The Kiewa Scheme
The State Electricity Commission of Victoria had been building a hydro-electric scheme south of the Bonegilla camp, in the Kiewa valley, on and off since 1937. It was mostly off due to World War II, so the end of the War led to its resumption in an environment of increasing electricity demand.
Twenty-six of the First Transport men were sent to Kiewa on 14 January 1948, according to their Bonegilla cards. Given that the town of Bogong had been established as the base for construction of the Kiewa Scheme, it’s very likely that the men were sent there, to the Kiewa Scheme rather than the town of Kiewa. This town is only 18 kilometres south of the Bonegilla camp by road. Bogong is another 80 kilometres south, so the men were only a bit more than an hour away from their initial home in Australia.
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| The environment of the Kiewa Scheme -- here, work on underground Power Station 4 Source: SECV via Wikipedia |
The Kiewa Scheme became the second largest hydro-electric scheme on mainland Australia, after the Snowy Mountains Scheme, so the men were engaged for a significant project. One of them was Romanas-Karolis or Romas Ragauskas.
Romas' birth
Romas was born on 2 January 1924, born in the central Lithuanian town of Kėdainai. That birthdate meant that he turned 24 one month after arrival in Australia, so he was just under the average age of the 843 sent to Australian on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. (Four of the 843 were not allowed to land in Australia, mostly for health reasons, so the actual number for resettlement was 839.)
Romas in Germany
The Arolsen Archives have digitised 15 documents relating to Romas’ time in Germany, so we know a lot about it still. His American Expeditionary Force (AEF) DP Registration Record was completed in Assembly Centre 16, which, if that is the same as the Team Numbers on a list available from DPcamps.org, was in Düsseldorf in the North Rhine Region of the British Zone of Occupied Germany. He was registered on 25 August 1945.
The person completing the AEF form has favoured the German language, so the handwriting which might be transcribed as “bauningineur” indicates that Romas stated that he was a Bauingenieur, a “building” or civil engineer. Given his youth, this could have been the field in which he had been training in his city of previous residence, Kaunas, but it is unlikely that he had much practical experience.
On the back of the form, we can read that he was lucky enough to have been dusted with DDT on 8 November 1945. The enthusiasm for this dangerous poison apparently was widespread among the Americans after WWII. Another Displaced Person from the First Transport, someone who had scientific training, Helgi Nirk, blamed her ill health in later life to the amount of DDT to which she had been subject in the camps.
The medical officer for UNRRA Team 35 checked his health that day, with Team 35 equating to Dieburg in the American Zone.
A second AEF form was completed in Darmstadt on 14 January 1946. It gives his occupation as “Student polit.”, presumably political science. His interests had broadened from engineering.
This form was completed in DP Camp 502, Darmstadt, according to a clear rubber stamp. The DPcamps.org list of UNRRA teams says that Team 502 was in Stuttgart, still more than 75 minutes away by modern, fast train. It looks like the UNRRA list is not a reliable guide to the camp numbers after all.
A third AEF registration has been partially typed in Darmstadt on 5 February 1946, making it much easier to read. For instance, it is now clear that Romanas’ mother was Balmira Ragauskienė, née Baliunaite, while all the forms show clearly that his father was Martinas. Romanas’ occupation on this form again was student. And his destination is handprinted, relatively clearly, as Kranichsteiner str 59 (59 Kranichsteiner Street), Darmstadt, Grosshessen, Deutschland. Unfortunately, the additional handwritten remarks at the bottom of the form are not so easy to read.
Google Street View shows 59 Kranichsteiner Street as a private building on the corner of Kittler Strasse, possibly built to house a shop on the ground floor originally. As a student, Romanas now was “free-living”, the term used for Displaced Persons who were not housed in the camps.
Wait, there’s a fourth AEF form, apparently a typed copy of the 5 February one, but without the handwritten remarks. It has an addition in German, though, which confirms that Romanas was studying at the institution then called the Technical High School, but now the Technical University of Darmstadt.
A list shows him as a Lithuanian who was issued with documents in Darmstadt, also in the American Zone, on 5 February 1946. Another digital document is one page of a 3-page list of Lithuanians, nearly all students at the Technical High School. There are 46 of these students, but Vytautas Skidzevičius is not one of those named. This list does not have a date but another, dated 14 July 1947, has him still at the Kranichsteiner Strasse address, still studying, but having been in Brandenburg “during the War”. Another card confirms the Brandenburg presence in May 1945.
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| There are at least 2 copies of this ID photo of Romas Ragauskas in existence still; one has written on the back, "Darmstadt, 15.5.47" Source: National Archives of Australia |
The remainder of the 15 documents are duplicates, one way or another – but it is better to have duplicates than no records at all, which is the case for many of the Displaced Persons we have looked at already.
Interview for Australia
The summary of his interview with the selection team for migration to Australia, on 14 October 1947, shows that he "fled from the Russian regime" rather than being forcibly evacuated. His is one of the cases where the details of his decision to depart, the route he took, any travel companions, have not survived.
The summary recorded had only 4 years of primary education and 5 years of secondary. The team failed to record his tertiary education. Still, they realised that he had the sort of experience that they could downgrade to potential builder’s labourer.
His knowledge of English was said to be “nil” at the time of his interview. He probably focussed hard on learning the language during the 4 weeks on board the Heintzelman and 5 weeks in the Bonegilla camp.
Romas' early work in Australia
After completing his two-year employment obligation with the State Electrical Commission of Victoria, it was 26 October 1949 in his case. Was else do we know about Romanas? For a start, since the Kiewa Scheme was civil engineering, he may well have stayed on.
However, he probably was offered better pay by the SRWSC at Eildon, in Victoria, where he moved in November 1949. Ann, as a former Victorian, interprets SRWSC as State Rivers and Water Supply Commission. Here, potable water for the city of Melbourne was a focus, in addition to irrigation and hydro-electricity.
He stayed at Eildon until June 1950. By July 1950, he was living in Melbourne and working as a civil engineer with the Commonwealth’s Department of Works and Housing.
Marriage and family
He married a Lithuanian, Danutė Balnionytė on 17 November 1952, in Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral. They lived at 19 Chapel Street, St Kilda, an inner Melbourne suburb. Danutė had arrived in Australia in April 1949. They had one son.
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| Danutė Balnionytė's ID photo on her Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
Citizenship
The Melbourne Argus and Age newspapers of 21 November 1952 carried an advertisement from Romanas, as then required by law, announcing that he intended to apply for naturalisation. It said that he had been resident in Australia for 5 years, which was close enough, being only one week short. The National Library of Australia’s Trove digitisation service has not captured the notification in the Commonwealth Gazette that he had received Australian citizenship. The file on his citizenship application still held in the National Archives of Australia shows that he received citizenship on 30 July 1953.
Recognition as an engineer?
We know from the life story of the first former DP in this blog, Estonian Ernst Kesa, that Australia had no registration or recognition of overseas qualifications system for engineers at this time. We also know already that Romas’ occupation from 1950 was civil engineer. In 1954, he and his wife left Melbourne for NSW, where he spent eleven years working in various construction jobs.
Romas was able to work as an engineer on the construction of the Glenbawm and Grahamstown dams, still significant suppliers of water in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. His previous Australian work experience on the Kiewa Scheme, with the SRWSC and the Commonwealth Department of Works all would have helped get additional engineering employment.
In a Newcastle, NSW, meeting of the Australian Lithuanian Community for the area, R. Ragauskas was elected to be the delegate to the Community’s national congress in October 1958. When Danūte received Australian citizenship, on 3 December 1958, her address was given in the Commonwealth Gazette as Glenbawm Dam, via Scone.
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| Glenbawm Dam Source: WaterNSW |
Return to Melbourne
In 1965, the couple decided to return to Melbourne. Danūte's mother, brother, sister, and many friends and acquaintances lived here. Glenbawm Dam, via Scone, does not sound like an address where there were many like-minded people with whom to socialise. The education of their growing son may have been an issue also.
Romas starts sports administration
In 1970, Jonas Tamošiūnas, who was then the chairman of the Melbourne Lithuanian sports club Varpas, asked Romas to organise a golf competition for the 21st annual Australian Lithuanian sports festival. Until then, there had been no golf competitions at sports festivals. All the golfers gathered at the Albert Park golf course. Most of them were from Geelong at the time, with only a few from Melbourne. Romas was the winner of the golf competition he organised.
Jonas Tamošiūnas approached Romas again as the presidents of all the Lithuanian sporting clubs were starting an Australian Lithuanian Physical Education Union (ALFAS) board. Romas became the first secretary in 1971-1972. He was appointed chairman in 1973. Having been assured that there would not be much work involved, Romas found himself developing statutes for ALFAS and sports festivals and organising the first Australian Lithuanian trip to America.
In 1973, he was elected to the board of the Melbourne sports club Varpas and became its chairman, except for 1975, when he was the club's treasurer, until 1980.
Basketball player
Basketball results published Tėviškės Aidai in during 1975 show that Romas wasn’t just administering sporting groups, he was scoring lots of goals on the court too. Various photographs in Lithuanian-language newspapers show that Romas wasn’t tall, but at 5 feet 9 inches or 170 centimentres, he was not short either. He probably made up in agility on the basketball court what he lacked in height.
Engineers and Architects
In 1974, Engineer R. Ragauskas was elected chairman of the Australian Lithuanian Engineers and Architects Melbourne group. This group had existed for 15 years but had limited its activities to its professional members. A dinner on 21 July was organised to change this, and the majority of the 30 people attending were not professionals. Two members spoke about their work.
Chemist Kestutis Lynikas, who worked in the Reserve Bank's banknote issuance branch, gave an introduction to the production of Australian banknotes. Bronius Vingrys, an engineer with the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), detailed the provision of water to the city. Both talks were well illustrated and two short, colour MMBW films were screened. The evening finished with coffee, cakes and wine, and a committee which hoped not to “return to the darkness of the past”.
Sports administration again
When the Lithuanian Days festival came to Melbourne in December 1976, Romas was the natural choice for sporting events co-ordinator.
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| The Melbourne Lithuanian Days 1976 organising committee with Romas Ragauskas in the middle of the back row; also in this photograph, second from the left in the middle rown, is Karolis Prašmutas' daughter, Birūte Source: Mūsų Pastogė |
In 1981, Viktoras Adomavičius became chairman of the board of Varpas, and Romas again took up the leadership of the ALFAS during 1981-82. In 1984, he was again Varpas chairman and secretary in 1985.
After a break, in 1989-91, Romas again chaired ALFAS. This time, together with the Australian Lithuanian athletes, he participated in the 4th World Lithuanian Sports Festival in Lithuania. For his hard work, he was awarded the titles of honorary member of the Melbourne Lithuanian Sports Club Varpas and a medal of honour from ALFAS.
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| At a 1996 Geelong sports day, Romas stands in front of a line of other ALFAS medal of honour recipients Source: Mūsų Pastogė |
Later engineering career
Three classified advertisements in the Canberra Times, of September 1985, August 1988 and October 1990, shows that R. Ragauskas then was working for Roche Brothers Pty Ltd of St Kilda Road, Melbourne. In 1985, this company was organising the forecourt finishes for two areas of the now permanent Parliament House in Canberra, so was calling for subcontractors and suppliers interested in participating.
The 1988 advertisement was for subcontractors for work on the Mulwala Explosives Factory in Mulwala, New South Wales. The 1990 advertisement was for another important project near Canberra, a deviation to the Hume Highway south of Goulburn, New South Wales.
In the 1985 advertisement, Romas was named as “Ron Ragauskas”. His may well have been the office job of preparing tenders for these and other construction projects. In October 1990, he was still in the workforce at the age of 66.
There may well have been many of these advertisements in other Australian newspapers but Australian copyright laws mean that the Canberra Times is the only major city newspaper digitised by the National Library’s Trove project for the period from 1955 to 1995.
It has to be noted that Romas also was a frequent contributor to various appeals for financial support, for instance, for the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper.
Later life
He and his wife were still participating in and winning golf tournaments for Australian Lithuanians in 1999. This is the only time we see Dana mentioned in her own right, apart from a literal ‘wife in the kitchen’ comment on another activity. This probably was meant to be a thank you, but does not read well given the tremendous support Danūte must have given Romas over 54 years of marriage.
Romas passed away on the 15 January 2007, 13 days after his 83rd birthday. A notice was published in the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper on 17 January 2007.
Danūte died on 4 June 2016, aged 86, as notified in the Herald Sun of 7 June 2016. That notification names her son as Stan, possibly an Anglicisation of Stasys. He and his wife, Diana, had 4 children, grandchildren for Romas and Danūte.
In 2006, a perpetual trophy competition in basketball in the name of Romas Ragauskas was created. It is between the Melbourne Varpas Lithuanian Sports Club and its Geelong counterpart, the Vytis Lithuanian Sports Club.
CITE THIS AS: Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) ‘Romanas-Karolis Ragauskas, Engineer and Sports Administrator’
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