Vaclavs Kozlovskis at Pyramid Hill, March-May 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 22.3.48, Mon

The end of the month has arrived, and also the boss, to calculate our accounts.  He’s decided to make some changes.  From Monday Kevin will work at the crusher, and I’ll be the boss of the quarry.  I’ll work with the explosives all by myself, and so the key to the dynamite room came into my pocket.  Of course my wage will increase as well, although only by twopence per hour.  It’s not all that pleasant, but what can I do, someone has to be the supervisor.

PYRAMID HILL, 5.4.48, Mon

Today I lay once more in the now familiar hospital, and once more the dentist worked on my tooth.  This time the pain was over quickly.  Soon the root was out and I could get up again.  This time, it seems, I’m free from that unrelenting toothache.

PYRAMID HILL, 10.4.48, Sat

Although it’s Saturday I worked this afternoon.  The hospital organised a working bee, in which we were also invited to participate, so it wouldn’t have been right to not show up.  The distance wasn’t any particular problem, for all seven of us have bicycles.  We worked at this voluntary job right up to five thirty and only then got to go home.  The locals will have something new to say about us now.

Riding back I realised that I’d left my swimming trunks behind, so all I could do was watch while the others swam.  This wasn’t much fun, but it was my own fault.

Modelling swimming trunks, possibly outside the men's original Pyramid Hill home

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

I felt quite tired and didn’t go to the dance this time, but that’s all right.  Around the time I’d normally be coming home from the dance there was a heavy rain shower.  I listened to the raindrops clattering on the roof and rejoiced that I’d escaped a thorough soaking.

PYRAMID HILL, 11.4.48, Sun

I’ve waited for rain for a long time and finally it’s here, apparently the Australian winter is starting. T he whole sky is blanketed in grey clouds, the large clay field has become quite sodden, and puddles have appeared in the courtyard.  The kitchen tap is working again now that fresh roof water has poured into the water tank.  

In the evening the rain eased and I climbed on my bike and rode into town.  I barely recognised the road - all the potholes are full of water, and the rain has washed a great many new ruts in the road, so I had to be careful not to slip over in the mud.  By the time I returned home the bicycle was covered in red clay. I’ll have my job cut out for me until everything is clean again.

PYRAMID HILL, 28.4.48, Wed

Alas, poor diary, less and less frequently have I begun to turn your pages and fill them with words ... but what else can I do, when I have so little time left over from my other pursuits: I have to work on the weekdays, go rabbit hunting and dancing on Saturdays, play golf with the girls on Sundays, so when can I find the time to spend with you?  But don’t despair - I’ll try to improve!  The hot Australian summer is over and now it’s autumn.

Increasingly the sun hides behind the clouds, and for some time now the cold has begun to shiver through my body on my ride to work.  Less and less sweat forms at work, and we haven’t been swimming for a long time.

Thus gradually the days of my life hurry by, they can’t be caught or turned back.  Only my yearning rushes away to strange, and also to some familiar places, while the kookaburra laughs raucously about the people haunted by their longing for distant places ... be patient, heart, even these eight remaining months of slavery will pass.  Then I’ll be able to climb onto a steel ship, and search for my dreams in the wide oceans!

PYRAMID HILL, 5.5.48, Thurs

Tooth extraction is very expensive in Australia - today I received the dentist’s bill, and I will have to part with one pound, eleven shillings and sixpence.  So incredibly expensive was my aching tooth!

PYRAMID HILL, 10.5.48, Mon

Finally the building of our long-awaited cabins is underway.  The only question is, how many months will it take to complete them?  Today’s post brought me medicine from Sydney, to help me give up smoking.  I’ll have to wait to see what the result will be.

PYRAMID HILL, 13.5.48, Thurs

I didn’t want to go anywhere after work, but when the others decided to go to the cinema, I went with them.  The entire horizon was covered in grey, ominous clouds, and occasionally the darkness shot through with a flash of lightning.  Suddenly in the middle of the second film, heavy raindrops began spattering on the tin roof.  I wasn’t enjoying the coloured film at all by now.

Although the rain passed quickly, we didn’t make it home without getting wet.  The road was muddy and our clothes, as well as bicycles, splattered with clayey mud.  We squelched through this red mud for almost an hour, until finally we were home and could stretch out in bed.

PYRAMID HILL, 23.5.48, Sun

Autumn has arrived, and winter will follow, but summer’s not retreating yet.  Today it seems that summer has vanquished autumn’s superiority and sent as a sign of its power one of the warm days that it always has in reserve.  The weather was too fine to spend all day inside labouring over my foolish letter writing, so straight after breakfast I took my rifle and went out into the fresh autumn air.

The evidence of changing seasons is very interesting in Australia.  As little as a month ago I would gaze at the sky and long to see even the smallest of rain clouds momentarily cover the face of the smiling sun and give some respite to my burning skin!  But in vain — there was nothing to be seen except for the sunlit pale blue sky and the dust raised into the air by the rock crusher, and in some secret bush hiding-place the kookaburra hid, laughing and jeering to see the hot sun beating down on the rock splitters.

But now the cool breath of autumn has begun to caress the earth.  It seems a long time since my back was soaked in sweat, and since my teeth started chattering during my morning ride to work.  The face of the sun has become anxious; increasingly often she hides behind the clouds; sometimes white ones, other times quite grey and spitting lightning, and the water canals have become quite clear for there are no longer swimmers desirous of refreshing themselves, to muddy them.  The water reservoir in the sky bursts through often, and onto the parched earth falls abundant, life-giving rain.

That's definitely Pyramid Hill in the background, and it may be a local canal in the foreground

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

Autumn has come, bringing with it several surprises, which it seems are possible only in this strange land.  I recall autumn in Latvia — there in that distant Happy Isle it was grey and mostly unpleasant.  Grass and flowers died under the cruel bites of the frost beast, to transform into black dust.  Onto the ground fell tree leaves bitten by the same beast, amongst which boys squabbled as they searched for acorns, and all of this was cloaked in grey, dirty, autumn mud.

Here things are very different.  Up until now I’ve been accustomed to seeing a vast field of yellow grass which seemed to have existed from a time before the world drew its first breath.  But now suddenly this yellowness is disappearing, and in its place, wherever my gaze lingers there is green, freshly grown grass.  My eyes feast often on this transformation, and my thoughts rummage confusedly in the past trying to work out whether I haven’t again moved to some new continent, without noticing.  But no, I’m still here, still surrounded by twisted trees with white rabbit tails disappearing quickly under them.

The sheep rejoice in the food autumn has brought them, and only the black, raven-like birds seem dissatisfied with the changes.  They flutter around, caw and with malevolent voices curse in some incomprehensible English dialect.  And why wouldn’t they curse?  After all, the sheep now have food in plenty, and there are few who are weak enough to collapse helplessly for the pleasure and sustenance of these cawing spectres, in a short time to transform into a small bundle of bones and wool.

But the parrots don’t show the slightest interest in all these proceedings; as usual they argue and try to divide Australia amongst themselves, and with perfect English calm the koalas marvel at such behaviour.  This is autumn, but what winter is like I will discover only later, because I can’t make any sense out of what the locals have to say about it.

Suddenly a small grey rabbit leaped out of a clump of grass to remind me that I’m hunting.  I came back to the present, and by the end of the hunt four of these Australian pests lay by my feet, lifeless.  Having visited nature for long enough, I returned home.

Antanas Galatiltis (1923-1983): From Farm Boy to Electrical Engineer, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 7 March 2026.

Lithuanian life for Antanas Galatiltis

An electrical engineer, Antanas was born in the city of Švenčionys, 84 kilometres north of Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, on 23 April 1923.  He attended the Vytautas Didysis High school in Vilnius, graduating in 1941. 

He left Lithuania by himself in 1944, fleeing as far as the Baltic Children’s Home near Lübeck in northern Germany.  Here he taught primary school until the possibility of leaving for Australia arose in September-October 1947.  During this time, he was living in Camp Riga in Lübeck.  

He had given his occupation as teacher on the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) Displaced Person (DP) Registration Form which is held and digitised by the Arolsen Archives.  Presumably he had trained as a teacher during 1941-44, after high school, and taught then as well.

He told the Australian selection team that he had 3 years' experience as a farm worker.  Possibly that was a summary of work done on a family farm.  Of course he was one of those selected then for resettlement, travelling on the First Transport, or we would not be discussing him.

Antanas Galatiltis' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Off to Forestry, Mt Gambier, South Australia

On 9 January 1948, Antanas was one of a group sent from the Bonegilla camp to work for the Woods and Forest Department at Mount Gambier in southeast South Australia.  Jedda Barber's father, Valentinas Dagys, was another of that group.  Kostas Bušma, Stasys Čibiras, and Algis Jakštas are 3 more from this group whom we have met already in this blog.

The working and living conditions offered by the Woods and Forests Department in 1948 would have been no better than those described by Pranas Nagys in a series of articles in Mūsų Pastogė 50 years later.  Pranas was part of a group which reached Mt Gambier on 30 March 1949.  Here is what he wrote about the living conditions, translated from the issue of 2 June 1997.

Living Conditions in the Forestry Camp

“Living conditions here were worse than in the sugar cane fields.  We had a water tap by the barracks, but there was no place to shower.  There was no river and the weather was cold.  The wood-burning stove in the kitchen was only suitable for boiling a pot of rice.

“Once a week, we would organise to wash.  We would empty one large pot of water into a large tub, and it would be enough for two men.  While the two of them were bathing, we would boil water for the next two …

“We had to make sure that the last two would have time to bathe by 8 am on Saturday, when the bus left for Mt Gambier.  So, according to a pre-arranged list, we would wake each other up from sleep for a wash.

“Going to town was very important, as it was necessary to bring food for the whole week.  There were no shops in the forest.  A dairy farmer lived nearby.  We bought milk and eggs from him every day.  Bread was delivered to the barracks every morning.  We brought all the other products from Mt. Gambier.

“There was no way for each of us to cook separately, as there was only one stove, which could hold only one pot.  We decided that we needed a cook.  One of us would cook for everyone, and we would pay him 5 shillings a week for that work.  Modestas Čiplys agreed to be the cook …

“Our cook had to boil water for tea every day.  In the evening, he would cook what he could.  The rest of us had to bring him firewood from the forest and chop it up.  We carried broken dry branches and trees.

“On cold nights, we would put everything we had in our suitcases on our beds.  We would put our jackets and all our shirts between the blankets to make it warmer.  In the evening, we would stoke the heater, one to each room.  After they went out, it was very cold in the morning.  Sometimes the frost would turn white on the grass until the sun rose and melted it.”

Pranas and his peers tried hard to get back to sugar cane cutting, which had been their first job in Australia.   Those not used to cane cutting reported it as hot, dirty work, since the cane fields had been burnt to remove dried cane leaves and vermin first.  That says a lot about the work they were expected to do in the forests around Mount Gambier.

Antanas in Adelaide

Antanas was released from his contract to work where directed along with nearly everyone else from the First Transport, on 30 September 1949.  An Alien Registration record card kept by the Adelaide branch of the National Archives reveals that he had got himself to Adelaide even before that date, since he advised Immigration officials of a South Terrace addressed in the central city on 27 August.

His next employer was the General Motors Holden plant in the suburb of Woodville.  He lived at 4 different addresses during this time, up to January 1952.

Antanas Takes Up Study

That year, he enrolled in the Electrical Engineering with the South Australian Institute of Technology.  By day he worked at Holden factory, and in the evenings he studied.  He graduated from this course in 1959.  The South Australian Institute of Technology became part of the University of South Australia, which merged with the University of Adelaide on 5 January 2026.

Antanas' Work

Antanas worked as a draftsman with the Electricity and Water Supply Department (E&WS) from 1954, and for the Post Master General from 1956 until 1959. Once he graduated in 1959, he began working with electrical devices in the Engineering Department at the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE) at Salisbury.

Australian Citizen and Active Lithuanian

On 13 February 1956, Antanas was granted Australian citizenship in the Adelaide suburb of St Peters.

Antanas was a great supporter of Adelaide Lithuanian House and was Vice-President of the Australian Lithuanian National Council for two terms. He was a member of the Adelaide Lithuanian Architects and Engineers Society.

Antanas' Early Death

He died, aged only 60, on 8 July 1983.

His black granite headstone in the Centennial Park Cemetery, Pasadena, is adorned with a carved Lithuanian cross, his name, birthdate and date of death.

Antanas Galatiltis headstone in the Centennial Park Cemetery, Pasadena, Adelaide

CITE THIS AS:  Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Antanas Galatiltis (1923-1983): From Farm Boy to Electrical Engineer', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2026/03/antanas-galatiltis-1923-1983-from-farm-boy-to-electrical-engineer.html

SOURCES

'Folder DP1129, names from GALANTER, HUNA to GALAUSKA, Reinis (2)', 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67117458 (?tanas GALATILTÍS), ITS Digital Archive/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67117458?s=GALATILTIS%20&t=2737450&p=0, accessed 4 March 2026.

Adelaidės Lietuvių Žinios (Adelaide Lithuanian News) (1983) [No title] Adelaide,17 July, p 9. [Copy in the Australian Lithuanian Archive, Adelaide.]

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1960) 1960 ‘Mūsų baigusieji Adelaidėje’ (‘Our Graduates in Adelaide) Sydney, NSW, 6 May, p 3 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1960/1960-05-06-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 4 March 2026.

Nagys, Pranas (1997) ‘Pirmieji metai Australijoje, Kuriamės Pietų Kryžiaus žarnyne’ (‘The first year in Australia, We are building in the bowels of the Southern Cross', in Lithuanian) Mųsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 26 May, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-05-26-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 4 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D 4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; GALATITIS ANTANAS, GALATILTIS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7207511, accessed 26 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; GALATILTIS ANTANAS, GALATILTIS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 759, 1947-1948 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203670934, accessed 4 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; NAGYS PRANAS, NAGYS, Pranas : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. BLACK : Number - [UNKNOWN], 1948-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203717138, accessed 4 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; GALATILTIS ANTANAS, GALATILTIS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 759, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203670934, accessed 26 September 2025.

Wikipedia ‘Švenčionys’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0ven%C4%8Dionys, accessed 4 March 2026.

Antanas Martisius (1923-?) Another Who Left, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinksienė

Few public records

Antanas Martisius is one of the 31 Heintzelman passengers whose selection papers have gone missing. In addition, there were 3 Displaced Persons with the same name in Germany after World War II.

At least we know from his Bonegilla card that our Antanas had a birthdate of 1 December 1923, so we can focus on a man with that name and birthdate. The Bonegilla card also says that he was one of the 7 sent to the Pyramid Hill Quarries in northwest Victoria.

Antanas' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Antanas' Lithuanian past

The DP Registration Record form completed in Germany in November 1946 says he was born in Šakai in Marijampolė County, now close to the eastern border of the Kaliningrad exclave. His parents were Juozas Martisius and the former Prančiska Butkiūte.

His usual trade or occupation was stated to be smith, which presumably was a blacksmith as opposed to workers in metals other than iron.

A 1942 census in Lithuania, conducted despite the War, gives more information about Antanas and his family.

They actually lived in the Daugėliškiai village in the Šakiai district.  The parents married in 1921.  The census shows that they had had 9 children 21 years later, of whom 8 had survived (4 daughters and 4 sons). 

Antanas was born in Daugėliškiai village and had finished elementary school.  He was working as a metal turner at the Malcanas agricultural machinery factory in Šakiai.  Being what Australians call a "fitter and turner" would explain the "smith" description on his DP registration form.

Alien Registration Details

His Alien Registration Application form says that he was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, so he towered almost as much as the 6 feet 3 inch (1.9 m) tall Lembit Koplus, his fellow Pyramid Hill worker.

The file which contains his Alien Registration Application form also has his original Certificate of Registration under the Aliens Act, a passport-like document. It was issued in September 1952 to replace an earlier Certificate which was mutilated. This means that there is no record of his movements after leaving the Bonegilla Camp for Pyramid Hill until a Rae Street, Fitzroy, address at the start of the new Certificate.

Later changes of address were to a hostel in Eildon, Victoria, in September 1953 and to semi-rural Clarinda, then on the outskirts of Melbourne but now definitely a southeastern suburb, in July 1956.

Antanas Leaves

Then the final record states that Antanas left the Commonwealth (of Australia) on 11 July 1958 on a passenger ship, the Oronsay. It sailed a trans-Pacific route, stopping at both Vancouver, Canada, and San Francisco in the United States.

The Oransay was favoured by several others who left Australia for the Americas. The first was Viktoras Kuciauskas in 1956, bound for the love of his life in the United States. The peripatetic Vladas Navickas left Australia on this ship in early in 1959. Veronika Tutins, now Brokans, travelled on the Oronsay with her family in 1960, probably with the aim of joining her successful brother-in-law.

After Antanas left Sydney on the Oronsay, the trail has gone cold. There appear to be no further public records of the life of our Antanas Martisius.

SOURCES

‘Folder DP2579, names from MARTINSONS, MARIA to MARTON, IBOLYA (2)’ 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 68195911 (Antanas MARTISIUS), ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/68195911, accessed 2 March 2026.

National Archive of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents, 1948-1965; 1958/MARTISIUS A, MARTISIUS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1958 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6036235, accessed 3 March 2026.

National Archive of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MARTISIUS ANTANAS, MARTISIUS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 964 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203615119, accessed 3 March 2026.

VšĮ Genealoginiai surašymai (Public Institution Genealogical Censuses) 'Šeimos surašymas 1942 metais' ('Family Census in 1942', in Lithuanian) https://eu3.ragic.com/genealogija/census/3/19406.xhtml, accessed 4 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Clarinda, Victoria’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinda,_Victoria, accessed 3 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Marijampolė County’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijampolė_County, accessed 2 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Šakai’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0akiai, accessed 2 March 2026.

Wikipedia ‘SS Oronsay (1950)’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Oronsay_(1950), accessed 2 March 2026.

Woomera, South Australia, by Jonas Mockūnas

Rocket range

The idea of establishing a rocket range in outback Australia — with the impressive title of the Anglo-Australian Long-Range Weapons Establishment (LRWE) — originated soon after the end of World War II. Concerned by the lack of adequate defences to the German V-2 rockets during the war and by growing Cold War tensions in the post-war environment, the Anglo-Australian Joint Project was established in 1946 with the LRWE as a centrepiece.

A huge parcel of remote land in South Australia — the Woomera Prohibited Area — was declared in 1947, for use as a testing range for new rockets and guided missiles. At its peak, the range covered 270,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the United Kingdom, and accommodated both military and civil aerospace testing facilities. Today, the somewhat smaller prohibited area is called the RAAF Woomera Range Complex (WRC).

Growing up in Adelaide during the 1950s, I was vaguely aware of the rocket range, as tests were occasionally reported in the local media. I also knew that some of the Displaced Persons (DPs) who had arrived in Australia after the War had worked there, including my father and a few of his Lithuanian friends and acquaintances. It was only a few years ago that I began to comprehend the massive scale of the project, or the contribution made by refugees, largely thanks to the research of Associate Professor Andrew Saniga of Melbourne University.

Tent lines at Woomera in 1947 or 1948 in the base camp of No. 2 Airfield Construction Company,
RAAF, engaged in constructing the airfield for the rocket range

Source:  Australian War Memorial PO1984.001

DPs Employed Despite Security Questions

Once the Prohibited Area was established, the Department of Works and Housing was tasked with building a village and other infrastructure at Woomera. Labour was in short supply, so despite the security considerations at the military-controlled site, newly-arrived DPs under work contract to the Australian government were also brought in to assist with the construction phase.

Some of the ‘Balts’ who had reached Australia in late 1947 on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, the First Transport, began arriving at the Woomera worksites from April 1948, having been redirected from their initial placements in fruit picking or other jobs. The first major placement, of 50 men from the Bonegilla migrant camp, was despatched on 2 June 1948; by mid-1949 there had been over 400 DPs sent to the rocket range, and 360 were still there despite the harsh work and living conditions. 

Most likely there were few attractions in this remote environment for the new migrants other than their pay packets, which were larger than could be found for unskilled work elsewhere in Australia; the June 1948 contingent started on a wage of £7/10 per week, accommodation and meals included. By April 1949 my father, who had arrived on the Second Transport, recorded that most unskilled wages started at £11 per week.

Hundreds of DPs Employed at Woomera

In May 1949 the Security Officer at Woomera compiled a Nominal Roll of the DPs who had been employed at Woomera from April 1948 to April 1949. Numerically, the Poles were the largest group (112), followed by Lithuanians (92), Latvians (89) and Estonians (38). The Nominal Roll, together with the Bonegilla records, show at least 34 Balts from the First Transport at Woomera during the late 1940s:

Estonians Kuusk, Lembit Latvians Abolins, Voldemars Apinis, Janis Bergtals, Sergejs Bergtals, Nikolajs Kondrats, Vilis Muiznieks, Elmars Osins, Augusts Osis, Eriks

Lithuanians Balsevičius, Bronius Brazauskas, Antanas Budrionis, Antanas Dailyde, Vladas Janonis, Zenonas Kildišas, Adolfas Laurinavičius, Povilas Lileika, Algirdas Lizaitis, Algirdas Meškelis, Vilgelminas Navickas, Albinas Norkeliunas, Antanas Norkūnas, Vytautas Petruškevičius, Jonas Petruškevičius (nee Salytė), Viltis Reisgys, Anskis Rimkevičius, Eduardas Sivickas, Vincas Staugas, Eduardas Strankauskas, Jonas Valinčius, Kazys Venzlauskas, Antanas Volkovas, Simonas Zakarauskas, Jurgis Zeronas, Romualdas

[Some names in the list above have had links added to them, which will take you to the biographies of those individuals.  More links will be added as more relevant biographies appear on this blog.]

The earliest from the First Transport to arrive at Woomera was Vilgelmas Meškelis, on 25 April 1948; he had already worked picking fruit for J Nethersole and Son, at Ardmona in Victoria, before being sent to Iron Knob in South Australia after a return to the Bonegilla camp. He was followed by four others during May 1948 (S. Bergtals, Laurinavičius, Navickas and Norkūnas). Nine members of the June 1948 contingent from Bonegilla were First Transporters.

Most of the men were employed as labourers on the various construction projects, although a few were given semi-skilled or trade tasks. Elmars Muiznieks, a mechanic in Latvia, was employed in the mechanics workshop until he was dismissed (see below) and Romualdas Zeronas was employed as a cook’s offsider until he too was dismissed.

The Bergtals brothers, having had prior supervisory experience, were given more responsibility, Sergejs as a ganger/foreman, and Nikolajs as a ganger/draftsman. Albinas Navickas worked as a linesman, Jonas Petruškevičius as a stone mason, and Anskis Reisgys as a cable joiner.

Viltis Petruškevičius, née Salytė, the only woman in this group, worked as a waitress; she had opted to go to Woomera to accompany her husband Jonas after they married in April 1948.

Building the spur line to Woomera, 1949

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Conditions in the early construction camps were often relatively primitive, even for men who had spent years in Europe’s Displaced Persons camps. Many had elected to put up with the conditions as a means of saving a nest-egg towards their futures in the big cities, others enjoyed the new-found freedom in the bush including the relatively unrestrained opportunities for alcohol and/or gambling. Not surprisingly, around 6 per cent of the DPs were dismissed for various transgressions within that first year.

Escapade Led to Deportation

Perhaps one of the more colourful escapades was that undertaken by two Latvians, Elmars Muiznieks and Julius Gravans who stole a truck in Woomera in February 1949 but were soon apprehended, fined £20 Pounds in the Port Augusta Police Court, and dismissed from their employment.

Deportation Order for Elmars Muiznieks

Source:  Arolsen Archives

What may have started as a lark did not end well for these men: ignoring their work obligations to the Australian Government, they then made their way to Melbourne, but were soon arrested by the Victorian Police operating at the request of the Department of Immigration. The authorities had clearly had enough — the men were given dictation tests, in Italian and Romanian, and declared prohibited immigrants before being deported in September 1949. Ironically, the First Transport Balts were released from their work obligations to the Commonwealth at the end of September 1949.

FOOTNOTES

1. The Nominal Roll does not list all of the above names; in particular, Viltis Petruškevičius and Algirdas Lileika do not appear on the Roll and have been included because of other substantiating documentation. If searching the Nominal Roll, please be aware of other errors also, including incorrect arrival dates to Australia (several First Transport passengers are shown as arriving in November 1948, whereas the year should be 1947), and incorrect listing by nationality (for example Budrionis and Laurinavičius are both listed under the Latvian heading).

2. There are many other issues associated with Woomera that are beyond the scope of this post. Prof Saniga touched on a few of these in the 2022 exhibition catalogue, referring to the irony of ‘war-weary European migrants‘ who had been displaced from their own homelands being sent to work on a military project that had involved ‘the displacement of Aboriginal people, mainly the Kokatha, from their tribal lands’.

ANN'S ADDITIONS

In a 2025 paper, Scriver, Cooke and Saniga note that ‘At least six different Aboriginal Peoples were impacted by the LWRE. Much of what had been the country of the Kokatha People ... would thereafter be designated the Woomera Prohibited Area. 

'The extent of the impact was much greater, however, as numerous other groups would also be profoundly affected ... along the thousands of kilometres of the rocket range’s firing line that traversed their ancestral countries between Woomera and the northwest coast of Australia. 

'These included the Nakako, Pitjantjatjara, Ngatatjara, Mardu and Nyangumarda Peoples ... tracking and clearing people from the fall zones of spent rockets by the LRWE’s Native Patrol Officers, including the removal to mission reserves of women and children of the Manjiljarra/Martu Wangka and Yulparija Peoples, some of who had reputedly never left the desert previously.’

We should note that what may seem ruthless now was just part and parcel of what had happened to many people across Europe and Asia during and after World War II, especially in the Baltic and other Eastern European countries from which the DPs came. 

The Anglo side of this Anglo-Australian project, in particular, might have included survivors of the London Blitz of September 1940 to May 1941 or people whose families had been caught up in it.  The military of both nations had just been fighting against would-be invaders for 6 long years.

Those “growing Cold War tensions” Jonas mentioned at the start affected the attitudes of Anglo-Australian officials to the pre-existing populations.  They had to be moved on for the good of the whole world.

SOURCES

Brisbane Telegraph (1949) ‘Balts jailed; Left jobs’ Brisbane, May 16, p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212265738, accessed 27 January 2026.

Mockūnas, Jonas (snr) (1949) [Personal diary].

National Archive of Australia: Commonwealth Investigation Service, 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 18 February 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1947-1950; 21, 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 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376, accessed 18 February 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4481, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; PETRUSKEVICIUS VILTIS LODZE, Petruskevicius Viltis Lodze - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Also known as NEE SALYTE, 1947-1952 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9221636, accessed 18 February 2026.

'Personal file of MUIZNIEKS, ELMARS, born on 4-Jan-1918, born in VALMIERA' 3.2.1 IRO "Care and Maintenance" Program, DocID: 79506031, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79506031,  accessed 18 February 2026.

Petruškevičienė, Viltis (1950) ‘Woomera West’ Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, August 16, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259363646, accessed 18 February 2026.

Saniga, Andrew (2022) 'Woomera' in Immigrant Networks (exhibition catalogue), Melbourne (16 November 2022 to 10 February 2023).

Saniga, Andrew (2024) 'Woomera: A Landscape of Displacement and Renewal' in A. Pieris, M. Lozanovska, A. Dellios, A. Saniga & D. Deynon, Immigrant Industry: Building Postwar Australia, Berghahn Books, New York and Oxford, pp132-165.

Scriver, P. C., Cooke, S., & Saniga, A. (2025). 'Constructing/curating Woomera: a topology of displacement between northeastern Europe and Central Australia', Landscape Research, 50(7), 1173–1189. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2025.2526505, accessed 18 February 2026.

Wikipedia ' RAAF Woomera Range Complex' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAAF_Woomera_Range_Complex accessed 26 January 2026.

Vladas (Vlad or Wally) Akumbakas (1928-2002), sportsman, dancer, singer, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Many of the men who were brought to Australia on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, were sent to where they could contribute to the production of materials for houses. It often was timber-cutting but, in the case of Vladas Akumbas, it was rooftile-making followed by a career in carpet manufacture.

Vladas Akumbakas ID photo from his selection papers for migration to Australia

Source:  National Archives of Australia

We have looked at the lives of Juozas and Jurgis Zilinskas, 2 of the 5 men from the First Transport sent to work for the Department of Works and Housing in Canberra on 3 August 1948. Vladas was another of this group but an Alien Registration record shows that he was not directed to the Canberra Brickworks like the Zilinskas brothers. Instead, he was sent to the recently opened Monier factory in The Causeway in Canberra, where machinery to make roof tiles had been installed at the start of the year.

ACT Representative Basketballer, 1949

By November 1948, there were known to be about 70 Lithuanians in Canberra, plus Latvians and Estonians, so the Lithuanian men had started a basketball team, Balts. Vladas was a member. The team was so good that it had won its 5 first matches against locals by more than double the other teams’ score, but a major test came in when it met the visiting senior Sydney YMCA team.

The Sydney team contained 3 former State representatives and was on the hunt for that season’s State title. Despite Balts’ “play (being) the cleverest seen in Canberra” according to the Canberra Times, the Sydney team succeeded when the locals could not.  It won with a score nearly double the Balts.

Vladas continued to play while in Canberra, although sometimes with Balts II team.  He still was good enough to be chosen for an ACT representative team sent to the 1949 NSW country championships.  Fellow researcher and Blogger, Jonas Mockūnas, says that the team did so well it finished second.

Balts basketball team, perhaps in Newcastle:
we think that Vladas is number 10, second from the left

Source:  Canberra Lithuanian Community

While making roofing tiles in Canberra, Vladas lived in the Capital Hill Hostel. The location will be familiar to most Australians as the place where Australia’s permanent Parliament House now sits. Operating roof tile machines was Vladas’ second job in Australia. His first was as kitchenhand in the Bonegilla camp from 15 December 1947 for 7 months. He was one of the men who did not go fruit-picking.

While there, he was a member of the table tennis team called, again, Balts, along with Gunars Berzarrins (whose story we have visited already), Janis Belousovs and someone called Nimrods Miltins who had arrived on the Third Transport. (The Third Transport was the General WM Black, which reached Melbourne on 27 April 1948 with 860 Displaced Persons, that is, refugees.)

Table tennis reports in the Border Morning Mail indicate that various other Bonegilla residents were on the team at various times, perhaps depending on whether playing conflicted with their work schedule. On both occasions when Vladas was reported as playing, he was a partner in a winning doubles combination.

Vladas’ German Heritage

Vladas had German parentage on both sides. His paternal grandfather was an Achenbach. That family name was Lithuanised gradually according to Vladas’ obituarist, JNP, to Achumbachas before Vladas’ father changed it to Akumbakas.

His father, a shoemaker, had started life as Pranas Achumbachas, born on 22 April 1899.  His mother was Emilija Meyer, born on 21 January 1899.  Vladas had been born on 1 September 1928 in Veliuona, on the Nemunas River.  At school, Vladas learnt German as well as Lithuanian.

Vladas had fled the Soviet return to Lithuania with his whole family: both parents and at least 3 of his 4 siblings. In 1947, the family was living in the Watenstedt Displaced Persons camp. Watenstedt is part of the conglomeration of towns and villages which form the city of Salzgitter in Lower Saxony.

That's what he told the Australian interviewers in October 1947.  One source has a contrary account, that his family were among those of German descent assisted out of the Baltic States by the German Government in 1939.

Returning to the Fatherland in 1939

Hitler's Germany ran a Heim ins Reich ("home to the Reich" in English) program from October 1936 for Germans whose families had migrated eastwards in recent or long-ago decades.  Propaganda was used to create a belief in those of German ancestry that they should return to contribute to the fatherland.

The foreign ministers of Germany and the Soviet Union, Ribbentrop and Molotov, signed a secret non-agression pact on 23 August 1939.  Significantly for residents of the Baltic States, Germany ceded to the Soviet Union the right to occupy these countries.  Presumably it was about this time that Germany intensified its efforts to bring Baltic residents of German descent back, as 1939 is the widely used reference year for their departure.

They were not taken to Germany though, but to the recently occupied Poland, where they were likely to find themselves placed on farms which had been seized from their Polish owners.  How they then got from there to Germany when the Soviet Union decided to invade Poland is another story.

After the War, international organisations were set up to organise orderly resettlement of those stranded in Germany because they were unwilling or unable to return to their homelands.  The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was the first, eventually folded into the International Refugee Organisation.

Most of those of German descent who had gotten as far as Poland during 1939–41 were deemed by the international organisations not to be eligible for Displaced Person status.  They were seen as having accepted Nazi citizenship and resettlement privileges voluntarily.

There were case-by-case exceptions though, which might have included the Akumbakas family.  Some who could prove persecution by the Soviets after 1945 or loss of German or Baltic citizenship were recognised as displaced. A few who had never been full Reich citizens or who had been minors during the war were accepted on humanitarian grounds.

When he interviewed at the Buchholz camp for possible settlement in Australia, Vladas’ parents were recorded as his dependents.  That meant that he would not have been one of those moved as a minor during the war.

The only work that he had done in the previous five years was as a lumber worker for the previous six months.

Migration to Australia

A fit young Displaced Person who was willing to undertake heavy labour was an ideal for which the Australian selection team was looking.  On 28 October 1947, Vladas found himself on the First Transport to Australia.  His parents, Pranas and Emilija, with his sister, Marija, 4 years younger than Vladas, also migrated to Australia.  They arrived together on 13 April 1950 on board the General WM Black, the 105th Transport.

Another sister, Ona, with her Latvian husband, Arnolds Dreijalds, had arrived in Adelaide on board the 28th Transport, the Goya, on 2 May 1949.  This was the first time that one of the ships bringing Displaced Persons to Australia under the IRO Mass Scheme had gone directly to Adelaide.  It meant that Pranas, Emilija, and Marija also went to Adelaide one year later to join Ona, rather than staying in their city of arrival, Melbourne.

The youngest member of the family, son Vytautas, made the trip when he too was 19 going on 20, in March 1956 on board the Himalaya. Perhaps the family had left him behind in Germany to continue his education there. Or, see below, perhaps he had arrived first much earlier but returned to Germany.

After Bonegilla

The Alien Registration record still held by the National Archives in Adelaide shows that Vladas was in Melbourne by December 1949.  The card shows 4 different addresses in Melbourne up until August 1951.  The employment details have been left blank.  It is hard to believe that Vladas spent this time unemployed, the alternative being that his Canberra employer, Monier Tile Co, applied to his Melbourne employment too.

Old Folks Home, Magill, an Adelaide suburb, is the next place of employment, with Vladas living in the adjacent suburb of Rostrevor.  He must have decided to try rejoining his family.

The Alien Registration card records that his documents were transferred back to Melbourne in June 1953.  We know from an obituary that he had married a Lithuanian, Genė Karčiauskaitę, in 1952.  At a guess, this was in Melbourne and was one of the reasons why Vladas did not stay in Adelaide.

The marriage produced one daughter in 1953, recorded variously as Diana or Dana. Perhaps, like the lead author of this article, her name actually is Daina.

40 and more years in Melbourne

This seems to be the time when Vladas joined Red Book Carpets, working with this manufacturer for the next 40 years. He rose to the position of supervisor. He even started a company basketball team which won a few evening competitions.

Another reason for returning to Melbourne could have been his involvement in its Lithuanian community.  Vladas became such an active member of the Lithuanian Club that he was made an Honorary Member.  He organised and participated in sports, danced with folk dancers and sang with the choir.  He also had a passion for billiards, donating a table to the Club.

Daina asked followers of the Australian Lithuanian Archive (which she directs) Facebook page what they remembered of Vladas.  They definitely remembered the billiard table donation.  “A lovely gentleman … a good friend of my parents”, one person wrote.   “I remember him as someone with a kind, gentle demeanor.”

Citizens

Vladas’ parents with daughter Ona were the first members of the family to become Australian citizens, on 26 February 1958. Despite his apparently short time in Australia, the youngest, Vytautas, was next, on 28 September 1959. (The publicly available 1956 arrival must have been his second time to Australia, as he must have met the 5 years’ residence requirement before applying.)

Vladas and Genė followed on 13 December 1960.

Back to Adelaide

After his retirement, with his daughter and her family moved to Queensland, he began to feel lonely.  As well, he was living with high blood pressure and experiencing heart problems.  Ona and Marija worried about him, so they asked him to Adelaide again.  This time, in 1999, he moved in with Marija and her husband, Fritz Schmelzle.  Once again, he missed his Melbourne friends and the Club but, this time, there was no going back.

He died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital on 15 August 2002.  His funeral was held one week later, in Adelaide’s St. Casimir's Lithuanian Church, with the priest celebrating Mass in English and preaching in both Lithuanian and English.  His ashes were buried with his parents in the Enfield Cemetery.

Obituaries

Vladas was so special that he merited not just one obituary, but two, both in Tėviškes Aidai.  The first, from the Lithuanian community’s Melbourne District Council, begins with some poetry from J. Mikštas.  This is of note because J. Mikštas was the pen name adopted by another First Transport passenger, Juozas Silainis. It could be translated as

My grave is far from Lithuania,

and none of my friends in the motherland will visit me.

The leaves from my garden's trees will not fall on it –

and larks will not feed in the native fields ...

CITE THIS AS: Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Vladas (Vlad or Wally) Akumbakas (1928-2002)'.

Vladas' name had not been added to this gravestone when it was photographed in 2017

Source:  Find A Grave

SOURCES

Adelaide Cemetery Authority https://aca.sa.gov.au/aca-records/, accessed 8 January 2026.

Anon (2002) 'Obituary of Vladas (Wally) Akumbakas, 17 August 2002', unpublished obituary held by the Australian Lithuanian Archive, Adelaide.

Australijos Lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) (1948) 'Lietuviai Australijoje’, Adelaide, 20 December, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280322550, accessed 30 Aug 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Table Tennis', Albury, 10 June, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263466128, accessed 31 August 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Revised Draw', Albury, 1 July, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263775553 accessed 31 Aug 2025.

Canberra Times (1948) 'Tile Output to Reach 5,000 a Day Next Month', Canberra, 8 January, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2734498, accessed 30 Aug 2025.

Canberra Times (1948) 'Balts To Meet Visiting Sydney Basketball Team', (ACT : 1926 - 1995), 26 November, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2778013, accessed 30 Aug 2025,

Canberra Times (1949) 'Basketball Games', Canberra, 1 April, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2797427, accessed 30 August 2025.

Canberra Times (1949) 'Men's Basketball', Canberra, 9 June, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2808185, accessed 30 August 2025.

Canberra Times (1949) 'Men's Basketball', Canberra, 24 June, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2810491, accessed 30 August 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) 'Certificates Of Naturalization’, Canberra,18 September, p 3097, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240882136, accessed 30 August 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1960) 'Certificates Of Naturalization’, Canberra, 11 February, p 548, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241002076, accessed 30 August 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1961) 'Certificates Of Naturalization’, Canberra, 6 April, p 1358, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241005016, accessed 30 August 2025.

Find a Grave, 'Vladas Akumbakas' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158706787/vladas-akumbakas, accessed 5 September 2025.

'JNP' (2002) ‘A † A Vladas Akumbakas’ (‘In Memoriam, Vladas Akumbakas’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškes Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), Melbourne, 2 October, pp 7-8 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/2002/2002-10-02-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf accessed 1 September 2025.

Melbourno Apylinkės Valdyba (Melbourne District Council) (2002) ‘A † A Vladas Akumbakas’ (‘In Memoriam, Vladas Akumbakas’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškes Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), Melbourne, 18 September, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/2002/2002-09-18-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf accessed 1 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series (1946-1976); AKUMBAKAS VLADAS, AKUMBAKAS Vladas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 (1947-1953) recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8108201, accessed 1 September 2025.

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); 6, AKUMBAKAS Vladas DOB 1 September 1928 (1947-1947) recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005449, accessed 1 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] (1947-1956); AKUMBAKAS VLADAS, AKUMBAKAS, Vladas : Year of Birth - 1928 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 406 (1947-1948) recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203672805, accessed 1 September 2025.

Petraitis, Father Juozas (2002) 'A † A Vladas Akumbakas' (‘In Memoriam, Vladas Akumbakas’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškes Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), Melbourne, 18 August, p 8

Refugee/Displaced Person Statistical Card, ‘Dreijalds, born Akumbakas, Ona’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66925788, accessed 31 August 2025.

Šventadienio Balsas – Lietuvių žinios [Sunday Voice  – Lithuanian News] (2002) [No title] Adelaide, 25 August, p 4, held by the Australian Lithuanian Archive, Adelaide.

Wikipedia ‘Salzgitter’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzgitter, accessed 1 September 2025.

Vaclavs Kozlovskis at Pyramid Hill, February-March 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 1.2.48, Sun

With our drinking we’ve become good friends with the Australians — today they invited us to go for a drive.  We drove ten miles past Cohuna, then reached a large tree-lined river.  We swam, fooled around, and spent a truly wonderful day; returning home only at ten at night.

A swimming party, possibly at the Murray River or a tributary, like Gunbower Creek:  guessing that the tall man at the back is Lembit Koplus while the 4 standing on the right (none wearing swimming costumes) are possibly other Balts

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

If you think about it, there is nothing much here in Australia, even the pencils come from England.  Car tyres might be made in Australia, but the cars themselves come from America or Canada.  The countryside here is monotonous — only yellow grass, hard red earth and a bush here and there.  Most unpleasant of all is the heat and bright sun, which rarely disappears behind clouds.  Even the night air is so hot that you have to toss around in bed for a long time without sleep and soak the blankets in sweat.

Here people put a shovel in your hand, make you break rocks, and can still ask you “How do you like Australia?”  What is there here, that you can like?  The sunshine?  But despite all this, Australia is a true Happy Isle, with good and kind people.  Why does it always seem to me, that the grass is always greener on the other side?  Why is it that the drums of war in Europe have left such deep wounds in me that beginning a peaceful life is almost impossible!  When will I finally have some peace from this longing for distant places and new experiences?

PYRAMID HILL, 10.2.48, Tues

Another difficult day — all sorts of men were barging around today.  First of all the boss arrived, and after he left the head of the employment ministry visited us.   He watched us working for a short while, then asked us if we are happy with the boss and our working conditions, and if we had any complaints.  What is there to complain about?  About the job?  But you have to work wherever you are!  About the sun?  That won’t make it any cooler!  We had no complaints.  He gave us his address and left with the boss who had just returned.  In the afternoon I went to work near the compressor — another change of job.  That doesn’t matter, though it shook my hands a lot and the sound was deafening.  The boss said he would let the work be done on piecework but the big question is, whether we would accept his conditions.

PYRAMID HILL, 14.2.48, Sat

I’ve hoped for rain for a long time, and finally it’s here — this afternoon it began raining in earnest.  The day was pleasant, but unlucky for me — driving into town this morning I didn’t notice the sharp turn across the bridge and as the car turned sharply I felt myself start to fly. I could no longer hold onto Edgars’ shoulders, and didn’t dare to hold onto the rail, for both of my legs were already out of the car and I could have fallen under the wheels.*  

I tried to save the situation somehow by leaping as far as I could out of the car and in this way avoid the wheels.   I hit the road first with my shoulder, then with my head; I turned a half somersault and lay still.  My friends rushed over immediately, took off their jackets and lifted me on top of them, where I remained for about five minutes.  I lay there with stars spinning in front of my eyes, feeling terrible.  I recovered a little, then climbed back into the car and they drove me to the doctor.

I started feeling a lot better while we waited and almost felt I didn’t need to see him after all.  He didn’t do anything much, either, except ask me to lift my arms and legs, examine my head and put a plaster on the scrape.  Then we went to Naschke’s** place and I rested on the bed.  Everyone came to see me in turn, to see if I was feeling better; even the foreman came to visit me and Mary brought me some coffee and cake, but just then I couldn’t eat a thing.   After about an hour I got up, and we drove home.  I don’t feel any particular pain, it’s just that my head aches, and it feels as if every part of my body is broken.

Cafe businesses including Naschke's were on the site of what is now the Lions Park in
Pyramid Hill; the building they were in, at 9 Kelly Street, was demolished in the 1960s
and replaced by the Park in the 1970s, but the remaining buildings show
what could have been the style of Naschke's

Source:  Google Street View

PYRAMID HILL, 13.3.48, Sat

It’s Saturday again, and once more I drove into town to do some shopping.  While I was there I also went to the dentist about my aching tooth, but he was booked out, and told me to go to the hospital at eleven on Monday. I finished the shopping and returned home around one.  The Australian, Kevin, and the friend of his who became legless at our house that time, were there.  They had lunch with us and all the while egged us on to go to the dance.  Finally Vik and I gave in, and lifted our bicycles and ourselves into the vehicle.

Because it was our first time at a dance in Australia, we went into the pub first and fortified ourselves with beer for one and a half hours, until the pub closed.  Outside on the street we were discussing what to do next, when suddenly some ridiculous communist latched onto us and began spouting about exploitation and who knows what else.  We didn’t want to talk to him and turned our backs, but he forced himself into our company and shoved one of our new friends.  There was nothing to do but shove him back, and this started a brawl that lasted several minutes, the result of which was that the communist left with a large bump on his head and a split, bleeding ear.

"The pub" was the Victoria Hotel, run by members of the Kelly family from 1907 to 1951: 
after the original building burnt down in 1926, this one was erected in 1928

Source:  Melbourne Playgrounds, Pyramid Hill Historical Plaques Walk

The rest of us were all right, and we went to Naschke’s for dinner.  After that we went to Kevin’s house, where I collected my wine bottle and the others collected theirs, then we headed off to the dance hall.  We fortified ourselves again on the way, and only got to the hall just as the dancing was beginning. All the dances are quite different to what I’m used to, but I made an attempt anyway, and it turned out fairly well. The dance came to an end, and with that ended also this pleasantly spent day.  We found our bicycles and rode home. B y Wednesday I’ll have to learn these Australian dances somehow, then it will be more fun.

PYRAMID HILL, 15.3.48, Mon

Today I only worked until ten, then went into town to have my decayed tooth extracted.  In the hospital I was shown to a bed, half covered with a white blanket, with a white napkin resting on my chest, and the dentist got to work.  First of all he poured a numbing liquid on my gums and allowed it five minutes to work, then he got to work with the pliers and began marvelling at how strong my tooth is.  The pain became unbearable, even the dentist could see that, and again he tried to numb the tooth and gave me five minutes peace.

But this time he had little result and the pain was even worse.  Then he prepared some anaesthetic and jabbed a big needle in my vein, asking me to count.  Gradually everything went misty, my pain disappeared and on the count of seventeen I sank into unconsciousness.  When I woke again the tooth was out and the clock showed two-thirty, so I’d spent three whole hours in a narcotic sleep.  My head was dull, my vision foggy and my legs staggered when I come out of the hospital.  Overall it felt as if I’d drunk a large amount of alcohol.

I visited Naschke, where instantly all the women gathered around and as usual we started to joke around.  Finally he even began to teach me how to dance and so we occupied an hour or so.  My head cleared a little, and I realised that it was time to go back.   Slowly I staggered back to the quarry and saw that I’d arrived just in time to go home.  Today I only worked a few hours, but all my bones were weary.  When I got home I swallowed a few tablets and went to bed straight away.

PYRAMID HILL, 16.3.48, Tues

I slept until midday, but even so my head is dull, and my bones still weary.  The place my tooth was, is burning all the time.  I sat at the table to update my diary — finally my Bonegilla writing job is over, and I’ll have more time to do other things.  This evening, when we’d all returned from work, a familiar car pulled up outside the house and into the room came the boss.  He’s brought a rifle for me, now I’ll be able to shoot those damned sparrows.

PYRAMID HILL, 17.3.48, Wed

As soon as I got home from work I started getting ready for the dance.  Vik and I went into town an hour or so early and for something to do, explored the city streets.  We saw a lot of women, almost all in long dresses down to the ground, so I started worrying that it would be very easy to tread on these skirts if you didn’t know how to dance very well.

We went to Naschke’s and joked around with the women.  Finally we even went into another room and began learning Australian dances to piano music.  While I was doing this, the heel of my shoe came off and I began to hit it on again. A fter many tries I succeeded and we went to the hall, where dancing was already in full swing.  Of course, I couldn’t resist and I danced many times with the Australians in their long dresses so unfamiliar to me.  My mended heel held very well and didn’t break again until right at the end, around two in the morning.  That was no great problem now — I simply put it into my pocket and we left.

I didn’t fall into bed until three, but the day was well spent, and tomorrow’s early rising for work wouldn’t present any great difficulty.  I wonder why my gum, where the tooth was extracted, still aches so much after all this time?

PYRAMID HILL, 21.3.48, Sun

I don’t know what’s happening with my tooth, it’s still unbearably painful, even though it’s been a whole week since my “operation”.  Finally I took two mirrors and had a look at it. In the gap in my gum I saw something white and thought it must be pus, but when I poked it with a match, it turned out to be bone.   And why wouldn’t my tooth still ache, when the dentist has only removed half of it, and now the remaining half is grieving for the missing half?  So the dentist has left two roots behind and in the hole itself two moving fragments of bone, very painful.  I’ll have to go back to the dentist on Monday, so he can finish his “operation”.

After lunch we went swimming and on the way back rode into town.  There we saw almost no one, for it’s Sunday.  It’s a very strange custom — as soon as Sunday arrives, everywhere it’s peaceful and quiet, and the streets are empty.  We quickly tired of such boredom, sat back on our bicycles and rode home.  My tooth aches and it’s very unpleasant thinking that tomorrow I’ll have to let the dentist mess around with it again.  But what else can I do, it’s better to bear a short intense pain, than suffer all the time.

PYRAMID HILL, 22.3.48, Mon

After lunch I went straight to the dentist.  He lay me down in bed and poked around the remaining tooth root a little, but that was all, and asked me to come back after the holiday, when the root will have loosened up more.  Spitting out and swearing to myself I returned to the quarries.  The tooth root has been poked around and is very painful, but this “dentist” hasn’t given me any medicine for it.

PYRAMID HILL, 25.3.48, Thurs

Today a surprise awaited me at work, sprung on me by Reinis in the form of a blue envelope sent from Germany.  With it I found two other letters with Russian postmarks and stamps, and suddenly something inexpressible seized my whole body.  Who knows, perhaps it was happiness, which washed my body in strange excitement, and made these callused hands tremble?  Both letters were addressed to Alt-Garge, and were from Ausma.  

Like a dense black cloud I was overtaken with memories of the long-ago happy days in my homeland, which Destiny allowed me to spend with Ausma, that lovely northern girl.  Although I only met her twice, many years ago, I have pleasant memories of her.  The letters contain only a small fairytale about us both, but they gave me much joy and warmed my soul.  As soon as I came home I took my pen in hand to reply to my lass from home.  What will she say, when she discovers I’ve reached such a distant foreign world?

FOOTNOTES

* "Edgar's shoulders" belonged to fellow Latvian, Edgars Osis.

** "Bill Naschke was the owner of a cafe selling ice cream, sweets, soft drinks in the town of Pyramid Hill, and also provided some meals," wrote Ern Ferris, then Secretary of the Pyramid Hill and District Historical Society, in June 1999 to Monika.  Ern wrote that he was born in Pyramid Hill in 1923, so could remember the arrival of the Baltic quarry workers.

SOURCE

Melbourne Playgrounds, Pyramid Hill Historicaal Plaquest Walk, https://www.melbourneplaygrounds.com.au/pyramid-hill-historical-plaques-walk, accessed 23 February 2026.