Vaclavs Kozlovskis in Pyramid Hill, August 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 1.8.48, Sun

I prayed for rain, but as usual when it’s needed it doesn’t arrive, and at ten minutes to two we left home, with me wondering how things will turn out. First of all we met Jan and Barreli going in the opposite direction. They told me to come to the tennis court straight away, and we kept walking. Velma and the other girls had already gathered and so we started playing basketball. Who knows, maybe everything will be all right, I told myself, because the first tennis court was taken and the other didn’t have a net. But unfortunately it wasn’t all right- after some ten minutes Jan and the other girl showed up and, looking in our direction, started putting the net up. I definitely had to go over there, but couldn’t think up a reason to leave. This reason came of its own accord, quite unexpectedly.

Apparently with my nervousness and poor playing I annoyed Velma a little - she went to the other end of the court, and sent the little lass in her place. If that’s how it is - I put Krysis in my place and walked over to the tennis court. I occupied many hours with the racquet and ball, and I must say that this game is better than any other I’ve played in Australia. In future I’ll have to stick with tennis. It doesn’t matter that Velma and the others are annoyed, sooner or later their anger will burn itself out, especially if it peaks next Sunday, when even Vytas is supposed to come and play tennis.

PYRAMID HILL, 8.8.48, Sun

I turned the calendar and judged by the date that the fierce southern wind, which rattles the Australian dentures every morning, is still supposed to be blowing. But not always does what’s written on paper coincide with the truth - an ever-clearer smile is beginning to appear on the sun’s face. Less and less she seeks cover behind the clouds, and more and more surely her warriors engage in combat, hurling brilliant boomerangs and incandescent spears to stab the quickly fleeing strength of winter.

We have sung many songs of praise of winter, and cursed summer too often, therefore these spears attack us too. It seems the time is near when the last of winter’s strength will be beaten, then the brilliant boomerangs and whitehot spears will turn their full force against us, leaving little white water blisters on our skin once more. The sun will smile widely as she tyrannises, while our sweat pours down and we search for relief in the waterhole’s brown water, waiting patiently until the next winter monarch invents an atom bomb and comes to deliver us again. My body weapons factory, with increasing tempo, is desperately attempting to convert my thick northern blood to thin southern blood, but this job, despite the urgency, is occurring damned slowly.

Today I rose at eight. Yesterday I had a drop too much, and as a result of the gin and beer I became completely stupid, but today like a miracle my head is quite clear. At ten thirty I said a few quiet prayers in the church, after that I had lunch with the local schoolmaster, who kindly invited me. He is a very nice person, which perhaps is the reason I feel so comfortable in his company. This afternoon I played tennis again, this time it turned out quite well. I was so carried away by the game that I returned home completely exhausted, but better acquainted with several pleasant people.

The longer I live here, the clearer it is to me that Australia really is becoming my home. Whether I want to or not, now and again I compare both countries, and each time I conclude that it’s better in Australia. What is waiting for me in my distant northern land if I return? Even in peace time it was difficult to find work, the wages were low and the living conditions weren’t much good. Could I earn a bicycle or a wireless there, in one month? And what’s wrong with living here? I don’t have to worry about finding a job, everything is cheap and abundant. Would it really be worthwhile to return now, or even later, to the wreckage, and begin my life all over again? I’m too old for that, and too tired of this constant starting up of new lives.

But despite everything, home is home; it will always pull me, and precious memories will always remain. After all, I spent my happiest childhood days there, and all my family is there. Will Destiny lead me back one day?

It seems as if the wheel of time is somehow turning awry, and all is not right with the change in weather, for on work days the sky is clear and the weather itself is fine without wind, but as soon as Saturday is here, then it’s usually raining. Today instead of rain, a fierce wind blew, considerably testing the strength of the papering inside my cabin. Although it’s difficult riding against the wind on bicycles, the three of us struggled to the tennis court, for after all, we’d promised to play. We had little hope of anyone else turning up, but miraculously a car soon drove up and out of it climbed four girls with their tennis racquets. Might as well: we started playing, but it was too difficult to control the ball in the strong wind, so after an hour we stopped our fruitless running after the balls that we hit over the fence.

On our way home we turned into the local pub for a few beers, but these “few beers” turned into a party, which continued on even after the pub’s formal closing time. By the time the pub’s doors were behind us, a huge swarm of bees had begun humming in my head. At the crossroads we met Jim’s wife, who said that next Saturday it’s her birthday, but she can’t have a party at her house, therefore she’d like to have it in our kitchen, and invited us as well.

PYRAMID HILL, 15.8.48, Sun

A huge wind is blowing again today, it’s a wonder as to when it will stop. I stayed home all day and pottered around. It’s cold and my head aches a little…

PYRAMID HILL, 21.8.48, Sat

From everything only sadness remains And pale dust and ashes, cover it all My hands are tired - I cannot light the fire My eyes are blinded - they are sore and cannot see. From everything only emptiness remains, And the ash from dying embers drifts onto the ground. What I longed for yesterday - today I don’t desire, The lips I pined for, the kiss will never come. From everything only disappointment remains. You ask yourself and wonder: was that reality? With a dim mirror you exchange glances Like Judas, hating yourself, as you tie a noose around your neck. Only emptiness, disappointment and sadness remain.

One after the other the days rush by, the weeks pass and the months are overlaid with the quilt of the past, and the powerful river of time is unstoppable. Her waters wash away all pain, joy and sorrow; all that remains is an empty person, who walks along the bank against the current, without peace. Another week has flowed past, and so I have also come closer to my own inevitable peace. The remaining months will also pass like this, and then from the Pyramid days as well, only memories, several photos in my album and words in my journal will remain….

After the usual tennis game and short rest at home, Vik and I half-emptied a liqueur bottle and went dancing in a light mood. I happened to dance with the dark-haired lass, and often my eyes met her dark twinkling ones, and her face screwed up in smiles. Can it really be that Fate plans to send her to Melbourne at the start of next month! That’s no good, then there will no longer be any girl left here who I really like. But nothing can be changed - the flow of Time’s river is unstoppable, and it never stops echoing : “From everything only emptiness, disappointment and sorrow remains…”

At tonight’s dance lottery tickets were being sold, this time for the Red Cross. I bought two; who knows, perhaps I’ll win a house, and settle into my life in earnest? The receipt I’ve taped into this book is testimony that I’ve posted two pounds as a payment on a dancing course. Although I now know almost all the local dances, it would still be worthwhile to learn them perfectly. It will be very interesting to see how I can learn by mail, without music or a partner?

PYRAMID HILL, 22.8.48, Sun

Oh, quiet church, your sombre, holy walls let me forget worldly things for a while; they enclose me in peace, why search anywhere else… and Mary, clothed in such a beautiful, holy dress! This afternoon I smiled back at the black-haired lass again as we played tennis. In the late afternoon an enormous wind blew up, driving before it a large pile of sand. The wind came from behind us, so we hastily began our ride home.

PYRAMID HILL, 24.8.48, Tues

Work is work, and play is play - tonight Vytas and I emptied the remaining liqueur and went dancing again. Of course, the liqueur wasn’t enough, and some beer and nice wine joined it from our friends’ direction, and with each glass my mood improved. As usual at a large dance, all the women were wearing long dresses, so it paid to be careful. The schoolmistress’s dress was so long that whether I wanted to or not, I couldn’t dance with her without treading on it, but should I worry about that? If she can’t wear a shorter dress, let her go home!

PYRAMID HILL, 31.8.48, Tues

It’s no good drinking on workdays like that - today I’m sleepy and my head aches. No work has been done in the quarry since the middle of last week because all the vehicles have broken down, so this morning I occupied myself with the old task of restacking the iron. This afternoon I finally returned to the peace of the quarry. The crusher isn’t working and the trucks don’t come, so we crawled into a corner while one of us went up to look out for the boss.

But the rogue obviously wasn’t being careful, for the boss swanned up completely unnoticed and immediately his “blessing” followed. Thus it turned out that we had to practically warn our sentry of the boss’s arrival.

While the boss was in the quarry we applied ourselves industriously, and continued production for an hour or so after he left, until it started raining, and we once more crawled under the shelter until work finished. Around five Father O’Connor came to visit us. He is a likeable man and knows the communists well; on Sunday he will hold a service for our loved ones and families.

This Australian wind is terrible - it comes from I know not where, blows, almost tips us off our feet and tries to wrench my cabin roof into the air. The buffeted cabin walls make the table shake so it’s difficult to write anything, the roof paper flaps, and all the cabin joints rattle.

From this page of Vaclavs' diary but from an unknown newspaper
(Click once if you want to read a larger copy in a new browser page)

Helmut Nurmsalu (1927-2014): Assimilated Australian, Father of Star Designer, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 10 June 2026.

It now seems likely that the fourth First Transport arrival recorded but not named in the Thornton photograph is not Helmut Nurmsalu, as I wrote originally, but Aleksander Nõmm.  He's the one sitting on the truck's step.

Copies of the photograph were printed onto blank postcards, one of which Juozas Nakas sent to his brother, Osvaldas, still in Germany, in mid-1948. That's how we come to still have a copy.

An Estonian sitting on the truck's step with (left to right)
Edvardas Lapinskas, Bernardas Matkevičius and Juozas Nakas

Source:  Private collection

We will have to prepare a separate biography of Aleksander soon.

Meanwhile, thinking that Helmut was the more likely candidate, I started to look for public evidence to add to that part of his life recorded in the files of the National Archives of Australia, but it seemed scant. I thought his life story would be a brief one.

That was because I started by looking through the digitised Estonian-language newspapers which that country’s national library has made available on line through its DIGAR Website. While this produced 14 Results which included the Helmut Nurmsalu name, 13 of them were recent mentions of a person living or recently deceased in Estonia.

Our Helmut was included only in a 1948 list of Estonians refugees who had resettled already in Australia, published at the end of the year in a Swedish newspaper, Stockholms-Tidningen Eestlastele (a mixture of Swedish and Estonian which translates as Stockholm Newspaper for Estonians).

Then I discovered how much of his life was recorded in Australian publications digitised by Australia’s National Library in its Trove collection. I realised that the picture was very different.

How Helmut Assimilated

When the Federal Government took the lead in immigration matters after World War II, the official settlement policy was assimilation. Immigrants were expected to “forget the past, look forward to the future”.* Fortunately, the Government forgot to tell the immigrants much about this, as they set about starting new community groups or building on existing ones, publishing newspapers in their own languages and so on.

Some individuals – or were they individualists? – went their own way. We probably can describe Helmut as one of them, someone who assimilated although he possibly did not know that this was what he was doing. It must have started before July 1950. That’s when his engagement to marry a young Australian woman was announced by an advertisement in Melbourne’s Argus newspaper.

His intended was Elizabeth (Betty) Robinson, third daughter of Mr and Mrs RV Robinson of Sunbury. It was then a rural town, with a population of around one thousand, 38 kilometres northeast of Melbourne’s central business district. (Today it is more like an outer suburb of Melbourne, with many residents commuting by rail into the city for their work.)

His Marriage

The marriage took place on 5 February 1951 in Melbourne’s leading Catholic church, St Patrick’s Cathedral. Helmut had stated that he was a Protestant, most likely a Lutheran, before migration to Australia. In contrast, he is listed as a Roman Catholic on the passenger list (“nominal roll”) for the voyage of the Heintzelman. He may or may not have been required to convert to Catholicism before the marriage.

Having the marriage ceremony reported by newspapers probably required relatives to contact the social pages editor. That looks like what Betty’s family did, as reports subsequently appeared in two Melbourne newspapers, The Age and The Argus, on 7 February 1951.

The focus in the Argus article was on bridal wear, although the groom’s origin in the Estonian town of Türi got a mention. The Age added descriptions of the clothes worn by 2 bridesmaids and a flower girl, it named the best man and a groomsman, and it added a reception which followed Hotel Federal. What a contrast to what Helmut had endured during World War II, which had ended less than 6 years earlier!

Helmut's photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Both partners to the marriage were living in Sunbury. Helmut’s occupation was stated to be Process Worker (someone who carries out repetitive operations in a factory) while Betty was Receptionist.

Might the couple have moved then to rural Omeo? The National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch Web function can find files relating to one Nurmsalu only, our Helmut. In all cases, his first name is spelled with an addition H on the end, the German spelling. The Estonian T has a soft sound anyhow, more like our D, so Estonian orthography sees no need to add an H where German and even English writers often do. For example, the newly independent Estonian Government had to write to the Australian Government to beg it not to spell the English version of its name as ‘Esthonia’. There’s a whole file on that topic in the National Archives.

Helmuth Plays Australian Football

Back to Omeo, in rural Victoria’s far east. Actually, even more rural, to a town called Ensay on the Great Alpine Road, located between Swift’s Creek and Bruthen. If Australia had villages, this would be one, with a population of 109 in 2016. The local Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal reported on an Australian Rules football player with the family name Nurmsalu during the 1953-54 season.

He was named first as ‘H. Nurmsalu’, one of Ensay’s goalkickers, in the 1 June 1953 issue. He was named as one of Ensay’s 3 best players for the game. In the 15 June issue, he was named again as one of the goalkickers and best players for the team, although without an initial this time. His team reached the semi-finals played on 15 August 1953, losing to their Swift’s Creek rivals, when he again kicked one goal and was one of the best 6 players for the Ensay team.

For those readers more familiar with the type of football which Nurmsalu may well have played previously, soccer to Australians, jalgpall (literally, football) in Nurmsalu’s mother tongue, there are 18 players on an Aussie Rules team. This means that the top 6 are the best one-third, not more than half.

At the end of the season in August, votes for the Best and Fairest Player in the Omeo District League were tallied. Helmut was not the winner, but he scored a respectable 8 votes, enough to get a mention in the report in the Bairnsdale Advertiser. From this we learn also that his playing position was ruckman, normally the tallest player in the team whose main job is to contest the ball when play is not moving, particularly the centre bounce at the start of the game and boundary throw-ins after the ball leaves the playing oval.

Helmuth’s height according to his Bonegilla card was only 5 feet 6 inches, which is below 1.7 metres. The medical report completed at the Babenhausen camp before Helmut was accepted for migration to Australia says that he was taller, 1.8 metres (5 feet 11 inches, translated to the measurements still used in the USA). That could be tall enough to be a ruckman in a shorter community. (Babenhausen got a mention in our second last entry because Martha Donald, soon to travel to Australia on the same ship as Helmuth, moved to the same camp.)

At the start of the next season, 22 May 1954, Nurmsalu was again one of the goalkickers for Ensay and one of the team’s 4 best players. In the next Saturday’s game, he did not kick a goal but once again was one of the 5 best players. He was the team’s best goalkicker in the 26 June game, with 2 against Swift’s Creek, and of course one of the 3 best players, but his team lost heavily. The final score was Swift’s Creek 17 goals, 7 behinds for 109 points, while Ensay scored only 6 goals, 7 behinds for 43 points.

That’s the last we can read of Nurmsalu playing for the Ensay football team. However, the likelihood that it’s our Helmut is supported by Betty’s presence on the local Commonwealth-State electoral roll for the Division or Province of Gippsland in 1954. Her place of residence was Ensay North (apparently Ensay was much larger back then) and her occupation was Home Duties.

Another 1954 Electoral Roll, dated 25 February 1954 like the Ensay one, has Betty resident at 45 Waverley Street, W5 (Essendon), for the Commonwealth Division of Maribyrnong and the State Assembly District of Moonee Ponds. One of those two rolls was incorrect.

Helmuth Becomes an Australian Officially

The next public record is the grant to him of Australian citizenship in a ceremony on 16 October 1957. His address at the time was on Nepean Highway, Aspendale, now back in greater Melbourne. At nearly 30 kilometres southeast of the edge of Melbourne’s central business district, it was almost as far in the opposite direction as Sunbury was to the north west. A car trip between the two to visit Betty’s family would still take more than 2 hours today.

Helmut officially became Helmuth with his new citizenship. Maybe he just gave up trying to spell it the Estonian way. Maybe putting the H on the end helped other people to pronounce it in a way which sounded more Estonian. Maybe it helped them to stop saying his name as if it was protective headwear.

Helmuth's Residence and Occupations

He first appeared in a 1958 electoral roll, with Elizabeth, for Gisborne, the next town on the railway line beyond Sunbury. He had become a Linesman by occupation. The interesting thing about that is it was the occupation given by his father-in-law on the marriage certificate. Robert (Bob?) Robinson must have introduced Helmut to this work.

His occupation on the Personal Particulars of Person Wishing to Migrate to Australia form completed in Germany was given as Agricultural Work. It records no previous occupation but the AEF DP Registration Record, also completed in Germany, also in September 1947, records his previous occupation as Locksmith.

Maybe Helmut played more Australian Rules football with local teams. We don’t know if he did as not all the small newspapers with local circulations have been digitised for the National Library of Australia’s Trove Web service.

Helmuth and Elizabeth stayed at the same address for the 1963 roll, but moved to another home in Gisborne for 1967 and subsequent rolls, until 1980. The electoral rolls beyond that year have not been digitised yet.

Helmuth's Children

An interesting addition to the 1977 rolls in the appearance of Susan Mary Xavier Nurmsalu, who must have turned 18 on or after 21 March 1973. That’s the date on which Australia’s voting age was lowered from 21. According to Betty’s gravestone (see below) Susan is the middle child of Betty and Helmuth. Her older sister, Helene, does not appear at all on the electoral rolls as Helene Nurmsalu: perhaps she married before she became old enough to vote. Their younger brother, James, must have enrolled after the 1980 rolls closed.

Helmuth Becomes a  Public Servant

During this time, on 17 May 1973, the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette included a notice which said the Helmuth Nurmsalu had been appointed to the Department of Civil Aviation as a Fitter and Turner.  A later Gazette, published on 8 October, said that his appointment had dated from 20 February.

Helmuth was now an Australian Public Servant, at the age of 46. Having previously married an Australia, played Aussie Rules and become an Australian citizen, how much more Australian could Helmuth become?

He also had changed his occupation from Linesman to Fitter and Turner. Presumably he had been upgrading his skills and perhaps practising what he had learned in Estonia 30 or more years previously. Maybe he had the help of his father-in-law again.

Within a few months, Helmuth found out how the Public Service worked. In August he received a provisional promotion to a supervisor position. On 15 November, the Gazette announced that his promotion had been cancelled, with someone else being promoted to the position after going through a formal process of appeal.

He did try again, but it was 9 years later. The Gazette of 29 July 1982 announced that the has been promoted to Senior Fitter and Turner in the Department of Aviation (as it was called now) with effect from 24 June that year.

Public Servants are eligible to retire with superannuation (a pension to which they have contributed part of their salary) from the age of 55. In Helmuth’s case, that would have been on 10 February 1982, so clearly he had stayed on. Not having joined the Public Service until he was in his 40s, he did not have as much superannuation accumulated as someone who had started in their 20s or teens. The compulsory retirement age then was 65, so Helmut may well have stayed in his secure job until February 1992.

There should be a record of his retirement in an issue of the Gazette digitised by the National Library. If there is, it has been missed by the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process.

Deaths

Betty died on 22 April 1995. She was buried in the Sunbury Cemetery, under a plaque which names Helmuth, the three children and two grandchildren. It is in the shape of an open book, with the right page still blank and waiting for Helmut’s details. 

This should mean that he is with us still but 2 followers of this blog, have found a death notice in a rural newspaper using the Ryerson Index.  The Great Lakes Advocate, published in the New South Wales coastal town of Forster, carried the notice for Helmuth, also known as Charlie, on 12 March 2014, so he probably died soon after his 87th birthday.  The distance from Sunbury, in Victoria, is likely to explain why Helmut is not lying beside Betty.

The plaque for Betty Nurmsalu in the Sunbury Cemetery

Source:  Robby in Find a Grave

Of the 3 children, Susan achieved national fame as the designer of a self-titled women’s clothing range.

Susan the Star Designer

The September 1993 appearance of the first Aboriginal model on the front cover of the local edition of Vogue magazine is regarded as a turning point. The model was Elaine George; her apparel was a white top by Susan Nurmsalu.

Elaine George with the September 1993 Vogue cover
featuring her in a Susan Nurmsalu top

Source:  Sydney Morning Herald

Susan’s Web presence indicates that she was designing tailored women’s workwear, jackets and coats, and using higher-quality natural fibres. Her output appears to have been aimed at professional women and was sold through boutiques and higher end chain-stores.

Sadly, her individual designing career did not last long. A 1997 issue of the Commonwealth Gazette carried a notice under the Federal Corporations Law, announcing that a receiver and manager had been appointed to Susan Nurmsalu Pty Limited. This meant that the company had been unable to pay a loan on time.

Susan moved on to design for Trent Nathan. This company, founded by a designer of the same name in 1980, had evolved into one where the brand was more important than the designer. It kept its new designer away from publicity.

The deregistration of Susan Nurmsalu Pty Ltd was announced in an ASIC Gazette (published by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission) on 18 October 2005. That was around the time that Susan left Trent Nathan. I’m guessing that she then was aged around 50, with decades of creativity left in her.

There has not been publicity about her since. Susan's skills as a designer remain on display, though, with clothing bearing her name still available on auction Websites.

Her siblings do not have a Web presence, either, unless under changed names. We can but wish all of them the best.

FOOTNOTE

* This quotation comes from a headlines after the arrival of the Heintzelman passengers in Victoria via the Australian military ship, the Kanimbla.  See, for example, the Courier-Mail of 15 December 1947.

SOURCES

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