Beginning Life in Australia, by Viltis Salytė-Kružienė, translated by Daina Pocius

These are excerpts from a speech by Viltis Salytė-Kružienė on 6 July 1997 at Melbourne Lithuanian House for Lithuanian National Day. This article appeared in the 4 August 1997 issue of the Australian-Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, from which we are using it and its illustrations with kind permission.

Two portraits of Viltis Kružienė
1997 (left) and 1947 (right)

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė, 4 August 1997

One cold day in Germany in October 1947, my sister came to me and asked if I would like to travel to Australia for work. If I agreed, the train would leave for Frankfurt at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, and in Butzbach, near Frankfurt, the Australian commission would be waiting for us, and then maybe in a week or so we could sail to new shores.

There wasn't much time to make up our minds. Although we didn't know much about Australia, we still needed somewhere to settle down for a permanent life. We wouldn't be able to stay in Germany. And who would want to return to the Bolshevik occupation? There was no question of returning to Lithuania in 1947. And so began my odyssey of travel together with other Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.

In 1947, we sailed to sunny Australia on the American military transport ship General Stuart Heintzelman.

The ship's passengers were mostly young men and women. There were 630 Lithuanian men and 18 women on board.¹ Most of them had recently graduated from school, and their memories were still alive with the bright memories of their teachers who, while educating them, told them that they should live not only for themselves, but also for others, and most importantly, be a useful person for their homeland.

While sailing on a ship, a group of enthusiasts decided to publish a one-off newspaper in Lithuanian. The Latvians and Estonians did the same. The newspaper was called The Baltic Viking. Its introduction read:

"Forced by changeable fate, we had to leave our native hearths, Europe, and go abroad in search of work and bread. Many of our nation's emigrants have long since settled down nicely in the USA, South America, and other countries. We hope to find shelter in that continent of the world that is the most distant from our country and where we will find only a few hundred Lithuanians. We must urgently join their ranks, each time receiving new reinforcements of our own strength. To create an Australian immigrant community, taking unity, nationality, solidarity as the basis, and to strive to maintain close ties with Lithuanians all over the world. Never forget and believe in a happy future. We do not know where our paths of destiny will lead and let neither time nor immense distance break the unity of Lithuanians. On the threshold of a new life, let us remember the words of our Anthem: In the name of that Lithuania, may unity shine ..."

A general meeting was convened in the ship's dining room, and a temporary board was elected, which would represent us if necessary.²

First, in early November, a gathering was organised on the ship to commemorate All Souls' Day.³ Although we did not have a priest, we prayed from the Lithuanian prayer book for all the dead and sang a few hymns together. Every Sunday, mass was held, and hymns were sung.

Scouts for men and women were organised. During the trip, meetings were held and a festive bonfire with an interesting program was held on the deck of the ship. A folk-dance group and a men's choir were also organised. The ship's captain invited the Lithuanian choir to sing for the American crew. One Lithuanian woman dressed in national costume presented him with a modest Lithuanian gift.

The Lithuanian scouts on the Heintzelman hold a bonfire ceremony
(perhaps without lighting the fire)

Source: Mūsų Pastogė, 4 August 1997

Once a week we would receive 10 packs of American cigarettes or some sweets. The women received Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, everyone else received toothpaste and toothbrushes. Today, such gifts mean nothing to us, but back then it was different.

Four weeks passed in a flash. Early in the morning of November 28, the ship approached the Australian coast. Everyone who had just gotten up ran to the deck to see what Australia looked like.

When entering the port of Fremantle, nothing could be seen. The shore was far away, no land, no towers, only rocks, rocks and more rocks. Standing on the deck, I looked at the waves of the sea, and began to doubt whether it was worth going to that shore. Maybe, as someone said, there were only deserts and black bears and kangaroos running around.

However, when the ship stopped in the port and we saw people waiting for us on the quay, the picture changed. Those waiting were the same as us. The mood improved, and when the customs officers hurriedly checked our luggage, we began to go ashore.

The ship brought 849 emigrants to Australia. Out of all, only two people were not allowed to alight: a Latvian woman who was suspected of being politically unacceptable, and a man who developed a mental illness during the trip. The man was Lithuanian.⁴

The buses took us to the intended camp, which was called Graylands, while the rest of the Lithuanians were accommodated in the Swanbourne camp, which was about a kilometer away from the first one.

Before getting on the bus, a strange woman gave me a large paper bag full of still warm cakes with jam. That touched me very much, and I thought, how good those Australian people are! I kept thinking about that woman for a long time. Why did she want to please the emigrants who had only just arrived?

In the camp, semi-circular tin barracks, painted white with lime, could be seen from a distance. The weather was beautiful. Neither hot nor cold. After getting ready, we were called to lunch. Before going to the dining room, everyone was given leaflets in which the Minister of Immigration, Mr Calwell, greeted the arrivals.

The second thing that surprised me was that when I entered the dining room, the tables were covered with white tablecloths, and at the ends of the tables stood vases high with oranges. And we had not seen them for many years! After eating a good lunch, we went to our rooms to rest.

The refugees brought from Europe on the ship General Stuart Heintzelman, DPs, Displaced Persons, were replaced by German prisoners of war from the state of Victoria returning to their homeland.⁵

Four days later, in Perth, we boarded the Australian warship Kanimbla, which looked much worse than the American one. However, the Australians seemed much friendlier to us than the Americans. We travelled all week to Melbourne.⁶

True, before sailing to Melbourne, we were questioned at the Greylands camp, and the answers were written down by Australian scribes. They listened how well everyone could "speak English." My knowledge of English was marked "satisfactory."

While sailing on the Kanimbla, the Australians published a daily newspaper. The ship's management invited me to read the text of the newspaper in English translated into Lithuanian, so that even those who did not speak English at all could read what was written in that newspaper. The Latvians and Estonians did the same.

A week later we reached Melbourne. The journey continued on the same day. We went by train to a camp called Bonegilla. The train stopped somewhere in the fields, the Australian soldiers picked us up with our luggage and brought us to the barracks in trucks.⁷

The train for the women is about to leave Port Melbourne for Bonegilla
Contrast this photo with the more frequently use one
taken by a Melbourne Sun photographer (below)

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė, 4 August 1997

The common person in both photos is Helmi Jalak,
sixth from the front in this photo but fourth from the front in the Mūsų Pastogė photo;
the presence of a second class sign in this photo but not the one above suggests a delay in starting
while heads were poked out of different windows

Source:  Melbourne Sun, 9 December 1947

Oh God, the barracks had not been inhabited for about a week. The floors were dirty, there were cobwebs everywhere. There were three beds with mattresses in the room. We put our suitcases outside and went to ask for cleaning supplies. After bringing water, we washed ourselves in our new home, made the beds with clean sheets and warm blankets. We felt like we were in a hotel.

While we were getting ready, many journalists and photographers arrived at the camp. They photographed our every move. The next morning, journalists and photographers followed us from early morning. Soon we received newspapers and magazines with our photos.

The next day, it was announced over the loudspeaker that everyone would have to go to school and learn some Aussie expressions, which would be very useful in everyday life at first, as well as the so-called "Australian way of life".

It was 8 December.⁸ As I was walking through the campgrounds, I met an acquaintance from Estonia who invited me to go with her to an agency that recruits clerks for various office jobs. Since I could not only speak English but also type, I got a job as a typist and translator at the Employment Office in the camp.

I completed my compulsory labour contract in Bonegilla. My other female companions were assigned to work as waitresses or housekeepers. The men were assigned to manual labour and were sent all over Australia as ordinary labourers.

That was the beginning of my life in Australia...

CITE THIS AS Salytė-Kružienė, Viltis (trans. Pocius, Daina) (2025) 'Beginning life in Australia', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/08/beginning-life-in-Australia-by-Viltis-Salyte-Kruziene.html.

Footnotes (by Ann Tündern-Smith)

* Oral history is not about factual details. Viltis Kružienė did a fine job of remembering significant moments in her journey to Australia and the start of her life here, but some of the details, such as numbers, are known to be different from her recall.

1 The passenger list shows only 415 Lithuanian men but 21 Lithuanian women.

2 Elsewhere, Kazys Mieldazys has recorded a representative committee being elected in the Diepholz camp where all gathered before the train to Bremerhaven and the ship to Australia.

3 Kazys Mieldazys also noted the All Souls Day (2 November) service.

4 There were 843 passengers, of whom 4 were not allowed to land: one on security grounds and 3 on health grounds.

5 Additionally, there were former internees, that is, people not deemed to be safe to leave in the community during the war because of their real or alleged Nazi sympathies. Some came from New South Wales but all had been brought to Fremantle from Melbourne by the Australian Navy ship, the Kanimbla.

6 The Kanimbla, like the Stuart Heintzelman, was a troop carrier rather than a warship.

7 The women were privileged to ride in the back of Army trucks. The men had to walk about 3 kilometres between the railway station and the barracks, carrying their luggage.

8 The train trip to Bonegilla station and the Army truck ride for the women occurred on December 8. The date of the first lessons was 9 December.

Source

Kružienė, Viltis (1997) 'Atvykimo Australijon 50 - mėtį minint' ('Celebrating the 50th anniversary of arrival in Australia', in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 4 August, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-08-04-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 August 2025. 

Žilinskas three, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Green is a common enough family name among English speakers. Its Slavic equivalents include Zelinski, Zelinsky, Zelenskii, Zelenskiy and so on. In recent years, the whole world has become familiar with a Ukrainian version, Zelinskyy.  The Lithuanian equivalent is Žilinskas.

Onomasticians, people who study names, say that this is a toponym, a name derived from a place. The families which carry this name originated in a place which was known for its greenness.

There are over twenty people with the name Žilinskas who came to Australia from Germany after World War II, but only three who arrived on the First Transport. Later arrivals were family units but, in this instance, two men of that name were brothers.

Aleksandras Žilinskas

Aleksandras was named after his father and born on 17 June 1928 in Šiauliai. He was a farmer but recorded as a barber when in Germany. He had wanted to return to Lithuania if independent but indicated that he would migrate to Canada as second preference.

Aleksandras Zilinskas' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source: National Archives of Australia

Instead, he was part of the First Transport to Australia. He would have been only 15 when he left Lithuania, and no family is indicated in the records. Now aged only 19, he was sent to pick fruit at HE Pickworth’s orchard in the Goulbourn Valley as part of his two-year employment contract. Once the harvest was finished, he returned to Bonegilla on 1 April 1948 and was transferred to Tasmania a week later.

In Tasmania he worked at Goliath Portland cement company at Railton from 1948 to 1950. 

It is reputed that Aleksandras was seeing two girls at one time, which caused some rivalry with the local lads. He was challenged to a fight, which he won. The local policeman needed to intervene when the local boys marched into camp seeking revenge.

That's Aleksandras, second from left, joining others for a smoke before a concert during his time in Railton; left is Endrius Jankus, on the right we have Kazys Vilutis and Vaclovas Kalytis

Source:  Collection of Endrius Jankus

On another occasion Aleksandras wielded a toy pistol after an argument, hitting a local who had to have seven stitches in his head. Aleksandras pleaded guilty to assault and was fined £2, with 2/6 costs.  Given the date when he was before the court, this incident probably occurred when Aleksandras worked for the Hydro Electric Commission in Tasmania’s Central Highlands from 1950 to 1951. Here he most likely helped build dams, power stations or accommodation. 

He then worked at the Electrolytic Zinc Company at Rosebery from 1951 to 1955.

Aleksandras didn’t stay in Tasmania but moved to Brisbane. It was here he married Thelma Daphne Pike.

After 75 years in Australia, Aleksandras passed away on 1 November 2023, aged a respectable 95.  His ashes are interrred in the Bribie Island Memorial Gardens, Woorim, Moreton Bay Region, Queensland.

Clearly no-one proofread this plaque for Aleksandras' birthplace before it was cast

Source:  Happy Graving on Find A Grave

Juozas Žilinskas

Juozas Žilinskas was said to have been born in 1907 in the Lithuanian village of Jaunai, Kalvarija township, Marijampolė district, into a family of a wealthy farmers. According to his death certificate, his parents were George (probably Jurgis) and Marie (possibly Marija, née Cejinskas, which would be Cejinskaite in Lithuania).

He had five brothers and two sisters. One brother, Jurgis, also came to Australia on the General Stuart Heintzelman.

Juozas studied in Kybartai and Marijampolė. He later studied humanities in Kaunas and continued his studies at the universities of Rome and Paris. He taught at the Marijampolė gymnasium (senior high school) and was the director of the Kybartai gymnasium during the last years of Lithuania’s independence and the German occupation. In exile, he organised and directed the Lithuanian school in his DP camp. By this time, he could speak 8 languages.

He was 40 when he arrived in Australia, although it is suspected he was at least five years older. (The age of 40 had been specified as the maximum for those refugees lucky enough to be selected for the First Transport.)

Juozas Zilinskas' ID photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was sent to pick fruit at the HE Pickworth orchard on 28 January 1948, returning to the Bonegilla camp on 1 April after 2 months away. The camp administration then employed him as a kitchen hand for more than 3 months, from 6 April to 25 July.

Next, he was sent to Canberra on 3 August to work for the Department of Works and Housing. In practical terms, he was making bricks at the Canberra Brickworks. If he was released from the terms of his two-year employment-where-sent contract at the same time as most others, on 30 September 1949, this would have meant 13 months of more labour for the former senior high school principal.

He remained in Canberra and found employment with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in its stores, where he worked until his death. He had a very good reputation in CSIRO due to his diligence and honesty.

One of Ann’s informants, Estonian Galja Mägi, had come to Australia on the General Stuart Heintzelman too, but on a later voyage which left Naples on 31 March 1949 and reached Melbourne on 20 April (which must have been a record time). She said that Juozas had been the first Baltic refugee to buy his own house in Canberra.

Galja Mägi and her 12-year-old son, Tõnu (later Tony) had lived with Mr and Mrs Zilinskas for the nine months before 20 December 1951, when they had been able to move into their own home. Mrs Mägi’s husband and Tony’s father, Johannes, had preceded them to Australia and was living in Canberra hostels for working men at the same time.

Galja learnt that Juozas was the eldest son in his family, so his father had wanted him to become a priest, as was a custom in those days. Try as he might, he could not commit himself to the priesthood. He nearly had a nervous breakdown over the matter. In the end, he was allowed to leave home and continue to study.

Galja said that Mrs Zilinskas, Wanda, had been a primary school teacher. She had been married before World War II to another teacher, but he had been killed by the Russians. She had fled to Germany with her sister and parents. Her father had died of typhus in one of the Displaced Persons camps. Juozas, who knew her before the War, located her and sponsored her entry to Australia.

Away from his home and work, in the Lithuanian community, Juozas could be seen everywhere and often. He did not neglect a single commemoration or community gathering. He was chairman of the very first committee for the Lithuanian Community in Canberra. From then on, he was on every committee and board.

When Juozas was a little bit over 50 years old, he developed a bad pain in his back. The doctor prescribed tablets for him and told him that he was not to go to work, or even drive, for three weeks. At the end of this time, he went back to the doctor, who wrote him a medical certificate for the period. Juozas took the certificate home and looked up the word the doctor had written for his condition in a medical dictionary. What he found there stopped him in his tracks. The dictionary said, “incurable”.

By this stage, he was having difficulty in reading. There was no nerve specialist in Canberra, only someone who came from Sydney once a month. He did not have anyone with him he could discuss his condition. He spent the evening quietly, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. That night, he did not sleep. We need to understand how much pain he might have been experiencing despite the treatment already received.

The next day he returned to work, in the stores at the CSIRO. The stores contained sodium cyanide among many other chemicals. That day, 5 April 1961, he was found deceased in a CSIRO storeroom about 1.40 pm. The Canberra Police were notified, and the body was taken to Canberra morgue where an autopsy was carried out.

At 2.30 pm, someone turned up at Wanda’s workplace to tell her that her husband was dead. He had poisoned himself in his storeroom and collapsed on the floor. Wanda was so devastated that for six months she could not return home. She spent this time boarding with other couples.

This news of his death shocked not only his wife, other relatives and friends, but the entire Lithuanian community of Canberra and, undoubtedly, the wider Lithuanian community. 

Canberrans and Australians in general would have been shocked by the circumstances also – so much so that Juozas’ death and some others like it are the reason why Australia now has a Telephone Interpreter Service. Had it operated in 1961, Juozas might have had someone with the language and technical skills to connect him to a medical person with whom he could have discussed his situation, day or night.

Juozas was buried in Woden Cemetery, Phillip, Canberra. He was survived by Wanda, who lived another 36 years, until 1997. They had no children.

Wanda Zilinskas (left) with a First Transport arrival, Birute Tamulyte Gruzas

Source:  Collection of Birute Tamulyte Gruzas

At the time of his death, Juozas and Wanda had moved from the original house in Ebden Street, Ainslie, up the hill to a home closer to his Black Mountain workplace, in Cockle Street, O’Connor. This very house was celebrated in a book prepared for Canberra’s centenary in 2013 by Tim Reeves and Alan Roberts, 100 Canberra Houses.

The authors wrote that the house had been built in 1960 by a Polish Displaced Person, who had cleared a rocky, hillside block himself and ordered a Women’s Weekly plan from a local department store. He also had built the whole house himself apart from the brickwork and stonework. Perhaps because of Juozas’ recent death, the first buyer was recorded as Wanda Zilinskas, who paid just over £5,000 for it.

This was much to the builder’s satisfaction. However, it also was the home where Wanda could not stay for 6 months after her husband died.

2001 watercolour by an unknown artist of the house in which the Juozas and Wanda Zilinskas
were living at the time of Juozas' death.

Source:  Reeves and Roberts, 100 Canberra Houses

Jurgis Žilinskas

Juozas Žilinskas’ brother Jurgis, was born in 1910, also in the village of Jaunai, Kalvarija township, Marijampole district.

Jurgis finished his studies at the Marijampolė school and the Technical School in Kaunas, from which he graduated as a mechanic.

After the War, he lived in the Hanau displaced persons camp in Germany. The record of his interview with the Australian selection panel records him as one of those to have been “forcibly evacuated by the Germans”.

Jurgis Zilinskas' photograph from his selection documents

Source:  National Archives of Australia

He arrived in Australia on the First Transport in 1947. Like his brother, he left the Bonegilla camp on 28 January 1948 to pick fruit at the HE Pickford orchard. Together they returned to Bonegilla on 1 April, and together they worked as kitchen hands in the camp for 6 weeks until 25 July 1948. Then, together yet again, they set out for Canberra to labour at the Brickworks.

Jurgis is on the far right of the row of 11 Bonegilla camp employees with a 12th in front
Who are the others?  Who took the photograph?  Was it the versatile Gunars Berzarrins?
Source: this copy from the Collection of Galina Vasins Karciauskas; also in the Australian Lithuanian Archives

Like his brother, he was one of the first Lithuanians to settle in Canberra. He also was one of the first to buy a house and he provided assistance to many Lithuanians. He was a supporter of the Canberra Lithuanian Club, of which he served as President in 1954, and participated in many Lithuanian gatherings.

Here he met and married Bronė Rubikaitė. She had arrived in the middle of 1948 on the Svalbard, the Fifth Transport, and been sent from the Bonegilla camp to work as a domestic in the Cooma Hospital in southern New South Wales. As Cooma is some 90 road minutes from Canberra and there was a train service at that time, perhaps she was in Canberra to mix with more fellow Lithuanians.

Jurgis was a passionate chess player, known locally as by the translation into English of his first name, George. Ann has counted 20 reports of his chess competition results in the Canberra Times, so suggests to any readers interested in the detail that they search the National Library’s Trove digitisation service themselves.

In late 1949, he was one of 8 Lithuanians who participated in a New Australians versus the Canberra Chess Club tournament, along with 2 Latvians, a Hungarian, and Estonian geologist Professor AA Öpik. The New Australians won resoundingly, which probably led to invitations to join the Canberra players, as George played for them later.

He was Canberra’s champion player in 1951.

Ann has been told that Jurgis was “a bit of a gambler”. He probably gambled with his health because, aged 63, he died suddenly of a heart attack on 3 August 1973 aged 63. He had been working at the Canberra Brickworks for 25 years at the time of his death although, according to his death certificate, he had rise to the skilled occupation of bricklayer.

His funeral took place at St Christophers Cathedral before the cortège left for the Woden Cemetery. He was buried near his brother Juozas, who had died 8 years earlier.

Neither of them lived to see the freedom of the Motherland, for which both had yearned.

Bronė was buried besides her husband on 5 June 1996, having died one month earlier. Her mental health must have deteriorated badly in the twenty and more years after her husband’s death. Ann has been told that she used to wander around the local shops talking to herself. Another informant has told of how she was scammed by 2 men who made use of her vulnerable state. As this is Jurgis’ story, the details of his wife’s life are better shared by someone focussed on those who came on the Second Transport.

Bronė also told this informant that she had nothing to do with Juozas or his wife as they did not like her. Juozas’ wife, Wanda, who died after Brone, on 21 July 1997, is not buried with the others. She chose cremation, so her ashes are stored in the Sister Kenny Wall at Canberra’s Norwood Crematorium.

CITE THIS AS Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) Želinskas three https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/08/zilinskas-three.html.

Sources

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