Marianne Abrey is one of Zigmas’ children.
One of Arthur Calwell’s aims as Australia’s first Minister for Immigration was to increase the size of the Australian population for defence purposes. He wanted Australia to look less like an empty country with land for the taking by invaders. A larger population also would have more people available to defend the country, both in the armed forces and in supporting industries.
In his first speech to the Australian Parliament in his new role, on 2 August 1945, he proposed targets of annual population growth of one per cent by natural increase and one per cent through migration.
From where would he get those migrants? As he recorded in his 1974 autobiography, Be Just and Fear Not, two-thirds of British shipping had been sunk during WWII. By the middle of 1947, according to George Kiddle who was part of the selection panel for the first refugee immigrants, the First Transport passengers, there were 700,000 written expressions of interest in migrating lodged with Australian House in London. There was little spare shipping to implement the dreams of these British nationals.
In these circumstances, the desire of the international community expressed through the Preliminary Committee of the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO) for Australia to take some of the “Displaced Persons” in Germany was a godsend. This was especially so because the plan included shipping organised by the PCIRO.
The part which did not work initially was the First Transport Displaced Persons, once in Australia, helping to provide the one per cent per annum natural increase. From what we have seen so far, a surprising number had no children. Perhaps this is not so surprising when we consider what WWII might have done to their mental health and their optimism. Possibly they were still focussed on their own survival rather than the legacy of offspring.
One who defied this friend was Zigmas (Zig or Ziggy in Australia) Paškevičius, father of 6, grandfather of 16, great-grandfather of 39.
The record of his interview for migration to Australia says that he had 4 years elementary school, 6 years secondary school and one year in trade school learning to be an Electrician. His work experience was one year as a Cashier in a dairy in Lithuania. This odd combination may have been the result of his being aged only 15 when his country was first invaded during WWII, by the Soviet Union in June 1940.
He was yet another Lithuanian with the standard “Forcibly evacuated by the Germans” explanation for coming to Germany in his interview report. He could have been doing some work of value to the German military when it was decided to retreat.
He seems to have had tough time during the War, perhaps because of his relative height. At half an inch over 6 feet tall when measured in the Bonegilla camp at the end of 1947, that is, 1.84 metres at age 23, he had been very tall at a younger age so he stood out.
The Germans would have been as likely as the Soviets to round up some lads coming out of the pictures one afternoon and take them to a work camp to work, because the Germans always needed additional labour. He and others escaped. Some of his friends got shot … he ran and ran for days, starving, or so he told daughter Marianne decades later.
He was in front of a firing squad not once but twice, yet the opportunity for escape came up. Once it was an enemy plane flying overhead which caused everyone to scatter.
He told Marianne that he had fled his country wading through a river at night with a young nephew on his shoulders. While this may appear to contradict the “Forcibly evacuated by the Germans” explanation, it also is possible that both are part of a complex story of bravery.
His life was much more quiet at the time of his application for migration, in October 1947, when he was studying at a German technical school: probably something to do with an electrician’s work.
At the time of the application, Zigmas was living on Wikinger Platz in Buxtehude, so not in a Displaced Persons camp. Buxtehude was near coastal Lübeck in north-east Germany, part of the Hanseatic League in the 13th to 15th centuries, like the coastal cities of the Baltic States.
On his application to migrate, it was recorded by a typist that he was fluent in Lithuanian, German, Russian and Polish. While we cannot vouch for the Polish, Zigmas told his children that, if in contact with Russians, he could pretend to be one of them. The same went for contacts with the Germans.
Zigmas is known to have been part of a basketball team formed on the ship which brought them to Australia, the General Stuart Heintzelman. This is no surprise, given his height. The other Lithuanians in the squad were Vincas Maziliauskas, Jonas Motiejūnas, Algirdas Liubinskas and Romas Genys.
Zigmas later recalled to his eldest daughter, Rosie, that the Suez Canal seemed so narrow that the Heintzelman passengers could have jumped from their ship to the shore, had they wanted to. Some of the Egyptian men onshore were so daring that they displayed their genitals to the travellers. (No-one else has been bold enough to report this.)
We’ve already discussed the senior crew on this military ship knowing how to keep their passengers away from boredom and mischief on their trips, by assigning them to support the regular crew in various parts of the ship. Zigmas was assigned to work in the ship’s laundry. There he received tips for ironing the crew’s uniforms. At night, he played poker.
While on board, everyone received a carton of cigarettes each week. Non-smokers could use these for barter. By the time the Heintzelman arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia, Zigmas had collected 5 cartons of cigarettes and 10 US dollars, which converted into 7 Australian pounds. He was able to shout some friends to a trip to the movies in Perth, and to buy a sack of oranges, a bag of bananas and a 6-penny bottle of wine.
In the Bonegilla camp, Zigmas worked as a kitchen hand in the camp from 22 December to 24 January. The timing seems to have coincided with the need for extra staff to handle Christmas feasting, followed by a drop in pressure as other camp residents left for their first Australian jobs.
He was sent next to fruit-picking in the Goulburn Valley on 29 January. His employer was VR McNab of Ardmona. He returned to the camp after more than 7 weeks, on 23 March.
Five days later, he was off to Tasmania, to join the group which Jonas Mockūnas has discussed already, allocated to the Electrolytic Zinc Company in Rosebery. We already have quoted Rosie summarising what her father told her about life at Rosebery. She wrote, “… these men lived in tents in the harsh Tasmanian climate. My father told how he’d wake up freezing and wet if he happened to roll into the side of the tent...
"There was a Christmas break when Dad went to Melbourne where he met my mother. He refused to return to the harsh conditions and completed the second year of his contract with the Government in Melbourne at a brick factory, with much improved living conditions.”
Zigmas told his second daughter, Marianne, that he had arranged to meet up with some mates for a night out. Their meeting place was under the famous Chloe painting in Young & Jackson’s Saloon Bar, opposite the Flinders Street Railway Station in central Melbourne.
Having met up, the young men went looking for a party. They heard music coming from a room above Flinders Street Station. They headed towards the music to find that it was invitation-only party. In Zig’s own words, “Being young and charming, I turned on the charm, and before long we were on the dance floor, having fun.” Through the crowded dance floor, he noticed a beautiful young lady wearing a long black dress. So began an almost 50 years partnership with Roma Jessie Shingler.
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| Zigmas Paskevicius and Roma Shingler on their first date Source: Paskevicius family collection |
He was born on 17 December 1924 in Kaunas, Lithuania, to Vicentas Paškevičius, a bank clerk, also recorded as a farmer, and Vincenta née Jankauskaite. We know this not only from Zigmas himself but because the record of his mother's time in the Lithuanian Red Cross Clinic when she was giving birth to him. He was able to obtain a copy of this from a Lithuanian archive once his homeland knew freedom again.
For some reason we don't know, he was not christened until more than 11 weeks after his birth, in March 1925. Lithuania's Electronic Archives Information System is yet to make available the digitised church records for 1925, so we do not have access to the details.
We notice that his birthday was recorded at the time of the christening as 2 months before that date. His official birthday therefore became 6 January, and 19 days of his life disappeared.
He organised the creation of a photographic card, still in his family's possession, which shows that he came from a large family, of 5 boys and 2 girls.
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| The Paskevicius family portrait, with Zigmas top right and his parents in the bottom row with their two daughters Source: Paskevicius family collection |
We’ve already mentioned Zigmas’ meeting his wife-to-be, Roma. They married on 24 September 1949, which probably was 6 days before Zigmas was released from his contract to work wherever the Australian Government, in the form of the Commonwealth Employment Service, sent him. This may well have been the very first marriage of a First Transport refugee to one of the locals.
Roma and her family won the theological debate, if there was one, as they were married in Trinity Presbyterian Church, Camberwell. It may well have been Roma’s church, as she was living in Camberwell at the time. Zigmas, like the large majority of Lithuanians, gave his religion as Roman Catholic.
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| Zigmas and Roma are married, 24 September 1949 Source: Paskevicius family collection |
Roma has been born on 13 December 1931, so was only 17 at that time of her marriage. Although she had to get her parents’ permission to marry, this was not likely to have been a problem, as her mother also had married she was aged only 17.
Their 6 children, in order of birth, were Rosemarie, Stefan, Robert, Peter, Marianne and Patricia. The children appeared between August 1950 and April 1959. All the boys joined the Australian Navy for careers of varying length and distinctions. Rosie became a teacher and Marianne, an office worker who later became a Bowen and massage therapist. Their sister, Patricia, was a disability and foster carer.
Rosie reported to Ann in January 2009 that her family had moved around a lot during her childhood because her father was concerned about the KGB being aware of their location. This could have been made apparent through the Russian Embassy attempting to contact them, or perhaps succeeding. Before this is put down to paranoia, one Estonian from the Third Transport who lived in Canberra has told Ann that that his address was convenient for at least one knock on his door from a Soviet Embassy visitor.
Until 11 May 1955, Australian citizenship law required every non-British applicant for Australian citizenship to publish advertisements in 2 newspapers declaring their full name, current address and current nationality, in case there were objections. This was just the information which staff of the Soviet Embassy needed to keep track of the former nationals of countries which were now part of the Soviet Union. It could be used in attempts to persuade these people to return to their homelands where, of course, they would face Soviet justice.
A Registered Changes of Abode form on his Melbourne Alien Registration file shows 4 changes of address in 1949 alone. Mind you, this was the year he stayed on from his Christmas break, leaving behind his Tasmanian tent. That might explain why he was at the first address for only 2 weeks before notifying a change. He was at the next address for 3 months, and the one after that for 3 months until – surprise – the fourth address was with his in-laws to-be.
This file should have had a record of his 1949 workplaces also, but it is missing.
On his Bonegilla card, Zigmas had a typist record that his next of kin was Erika Paskevicius. When you ask the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch for file titles containing the word Paskevic* (with an asterisk wild card to allow the search to look for the different endings on Lithuanian women’s names) it brings up a list of 55 file titles. Two refer to an Erika Paskeviciene, with a 15-month-old baby, Angelika.
From the Bonegilla camp, she went to Tasmania to join Juozas Paskevicius, who had claimed her as his wife on a form completed in Germany. He had arrived in Sydney on the USAT Wooster Victory, the sixth Transport, on 6 September 1948.
The Arolsen Archives, admittedly incomplete, do not have any other Erika from a Paskevicius family in their records. It looks as if Zigmas, having met Erika in Germany, was trying to help her.
Paškevičius is what onomasticians call a “moderately common” family name. It’s a traditional Baltic patronymic meaning "son of Paška", a diminutive of Pavel, that is, Paul in English. The Forebears Website ranks the Paškevičius spelling as the 149th most common surname in Lithuania, without giving us a date or source for this information. Paskevičius is a less common, alternative spelling, not included in the count which gave Paškevičius its ranking.
It’s a name which is likely to have originated in many places across Lithuania, so it still is spread across the country and likely to be encountered anywhere. It is common in that sense.
In correspondence with Ann, Zigmas’ oldest daughter, Rosie, named two sisters whom Zigmas has sponsored successfully to migrate to Australia. They were Viktorija, known as “Betty” by her father’s family here and Stacia or Stase, short for Stanislova Marijona and known here as “Mary”.
The family says that Stanislova Marijona was born on 4 May 1913 and married to Aleksas Giedrimas in Germany. The Marija Giedrimas who migrated to Australia with Aleksas Giedrimas has a birth date recorded as 12 May 1920. Aleksas died early, and Mary remarried but the details are not known.
This family unit came to Australia with Raimundas Paskevicius, born on 1 November 1936. Zigmas‘ children were told that “Ray” was their father‘s younger brother, that is, Marija‘s younger brother too. They realise now that, more likely than not, this story was covering up Ray‘s birth out of wedlock to Marijona/Mary. It now is known that Ray’s father was Petras Gruodas. Petras was married to someone else.
Betty was born in Kaunas in October 1908 and to have been married first to Jonas Maciulaitis, a teacher turned military man. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Lithuanian Army and died in 1945. Betty worked as an interpreter, presumably while in Germany, and was able to migrate to Australia with Zigmas’ sponsorship.
In 1951 in Melbourne, as Beatrice Paskiewicz (the Polish version of Paškevičius), she married Stanislaus Perka, a Pole. His native language may have been the reason why the Polish version of her name was given to the Victorian authorities. He probably was the Stanislaw Perka with a birthdate differing slightly from the one on his migration documents who died in Victoria on 3 July 1977. At the time of their marriage though, both were usually resident in a Migrant Holding Centre in Cowra, New South Wales.
Beatrice died on 18 April 1989 at the age of 69. She is remembered on a plaque in Queensland’s Buderim Cemetery as Beatrice Paskevicius Perka by “Zig, Roma, Mary & family”.
Zigmas must have worked hard with Roma to support their 6 children. In his application for naturalisation, we read that he was employed by Victorian Railways as a sleeper cutter in September 1954. As the sleepers were cut from very hard wood, possibly without the help of power tools, this would have have been hard labour indeed.
The advertisements announcing his application still required by law appeared in the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial and the Snowy River Mail on 1 September 1954. The Soviet Embassy now could confirm that he was living on Gordon Street, Orbost, in rural Victoria.
There is confusion about the date on which Zigmas was granted Australian citizenship. The Commonwealth Gazette gives a date of 23 November 1955. A Department of Immigration file on Zigmas’ Alien Registration has a final page which says “Oath taken 20.2.56”. One of his daughters has his citizenship certificate, also dated 20 February 1956. Finally, the file of papers relating to his citizenship application has a Renunciation of Allegiance form signed by the Orbost Shire President, giving the date as 20 February.
As a former Department of Immigration official, Ann thinks that the certificate would have been checked before and during the ceremony. Even if it had an error, it would be the legally binding document. We have spotted a rare occurrence of a typographic error in the Gazette.
Zigmas still was living on Gordon Street, Orbost, when he was granted citizenship. From then on his address can be traced through electoral rolls. Roma having been born an Australian citizen, their address is available on one earlier electoral roll. Roma reached the age of eligibility to vote on 13 December 1952.
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| Zigmas and Roma at their Orbost home Source: Paskevicius family collection |
Her first appearance on an electoral roll was on one made up on 1 December 1953, for the Federal and Victorian State Subdivision of Orbost. She too lived on Gordon Street, Orbost, with an occupation of Home Duties. They were there still in September 1954, when Mr Z Paskevicius’ name appeared in the local Snowy River Mail newspaper as someone who had asked the local Council to repair the street on which they lived.
The family says that Zigmas and Roma lived in Orbost between 1950 and 1960. Zigmas was particularly proud of being able to bring his second child, Stefan, home to Gordon Street because he recently had finished building this home himself. He was working at a timber mill, which may have been a great help with the cost of the materials, and built the home after work and at weekends.
A notable incident at this time was his response to a girl who had coming running to their home for help. He rushed into her neighbouring home to find the girl’s mother being beaten by her husband and was able to stop the violence. In his retirement, he received a heartfelt message of thanks from the now adult child.
On 1 February 1963, both were living on Tulum Road, Balnarring Beach, at which time Zigmas had become a Storekeeper. They had moved there in 1960, after paying $7,000 for a shop and house. The shop was a combined general store and post office with a newspaper delivery run. Zigmas worked 7 days a week in this business while Roma helped as much as looking after their children permitted.
During 1963 to 1965, the family lived on Schaeffer Road in the then outer Melbourne suburb of Blackburn. The children think that their father had built this home also, as well as helping to build 2 more houses nearby.
By 1966, they had moved north, to a rural locality near Brisbane. Closeburn is about 22 km northwest of central Brisbane. Their address in the 28 June 1968 Federal and Queensland State roll for Subdivision of Pine in the Electorate of Fisher had become Closeburn via Samford. Roma nominated Home Duties as her occupation but Zigmas now was a Farmer. They had bought a farm which they worked 7 days a week. After 3 years, they subdivided 100 acres of it into 10 titles for sale.
Rosie remembered her mother remarking that perhaps the KGB would no longer pursue them when they were as far away from anywhere else as Queensland. Trish had an alternative memory, of finding her mother crying. Her mother explained to her youngest daughter that the KGB had found them again.
So there was yet another move, to Chapel Hill, now a residential suburb of Brisbane located immediately west of Indooroopilly and in the shadow of the highest land in the immediate area of Queensland’s capital city, Mount Coot-tha. The property was only 5 acres but had a large dam, so it would have suited market gardening. Roma had wanted to build commercial kennels for boarding dogs, but the local council refused a permit. They left after 6 or 7 months for their next destination, Park Ridge.
Park Ridge is now part of the urban sprawl south of Brisbane but, in 1969, it was still a rural locality. Zigmas must have been left alone by the KGB, as he and his family stayed here for 11 years. He and Roma bought 2.5 acres for $11,000 and sold them in 1980 for 5 times the purchase price.
Zigmas now had done so much buying and selling of land that he was able to qualify for a real estate agent’s licence. He called his business Pask Park Ridge Realty. He also held a motor dealer’s licence during 1970-74.
One 1972 electoral roll digitised by Ancestry has the family living on Beaudesert Road, Park Ridge, with Roma still engaged in Home Duties while Zigmas is described as Agent. The facts recorded on 2 electoral rolls for 1977, one Commonwealth and one State, remain the same.
During the 1969 to 1980 period, the children left home, one by one. Their parents left Beaudesert Road and moved into a home unit. In 1981, they lived in a caravan on the property owned by oldest daughter, Rosie, until a duplex unit became available. This allowed them to move next door to Roma’s parents and provide care for them. This might have been the Kenewen Avenue, Maroochydore, address shown for Zigmas on the 1989 death certificate for Beatrice Perka.
After Roma’s parents died, they moved again, this time to School Road, Bli Bli. This was after Zigmas completed a house which was frame only when they purchased it. It was Roma’s last home, as she died on 24 November 1997, 3 weeks before her 66th birthday and is buried in the Buderim Cemetery.
Ziggy then took on another building project, converting a two-car garage attached to Rosie’s house into a granny or grandad flat. They lived at Tewantin near Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
This was Ziggy’s tenth address after his marriage. We know that there were at least 7 addresses in Australia before that change in his life.
When he died on 25 September 2015, at the venerable age of 90, he was buried beside Roma.
CITE THIS AS: Tündern-Smith, Ann, Abrey, Marianne and Ščevinskiene, Rasa (2026) ‘Zigmas Paškevičius, (1924-2015): Father of 6, with 2 Birthdays’,
SOURCES:
Calwell, Arthur Augustus (1978) Be Just and Fear Not Adelaide, Rigby.
Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1956) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, p 1301, 10 May, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232877900/25099646, accessed 23 July 2026.
Courier-Mail (2022) ‘Bob Paskevicius farewelled by Wartburg Rural Fire Service’ Brisbane, Qld, 1 February
Courier-Mail (2016) ‘Death notice for PASKEVICIUS, Peter (Bill)’ Brisbane, Qld, 7 July, https://www.mytributes.com.au/notice/death-notices/paskevicius-peter-bill/4431541/, accessed 24 July 2026.
Death in the State of Queensland, 89/52825 'Beatrice Perka'.
Emerson, Rosie (2007-2025) Personal communications.
Forebears ‘Paškevičius Surname’ https://forebears.io/surnames/pa%C5%A1kevi%C4%8Dius, accessed 13 September 2026.
Find A Grave, Roma Jessie Paskevicius, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/158071373/roma_jessie-paskevicius, accessed 23 July 2026.
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Kudirka, Juozas (1991) ‘The Lithuanians: Lithuanian surnames’ https://www.lnkc.lt/eknygos/thelt/node9.html#SECTION0009, accessed 13 September 2026.
Laukaitis, Antanas (1987) ‘40 Metu Nuo 1-jo Transporto Atvykimo’ (‘40 Years Since the Arrival of the First Transport’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 9 November, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1987/1987-11-09-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 23 July 2026.
My Heritage ‘Discover People Named Andrius Paškevičius’ https://www.myheritage.com/names/andrius_pa%C5%A1kevi%C4%8Dius, accessed 13 September 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; 1955/45718, Application for Naturalisation - PASKEVICIUS Zigmas born 6 January 1925, 1954-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8379370, accessed 1 November 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; 230, PASKEVICIUS Zigmas DOB 6 January 1925, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005642, accessed 23 July 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents, 1948-1965; 1956/PASKEVICIUS Z, PASKEVICIUS Zigmas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Heintzelman 28 November 1947, recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4804628, accessed 23 July 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; PASKEVICIUS ZIGMAS, PASKEVICIUS, Zigmas : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 626 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203724933, accessed 23 July 2026.
[‘Paskevicius, Zigmas’] Folder DP3032, names from PASKES, ALEXANDER to PASMIONKA, Stanislaw (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from P, DocID: 68537950 (Zigmas PASKEVICIUS), ITS/Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/68537950, accessed 23 July 2026.
Snowy River Mail (1954) 'Orbost Council Advocates More Help To New Settlers' Orbost, Vic, 15 September, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article282909380, accessed 24 July 2026.
Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria (1951) Marriage certificate of Stanislaus Perka and Beatrice Paskiewicz, Registration number 4290/1951, Melbourne.
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Veiverių mokytojų seminarijam, seminaristai-pagal-abecele (Veiveriai Teachers' College, students in alphabetical order, in Lithuanian) ‘Maciulaitis Jonas’ https://veiveriums.lt/seminaristas/maciulaitis-jonas/, accessed 14 September 2026.
Wikipedia ‘Closeburn, Queensland’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closeburn,_Queensland, accessed 14 September 2026.
'Zigmas Paskevicius and Roma Jessie Shingler' (1949) Marriage certificate of Zigmas Paskevicius and Roma Jessie Shingler, Reg no 23852/1949, Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Melbourne.
