All the Displaced Persons accepted in principle for the First Transport to Australia, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, had to undergo a medical examination in Germany before a final decision was made on their travel.
Sometimes the doctor was one working in the DP camp where they were living and sometimes it was at least one Australian doctor sent to Germany for the purpose. His name was Darryl Smythe and his signature can be seen on some of the medical clearance forms. We’ll see what we can tell you about him later.
Those doctors would have been using the stethoscopes slung round their necks to check for cardiac function. The possibility of Antanas Zakas’ death from heart disease only 6 years later must have escaped someone’s notice.
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| Antanas Zaksas photograph from his Bonegilla card Source: Bonegilla Migrant Experience |
There was an American doctor, Wayne H Stockdale, and a nurse on board the Heintzelman as it sailed to Australia in November 1947. When it reached Fremantle, an Australian doctor boarded before it berthed. Three of the DPs on board were not allowed to enter because the Heintzelman staff reported their ill-health to the Australian official.
They had another medical examination once they reached the Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre in northeast Victoria. Again, nothing out of the ordinary was noted with respect to Antanas Zaksas.
Antanas’ Victorian death certificate records “coronary atheroma” and “cardiac failure” on Royal Parade, Parkville, on 26 February 1954. We are more likely now to encounter “atheroma” as “atherosclerosis”, that is, hardening of the arteries due to a cholesterol-led plaque building up inside.
In modern terms, Antanas either had terrible genes, a terrible life style, or both.
The coroner who found the cause of his death decided that it was so obvious that there was no need for an inquest. He had been found dead in his room at 115 Royal Parade, Parkville, an inner Melbourne suburb.
What Ann finds intriguing is that Antanas’ death was directly across a wide road from where she lived for most of 1966, her first year at Melbourne University, in Janet Clarke Hall. The eastern side of Royal Parade, Parkville, is occupied by the Melbourne University campus, and Janet Clarke is one of its residential colleges.
Twelve years after the death, much of the rental accommodation in Parkville was occupied by University students. Single (or sometimes double) rooms were on offer, with shared kitchen, bathroom and laundry facilities.
We know some more about Antanas’ relatively short life. He was born in Vilkaviškis, Lithuania, to Petronėlė nee Krikščiūnaitė and her husband, Kazys Zaksas, on 5 May 1926. He had trained already as a motor mechanic when he arrived in Germany on 10 June 1944, according to an AEF (American Expeditionary Forces) DP Registration Record in the Arolsen Archives.
The DP Registration Record is stamped in red ink, “No. 540 Kassel Team 77”, indicating that he had found refuge after the War in the same central German town as Ann’s mother, Agnes Tündern. At the time of his application to migrate, two years later, Antanas was living in the DP Camp Mattenberg, which was in a suburb of Kassel.
He had lived at the same address in Vilkaviškis from the age of 5 until 22 June 1941, so the arrival of German forces in Lithuania when he was 15 clearly had disrupted his life. His Bonegilla card says that he had blond hair and was 5 feet 11 inches (1.8 metres) tall so, even at the age of 15, he probably stood out in German eyes.
The summary of his interview for migration to Australia on 14 October 1947 says that he had been ‘forcibly evacuated by the Germans’. He had a good education, consisting of 6 years of primary school and 3 years of trade school, learning to be a mechanic.
Since it is unlikely that he had trained to be a motor mechanic by age 15, he seems to have received some benefit despite the German occupation.
In Australia, Antanas also started life in camps, first for 4 days in Fremantle, then for one month in the Bonegilla camp. On 9 January 1948, he and others were sent to South Australia, to another camp operated by the State Government’s Department of Woods and Forest near Mount Gambier.
Like Zigmas Griganavičius, he returned to the Bonegilla camp from Mount Gambier, although he left with another group one day after Zigmas and returned 6 months later. Perhaps they were sent to different camps in the Mount Gambier area.
Given what we know now Zigmas Griganavičius and his family, plus Antanas’ training as a motor mechanic, it may well have been the type of work expected of them plus the living conditions which sent them back for Bonegilla.
Those poor living conditions in one camp have been described in the blog entry for Antanas Galatiltis, who seems to have put up with them.
If it was the type of work expected of them, the Commonwealth Employment Service at Bonegilla did not help Antanas by sending him next to another forestry camp. This one was run by the New South Wales Forestry Commission though, at a place called Billapaloola near Tumut, in the mountain country in the southeast of NSW. At least Aleksas Saulius and, probably, other Lithuanians were there already.
Antanas would have been happier, we can assume, if he was involved in servicing and repairing any motorised machinery used in the forestry operations. We have no information about that. Instead, we next find him near Grafton, in northeastern NSW, in a place called Barcongarie by the local newspaper, the Grafton Daily Examiner.
The current spelling of Barcongarie is Barcoongere. This spelling has been adopted because it is closer to the indigenous pronunciation of what must be an Aboriginal name. Barcoongere now is still a State Forest, but surrounds parts of Yuraygir National Park.
The Keyman Statue, Slovenski Memorial, on this extract from Google Maps
is in the Barcoongere State Forest, which is much closer to Woolgoolga
than to Antanas' desired destination of Grafton
On 19 November 1948, when Antanas had been in Australia for less than one year, he was before the Grafton Court of Petty Sessions on 2 charges. They were assaulting Stanley Russell Strang and on the same date at Grafton, found to be carrying a sheath knife after his arrest. Through an interpreter, he pleaded guilty to both charges.
A detective, in evidence, said that an Australian had brought some wine to the camp where Antanas was and trouble started after the men had drunk about 5 bottles. How many men drank these 5 bottles we do not know.
After the trouble started, Strang was told to drive south to Woolgoolga for the police. He had only gone about a mile (1.6 km) from the camp when defendant boarded his truck. He had a knife in his hand and ordered one man from the truck. He then ordered Strang to drive to Grafton instead.
After the truck had gone some distance, Antanas saw another man on the floor of the truck. He ordered this man off the truck. As it approached Grafton, he told the driver to go to the police station. Antanas still had the knife when they reached the police station so, not surprisingly, he was charged.
No violence had been used against Strang even though Antanas had threatened him with the knife. Antanas had lost his position at the camp but he had another job to go to. He appeared to appreciate the seriousness of his actions.
A more senior policeman told the court that the man who had brought the wine into the camp had been dismissed. Antanas had no previous record with the police.
On the charge of assault, Antanas was fined £5 with £1/12/- expenses. If he did not pay this, he would be imprisoned for 14 days. On the second charge of carrying a sheath knife, he was sentenced to three months imprisonment. This sentence was suspended though, under the first offender's provisions of the Crimes Act, on Antanas entering into recognisance of £20 to be of good behaviour for 12 months. That is, if Antanas misbehaved again in the 12 months, he would have to pay a fine of £20, nearly 4 weeks' wages at the time.
There’s no explanation of why Antanas ordered Strang to drive to the police station, but he must have thought that being armed with a knife was not going to a problem. Perhaps he had drunk enough wine not to be thinking …
In May 1949, we find that Antanas had moved again, back to Victoria but this time to a major city southwest of Melbourne. Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) published an article in 1999 to commemorate 50 years since a group of 10 Lithuanians had arrived in Geelong to work for Victorian Railways. The article reported that the group found 5 Lithuanians already work at a phospate factory, one of whom was Antanas.
A Web search reveals that the phosphate factory was Phosphate Co-operative Company of Australia Ltd, manufacturing superphosphate for Australian agriculture from phosphate imported from the now independent Pacific nation of Nauru.
The report of his death in February 1954 by Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) shows that Antanas must have moved again, to suburban Melbourne. His occupation was known to be Metal Worker. He would have been one of the first Lithuanians to be buried in northern Melbourne’s Fawkner Memorial Park.
This is all that the public record contains on Antanas, but it’s more than we might expect for a Lithuanian immigrant aged only 27.
SOURCES
Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Antanas Zaksas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203700944, accessed 30 October 2026.
Daily Examiner (1948) ‘Camp Disturbance: Latvian (sic) Charged’ Grafton, NSW, 19 November, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/194975983, accessed 30 October 2026.
Find A Grave ‘Antanas Zaksas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/140681481/antanas-zaksas, accessed 30 October 2026.
Gailius, Juozas (1999) ‘Geelongo lietuviams 50-šimt metų’ (‘Geelong Lithuanians celebrate 50 years’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, Vic, 25 May, p8 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1999/1999-05-25-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 30 October 2026.
Guy, Alan (2019) ‘Notes on Phosphate Co-op History‘ Facebook, Tony Beyer, The History of the Old Lost Western Suburbs of Melbourne https://www.facebook.com/groups/529582147502825/posts/675864432874595/, accessed 30 October 2026.
Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1954) ‘Melbournas, Mirė Ant. Zaksas’ (‘In Melbourne, Death of Tony Zaksas’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 17 March, page 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1954/1954-03-17-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 30 October 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; 704, ZAKSAS Antanas DOB 5 May 1926, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118122, accessed 30 October 2026.
National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; ZAKSAS ANTANAS, ZAKSAS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7191820, accessed 30 October 2026.
National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2371, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; ZAKSAS ANTANAS, ZAKSAS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1078, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203700944, accessed 30 October 2026.
Rail Geelong, ‘Phosphate Works’ https://www.railgeelong.com/location/phosphate-works/, accessed 30 October 2026.
Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria (1954) Death Certificate for Antanas Zaksas, Registration no. 2653/1954, Melbourne.
[‘Zaksas, Antanas’] Folder DP3592, names from SACHS, Ladislaw to ZAZILLA, Wladislaw (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from SA, DocID 68981439, ITS/Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/68981439, accessed 30 October 2026.
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