The Kildišas family came from Joniškis, a town and a surrounding municipality of the same name in northern Lithuania. Of the four children in the family, two came to Australia, a married older brother with a 2-year-old child went to America with his family in 1949 and a sister stayed with her parents in Lithuania.
Jonas Kildišas
Jonas died too early, aged only 42, and 2 months after becoming an Australia citizen
Born on 11 August 1921 in Joniškis, he attended a trade school in Klaipėda. According to the report of his selection interview for resettlement in Australia, this was after 6 years of primary school. He was at the trade school for 4 years, learning to be a motor mechanic. He also had worked as a farmer for 3 years, possibly after his arrival in Germany in May 1942.
At the time of his application for resettlement, he had been working as a mechanic and living at the 82 DPAC Voerde. DPAC stands for Displaced Persons Assembly Centre — a DP camp — and Voerde was a town on the Rhine River, so in the far west of central Germany. 
Jonas Kildišas photo from his selection papers
The languages in which he said he was fluent were Lithuanian and Polish, although he must have picked up some German and English since leaving Lithuania.
From the Bonegilla camp, he was one the many men sent to Victoria’s Goulburn Valley to pick fruit. In his case, he was working for Messrs Turnbull Brothers of Ardmona. He was one of those who gave up early, returning to Bonegilla on 23 February after little more than 3 weeks away.
He probably was unwell, because he spent the period from 27 February to 5 March 1948 in the Albury District Hospital.
Jonas Kildišas from his Bonegilla card
With another Lithuanian, Mecislovas Tutlys, he was sent to Dookie Agricultural College, near the Goulbourn Valley, on 24 June. His Bonegilla card does not record that he was working in the Bonegilla camp from early March until then but, presumably, he was not left to his own devices after weekday English language classes.
At Dookie, they were joined by Borisas Dainutis in mid-July. We’ve already described how hard Borisas worked to set up Lithuanian scouting in Australia. Vytautas Sakalauskas arrived in early September and a fifth Lithuanian man, Jonas Asmonas, came three weeks later.
Jonas later worked in an electric motor workshop, married Eleonora Grabytė and settled in Melbourne.
One morning after breakfast, he thought about going for a walk, but while pulling on his jacket, he felt faint. His wife called the doctor, who diagnosed a heart attack and immediately sent him to the hospital. The attack passed, and he feel quite well. After a couple of weeks, one morning it got worse, and Jonas called a priest. Another attack had started.
Jonas died of heart disease in Prince Henry’s Hospital on 26 June 1964. He is buried in in Fawkner Cemetery.
He left his wife Eleonora and a 4-year-old son, Victor. Victor completed a Bachelor of Applied Science in metallurgy at the University of Melbourne in 1980. Now retired, he describes himself as a “self-taught, high-level, improvisatory pianist and chess player”. He is an internationally known chess player with a FIDE ranking.
Adolfas Kildišas
Adolfas was born nearly 3 years after Jonas, on 8 June 1924. The report of his selection interview for resettlement in Australia says that he had 6 years of primary school and one and a half years in a trade school, training to be a mechanic. That training may well have been interrupted by the Russian invasion in June 1940.
The period of time in which he had worked as a motor mechanic was 4 years, so either included some time in Nazi Germany or perhaps back home, in Lithuania. He also had worked on a farm in Germany for 8 months.
The application form gave Lithuanian as the only language in which he was fluent, although he must have picked up some German and English after his arrival in Germany in July 1944.
Like his brother, Jonas, Adolfas was living at the 82 DPAC Voerde, a Displaced Persons camp in a town on the Rhine in western Germany. Clearly, they had been able to track each other down.
From the Bonegilla camp, he was sent to work for the South Australian Salt Company, at 191A Victoria Square West, Adelaide, along with 8 others, in January 1948.
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| Adolfas Kildišas from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
Since South Australia has a number of places where salt has been mined historically, including places where salt production continues, we do not know where this group of 9 worked.
A likely place is Deep Creek, on the edge of suburban Adelaide, only 12 Km north of Victoria Square. Another possibility is that he was one of a party of an intended 10 about which the Adelaide Advertiser wrote on 10 January 1948. If they came by train to Adelaide, they would have to take another train back to Murray Bridge, where they were due at the nearby Mulgundawa salt works.
His Adelaide Alien Registration card has Langhorne Creek written on the back without any further information. Langhorne Creek is about 60 Km southeast of Adelaide, near Lake Alexandrina, and is best known now as the third largest wine producing region in South Australia. It is also near the Mulgundawa salt works.
However, the company working at Mulgundawa usually traded under the name of Mulgundawa Salt or Australian Saltworks, not South Australian Salt Company.
Adolfas later worked in the remote outback town of Woomera in South Australia.
He was released from his contract with the Australian Government, along with most of the others from the First Transport, on 30 September 1949.
The Alien Registration card records that he left for Melbourne in mid-1950, residing there for many years. He was a generous donor to the Melbourne Lithuanian Catholic Parish. We don't know his occupation there but have to hope that it was something he enjoyed, perhaps work as a mechanic.
Later he returned to Adelaide where he passed away on 21 July 2021, aged 97, meaning that he lived for 55 years longer than his brother. His remains were cremated at Centennial Park Crematorium.
Four Lithuanians from the First Transport living in South Australia attended the commemoration of 70 years since the Heintzelman arrived at Adelaide's Lithuanian House on 28 November 2017
L to R: Aleksas Saulius, Algis Pranckunas, Adolfas Kildišas and Juozas Donela
SOURCES
Advertiser (1948) ‘First Party Of Balts Here’ Adelaide, 10 January, p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43751686, accessed 19 January 2026.
Australian Salt Works, ‘Operations’ https://www.australiansaltworks.com.au/operations-development, accessed 19 January 2026.
Centennial Park Memorial Search, ‘Kildisas’ https://centennialpark.org/memorial-search/?firstname=&surname=Kildisas, accessed 18 January 2026.
‘Correspondence and nominal roles, done at Bremen-Grohn: transport by ship (USS GENERAL MUIR); transit countries and final destinations: USA’ DocID: 81660950, 3.1.3 Emigrations, ITS/Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/81660950, accessed 18 January 2026.
International Chess Federation 'Victor Kildisas' https://ratings.fide.com/profile/3203352/statistics, accessed 19 January 2026.
Linked In 'Victor Kildisas' https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-kildisas-85013a149/?originalSubdomain=au, accessed 19 January 2026.
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; 475, KILDISAS [KILDISIS] Adolfas DOB 8 June 1924, 1947-1947; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005735, accessed 18 January 2026.
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; KILDISAS Jonas DOB 11 August 1921, 1947-1947; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005736, accessed 18 January 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1948-1976; KILDISAS Adolfas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1950; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9183330, accessed 18 January 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2572, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KILDISIS (sic) ADOLFAS, KILDISIS, Adolfas : Year of Birth - 1924 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 851, 1947-1948; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203625915, accessed 18 January 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2572, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KILDISAS JONAS, KILDISAS, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 852, 1947-1948; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203625914, accessed 18 January 2026.
Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) (1964) ‘A†A Jonas Kildišas’ (‘In Memoriam, Jonas Kildisas’ in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 30 June, p 4, https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1964/1964-nr25-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 18 January 2026.
Wikipedia 'Voerde' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voerde, accessed 19 January 2026.
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