Saliamonas Antanas’ life ended tragically, when he was aged only 51. After work one day, as he tried to cross Macquarie Street near its intersection with Elizabeth Street in Hobart’s business district, he was hit by a bus.
He received serious head injuries and was taken to hospital for an operation. He died the following day, 5 October 1971, without regaining consciousness.
For Tasmania’s Lithuanian community, what made this accident even more distressing was that the bus driver was another Lithuanian.
St. Teresa’s Church was almost full with Lithuanians for his funeral and the procession to the cemetery had about 50 cars in the convoy. Juozas Paškevičius, the Chairman of the District, gave a farewell speech at the grave on behalf of the Lithuanian Community, and a fellow First Transporter, Vladas Mikelaitis, also said some words. Saliamonas was buried in Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart.
Saliamonas Antanas was an unusual example of a Lithuanian commonly known by his middle name, Antanas. From the viewpoint of this blog, this presents a problem: there was another Antanas Martišius on the ship which brought him to Australia, the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. The other Antanas, the namefellow, already has a biography on this blog which you can find here.
For the remainder of this biography, though, we can used the name by which Saliamonas Antanas was called in life, Antanas. And we will ignore one given to him by someone at the Bonegilla camp, who crossed out Saliamonas on his Alien Registration form and wrote instead, ‘Selemous’. He also got ‘Selemons’ on his file when he applied for citizenship, and when that citizenship was granted and gazetted. Really, Antanas was a safer option.
His Mūsų Pastogė obituarist described him as a quiet, modest Lithuanian, but sensitive and generous to the activities of Lithuanians. He supported the work of Lithuanian organisations as much as he could, and every year, when he sent his subscription fee to the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper, he added extra to help the publication.
He wanted his children to speak Lithuanian, and sent them to weekend school, as well as national dancing and singing lessons. Despite being in poor health himself, he volunteered as a teacher at the school when needed.
Antanas had been born in Sintautai in the Lithuanian district of Šakiai, into a farming family. There is official confusion about the date of his birth, with some records stating 23 April 1920 and others 4 March 1920. His obituarist preferred 1921.
His Australian selection papers say that he “fled from Russian regime”, which differentiates him from all those forced to travel to Germany by the German military. He did this in August 1944, so he somehow got out despite the Soviet military have returned to Lithuania in July 1944.
He was recorded to have had 3 years of primary school education and 2 years in secondary school, so more than the minimum for a Lithuanian at the time. Although rated as B+ by the selection team, he certainly got onto the First Transport.
At the time of his interview and health examination for Australia, it looks like he was living in Camp 223/H, Assembly Centre 223, Controlled by 11 DPACS, wherever that was. Fortunately, ChatGPT has been able to decode this, based on a German language account of the Baltic camps in the Oldenburg region by Günter Heuzeroth.
Herr Heuzeroth and Chat GPT say that this camp was in Oldenburg in the Lower Saxony region, there being a second Oldenburg in Holstein, near Lübeck on the Baltic coast. 11 DPACS was the joint British and UNRRA administrative unit responsible for the centre
Now that we know that Antanas was in the British zone of occupation, we can point out that he was living in harsher conditions that the refugees in the American zone. After all, Britain itself had been bombed and battered during WWII, unlike the United States.
He had been working as a cleaner for two years, while the examining doctor rated him suitable for agricultural work. The Particulars of Displaced Person Wishing to Migrate to Australia form completed on his behalf before his interview recorded that he had farmed in Lithuania for 10 years and also in Germany for 8 months. Since those ten years would have been before July 1944, it looks like he started when he was aged 14.
After World War II in Germany, while being treated in a military hospital, he met a nursing sister called Helma Rohleder. Even though he left for Australia on 30 October 1947 on the First Transport, they stayed in touch through letters.
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| Post-War photograph of Saliamonas Antanas included with his selection papers Source: National Archives of Australia |
From the Bonegilla camp, Antanas was one of 12 men sent to Tasmania to work for the Electrolytic Zinc (EZ) company at Burnie. It may be that he completed his two-year contract at another EZ facility, at Risdon in the State’s capital city, Hobart.
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| Antanas Martišius from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
He later worked at the Cadbury chocolate factory. In his spare time, he built a house and in 1955 invited Helma to be his wife. She arrived from Germany in April 1955.
The coroner’s report into his death gave his then occupation as carpenter. He certainly would have learned a lot of carpentry from practical experience when he built his own house.
The Melbourne Tėviškės aidai newspaper reported in June 1958 that Antanas Martišius had been seriously injured in a car accident, as a result of which he had lost an eye “some time ago”. We know that this refers to Saliamonas Antanas because the report is in a column headed with a poetic version of “From Tasmania”, while the other Antanas Martišius left Bonegilla to spend the remainder of his Australian time in Victoria.
Is this why the Tasmanian Antanas did not see the bus coming 13 years after the first accident? The coroner’s cursory finding made no mention of anything which might have contributed to the second, fatal accident.
Antanas’ sudden death later left Helma to raise two children on her own, 12-year-old Petras and 9-year-old Alyssa. Valued for probate in January 1998, his estate amounted to $2865, but that is around $40,000 in today’s prices so enough to give the family some initial support.
SOURCES
Augustavičius, S (1994) ‘A † A Helma Martišius’ (‘RIP Helma Martisius’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 27 June, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1994/1994-06-27-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 10 April 2026.
Heuzeroth, Günter
Libraries Tasmania, Names Index, ‘Martisius, Saliamonas Anton’ [Inquest report] https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=martisius#, accessed 15 April 2026.
Libraries Tasmania, Names Index, ‘Martisius, Saliamonas Antanas’ [Will] https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=martisius#, accessed 15 April 2026.
Mūsų Pastogė (1971) ‘Dar viena skaudi eismo nelaimė’ (‘Another painful traffic accident’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 6 December, p 8, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1971/1971-12-06-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 14 April 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; 195, MARTISIUS Saliamonas DOB 23 April 1920, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005612, accessed 10 April 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1939-1966; MARTISIUS H, 1955-1955; MARTISIUS H, MARTISIUS [nee ROHLEDER] Helma [German], 1955-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1776113, accessed 16 April 2026.National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1939-1966; MARTISIUS S, MARTISIUS Selemous (sic) [Lithuanian], 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1776115, accessed 15 April 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MARTISIUS SALIAMONAS, MARTISIUS, Saliamonas : Year of Birth - 1920 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 591, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203615120, accessed 10 April 2026.
Tėviškės aidai (1958) ‘Iš Tasmanijos padangės’ (‘From under Tasmanian skies’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 4 June, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1958/1958-06-04-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 13 April 2026.
Tėviškės aidai (1971) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Hobartas, A A Antanas Martišius‘ (‘From Our Parishes, Hobart, RIP Antanas Martisius’ , in Lithuanian), Melbourne, Vic, 19 October, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr40-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 12 April 2026.
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