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.

Karolis Varkūnas (1912-1971): Sad end, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Some words, even though fifty-five years have passed, are still relevant. Writing about the death of Karolis Varkūnas, V Milčius said something that will never get old and will always be to the point.

Karolis Varkūnas was 58 years old when he died on 26 January 1971. A group of Hobart Lithuanians buried him on 29 January in Malbina General Cemetery, New Norfolk, Tasmania.

Karolis arrived in Australia on the First Transport in 1947. He had no relatives in Australia, he was single.

Karolis Varkunas' photograph on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Words of wisdom

Milčius wrote of Karolis Varkūnas that quite a few single people have a “philosophy of pessimism”, hammered into their heads. Why work when you have no-one to whom to leave your property?

However, single people do not have to live in blind darkness when there is somewhere to leave their estate. Lithuanian national institutions are asking for legacies for the existence of the nation. Anyone can create a legacy, immortalise their name, remain alive while Lithuanian history exists.

Those who believe in leaving their earnings only in bars have shortened, unhealthy lives, become a burden to themselves and others. Their life history is left empty, maybe without even a mark in a cemetery, without memories among the living.

Karolis' last years

Varkūnas was a bricklayer by profession, he said, but without a permanent job. For the last couple of years of his life, he had avoided any work, so he left no property, only what he carried on his body. He had lived under the care of the charitable Mrs. Teresa Kairienė.

The Commonwealth Employment Office terminated his unemployment benefit and sent him to a power plant construction site. There he collapsed and died after only one day of work.

Karolis in Lithuania

He had been born near Ukmergė, a city 78 Km northwest of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, on 5 December 1912. His parents were Karolis and Veronika Varkūnas. Veronika had been born in Warsaw, Poland, around 1887, but may well have been of Lithuanian ethnicity given that both Poland and Lithuania were part of one empire at the time, that of the Russian Tsar.

Karolis completed his elementary schooling, served in the Lithuanian army from 1933 to 1935, then worked as a bricklayer – or was he a stone mason? -- before leaving for Germany.

The start of his life was no different from other young people. His chosen trade was good, so it shouldn't have been difficult to get a job.

His life experiences, however, his separation from his homeland, family, and lack of friends led Karolis, as well as other emigrants, to despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.

Karolis in Germany

Karolis is another of the 31 whose selection papers have been misplaced. However, it turns out that the misplacement was onto the file about his application to become an Australian citizen (NAA: A446, 1955/52715), so we can see still what he told the selection team in Germany in 1947. Here, he was recorded as a stone mason, although bricklayer is mentioned as well, with 12 years’ experience in this trade in Lithuania. He also had worked for one year in farming in Germany.

The Arolsen Archives so far has not found and digitised any papers for Karolis in Germany, so it is not possible to find more detail on his life there.

Karolis is selected for Australia

On a Statutory Declaration given in relation to his application for citizenship, Karolis stated that he had left Lithuania for Germany in November 1943. This would mean that he was in Nazi Germany for 18 months before its defeat. The Australian selection team’s report has the usual “forcibly evacuated by Germans” explanation.

The team had been tasked to look in particular for men who could help with building construction, so masonry would have fitted the bill. The team also was looking for people with agricultural experience, to feed the returning service people and the families they now were forming. Karolis was 34 at the time though, which may no longer have been considered young in 1947. Nonetheless, he was given an A recommendation, which was more than the A- given to some others recruited for the First Transport.

Karolis in Australia

Despite that highly desirable construction experience, he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit as their first job in Australia. His employer was Messrs Dundas Simson of Ardmona. He undertook that work for nearly two months, returning to Bonegilla on 22 March 1948. His card says that his destination one week later was Tasmania.

An Application for Release from Period of Exemption, his request for permission to stay in Australia after the initial contract period finished, has survived on a Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch, file.

On it, we can see that the next job for this skilled bricklayer was picking more fruit, for DK Calvert for another 3 months. He finally got to lay bricks again from 20 September 1948, first for the Australian Newsprint Mills company (presumably at Maydena) for one month, and then with a private employer, S Haunstrap.

When he completed the Application, he was living at New Norfolk, where presumably he was living also when he died. New Norfolk is some 36 kilometres from the centre of Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart, by a winding road which follows the River Derwent.

Another document records that he stayed in New Norfolk until December 1949, when he moved to across Bass Strait to Melbourne. He returned to Hobart in June 1955.

Karolis Varkunas in 1955

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In August 1954, in Melbourne, he applied for a new Alien Registration Certificate as the old one had become worn, perhaps because Karolis kept it with him wherever he was. At that time he said he was self-employed as a bricklayer.

In May 1955, Karolis was one of the more generous donors to an appeal for Lithuanians still in Germany, giving £1/10/-.

His Australian citizenship was granted 9 April 1956.

After that, Karolis lived such a quiet life that he does not appear in either the English or Lithuanian-language press, nor on official files, until his death.

Was he clinically depressed or otherwise ill?

Fifty-five years later, it is possible to ask whether the “philosophy of pessimism” and the lack of a desire to work were, in fact, deep and untreated depression: a medical condition rather than a deliberate choice?

His depression perhaps was not have been recognised as a medical condition by those around him but it does fit V Milčius’ description of “despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.”

The collapse at work after two years of unemployment may well have been due to another undiagnosed condition, such as heart disease. The heart disease and other illnesses may have been intertwined with the possible depression.

Such illnesses would have had nothing to do with the issue of not having family to whom to leave one’s property. Milčius’ point about leaving it to a Lithuanian institution is well made, regardless, and applies equally to charities also, both in Lithuania and Australia

FOOTNOTE:  The National Archives RecordSearch service does not contain any files for someone with a Milčius family name.  As Tėviškės Aidai actually printed it as Mil-čius, this may not be a typographic error but the shortening of someone's name.  With this in mind, we looked again in RecordSearch to find Vincas Milinkevičius arriving in September 1948.  He looks like the only candidate for the V Mil-čius nom de plume.

SOURCES

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Karolis VARKUNAS’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203724312, accessed 7 March 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Karlos Varkunas, Malbina General Cemetery, Derwent Valley Council, Tasmania’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215236428/karlos-varkunas, accessed 7 March 2026

Mil-čius, V (1971) ‘Hobartas, Palaidojom A A Karolį‘ (‘Hobart, We buried the late Karolis’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, Vic, 9 February, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr05-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations [Main correspondence files series of the agency], 1926-2001; 1955/52715, Application for Naturalisation - VARKUNAS Karolis born 5 December 1912, 1947-1956 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8821097, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1949-1966; VARKUNAS K, VARKUNAS Karolis [Lithuanian], 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1914257, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; VARKUNAS KAROLIS, VARKUNAS, Karolis : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 718, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203724312, accessed 7 March 2026.

Wikipedia, Ukmergė https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukmerg%C4%97, accessed 7 March 2026.