950; Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948-1950 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 14 December 2024 [pages 40, 49, 55, 92].

Recorder, The (1939) ‘South Australian Manufacturers Hope for Steelworks at Whyalla’ Port Pirie, South Australia, 16 August, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/96363414 accessed 22 December 2024.

Wikipedia 'BHP' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP accessed 22 December 2024.

Wikipedia 'Iron Knob' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Knob accessed 22 December 2024.

Romualdas Zeronas (1922-1995): Why Tiger? by Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

When my grandfather, Adomas Ivanauskas, was sent to Iron Knob in South Australia to work for BHP’s predecessor, he did not travel alone. Ten other General Stuart Heintzelman passengers left the Bonegilla camp with him on 15 April 1948. One of them was another Lithuanian, Romualdas Zeronas. 

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company had pegged a claim around Iron Knob in 1897, quite soon after it was founded in the New South Wales town of Broken Hill in 1885. Mining at Iron Knob started in 1900. The iron ore was of such high quality that it is claimed that it led to the start of a steel industry in Australia. Mining ceased in 1998, but another company reopened the mine in 2010.

As for Romualdas Zeronas, he was born on 30 September 1922 in Kaunas, Lithuania, although documents from the Third Reich now in the Arolsen Archives have him born in Russia. His parents were Jonas Zeronas and the former Viktorija Sinkeviciute. He had an older brother Viktoras, born in 1920, two younger sisters, Rita and Danute, and a younger brother, Algimantas.

From Arolsen Archives documents, we can see that Viktorija and Viktoras were living separately from Romualdas in Germany. Romualdas was in Oldenburg in the northwest, while his mother and brother were in Uffenheim in the south. Jonas and the younger children are not in these records. 

From these documents we know also that Romualdas arrived in Germany on 22 April 1945. When he stopped travelling west, he had reached the British Zone. His mother and brother, in Uffenheim, were in the American Zone. They may not have realised that Romualdas was in Germany also and he may not have known where they were.

In March 1946, the Lithuanian language newspaper Ziburiai, published in Germany, had an advertisment placed by Romualdas who was looking for his wife, Genovaite Zeroniene. We have been unable to find a marriage record for them. Nor could Romualdas find Genovaite, it seems, since his Bonegilla card describes his marital status as single.

Romualdas’ mother, Viktorija, and brother, Viktoras, moved together to the United States. Romualdas travelled alone to Australia. Romualdas Zeronas left Bremerhaven for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947, arriving in Australia on 28 November 1947.

One week after arriving in the Bonegilla camp, on 15 December 1947, he started working in camp as a kitchen hand. He was no longer needed in this job after 18 January 1948, probably because so many other former Heintzelman passengers has left the camp for their first employment. 

Romualdas Zeronas’ photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

His first job outside the camp was with HE Pickworth of Ardmona, Victoria, picking fruit in an orchard. He left Bonegilla camp in 28 January with others and worked there until the end of March. These days are described in Endrius Jankus’ memoir at https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2023/01/bonegilla-1947-1948-at-last-off-to-work.html

On 1 April, he returned to the Bonegilla camp to wait for his next work assignment. On 15 April 1948 he and the ten others were sent to Iron Knob. His salary was to be £6.8.00 per week.

He left Iron Knob and on 28 May 1948 arrived at the Department of Works and Housing, Phillips Ponds, Woomera, also in South Australia. He worked here as baker.

I think that Romualdas and my grandfather, Adomas, had become friends. This is because Adomas followed Romualdas to Woomera, arriving ten weeks later on 6 August 1948. I expect that Romualdas told Adomas that the pay was better in Woomera.

Woomera was established as a Department of Defence testing facility in mid-1947. Civilians here earned at least £9.10.00 per week.

A nominal roll of persons employed at Woomera says that he was dismissed from here in 1948. Perhaps this former kitchen hand was not quite the skilled creator of daily bread that his employers had wanted.

After leaving Woomera, Adomas went to Adelaide, South Australia’s capital city, while Romualdas to Woodside, east of Adelaide.

Romualdas started working as cook at the Department of Immigration’s Woodside camp for new arrivals on 7 May 1949. He left this employment on 12 October 1949. Along with most other Heintzelman arrivals, he was released early from his contract to work in Australia for two years on 30 October 1949.

On 19 January 1950, he started work as cook in Leigh Creek, South Australia. This was with a South Australian Government authority, ETSA or the Electricity Trust of South Australia. We know that he moved then to the Northern Territory (NT).

Romualdas was a basketballer. At 5 feet 6 inches, according to his Bonegilla card, he did not have the height, but he must have had agility. On 7 March 1952, the Centralian Advocate newspaper had a report about basketball players and their points scored. Romualdas was third on the list. He also was fifth on the list of best and fairest player votes cast by the umpires.

The Centralian Advocate was published in Alice Springs, a vital town in the middle of Australia but still with a population of only 33,000.

His basketball team was called DCA, which I think stood for Department of Civil Aviation. It is possible that this team was based around DCA employees at the Alice Springs airport. As this was a Commonwealth Government department, the team may well have looked for other players with Commonwealth connections, such as a former cook in defence and migration camps.

The Centralian Advocate also carried reports of a player called Johnnie or Johnny Zeronis with the DCA team. Given that the population of Alice in the 1954 Census was less than 3,000 and would have been smaller still in 1951–53 when Zeronis was playing, this name has to belong to our Romualdas Zeronas – especially as one “Zeronas” spelling is preceded by the name “John”.

At the end of the 1951 season, Johnny Zeronis (or Romualdas Zeronas) had come second on the list of players with the most goals scored (Centralian Advocate,1951a).

After 1953, John, Johnny or Johnnie Zeronis or Zeronas disappeared from the Alice Springs basketball reports, possibly because he had moved again. When he granted a Certificate of Australian citizenship on 13 November 1961, his address was care of Railways, Mataranka, NT. 

Mataranka was a town even smaller than Alice Springs, best described as a village if this word was used in Australia, since its 2021 Census population was a tiny 384. The 1963 electoral roll for the Territory District of Elsey showed Romualdas still living in Mataranka, with the occupation of fettler. This was a labouring job, responsible for keeping the local railway lines in good and safe condition, in “fine fettle”.

After Romualdas left Germany, he most likely did not keep in touch with those members of his family who had left for the United States. His mother, Viktorija Zeroniene, died on 6 April 1972 in Chicago. The Lithuanian-Australian newspaper Mūsų Pastogė printed an advertisement on 20 November 1972 seeking Romualdas in connection with his inheritance after her death.

Romualdas died on 29 December 1995 and was buried in Alice Springs Garden Cemetery (Alice Springs Town Council). Sadly, his name was misspelt even in death, although this time it was his first name which suffered. Somehow he had acquired the nickname of Tiger and presumably was well known for the phrase on his plaque, “How to be like that”.

Romualdas Zeronas’ plaque in the Alice Springs Garden Cemetery, NT

Source:  Find A Grave

Sources

Alice Springs Town Council ‘Resident Info, Cemeteries’, https://alicesprings.nt.gov.au/community/residents-info/cemeteries accessed 15 December 2024.

Ancestry.com ‘Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 for Romualdas Zeronas’ https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/31242_178942__1963001-00398?treeid=&personid=&rc=&queryId=32c35b6e-3b62-48f8-b358-dcbb55432f98&usePUB=true&_phsrc=oIs566&_phstart=successSource&pId=104357994 accessed 13 December 2024.

Arolsen Archives Search ‘Zeronas’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/70252657?s=zeronas&t=567404&p=0 accessed 13 December 2024.

Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘Latest release, Mataranka, 2021 Census All persons QuickStats’ https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL70179 accessed 13 December 2024.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience ‘Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup: Romualdas Zeronas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203730950 accessed 13 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate, The (1951a) 'Basketball Trophy Winners Announced' Alice Springs, NT, 23 March p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59842057 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate, The (1951b) 'D.C.A. Defeat Eagles', Alice Springs, NT, 16 November, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59836286 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate, The (1951c) 'Dodgers Head Basketball Premiership Table', Alice Springs, NT, 19 January p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59839262 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate, The (1952) 'Basketball Position' Alice Springs, NT, 7 March, p 16 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59835438 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate, The (1953) ‘Basketball: Tigers Take Double’ Alice Springs, NT, 20 March https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65172477 accessed 13 December 2024.

Commonwealth of Australia (1962) ‘Gazette, Certificates of Naturalization’, 1 November, page 3839 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241014568/25993941 accessed 14 December 2024.

FindAGrave ‘Romunaldas (sic) “Tiger” Zeronas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/205989861/romunaldas-zeronas#view-photo=197703157 accessed 13 December 2024.

Iron Knob https://ironknob.org accessed 14 December 2024.

Mūsų Pastogė (1972) ‘Paieškojimas ’ (‘Search’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 20 November p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1972/1972-11-20-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 13 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D343, Woodside immigration holding camp nominal index cards, 1947-1962; ZERONAS R, ZERONAS Romuldas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Melbourne per General M B Stewart 30 November 1947, 1949-1949 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=33073091 accessed 14 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946 – 1976; ZERONAS ROMAULDAS, 1947 – 1950 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30039454 accessed 14 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1948-1950; Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948-1950 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 14 December 2024 [page 49].

National Archives of Australia: Investigation Branch, South Australia; D1918, Investigation case files, single number series with 'S' prefix, 1938-1960; S1493/5/2, Nominal roll of displaced persons at Woomera [Long Range Weapons Establishment, Woomera, SA], 1948-1949 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=856767 accessed 14 December 2024 [page 33].

Naujienos (1972) [Advertising, in Lithuanian] Chicago, Illinois, 24 May, page 4, https://spauda.org/naujienos/archive/1972/1972-05-24-NAUJIENOS.pdf accessed 15 December 2024.

Population Australia, Alice Springs Population 2024, https://www.population.net.au/alice-springs-population/ accessed 15 December 2024.

Wikipedia ‘Electoral Division of Elsey’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_division_of_Elsey accessed 12 December 2024.

Wikipedia ‘Iron Knob’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Knob accessed 15 December 2024.

Ziburiai (1946) ‘Teviskes ziburiai’ (‘Lights of the Homeland’ in Lithuanian) Augsburg, Germany, 16 March, page 10, https://spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_ziburiai/archive/1946-03-16-ZIBURIAI.pdf accessed 15 December 2024.

Hugo Jakobsen (1919-2010): Leader and Teacher by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 16 December 2024

Hugo Jakobsen obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma of Education soon after coming to Australia as a refugee on the First Transport in 1947. First, he had to serve out two years of labouring with the South Australian Railways.

He also had married an Australian, Denise Gum, within three years of arrival. What a quick start to a new life!

Wait, there’s more! He also is credited with being the person who suggested to the Department of Immigration that it should publish a newsletter for new arrivals. He offered to produce it himself. The first issue of the New Australian, produced instead by the Federal Department of Information (of which Arthur Calwell was also Minister) appeared in January 1949. It continued until December 1953, when it was merged with a similar publication with a broader audience, the Good Neighbour.

Hugo as the source of the New Australian idea is acknowledge in a memorandum
to the Minister for Information, Arthur Calwell (also Minister for Immigration)

Source:  NAA, CP815/1, 021.148

He had been born in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn on 3 October 1919, and his sister Anu was born five years later. They were the only children of the Prefect of Police for the Virumaa and Järvemaa provinces of Estonia, who was based in the Virumaa town of Rakvere. They moved upon their father’s retirement in 1934 to the town of Keila, much closer to the capital city of Estonia.

The family started both of the children at school when they were only six years old, although normally Estonian children in the 1920s and 1930s did not start until they were eight. In Rakvere, Hugo attended the Ühis Gümnaasium (the Co-educational High School). After the family moved to Keila, Hugo completed his secondary education at Estonia’s most prestigious school, the Gustav Adolf Gümnaasium in Tallinn.

He was always top of his class, except for one term in which a new arrival, a girl what is more, obtained better scores. He used to create crosswords for the school newspaper. He regarded crossword creation and solving as “mental gymnastics”.

Due to the early start at school, he was too young to undertake the compulsory national service with the military when he completed high school. He attended Tartu University first, completing two and a half years of an arts degree.

The Tartu University’s Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis has him enrolled as a student of filos (Philosophy, but maybe the same as an Australian Arts degree) for the years 1937 to 1939. Keeping in mind that the Estonian educational year is from September to June, with summer holidays in July and August, these were the two years and more of his three-year degree.

He was doing his national service when the Soviets invaded Estonia in June 1940. He found that he was now in the Soviet Army. The German military drove the Soviets out at the end of June 1941. Under the Malenkov-Ribbentrop pact, the Germans had evacuated persons in Estonia with German family connections already in 1939. They organised an additional evacuation to the fatherland in 1941. After his experience of the Soviet Army, Hugo was glad to make use of the opportunity to get further away.

The only digitised Arolsen Archives document relating to Hugo’s time in Germany shows that he was living in Schloss Werneck, the Werneck Castle in 1941. Werneck is a market town in Bavaria, in the south of Germany. His occupation is again given as 'Stud.phil.' or student of philosophy (maybe Arts in Australia).

Hugo’s father escaped deportation to Siberia in June 1941, when many thousands of others on Communist hit-lists were herded into cattle trucks in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Having previously held such a high position with the Estonian Government, it was very likely that he would have been on the next train out if the Germans had not arrived first. He died before the Soviets returned in September 1944.

His family realised that they also would have been targeted, so mother and daughter left when warned.

In western Germany, they got word that Hugo was being held in a prisoner of war camp for Latvian generals. Knowing that a big mistake must have occurred, twenty-year-old Anu travelled by herself to this camp, and begged for her brother’s release. He was being held because a Jewish person in the French Zone had claimed that a person with a very similar name had been involved in the torture of Jews.

Anu’s story must have corroborated the one which Hugo was trying to offer, as she was told that he would be released the next day without being asked for further evidence or papers. He was released as promised, from cramped confinement in a space resembling a cage, and spent a short time with his mother and sister in the Augsberg camp for Estonians. Then he found work with an American army unit.

It must have been through this unit that he found out about the Australian team which was in western Germany, recruiting workers.

He was one of the English speakers among the 62 sent from Bonegilla to work for the South Australian Railways (SAR), initially at Wolseley, but then moved to a camp of their own at Bangham.

Hugo Jakobsen’s 1947 ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source: NAA: A2572, JAKOBSEN HUGO

When a journalist from the Border Chronicle reported on them on 15 January 1948, he said of Hugo, “University student for two years in Estonia, and for a further period in Munich, 28-year-old Hugo Jakobsen anticipated with enthusiasm the time when he could resume his broken studies. He had trained as a teacher of German and English in his country, and had studied German, English, philosophy and pedagogics (art of teaching) to fit him for his profession.

“He, too, hoped their period of prescribed labour would not be increased beyond the promised period of one year. In 1944 he had been forced to work in Germany as a farm labourer and waiter. His first impression of the Bangham camp was that they had been ‘buried alive with little opportunity to increase their knowledge of Australia and its language.’”

Hugo and Latvian Nick Kibilds were 2 of 17 men transferred from Bangham to Peterborough, selected because the SAR thought that they had the capacity to be trained as cleaners and porters rather than utilised as unskilled labour. Since these two were fluent in English already, they acted as interpreters for the first two weeks of the course. After that, the other wrote their notes as the words sounded, in phonetic English. They also had teachers from Peterborough running English language classes three times a week.

Flaavi Hodunov (L) with Hugo Jakobsen (R)
possibly at Peterborough, South Australia

Source:  Tatyana Tamm

They also did practical work, with the Adelaide Mail reporting on 8 May 1948 that, “Everyone co-operated, because the Balts were so keen to learn”. They did their exams in English and all obtained good passes, to the delight of their instructors.

While there, Hugo organised a concert for the local residents which featured other Displaced Persons working there. The concert, held on 24 June 1948, was reported the next day by the local Times and Northern Advertiser newspaper.

The local Secretary of the concert’s beneficiary, the Railway Institute, introduced Hugo to the audience. He was described by the newspaper as “an (arts) student from (Estonia) who speaks six languages and acted as announcer”. By June, refugees from later ships had reached Peterborough, so none of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian performers were from the First Transport.

After the concert, a Baltic Boys’ Jazz Dance Band, consisting of Hugo on piano with an accordionist and a trumpeter, played music to which all present could dance.

Hugo met Denise at a dance in Adelaide, after the SAR realised that his proficiency in three languages (or was it six?) could be put to better use there than in Peterborough. Denise may well have been an intellectual equal in addition to being a good dance partner. While the public knows nothing about her as an individual after their engagement announcement in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3 October 1949 and marriage on 4 March 1950, pieces of her earlier life made the newspapers.

Before World War II, young Denise was having her creative writing published in the Adelaide Mail. Her poems and a couple of stories appear 6 times between February 1938 and January 1940. She sent in drawings too but was not successful in having them published. In January 1940, having completed seventh grade, she was the top student of the 3 completing their primary education at the Gumville School in the Karte district on the border with Victoria. In a bigger field at the Adelaide High School next year, she won an Adelaide Circulating Library Prize – perhaps for her writing again.

Even before his engagement and marriage, Hugo had returned to study, this time at the University of Adelaide. What he told a fellow student of life at his previous university, in Munich, was so interesting that it was reported to all in the student newspaper, On Dit.

Source: On Dit 4 July 1949

To fund his studies and married life, Hugo moved from the SAR to commerce, selling membership of Adelaide’s Mutual Hospital Association to new arrivals. Mutual Hospital provided both health and life insurance.

He took the oath of allegiance and became an Australian citizen on 15 April 1953.

'Thrilled to become Australians' read the headline, while the caption started, 'Mr Hugo Jakobsen (left), 34, of Warradale Park and Mr Jonas Jakaitis, 33, of Woodville, examining their naturalisation papers at a reception given by the Good Neighbour Council yesterday to mark the naturalisation of 13 New Australians.  Mr Jakobsen is from Estonia and Mr Jakaitis is from Lithuania.' 
Jakaitis has arrived also on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 April 1953

His graduation with a degree in German and history plus a Diploma of Education was reported in the Adelaide Advertiser of 16 March 1954. He had been fortunate enough to have 3 of his previous subjects recognised as equivalent by the University of Adelaide, shortening his course significantly.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 March 1954

By then, Hugo and Denise had two daughters, born in April 1951 and October 1952. Their only son was born in February 1963.

The Advertiser article noted also that he recently had been appointed the manager of retail books at Rigby Ltd. Rigby’s was a part of Adelaide’s and Australia’s history, having once being the largest publisher in Australia. The company was started with a bookshop on Hindley Street, Adelaide, in 1859 by William Charles Rigby. Being appointed to managed the bookshop 95 years later would have indicated Hugo’s prominence in Adelaide’s commercial world.

Hugo had a letter published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 1 January 1954. The Advertiser headed it, “Speech Rights of Migrants, Right to own language”. Hugo wrote, “'Unity' (30/12/53) need not be unduly alarmed about so much 'foreign gabble' in Australia, as it is only a temporary inconvenience he has to put up with.

“When the children of the migrants now attending Australian schools have grown up and start to dominate the scene, they will push the older generation still clinging to their mother tongue into the background.

“His concern, therefore, revealing a spirit more Nazi like than even Hitler's, is entirely uncalled for. It smells of ignorance, immaturity, and intolerance.

“He does not realise that this is a free country where everybody is entitled to live his own private life in pursuit of his individual happiness within the limit of the law without any nosey interference from outsiders.

“Migrants learn, and have learned, English with much better results without legal compulsion because they realise the tremendous advantages which the knowledge of English gives them.”

Being told in public to speak to each other in English was a harassment with which many post-War migrants were greeted. Hugo provided a most sensible answer, perhaps too logical for the “talk Australian” locals.

Hugo did not forged a career with Rigby’s, returning instead to his love of teaching. A daughter remembers that his first appointment was to Elizabeth High School.

Elizabeth was established in 1955 in Adelaide’s north as a home for the workers which South Australia needed for its industrialisation under the Playford Government. Teaching here was a challenge for Hugo, not only because few students were academic achievers but also because of the distance to travel each way when his home was in Warradale, some 40 Km away in Adelaide’s south.

He also taught at LeFevre High, Croydon High and Mitchell Park Boys Technical High School. Towards the end of his career he trained as a teacher librarian and worked at Seacombe High School. He was much happier doing that.

I was taken by Denise to meet Hugo some 50 years later, on 2 January 2004. He was too ill to be interviewed, she had said and, indeed, his dementia made him barely aware of his nursing home surroundings. He seemed not aware that he had visitors, not even his own wife.

But Hugo was tough, lasting more than another 6 years until 8 October 2010. He was 91 years old.

I was shocked to find that Denise had died even as I started to prepare this tribute. She died on 10 January 2024, aged 96, after a short illness.

Footnote

While sorting through his mother's papers after her death, Hugo and Denise's son came across an article in English by his father on how Estonians celebrate Christmas.  No it's posted online at https://www.thevarnishedculture.com/christmas-in-estonia/.

Sources

Arolsen Archives (1941) ‘Name list of resettlers from Estonia and Latvia, who lived in Schloß Werneck in the year 1941’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70553643 accessed 24 October 2024.

Australia, Department of Immigration (1949-53) The New Australian.

Frey, Anne (2024) Personal communication, 26 September.

Jakobsen, Denise and Anu (2004) Personal communications, Adelaide, 2 January.

Jakobsen, Peter (2024) Personal communications, 22 February, 25 September and 25 October.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Information, Central Office; CP815/1 General correspondence files, two number series, 1944 –1950; 021.148, Immigration - From Minister [correspondence with Immigration Publicity Officer], 1947 – 1948, p20-21 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=263676 accessed 26 October 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; Jakobsen, Hugo : Year of Birth – 1919 : Nationality – ESTONIAN : Travelled per – GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 931, 1947 – 1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620853, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Genera; JAKOBSEN Hugo DOB 3 October 1919, 1947 – 1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005793, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series 1923 – 1971; JAKOBSEN Hugo - Nationality: Estonian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947 – 1953, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4077744, accessed 22 February 2024. 

On Dit (1949) ‘Student Body With No Apathy’, Adelaide, Adelaide University Students’ Representative Council, 4 July, p 3, https://connect.adelaide.edu.au/nodes/view/2087?type=all&lsk=13deab63089f66f25769c519cb7d1780, accessed 23 October 2024.

Rahvusarhiiv Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis  https://www.ra.ee/apps/andmed/index.php/matrikkel/view?id=16119&_xr=eNpLtDK0qs60MrBOtDKGMIqtDI2slIpSC0tTi0v0ExNLS5SAYhZWSgWpRal5mbmZUG5WYnZ%252BUnFqHohraKVUCKUNlaxrawGJmhp5 accessed 26 October 2024.

Šeštokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp Sale, Victoria, Little Chicken Publishing, pp 141-142.

The Advertiser (1953) 'Thrilled to become Australians' Adelaide p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48284822 accessed 26 October 2024.

The Advertiser (1954) ‘Letters to The Editor’ Adelaide 1 January p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47581070 accessed 28 December 2023.

The Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham’ Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125 accessed 28 December 2023.

The Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railwaymen’ Adelaide, South Australia, 8 May p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55905773 accessed 29 December 2023.

Times and Northern Advertiser (1948) ‘A Musical Treat’ Peterborough, South Australia, 25 June p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110548699 accessed 9 January 2024.

Wikipedia, ‘Education in South Australia’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Australia#Early_childhood_education accessed 17 January 2024. 

Wikipedia, 'Elizabeth, South Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth,_South_Australia accessed 26 October 2024.

 Wikipedia, ‘Rigby Ltd’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigby_Ltd#Rigby_Ltd accessed 21 January 2004.

Helmuts Oskars Upe (1926-2018): Sheet Metal Worker by Ann Tündern-Smith

Helmuts Upe was easier to track down than many other First Transport arrivals because he was married to a cousin of a Dutch-born friend of mine.  We spent a couple of September afternoons in 2003 talking in his Gooseberry Hill home in the Perth hills.  A summary of what he told me then follows.

Helmuts Oskars Upe's photograph from his selection papers for entry to Australia

Source:  NAA, A11772, 313

He was born in Riga, Latvia, on 6 February 1926. When he was only 8 years old, his mother was one of several people drowned in a motorboat accident.  Helmut missed his mother deeply.  “A father is useful but a mother is necessary”, he said.

One winter’s night, the boat in which his mother was travelling hit a snag in the river and passengers were thrown overboard. Helmut’s mother could not swim and would have been wearing heavy clothing because of the weather. The cold water would not have allowed her to survive for long. 

Helmut was a keen reader but used to daydream through mathematics classes. When he reached high-school age, his teachers said that he should give up thought of further education. 

While the Soviet Army was invading Latvia for the first time, in 1940, he was already working behind the counter in a hardware shop. Given his now obvious intelligence, it is difficult to say how he would have earned his income had he been able to stay in Latvia.

Even at the still tender age of 14 in 1940, Helmut was politically aware and an active nationalist. He was a member of a group which resisted both the Soviet invasion and the ensuing German occupation. 

He and fellow younger members would play ball games against a high wall, say that of the local church, while the older resistance members were meeting nearby. They stayed on duty, despite the taunts of other youngsters, because they knew that they had to warn their colleagues if the meeting was likely to be discovered.

Given Helmut’s activism, it is not surprising that the likely return of the Soviet Army in September 1944, when he was already 18 years old, saw him travelling westwards. After he got to Danzig on a German ship, he joined the German Army. 

He was in Austria when World War II ended in May 1945. Arrest by the Americans and nine months as a Prisoner of War in the Bad Kreutznach camp followed.

The conditions here without any shelter were so poor, particularly when it was wet, that thousands died. 

Early on, he had to wear the same boots and socks for two weeks without changing. When he and others were finally able to take their socks off, the soles of their feet came off too. They had to move about on their hands and knees for a couple more weeks until new skin grew and hardened.

He passed himself off as a German to ensure that he did not join other Latvians being forcibly repatriated to the now Soviet Latvia immediately after the War. 

Later on he found out that, in his absence, he had been sentenced by a Soviet court to 10 years of hard labour for his resistance activities. Such a sentence might well have been accompanied by 25 years of exile, if the Estonian experience is any guide.

When he and a friend, Peter, were released from the POW camp, they started a wandering life, knocking on doors to ask for food and work. They found that the Germans were always kind to them, sharing the little food that they had. 

One door belonged to a man who had been a general in the German Army. He looked after them first until their health improved and they could do some work in return.

On his application to migrate to Australia, the wandering life was described as '1 year, farm labourer'.  This was after '2 years, merchant' in Latvia'.

At one of the German homes in Worms, in the Rhineland, they met another Latvian.  She recommended that they try one of the camps which were being set up for Displaced Persons. 

This was the name now being applied to the refugees from communism, who could not be called 'refugees' as the Soviet Union was one of the Allied victors in Germany. Helmut and Peter made their way north to one of these camps.

Life there was better, but boring. There was nothing much for them to do during the day. 

Somehow they seized upon the idea of joining the French Foreign Legion and travelled westward to the French Zone of Occupied Germany. They were recruited and started training. It did not take them long to realise that they had made a big mistake.

On parade, they were being asked to swear an oath of loyalty to France. Helmut asked to be excused to go to the toilet. Given permission, he jumped a fence, headed for the nearby railway station and found a train about to leave. 

Peter was with him. It did not matter where the train was going. This was just as well, since the train took them to Switzerland.

So it was over the border, back to Worms and, finally, back to the camp whose boredom they had escaped for a while. One day, somebody told them that there was a notice in the camp office about Australia recruiting migrants. Put me down, Helmut said casually.

In one of the holding camps before he left for Australia, Helmut saw the Chips Rafferty film, The Overlanders. This gave its viewers the impression that Australia was a vast desert. Wondering what he had let himself in for, Helmut was greatly relieved when the film’s action moved to Brisbane. 

As he had no scars or tattoos, he had no trouble passing the medical examination for Australia as well as the interview. 

He noticed on the General Heintzelman that something had gone wrong with the thorough selection processes as there were at least four passengers who could not speak any of the Baltic languages. One of them was one of the men who was sent back. 

What he did not notice was that there were also 114 women on the ship.

Helmut remembers that the men on the ship had Turkish cigarettes which had become mouldy. As they were the same length as American cigarettes, the men took American cigarettes out of their packets and replaced them with the Turkish cigarettes. They used the packets with the substituted cigarettes to pay for goods traded by Arabs who came out to the ship in the Suez Canal. 

It is hard to say who had the last laugh from this deal, as the men found that the brandy bottles which they pulled up in return were filled with tea.

As the Heintzelman sailed, its officers were suggesting that the men among the passengers should volunteer for jobs for the voyage, as they would get letters of commendation at the end. Helmut did not volunteer, as he believed that letters from the crew of the Heintzelman would carry no weight once they were in Australia.

When the Heintzelman berthed in Perth, Helmut remembers local people throwing small buckets of ice-cream up to the passengers. 

The passage across the Great Australian Bight in the Kanimbla was very rough. Few people turned up in the dining room for meals. 

One of Helmut’s friends returned from a meal to report that the ship was serving mushrooms in white sauce. Helmut quickly developed an appetite which overcame his queasiness. 

At the mess table he found, however, that the “mushrooms” were in fact tripe, which he had never eaten before and has not eaten since.

He does not remember mutton on the Kanimbla but it was on the menu in the Bonegilla Camp. He refused to eat it there, and still cannot eat lamb.

Helmut remembers Bonegilla Camp as a time of dreadful food. For example, the residents received only one slice of bread a day. 

The residents believed that the cooks were stealing the food to sell it. They used to walk to the local shop to buy extra food with the five shillings per week which they were paid.

The attitude of the commandant of the Bonegilla camp was, “If you don’t like the food here, go back to where you came from”.  The Bonegilla and Kanimbla experiences contrasted with the good food on the Heintzelman.

Some of the residents used to slip out of Bonegilla to work for neighbouring farmers. Helmut knew three or four others who did this, for fifteen shillings a day, three times their weekly income at the camp.

Helmuts Oskars 'John' Upe at 21, on his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA, A2571, UPE HELMUTS

Helmut’s first job outside Bonegilla was fruit-picking at Shepparton. He felt well treated on this job. He was fed by his employer as well as being paid £8 per week.

Once he started working, the Germanic forename Helmuts was changed to John for Australians.

He and around twenty others were sent to Tasmania next, to work for the Goliath Cement factory at Railton, near Devonport. He was paid only £5 each week, from which he had to buy his own food.

Helmuts Upe (l) with Ojars Vinklers (r) captured by a street photographer --
they worked together at Railton, Tasmania, so perhaps this was in nearby
Launceston or Devonport

Source:  Helmuts Upe collection

He left Goliath Cement and Tasmania as soon as his two years’ contract was up.  He moved to Melbourne where he was recruited by the Cyclone company and started in sheet metal work. 

He married another Latvian.  They had one son, a journalist who commenced his professional training with a cadetship in Ballarat.  He is married, with two daughters.

Helmut and his wife ran a milk bar together in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe for a while.  This proved more and more stressful, leading to the break up of Helmut’s first marriage. It was at this point that Helmut moved to Perth, in 1966.

He returned to sheet metal work and was involved in major projects, such as the kitchens of the Parmelia Hotel and various hospitals. 

His childhood indifference to mathematics was replaced by skilled awareness of the need to translate architects’ drawing exactly into three-dimensional stainless steel. He was so good at this that he remained in employment one year beyond the then normal retiring age of 65. 

He even taught himself how to use the company’s new computer for his work. 

One day his boss came to him to tell him that he had to leave because the company’s insurers were refusing to cover him any more.  This refusal on the grounds of age may well be against the law now.

Helmut visited Latvia twice after its second independence, in 1992 and 1995. While life for the residents was obviously still difficult, Helmut felt much more at home there than he had in Australia. 

Indeed, he would have returned to Latvia to live if it were not for his wife and son in Australia. 

He enjoyed an active retirement, looking after his own large garden on the summit of one of the hills surrounding Perth and those of many neighbours.

Death came on 9 September 2018, while in the care of a Perth nursing  home, at the advanced age of 92.

SOURCES

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, 1947-1947; 313, UPE Helmuts Oskars DOB 6 February 1926, 1947-1947.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; UPE HELMUTS, Upe, Helmuts: Year of Birth - 1906 [sic]: Nationality - LATVIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number - 709, 1947-1948.

Upe, Helmuts (2003) Personal communications, 3 and 7 September.