Alfredas Kuljurgis’ blond hair and good looks were just what journalists and, through them, the public, had been told to expect from the first non-British migrants brought to Australia by the Commonwealth Government. As a result, he featured in three early reports on the first “Balts”, as all future Eastern Europeans arriving in the 1940s and 1950s were to be known.
We’re noting them here because not every passenger on the First Transport conformed to what we now would call “spin”. Alfredas certainly did.
The popular Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial newspaper had a photo essay on the first arrivals on the day after their arrival in that city, on 9 December 1947, which included Alfredas. The caption to his photograph said, “Alfred Kuljurgies, from Lithuania, is 23, weighs 11st 2lb (71 kg) and is an engine locksmith. When asked his hobby, Alfred replied, ‘Work’. His mother and father are in England and some day he hopes to bring them here.”
This was repeated by the Daily Advertiser in Wagga Wagga on 12 December. Its text said, “Eager to make the most of opportunities in their new land, 827 [actually 839] cheerful Baltic migrants who arrived in Australia last weekend are now at Bonegilla camp, near Albury.* At Bonegilla they will spend three months learning English and studying Australian customs … RIGHT: Alfred Kuljurgies, 23, from Lithuania, is an engine locksmith.”
The Adelaide Chronicle had Alfredas’ photo only on 18 December and told its readers that, “The recent arrivals of sun-browned men and women from the Baltic countries were generally conceded to be the finest-looking batch of post-war migrants to have come to Australia. The 839 cheerful new citizens are to spend three months at Bonegilla, in Victoria, learning English and studying Australian conditions. Here is a typical one, Alfred Kuljurgies, a Lithuanian, who says his hobby is ‘work’.”
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| This is how the Melbourne Sun newspaper introduced Alfredas to Australians (The inclusion of a father in England may well have been due to the reporter's naivete) Source: Trove |
To the Adelaide Chronicle, we can reply that there had been only 2 other batches of post-war migrants at this time. They were more than 200 British building workers for Canberra, who had reached Sydney on the Largs Bay in December 1946, and the Asturias, carrying hundreds of former Polish soldiers among others, which had berthed in Fremantle on 10 December 1947. Other families and small groups came on private voyages, the most notable of which was the Misr arriving in Melbourne in April 1947.
When the Misr first docked in Fremantle on 13 April 1947, passengers went public about the appalling conditions in which they had travelled. For instance, there was only one freshwater and one saltwater shower for over 600 people. Some portions of the Australian press focussed on the passengers, rather than their conditions, claiming that they exhibited "animal-like" behaviour in a "den of filth" with a "babel of 17 languages".
This may well have been one of the motivations for Arthur Calwell’s trip to Europe in mid-1947 and his signing of a treaty with the Provisional Committee of the International Refugee Organisation to bring Displaced Persons to Australia in what would be seen as an orderly fashion.
The sun-browning of the first Displaced Persons to arrive under this treaty had a lot to do with 4 weeks on a ship sailing from Europe through the tropics to Australia, where daylight recreation was likely to be taken on the deck unless the weather did not permit it. Somehow, it was to be more acceptable in northern Europeans than the DP passengers from around the Mediterranean whose trip on the Misr had originated in Egypt.
Note that all 3 publications found it easier to handle Alfredas’ family name by inserting an ‘e’ before the final ‘s’. It started with Alfredas’ application to resettle from Germany and became the spelling of the name in Australia. Kuljurgies is a Germanisation of the original Lithuanian, Kuljurgis, and possibly part of his family history due to the location of his birthplace on the border with what used to be Prussia.
It seems that the “engine locksmith” reported by the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial and Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser in fact was a motor mechanic. On his application form for migration to Australia, someone has typed “Motore-Schlosser”, whose translation from German to English does equate to Motor Mechanic (although a literal translation of Schoss from German is “lock”), adding that he had 3 years’ experience in this field.
The summary of his interview on the same file reports that he was a bright young man. He had had 9 years of formal schooling, much more than the pre-WWII minimum of 4 years in Lithuania, and his English language skills were described already as “fair”.
He had arrived in Germany in May 1943, because he had been “forced to come by the German Labour Office”. The Germans too had known a bright young man when they first saw him at the age of 17.
At the time of his application, he was one of the Lithuanians living in a Lübeck camp called Riga, so clearly set up Latvians. Given the number from this camp on the First Transport, word about possible resettlement in Australia must have spread quickly.
Alfredas’ search for a hobby met with success on 19 January, when he was employed by the Bonegilla camp. This is recorded on his Bonegilla card, but not the nature of his duties. The wife he married in September that year, Henrika Vrubliauskaite, later told Ann that he was the driver for the Commandant of the camp, Major Alton Kershaw.
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| Alfredas' photograph on his Bonegilla card Source: Bonegilla Migrant Experience |
This was in the days when a good driver’s attributes included the ability to diagnose why a car had ceased to run and fix it on the spot. As well, Alfredas’ “fair” English was needed to understand the orders he was being given, which did not always involve driving the Commandant but which could involve running messages between Albury, Wodonga and the camp. He also had the capacity to reply when spoken to by any of his Australian passengers.
Henrika also advising that the driving position provided the opportunity for some bottles of a forbidden product, alcohol, to be brought into the camp. Could this be one reason why new employment was found for Alfredas from 16 October 1948?
It was with a Mr Harris, the owner or lessee of a farm called Lone Pine, said to be at Little River. The property itself was on the Murray Valley Highway, between the Bonegilla area and the nearest town, Wodonga.
The most likely reason for the new employment would have been Alfredas’ September marriage to Henrika. It’s not recorded on Henrika’s Bonegilla card, but the employment on the Lone Pine property may well have included her as well, as part of a husband-and-wife team. This was how the Commonwealth Employment Service had handled the work contracts for at least 9 marriages between First Transport passengers in the first 4 months after their arrival. Henrika had arrived on the Second Transport.
While Lone Pine is likely to have started as a soldier settler farm allocated to Harold Harris, a veteran of the Lone Pine battle in Australia’s WWI Gallipoli campaign, he opened a garage there. The property is located on the east side of the Little River, which later reverted to its original name of the Kiewa River.
It was close to the Bonegilla migrant camp, as well as the remainder of the Bonegilla Army Camp and the Bandiana Army Camp. This would have meant lots of civilian traffic after the Army camps were open during WWII, in addition to the original traffic from other farmers.
By 1948, Harold also was the licensee of the Wodonga Hotel, owned by his sister and her daughter. It is likely that Harold Harris was glad to have use of Alfredas’ motor mechanic skills. Henrika might have been helping in the Lone Pine farmhouse or perhaps travelling to Wodonga daily with Harris family members to work as a housemaid in the Wodonga Hotel.
Presumably Alfredas, if not Henrika, was released from the obligation to work as directed on 30 September 1949, along with most other former Displaced Persons from the First Transport. As the Second Transport reached Melbourne on 12 February 1948, 11 weeks after the First Transport, Henrika’s contract would have been regarded as lasting at least 11 weeks longer. It might have lasted longer still, if it was not subject to the same shortening for “good behaviour” received by the First Transporters. Or sensible officials might have decided to end both contracts at the same time.
While we don’t know the details of their departure from the Lone Pine property, the Albury Border Morning Mail of 26 November 1953 reports that Alfredas or “Fred” was running Bandiana Motors. Open source information on the Web does not reveal whether he established the business or took over an existing one.
Was Bandiana Motors competing with its neighbouring Lone Pine garage on the other side of the Kiewa River or, perhaps, collaborating? The Lone Pine property developed into a neighbourhood centre with a number of services: an unofficial post office, banking, groceries, a lubritorium are on the public record. It is possible that Alfredas concentrated on the repair of petrol and diesel motors, thus extending the Lone Pine services.
As his location was very rural then, like that of the Lone Pine garage only 600 metres away, he would have had to provide excellent service to attract and keep customers. He seems to have done this without any paid advertising in the local newspapers.
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| In this aerial photograph, Bandiana Motors is near the lower left corner, while the Lone Pine property is the one with the red pin towards the upper right Source: Google Maps |
For anyone interested in taking this further, a dive into State and local government records which have not been digitised, as well as those of the Wodonga & District Historical Society, should produce an interesting local history based on these two related businesses.
Alfredas’ Bonegilla card records that his next of kin was his mother, Greta, in Scotland. Presumably she was one of the women sent there from post-War Germany to provide nursing support in Scottish hospitals. He successfully sponsored her to settle in Australia.
Alfred (sic) and Henrika Kuljurgies became Australian citizens on 28 June 1956, with a residential address of Bandiana Motors, Wodonga, Victoria. Their address now is on a side road, Mullins Road, running parallel to the Murray Valley Highway in the new suburb of Killara. Mullins Road possibly was the main road itself before the Albury Wodonga Development Corporation stepped in during the 1980s. The suburb of Killara was just a locality zoned "future residential" as late as 20. Bandiana Motors was 7 km east of the centre of Wodonga, which probably was the most convenient postal address in the 1950s.
Greta followed them in becoming an Australian citizen on 12 May 1958. Her address also was Bandiana Motors, Wodonga. When she died on 5 February 1973, so about 15 years later, her address was in the southern Melbourne suburb of Carrum. Perhaps she had met a nice partner who had enticed her there, but he is not mentioned in the Melbourne Age death notice. Instead, we find that Alfredas has 2 sisters, Johanna Haffner and Margarita Smelstorius.
From the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch service, we can see a file title for Alfredas’ nomination in 1949 of Karl and Johanna Haffner to migrate to Australia, even if the Kuljurgis name is misspelt badly. The only Smelstorius in RecordSearch is the First Transport arrival, Jonas Algirdas or Algirdas Jonas. Ann has met with a Haffner daughter who told her that, indeed, Jonas Algirdas has married Alfredas’ sister, Margarita.
In 1990, A Kuljurgis of Wodonga donated 100 dollars to the Fund for the Reconstruction of Lithuania, as recorded in Mūsų Pastogė. The Reserve Bank of Australia says that $100 in 1990 would have bought a basket of goods worth nearly $250 in 2025.
According to a German Website, Genealogy.net, Alfred Wilhelm Kuljurgis was born on 17 February 1924, in village of Liepgiriai, in Lithuania’s Plungė district. His parents were Wilhelm Jurgis Kuljurgis and Grete Rudies.
While his birth place makes Alfredas another Samogitian, it was on the border with Memelland (Lithuania Minor) in historic Prussia. This may explain why Alfredas accepted the Germanic spelling of his family name, with the -ies ending in place of -is.
The family was of a Protestant faith, a minority in the dominantly Catholic country of their birth. The application form for migration to Australia expands on this, noting that Alfredas’ upbringing was as a Lutheran.
The German name Wilhelm would have been Vilhelmas in Lithuania. A more common version is the diminutive Vilius.
His name was thoroughly Anglicised at the other end of his life. He was named as Alfred William Kuljurgies in a death notice published in Albury’s Border Mail on 23 October 2007, the day after he died. Despite dementia, he had lived to the good age of 83.
Henrika lived for another 3 years, dying on 27 October 27 2010, aged 81 years. Her death notice in the Weekly Times advised that she was the mother of Fred and Charles, the grandmother of Jon, Rebecca, Robert, Olivia, Alecia and Krista, and the great grandmother of Riley and Ryan. It is likely that other members of the 4th generation have been born since.
If there is a Kuljurgies in the Albury-Wodonga district or, for that matter, Australia, they would be very likely to be a descendent of Alfredas/Alfred/Fred and Henrika. And given the 4 female grandchildren, there are likely to be even more with other family names in Albury-Wodonga district who can claim proud descent from a remarkable couple.
The family name lives on also near their long-term Australian home in the Henrika Kuljurgies Park on Charlton Road, Killara, the suburb that has sprung up where they used to live. This playground is a memorial to Henrika’s contribution to art and her community. There is more about this in our earlier entry for her aunt, Margarita Vrubliauskienė.
FOOTNOTE: It is possible that the Wagga Wagga Daily Advertiser reporter was told the 827 figure because 16 women were about to leave for Canberra. They departed Bonegilla on the day that the photo essay was published. Even so, 827 plus 16 is 843, the number who reached Fremantle on the Heintzelman, not the 839 who continued on to residence in Australia. Ann has written elsewhere about the rubbery numbers.
SOURCES:
Australian and New Zealand Art Sales Digest, Henrika Kuljurgies, Australia, c1929-2010, https://www.aasd.com.au/artist/23720-henrika-kuljurgies/, accessed 26 October 2026.
Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection ‘Alfredas Kuljurgis’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203635338, accessed 26 October 2026.
Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection ‘Henrika Kuljurgis nee Vrubliauskaitė’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203635339, accessed 26 October 2026.
Border Morning Mail (1953) 'Service is keynote of this school', Albury, NSW, 26 November, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280474466, accessed 26 October 2026.
Chronicle (1947) ‘Handsome Migrants’ Adelaide, SA, 18 December, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/93225525, accessed 31 October 2026.
City of Wodonga ‘Proposed Park Names, 2018’ https://www.wodonga.vic.gov.au/Have-your-say/Past-Consultations/2018/Proposed-park-names-2018#:~:text=After%20arriving%20in%20Australia%20in%201948%2C%20Henrika,in%20hospitals%20and%20the%20Commercial%20Club%20Albury, accessed 26 October 2026.
City of Wodonga ‘Minutes of Ordinary Meeting, 19 March 2018’ p 11 https://www.wodonga.vic.gov.au/Portals/0/Attachments/march_2018_council_meeting_minutes.pdf#:~:text=Social%20/%20cultural%20implications.%20By%20naming%20the,contribution%20into%20how%20Wodonga%20came%20to%20be, accessed 26 October 2026.
Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1956) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 1 November, p 3273 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232989320/25126753, accessed 26 October 2026.
Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 16 October, p 3486 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240882502/25978052, accessed 26 October 2026.
Daily Advertiser (1947) ‘More Baltic migrants for Bonegilla’ Wagga Wagga, NSW, 12 December, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/144845389, accessed 31 October 2026.
Find A Grave, ‘Greta Kuljurgies’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215665492/greta-kuljurgies, accessed 26 October 2026.
Genealogy.net, ‘Local heritage book of Memelland, Family report, Alfred Wilhelm KULJURGIS, https://ofb.genealogy.net/famreport.php?ofb=memelland&ID=I314324&lang=en, accessed 26 October 2026.
Mūsų Pastagė (Our Haven) (1990) ‘Aukos Lietuvos Atstatymo Fondui’ (‘Donations to the Fund for the Restoration of Lithuania’ in Lithuania) Sydney, NSW, 11 June, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1990/1990-06-11-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 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; 389, KULJERGIES (sic) Alfredas DOB 17 February 1924, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005685, accessed 31 October 2026.
Ryerson Index ‘Search for Notices’ [Kuljurgies] https://ryersonindex.org/search.php, accessed 26 October 2026.
Sun News-Pictorial (1947) ‘They’ll Like Us—And We’ll Like Them’ Melbourne, Vic, 9 December, p 14 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/279259651, accessed 31 October 2026.
Weekly Times, My Tributes ‘Death notice for Kuljurgies, Henrika’ https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/tributes/notice/death-notices/kuljurgies-henrika/3854354/, accessed 26 October 2026.
Wikipedia, 'Prussian Lithuanians' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Lithuanians, accessed 3 November 2026.
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