Visting the Shark Hunters by Vladas Bosikis, translated by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

This is our translation, mainly by Rasa, of an article which appeared in the 26 February issue of Mūsų Pastogė, written by Vladas Bosikis.1

On the first day of February, Lithuanians set off from Melbourne on a long-awaited excursion to Philip Island. It was organized by Leonas Baltrūnas, who we could rightly call the master of entertainment organisation, on behalf of the local District Council.

Phillip Island (lower right) relative to the older suburbs of Melbourne (top centre)

Source:  Google Maps

The reason for visiting Philip Island was the location of a "floating Lithuanian colony" of shark hunters, J Lipčius, Al Gabecas and K Kažemėkaitis, in the town of San Remo, next to this Island.2

A red arrow (centre right) points to San Remo next to Phillip Island

Source:  Google Maps

One hundred and one participants set off on the excursion. Two excellent tourist cars were rented, accommodating 86 people, while the rest were taken to the island by Mr Špokevičius in his truck.3

We had to drive about 100 miles to the Island so we had to set off early in the morning.

During the trip, we never got bored. In addition to melodious songs and various jokes, we also listened to the driver's stories about various places we passed.

From his stories we got the impression that not only in the Lithuanian swamps but even in Australia, various creatures from hell had nests, from which, at night, they offered to exchange instruments with musicians returning from weddings. Only here they were much more cruel, because they would grab a late night traveller by the collar and drag him to the bottom of the swamp.

Although now, with the swamps drained, these scoundrels have run away, one area we passed is still called The Devil. Perhaps the same Pinčiukas mentioned in Baltaragis Malūnas was located here who, having no one to frighten in Australia, has moved to the Paudruvė swamps to tempt the pious Uršulė.4

After a cheerful two-hour journey, we reached the town of San Remo, where we were met by Lipčius, armed with a pipe, and Gabecas, hugging his inseparable guitar. After washing off the dust that had accumulated on our palates during the journey with a glass of beer and receiving information about the further program of the day, we all went to the sea for a swim.

The mood of the swimmers was greatly dampened by Gabecas, who announced that a couple of days previously a huge shark had been caught in this place. After this announcement, not a single daredevil remained in the water. When the same announcer explained how one can easily "defend" oneself from a shark, everyone calmed down and clambered back into the seawater.

It turns out that the secret to defence is very simple: when you see a shark, you need to dive and blow cigarette smoke into its eyes. Mr Lipčius claims that pipe smoke is better for such a task - it makes the shark start to tear up and rush to a deeper place to wash its eyes, and during this time the attacked person can safely reach the shore.

After washing, resting and having lunch, the most interesting part of the excursion followed — a ride on a fishing boat. We packed 30 passengers into the boat, which was captained by Lipčius.

Gabecas and Lipsius at work in the boat

Source:  Europeana

At first, as we sailed into the bay, everyone was in a great mood. When we sailed into the open sea, the waves began tossing our boat like a matchbox. Our cheerfulness disappeared. We watched in fear as the large waves rolled over from time to time, submerging the picnic delicacies lying on the deck with sparkling water.

More than once we had disappeared into the hollow of a grinning wave, only for the next wave to grab us even tighter, lift us up on its foamy crest, turn us around, and throw us back into an even deeper abyss. It goes without saying that more than one of us had to lean heavily over the edge of the boat.

Upon returning, we managed to interview our fishermen to provide some information about their interesting work, dangers and future plans. The leader of this “floating Lithuanian colony” is Lipčius. Some time ago, he and an Australian bought a fishing boat and thus began their first steps in this industry.

The beginning, as usual, was difficult. There was a lack of theoretical knowledge, practice and money. Gradually everything changed for the better, and currently the sole owner of the boat is Mr Lipčius, who is assisted by Gabecas and Kažemėkaitis. They are fishing for sharks and seals.

The more profitable job, but at the same time more difficult and dangerous one, is catching sharks. For this purpose, 1000-1400-meter long metal ropes are used, on which hundreds of hooks are attached. Their size depends on the size and type of sharks being caught. Large pieces of fish are placed on the hooks and this deceptive device is lowered into the water at a pre-selected location.

To prevent the hooked sharks from dragging the entire fishing line to the depths and to make it possible to find, the ends of the line are attached to the bottom with special anchors, and flags attached to floats flutter on the surface. On a good day, casting 5-6 lines takes about an hour.

After that, the most difficult part of the work begins: pulling the lines out. One person uses a special wheel to pull the line into the boat, while the second, armed with a long iron hook resembling St. George's spear, stands in front of the boat and waits for what will appear from the waves: a bare hook or a thrashing shark.

When a shark appears, it is brought closer, and the fisherman sticks his hook into its throat to kill it. It often happens that only the shark's head is found on the hook. Its body has already been eaten by other sharks taking advantage of their friend's misfortune. In this way, about 30 and even up to a hundred sharks are caught per day, each weighing between 10 and 45 kilograms.

When the fishermen return home, the caught sharks are cleaned, butchered and packed into boxes. Soon these ocean pirates are being chewed with delight by ordinary people, biting into a piece of wilted potato, because the meat of these sharks is most often consumed in the form of so-called “fish and chips”.

"Flake", the commercial name for shark, is still the type of fish most likely to be found
when buying from an Australian fish and chips shop.

Source:  Epicurious

When asked what dangers await our fishermen, Mr Lipčius smiled cheerfully and explained that the greatest danger is not to them, but the consumers, because they can choke not only on a larger bone, but also on a hook forgotten in the shark’s jaw.

The fishermen could have told us more, but a tour guide appeared to rush everyone into the cars to drive deeper into the Island to see the penguin parade, which takes place just after sunset. We got to the Island via a suspension bridge a third of a mile long, connecting it to the mainland.

While driving, we observed the real owners of the island — koalas, like teddy bears, and photographers jumping around them. Here, too, the secret of their calmness became clear — a notice was nailed to almost every tree stating that these creatures are not to be touched and that it is strictly forbidden not only to kill them, but also to pull them by their drooping tails.

Having reached the place on the island where the penguins emerge from the sea and walk along the path to the rocks where their nests are, we found many people already waiting. As this penguin walk is well known to the wider area and tourists, every evening large crowds of spectators gather here.

Having joined them, we sat quietly waiting to see what would happen. After waiting for a good hour and not seeing anything, the most impatient were already aiming to repay the tour guide for his deception, when suddenly, along with a wave, a flock of birds washed ashore. At first they looked around the whole area, stood on the shore for a long time, as if testing our patience, then went forward and headed back into the water.

Are they coming back, why are they not coming back, cried a pitiful female voice. Soon an even larger group of penguins appeared. Now they were boldly heading up the steep slope, not paying attention to the spotlights and the spectators crowding around.

The penguin parade each evening is still a major visitor attraction

Source:  Penguins.org.au

Having enjoyed the parade, we headed towards our cars, because it was already late in the evening and we still had a long way to go. We said a heartfelt goodbye to the Lithuanian fishermen who had taken care of us and headed home. We returned after a truly excellent and useful picnic.

We were all especially grateful to the members of the Melbourne District Board and Baltrunas for organizing such a great picnic and to the great shark catchers who gave us the opportunity to have a fun and interesting time.

FOOTNOTES

1. Vladas Bosikis arrived in Australia on 13 April 1949 on the USAT General Stewart.↩
2. Both J (Jonas) Lipčius and Al (Aleksas) Gabecas were First Transport arrivals. K (Kazys) Kažemėkaitis was a 1948 arrival on the one voyage of the Kanimbla with DPs from Europe – more on that one day. It’s not possible to tell from the files listed on the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch Website who Mr Špokevičius was.↩
3. The “tourist cars” may well have been furniture removal trucks with seats added, a dangerous form of transport if ever there was one. The back of a truck would have been no safer.↩
4. "Baltaragio malūnas – Baltaragis' Mill" (full title, "Baltaragis' Mill, or What Happened in the Land of Paudruvės at That Time") is one of the most famous works of Lithuanian literature, written in 1945 by Kazys Boruta. It is a folkloric novel that masterfully intertwines motifs of folk tales, mythology, and a dramatic love story. The story tells of a miller named Baltaragis who makes a deal with the devil, Pinčiukas. In exchange for help on the farm and the mill, Baltaragis promises the devil something he doesn't have right now, but will have later — his daughter, Jurga. Uršulė is one of the most colorful and tragic characters in the work! She is an old maid, the mistress of Baltaragis, whose fate was carelessly ruined by the miller.↩

SOURCES

Bosikis, Vladas (1953) 'Sveciuose Pas Rykliu Gaudytojus' (‘Visiting the Shark Hunters’, in Lithuanian) Musu Pastoge (Our Haven) 26 February, p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259362949, accessed 15 September 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; BOSIKIS VLADAS, BOSIKIS, Vladas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.STEWART : Number – 76175, 1949-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203685271, accessed 15 September 2026.

Aleksander Nõmm's Parents: Jaan and Marie in the Gulag, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Gemini.AI

In March 1949, throughout the Baltic States, the KGB's predecessor rounded up members of the families of those already convicted of crimes against the state and farmers with their families. The aim was to break co-operation with the remaining Forest Brothers and to remove resistance to the introduction of state-run collective farms.

In the case of the Nõmm family, father, mother and daughter Linda fitted into both categories, as family members of a Forest Brother and his helper, and members of the kulak class.

As with the 1941 mass deportation, those rounded up were packed into unheated cattle train cars. When these trains finally began to move, they had the lowest priority on the railways, so their journey to Siberia lasted weeks. Those in the cattle cars had minimal food and water and sanitation probably was a hole in the floor.

Many died under the conditions of the journey, including the still cold weather in late March and into April.

Aleksander Nõmm's father, Jaan, born in January 1886, was already 63 years old when his journey to the Mikhaylovsky region of the Novosibirsk Oblast began. This region was centred on the town of Mikhaylovka, in the southwest of the Oblast, bordering the Kulunda Steppe which, in turn, stretches into Kazakhstan.

Jaan Nõmm's record in the digital version of
Estonia's victims of Communism 1940-1991

Source: Estonia's victims of Communism 1940-1991

The climate there definitely is continental. The winters are long, with temperatures dropping below -40°C and fierce blizzards. In the short summers, daytime temperature typically reach the high 20's, but heatwaves can reach the high 30's. In addition, summers brought the same mosquitoes, midges and blackflies experienced by Jaan's sons, Heimar and Artur, in their more northerly exiles.

The family knew all 3 of these potentially lethal pests from Saaremaa, but not in the same density as experienced inland. Along the coasts (Saaremaa does mean "Island land") breezes keep them at bay. Even inland on Saaremaa though, they breed in the wetlands, lakes or in juniper stands. Back in the 1940s, cheesecloth could be used to screen the insect outs, smoke pots kept them away from outdoor workers and native plants like wild mint or wormwood could be rubbed on the skin for a repellant. Another repellant was tar water, made by leaving pine or birch tar in to soak in water for several days.

In the Novosibirsk Oblast, another biting insect repellant was juice from some of the local Allium species. Allium is the name for the group of plants which includes well known edibles such as chives, various onions, leeks and garlics. Around the world, there now are some 1,000 separate species of Allium known. Totals differ because apparently new, wild species are discovered frequently, especially in Central Asia, near where Jaan was.

Novosibirsk Oblast is the area coloured red,
while the remainder of Russia is a pale yellow colour

Source:  Stasyan117 on Wikipedia

Indeed, the Kulunda Steppe in southern Russia is a continuous extension of the Kazakh Steppe, which geographers agree is in Central Asia. The Kulunda Steppe hosts 10-15 wild Allium species, of which those with volatile sulphur compounds were the most used for masking the smell of humans.

The repellents were also known to the inhabitants of the Mikhaylovsky region who suddenly found themselves sharing their lives and, sometimes, even their housing — such as it was — with the "Special Settlers". Whether their supervisors allowed the workers to stop for long enough to protect themselves is another matter.

The red smudge marks the urban centre of Mikhaylovsky relative to
the much larger city of Novosibirisk in the top centre of this map

Source:  City-facts

And if the workers did stop, they might miss their quota for the day, their "norm" and so receive less food as a result. It was a lose-lose situation.

The principal economic activity on the Kulunda Steppe was farming, an activity in which Jaan had life-long experience. His experience was in completely different climatic conditions, however. The best teachers were gone, as the kulaks of Russia were arrested, deported or "liquidated" in the 1930s, under Stalin's orders. Those peasants who remained were doing what they were told to do by their brigade leaders, whether it made sense or not.

As well as growing food in the short summer, the workers were expected to engage in tree-felling during the winter. Although they were further away from the Arctic Circle from the camps in which Heimar and Artur had laboured, the Kulunda Steppe's winter weather was every bit as brutal due to its location in the middle of the largest land mass in the world. And though the definition of a steppe is a grassy plain, sometimes its topography permits pockets of forests to develop.

We've seen already how dangerous tree-felling could be in the Soviet era, especially if the weather conditions allow biting insects to breed. An alternative winter occupation was stripping the farm machinery down and rebuilding it to have it ready for summer-time operation. As an older, skilled farmer, who maybe had his own machinery, perhaps Jaan was found to be more useful in this area.

Jaan survived this chaotic situation until released on 20 June 1956. Someone as smart and skilled as Jaan might have made extra money as a tractor driver, perhaps had his own plot with produce he sold to his neighbours, and sold everything he was not taking with him in order to purchase the multiple train tickets to get from Mikhaylovka to Novosibirsk, then to Moscow, to Tallinn, and finally by train, bus and ferry from Tallinn to Muhu and Saaremaa.

On Saaremaa, he lived for more than another 18 years, but in a collectivised system. He would have needed a local residence permit, but perhaps Linda's managing to stay on the island through having pneumonia when her parents were arrested was a help here. Although aged 70 when released from the Novosibirsk Oblast, he would still have been expected to work on a collective farm, maybe Linda's. At least he would have been offered lighter duties, such as guarding or repairing equipment.

Unlike the two imprisoned sons who died when they were only 60 and 61 years old, Jaan managed to live until one day after his 89th birthday.

Maria was arrested at the same time as her husband and would have endured the same conditions travelling to the Novosibirsk Oblast. The records show that she too was sent to the Mikhaylovsky region and released on the same day as her husband, 20 June 1956. If this means that they were allowed to stay together, that would have been a massive help to both of them.

Maria Nõmm's record in the digital version of
Estonia's Victim's of Communism 1940-1991

Source:  Estonia's Victim's of Communism 1940-1991

A female "Special Settler" would have been expected to work every bit as hard as the men. Cheerful women driving tractors or helping with the harvest were a staple of Soviet propaganda posters. Maria was 56 years old when arrested with her husband, Jaan, in March 1949. At the time of their release in June 1956, she was 63 years old. She managed to live another 9 years in the Soviet system, but mostly back in Estonia with Jaan.

When they managed to reach their home village of Leisi in 1956, the private fields they remembered from the 1940s were gone. They returned to an industrialised landscape dominated by the large fields, communal cattle barns, and heavy machinery operations of the Saare Tööline (a collective farm covering about 12,000 hectares, whose name meant Saare Worker) and the Karja state farm, used for scientific research by the Estonian Institute of Agriculture and Land Improvement.

Their daughter, Linda, seems to have landed on the Karja state farm when she had recovered from her pneumonia, being paid as a state employee. We do not know if she had been allowed back into the family home once it had been seized by the State. She might have been lucky to cover some personal belongings from it.

On 5 October 1952, she had married another Saaremaa resident, Johannes Voksepp. They were to have 2 children. The information recorded on their Geni.com pages does not include their dates of birth, so we do not know if they had been born before their grandparents returned. Artur might have been back on Saaremaa to attend the wedding, but Heimar was still imprisoned in his Arctic labour camp.

Clearly Aleksander, Sass, the first to be captured and imprisoned, did the best of all these 2 generations of the family apart from Linda. The Germans were lenient when compared to the Soviet Union under Stalin (but far from lenient when it came to the Jewish people and other minorities whom Hitler blamed from his nation’s economic problems). Sass was the first to be released from imprisonment, probably in April or May 1945 depending on when the Allies reached his place of imprisonment. Even as his 2 brothers were appearing before a Soviet tribunal, he was exploring a new life in Australia in relative freedom.

While under contract, Sass was paid award or above award wages and could do what he like in the evenings or weekends. (That’s even though what he liked included earning good extra money on some weekends.)

The contrast between Sass’s work and sporting activities for the good of Australia and the conditions under which the remainder of his family worked on collective or state farms and in prison camps for the “good” of the Soviet Union is almost beyond comparison.

SOURCES

Britannica 'Kulunda Steppe' https://www.britannica.com/science/steppe-grassland,accessed 1 September 2026.

Estonia's Victims of Communism 'Jaan Nõmm' https://www.memoriaal.ee/en/search/?q=%22jaan+n%C3%B5mm%22&f=all, accessed 1 September 2026.

Estonia's Victims of Communism 'Maria Nõmm' https://www.memoriaal.ee/en/search/?q=%22maria+n%C3%B5mm%22&f=all, accessed 1 September 2026.

Geni 'Aleksander Nõmm' https://www.geni.com/people/Aleksander-N%C3%B5mm/4825049969700070188, accessed 1 September 2026.

Geni 'Linda Voksepp' https://www.geni.com/people/Linda-Voksepp/4825086260920082330?through=4825049969700070188, accessed 7 September 2026.

Gulag Online 'The history of the Gulag' https://gulag.online/articles/historie-gulagu?locale=en, accessed 2 September 2026.

Gulag Online 'Virtual Museum' https://gulag.online/en, accessed 1 September 2026.

IAMO 'Kulunda' https://www.iamo.de/en/research/research-projects/details/kulunda, accessed 1 September 2026.

Simpson, Silvi, Personal communications, 2016.

von Geldern, James (nd) 'Release of Prisoners from the GULAG' Seventeen Moments in Soviet History https://soviethistory.msu.edu/1954/prisoners-return/, accessed 2 September 2026.

Wikipedia 'Kulunda Steppe' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulunda_Steppe, accessed 2 September 2026

Wikipedia 'Novosibirsk Oblast' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk_Oblast, accessed 2 September 2026.

Aleksander Nõmm's brother: Artur in the Gulag by Ann Tündern-Smith and Gemini.AI

We have just looked at the fate of the older brother of First Transport refugee, Aleksander Nõmm. Heimar Nõmm had sought the protection of the Saremaa woods to become what was known throughout the Baltic States as a Forest Brother, fighting against his country's occupiers. Six months after his capture, Heimar received a sentence of 10 years' hard labour in a Soviet prison camp.

Younger brother, Artur

Their younger brother, Artur, had been providing Heimar with food and trying to help with whatever else was needed. He was arrested on 23 December 1946, so not while making a delivery to Heimar but one week later. Had Heimar been tortured to admit who was helping him or was the arrest made on the grounds of reasonable suspicion?  Any sort of suspicion was reasonable ground for arrest in the Soviet Union of 1946.

The Nõmm brothers, Aleksander (Sass), Heimar and Artur

Source:  Collection of Silvi Nõmm Simpson

The brothers were tried on the same day though, maybe even together. Artur was charged under the Soviet Socialist Republic's penal code's Sections 17 and 58-1b with both treason and assisting treason. He was given what seems, given the charges, the comparatively light sentence of 5 years in a labour camp. The place where the sentence was to be served was probably more frightening than its length.

Artur Nõmm's entry in the electronic part of
Memorial to Estonia's Victims of Communism 1940-1991:
the subheadings translate as 'Family Register',
'Political Arrests in Estonia, Vol. 1' and
'National Population Register'

Source:  Estonia's Victims of Communism 1940-1991

Artur was 22 years old when sent to the Kargopollag in Arkhangelsk Oblast. An Oblast is the equivalent of a State in Australia or the USA, but without their independent governments. In reality, it was then a regional administrative unit carrying out the orders of the central government.

Arkhangelsk Oblast lies to the west of the Komi ASSR, where Heimar was sent, and to the east of Karelia, parts of which were Finnish until WWII (hence Sibelius' Karelia Suite and its central importance to Finnish identity).

The Kargopollag (officially the Kargopolsky ITL or Corrective Labor Camp) was in the southwest of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Its central purpose was forestry or, to be more accurate about what actually happened, deforestation. In addition, the prisoners had to built the infrastructure for these operations, including railways.

Ma

Map of the Russian North region (actually, north-west Russia)
with a red arrow pointing to Kargopol

Source:  Gateway to Russia

The area was grew much aspen, an ideal wood for matches. That's because it doesn't splinter, burns easily and absorbs fire-retardant chemicals for the part of the match which is not the head. Matches in the 1940s were far more necessary than they are today, for many reasons, starting with a wood fire not now being the primary means of heating for most in urban areas. Kargopollag inmates were not only chopping down the aspen trees but processing them into the raw match splints.

Kargopollag inmates provided many other timber products, from railway sleepers for the expansion of the Soviet rail network, including the North Pechora Railway, to pulp, paper and cellulose.

Timber-getting was considered one of the deadliest jobs in the entire Gulag system. Prisoners worked all day in the open air. In the winter, they laboured up to their waists in freezing sub-arctic snow. In the summer, there were constant swarms of mosquitoes, midges and blackflies. The blackflies cut open the skin to lick up the blood, with anticoagulants in their saliva which cause an allergic reaction. Being bitten by a large swarm causes symptoms similar to influenza, known collectively as blackfly fever. That's apart from being in the wrong place when a tree falls.

Of course there was no insect repellant or netting to keep the insects off the prisoners' bodies. A common punishment inflicted by the guards was to tie a naked prisoner to a tree, leaving him as bait for the insect swarms. Such a victim could last only a couple of hours before death.

Those who could speak about the labour camp environment afterwards noted that a prisoner assigned to the heavy forest-logging brigades rarely survived more than two years.

There is a lot of documentation of the cruel conditions in Kargopollag, most famously in A World Apart (Inny Świat) by Polish writer and philosopher Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, who survived a year and a half in the camp's Yertsevo sector. This book was published first in 1951 so it recounts experiences fresh in its author's mind.

Archangelsk was Russia's main port, at least during summer, before St Petersburg was built starting in 1703. This meant that centuries of Russians had been checking the conditions in the Oblast from some 900 years ago.

The people already there in the north were the Nenets, a Samoyedic group. Their language is related to the Finno-Ugrian ones, fitting under the broader umbrella of Uralic. Like the Sami in the Scandinavian countries, they are reindeer herders. Their main food is reindeer meat and fish, but they also drink reindeer blood, rich not only in iron but also in Vitamin C, so they don't get scurvy.

South of the Nenets, the original inhabitants of central and southern Arkangelsk Oblast were more Finno-Ugrian tribes. They have been completely absorbed into the colonising Russian population, but their presence can still be felt in the names of the rivers, lakes and villages in the Oblast. Most of these names come from Finno-Ugrian words.

The Russian colonisers, intermarrying with the Finno-Ugrian natives, developed their own dialect, culture and lifestyle adapted to their harsh environment. They now are known as Pomors, from a word meaning "living by the sea". Their economic activities of whaling, maritime hunting and cod fishing led to them becoming expert boat builders.

Artur was released from the Kargopollag on 12 December 1951. This would have been under highly controlled conditions, starting with a march across the snow or, if he was luckier, a trip on a horse-drawn timber sled to one of the camp's railway hubs, Yertsevo or Nyandoma, on the main Vologda–Arkhangelsk rail line. From there he would have travelled in a guarded prison car through Vologda to Leningrad (now St Petersburg).

From St Petersburg, he would have been put on a train to Estonia's capital, Tallinn. To return to Saaremaa, he needed a permit issued by the MGB (Ministry of State Security), successor to the dreaded NKVD but still known colloquially by the old name. If he had a permit, travel from Tallinn involved a train to Virtsu and beyond that, the mode depended on the thickness of the ice. If it was thick enough, trucks or horse-drawn sleds made the journey. Ice-breaking ferries could travel through thinner ice.

But Artur did not receive his permit, so was forced to live on mainland Estonia. He managed to return to Saaremaa for major family events, like funerals and weddings.  He married but had no children.

Heimar and Artur's brother, Aleksander, taken as a prisoner-of-war to Germany in 1944, then selected for resettlement in Australia, lived passed his 98th birthday.  Their father lived to 89, despite also having spent time in Siberia, as we will see.  Their mother, also sent to Siberia, lived to 82 and their sister Linda, lucky not to be arrested also for her support of Heimar in the woods, lived to 78.  Given this longevity, Artur's death at the age of only 60 in 1986, like Heimar's death at the age of only 61, has to be attributed to his time in Kargopollag.

SOURCES

EBSCO 'Research Starter, Gulag'https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/gulag,accessed 29 August 2026.

'Estonia's victims of communism 1940–1991' https://memoriaal.ee, accessed 28 August 2026.

'Estonia's victims of communism 1940–1991, Artur Nõmm' https://www.memoriaal.ee/otsing/?q=artur+n%C3%B5mm&f=all, accessed 28 August 2026.

Geni.com 'Artur Nõmm' https://www.geni.com/people/Artur-N%C3%B5mm/4825078484760042407?through=4824931125450070101, accessed 5 September 2026.

gulag.cz 'Buried hopes'https://gulag.cz/cs/, accessed 29 August 2026.

Gulag History:  Many Days, Many Lives 'Days and Lives: Guards' https://gulaghistory.org/exhibits/days-and-lives/guards/4.html, accessed 31 August 2026.

Gulag, Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom 'Online Exhibit, Living in the Gulag' https://gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexhibit/stalin/living.php.html, accessed 29 August 2026.

Gulag Online 'Gustaw Herling-Grudziński' https://gulag.online/people/gustaw-herling-grudzinski?locale=en, accessed 30 August 2026.

Guzeva, Alexandra (2024) 'The Gruesome Gulag Mosquito Punishment' Gateway to Russia, https://www.gw2ru.com/history/3185-gulag-mosquito-punishment, accessed 31 August 2026.

Purdue University, Medical Entomology 'Insects and Ticks, Black Flies' https://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publichealth/insects/blackfly.html, accessed 31 August 2026.

Simpson, Silvi (2026) Personal communication, 25 August.

Survival 'The Nenets of Siberia' https://www.survivalinternational.org/articles/3198-the-nenets-of-siberia, accessed 30 August 2026.

Swedish Match, 'FAQ' https://www.swedishmatchindustries.com/about-us/faq, accessed 31 August 2026.

Swedish Match, 'What Are We Leaving Behind' https://www.swedishmatchindustries.com/production/sustainability, accessed 31 August 2026.

Wikipedia 'Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustaw_Herling-Grudzinski, accessed 30 August 2026.

Wikipedia 'Kargopol' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargopol, accessed 30 August 2026.

Wikipédia 'Kargopollag' https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargopollag, accessed 30 August 2026.

Wikipedia 'Siberian Minorities in the Soviet Era' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_minorities_in_the_Soviet_era, accessed 31 August 2026.

Aleksander Nõmm's brother: Heimar in the Gulag, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Gemini.AI

In early July, we noted that Aleksander Nõmm had spent 3 years in Siberia with the Soviet Army before being returned westward to fight the German return to the Baltic States. He blamed that period on his loss of taste and smell, but he still knew what to eat to survive. That survival amazed fellow Estonian refugees on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman.

All but one of Aleksander Nõmm's immediate family were sent from Estonia during the 1947-49 period to the Gulag, including imprisonment in Siberia. One was a Forest Brother so the others must have supported him. We now have the opportunity to consider the cruel conditions in which they lived and worked.

Older Brother, Heimar

The Nõmm brothers: Aleksander (Sass), Heimar and Artur

Source:  Collection of Silvi Nõmm Simpson

Aleksander's older brother, Heimar, the Forest Brother, was the first to be arrested. From 16 December 1946, he waited more than 6 months to appear before a Soviet tribunal on 21 June 1947. If he had not been told before, he knew now that he was charged under the Soviet Socialist Republic's penal code's Sections 58-1b, treason by military personnel/desertion, and 58-11, being part of a counter-revolutionary organisation/group.

Documents from the Archive of the Estonian SSR Prosecutor's Office report that he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and sent to the Pechora Labour Camp in the Komi ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) in northeast European Russia, near the Arctic Circle. He was 27 years old at the time.

Heimar Nomm's entry in the electronic part of the 
Memorial to Estonia's Victims of Communism 1940-1991:
The subheadings translate as "Family Register",
"Political Arrests in Estonia, Vol. 1" and "National Population Register"

Source:  Estonia's Victims of Communism 1940-1991

Gemini.ai reports that Pechorlag (or Sevpechlag during its earlier years) was a major forced-labor camp complex within the Gulag system. The name is a portmanteau of the Pechora River basin, where the camp operated, and lag, the standard abbreviation for a Soviet labor camp (lager).

While many neighboring camps in the Komi region focused primarily on coal or oil extraction, Pechorlag’s central objective was infrastructure.

Its prisoners were forced to build the North Pechora Railway — a 500-kilometer-long railroad over treacherous permafrost and swampy taiga. The strategic goal of this line was to connect the remote, coal-rich Arctic mines of Vorkuta to the industrial centres of urban Russia. Vorkuta had become a critical lifeline for the Soviet Union during World War II when western coalfields were captured by Nazi Germany.

The amount of food available was tied to a prisoner’s work productivity. If a brigade failed to meet its daily quota ("norm"), their food allotment was slashed. This created a lethal downward spiral: exhausted, starving prisoners produced less work, received less food, and rapidly succumbed to starvation or disease.

The location of Pechora is arrowed

Source:  Climates to Travel

Desperate prisoners could resort to self-harm to escape their work, chopping off their own fingers, or intentionally rubbing dirt, faeces, or caustic chemicals into minor wounds to cause severe infections. The aim was to get to the camp hospital, the only place where a prisoner could sleep indoors and escape the freezing cold.

Political prisoners like Heimar were abused by the guards, but the camp administration gave authority also to violent criminal inmates (blatnye) to assault, rob and otherwise keep the political prisoners living in fear.

The indigenous people, the Komi, are Finno-Ugrian like the Estonians, although separated by at least a couple of thousand years of cultural and linguistic development. The introduction of prison camps into their homeland disrupted their subsistence lives, by the rapid cutting of forests for timber and the Railway cutting across ecosystems including animal migration routes.

The Komis' previous lives were similar to the pattern still followed by their Finno-Ugrian relatives, the Sami, previously known in English by the disparaging name of Lapps. They live mainly in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland while there is a small population on Russia's Kola Peninsula.

Before Heimar's imprisonment, a Komi leader who supported industrialisation of his homeland, Dmitry Batiev, had been arrested under false charges of creating a "counter-revolutionary nationalist organisation" and imprisoned in Ukhtpechlag (the precursor camp to the Pechora line system) before being executed in 1941. Under Stalin, much of the Komi intellectual and cultural leadership suffered similar fates.

The camp system had grown out of earlier regional camps and took distinct shape as Sevpechlag (North Pechora Ispravitelno-Trudovoy Lager or ITL, that is, Corrective Labour Camp in English) in 1940. During WWII, the pressure to complete the railway line meant prisoners were subjected to relentless work schedules under lethal conditions.

The complex was formally reorganised as Pechorlag (Pechora ITL) in 1950 and continued operating throughout the height of the post-war Gulag era, before being dissolved or merged into other regional administrative systems in 1959 following Stalin's death.

The conditions in Pechorlag were notoriously horrific, defined by the grueling climate of the frozen tundra, extreme malnutrition, overcrowding, and rampant disease. The camp held a mix of political and criminal prisoners.

The political prisoners were individuals who, like Heimar, had been arrested under the sweeping Article 58 of the Soviet Penal Code for "counter-revolutionary activities." This included waves of dissidents, intellectuals, and citizens from newly annexed Soviet territories, including thousands of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and Poles.

Pechorlag is well-known in the English-language Gulag literature, largely due to a rare and unprecedented memoir titled Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir written by Fyodor Mochulsky. Mochulsky was a 22-year-old railway engineer sent by the Communist Party to work as the supervisor at Pechorlag in 1940.

His account was published posthumously in 2011 by Oxford University Press, translated and edited by Deborah Kaple, with a foreword by her. It provided historians with a unique look at the day-to-day horrors and logistics of the camp from the perspective of the administration rather than the victims.

Today, the modern town of Pechora stands where the camp's main central railway station and administrative hub, built entirely on the forced labor of the camp's prisoners, once sat. The camp system has led to the Komi being forced to adapt to a heavily industrialised, Russified urban environment.

Heimar was freed on 10 July 1955, possibly free to try to make his own way home to Saareaa across more than 2,500 of harsh terrain, often swampy in summer. With luck, and perhaps some money from somewhere, he could make some of this trip by train, along with coal from Vorkuta. 

Heimar was married already when arrested, to Rosiine Rahu, and had at least one infant daughter.  Thoughts of his own family, as well as his parents and sister, Linda, must have sustained him through the Pechora experience.  After his return to Saaremaa, he and Rosiine went on to have a family of 6 altogether:  5 daughters and one son.

Heimar's younger brother, Aleksander, taken as a prisoner-of-war to Germany in 1944, then selected for resettlement in Australia, lived past his 98th birthday.  His father lived to 89, despite also having spent time in Siberia, as we will see.  His mother, also sent to Siberia, lived to 82 and his sister, lucky not to be arrested also for her support of Heimar in the woods, lived to 78.  Given this longevity, Heimar's death at the age of only 61 in 1981 has to be attributed to his time in Pechorlag.

SOURCES

EBSCO 'Research Starter, Gulag' https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/gulag, accessed 29 August 2026.

Encyclopædia Britannica Komi: republic, Russia, https://www.britannica.com/place/Komi-republic-Russia, accessed 28 August 2026.

'Estonia's victims of communism 1940–1991' https://memoriaal.ee, accessed 28 August 2026.

'Estonia's victims of communism 1940–1991, Heimar Nõmm' https://www.memoriaal.ee/en/search/?q=heimar+n%C3%B5mm&f=all, accessed 28 August 2026.

Geni.com 'Heimar Nõmm' https://www.geni.com/people/Heimar-N%C3%B5mm/4824931125450070101?through=4824935170880061629, accessed 5 September 2026.

gulag.cz 'Buried hopes' https://gulag.cz/cs/, accessed 29 August 2026.

Gulag Online 'Pechora' https://gulag.online/places/pechora?locale=en, accessed 29 August 2026.

Simpson, Silvi (2026) Personal communication, 25 August.

Wikipedia, 'Gulag Boss: A Soviet Memoir',  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag_Boss:_A_Soviet_Memoir, accessed 28 August 2026.

Kostas Kuzmickas (1920 - 1989) and Justina (Gustine) Kuzmickienė (Kuzmickas) (1922 -2014), a Yugoslav among the Balts? by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 10 August 2026.

How did a Yugoslav, and a married one at that, get herself into the first group of single, Baltic Displaced Persons – refugees by today’s standards – brought to Australia?

This article will look at what the records tell us, but we can say in advance that it will not come up with a definitive answer.

First, who was the Yugoslav? Justina Čuček or Čiuček was born in Varaždin county, Croatia, on 30 September 1922. Her father was Antun (or Antanas, if the form was completed by a Lithuanian), mother Matilda, formerly Alužan. She had trained as a nurse. She spoke Lithuanian and German according to an American Expeditionary Force (AEF) DP Registration Record completed on 30 August 1945, that is, one month before her 23rd birthday.

Kostas Kuzmikas was 2 years older, although one source has him only 4 months older. He was born in Papiškiai village, Anykščiai district, Lithuania, on 22 May 1920 (or 1922) to Antanas and Apolonija, formerly Misiūnaitė. He last place of residence in Lithuania was Gasčiūnai village in the Šiauliai district. He spoke Russian as well as German and Lithuanian and, according to his Bonegilla card once he had reached Australia, his English also was good. He was tailor or a railway worker (records differ—and, who knows, maybe he tailored railway uniforms) who had married Justina on 27 June 1945 in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. Although both were Catholics, it was a civil wedding in the local registry office. And it also occurred only weeks after the end of WWII in Germany, which was on 8 May 1945.

Kostas and Justina from their Bonegilla cards

Source:  National Archives of Australia and NAA

German officials seem to have Germanised Justina’s name to Gustine Tschtutschek, their phonetic spelling of its pronunciation. This spilled over into a report in the Melbourne Catholic newspaper, the Advocate, in January 1948.

The reporter clearly misunderstood postwar conditions in Germany. They wrote,

At the conclusion of the Mass, the Archbishop blessed the marriage of a young couple named Kostas Kuzmickas and Gustine Tschtutschek. This young pair had already married whilst they were in a concentration camp, but their hostile gaolers would not allow a priest to bless their union, so they had to be content with a civil marriage. Under the circumstances, the marriage was a valid one, but the faith of these good people is so sound that they eagerly sought the blessing of a priest on the union at the first available opportunity. Their fidelity was rewarded beyond their highest hopes, for their civil marriage of the concentration camp was ultimately blessed by an Archbishop.

Archbishop Simonds blesses the Bonegilla marriage between Justine and Kostas

Source:  Advocate

The fact that Justina was regarded as a Lithuanian after her marriage is not a surprise in the context of citizenship and nationality laws (often but not always the same thing) from 75 or more years ago. As a general rule, a woman was seen as having taken on her husband’s citizenship after marriage. Justina had become a Lithuanian in the eyes of anyone who knew about her marriage, and probably under Lithuanian and German law too.

Explaining how a married woman joined her husband in a party supposedly composed entirely of single people is not so easy to understand. Subterfuge was likely to have been involved. Each of the applicants was interviewed individually. Justina would have attended her interview with the 3 Australians on the selection panel without Kostas. Could her Lithuanian language skills have been so good that the interpreter assumed she was a native speaker? Perhaps instead there was a private exchange in Lithuanian with the interpreter, then playing along with Justina’s need to accompany her husband to Australia.

Anyone with a beginner’s knowledge of Lithuanian could see on an alphabetical list of the Heintzelman passengers that a Kuzmikiene had been married to a Kuzmikas — perhaps Kosmas. Maybe the 3 Australians lacked even that basic knowledge, and none of the Lithuanians who were helping the selection process volunteered to inform them.

Further, the story presented to the interview panel on 15 October 1947 was that she was a widow, with the maiden name of Cucek. It would not have mattered that her maiden name was not Lithuanian as, legally, she still held her deceased husband’s citizenship. The panel probably believed this without further questioning. Their focus was a legal one, on people who were unwilling or unable to return to their country of citizenship, of legal protection, not their place of birth.

Justina was well educated too, with 8 years of elementary schooling and 2 years of secondary. Her present occupation was nursing, and she had been doing this for 4 years, that is, from some time in 1943, while war was being waged. The languages in which she claimed fluency were Lithuanian, Slovenian and German.

Note the Slovenian language, not Croatian. We’ve seen above that Justina’s birthplace, was in Croatia, but her last permanent residence was in Celje, Slovenia. Inhabitants of both regions, which became Socialist Republics within Yugoslavia in November 1945, were predominantly Roman Catholic, like the Lithuanians.

She said she had arrived in Germany in April 1941, “forcibly evacuated by the Germans”. Kostas too had been “forcibly evacuated by the Germans”, but not until November 1943. Her presence in Germany from the spring of 1941 increases the possibility that this is where they met.

The thinking behind wanting the first group of Displaced Persons to Australia to be single probably was that it would be easier to place unmarried people in positions that Australians would not take or other areas of great need than to worry about placing the spouse (and maybe family) nearby. However, the 4 marriages in the Bonegilla camp before the end of 1947, including the Kuzmickas marriage blessed by the Archbishop of Melbourne, with another 3 in January, must have made officials have another think.

It seems that Justina and Kostas had a religious marriage ceremony before Archbishop Simmons blessed them, as their Bonegilla cards both say that they were married on 20 December by Father JC Awburn. He was the parish priest from Wodonga, who initially looked after the spiritual needs of the Catholics in the Bonegilla camp which the Church looked for a German-speaking priest.

Kostas and Justina finally were found positions together to which they departed on 6 February 1948, after 2 months in the Bonegilla camp. Their destination was Beechworth in rural Victoria, where they were to work for the Zwar Brothers tannery. They were sent along with 2 others, a Lithuanian and an Estonian, on 6 February 1948, so we can speculate that the Commonwealth Employment Service had been having a hard time finding placements for this group. The group must have satisfied the Zwar Brothers’ management though, because another Lithuanian was sent on 15 February and a fifth on 26 February.

There is a detailed history of this business on the Web already.

The Zwar Brothers tannery in Beechworth:
the dominant mode of transport suggests this photo was taken some time before 1948

Source:  Beechworth History Timeline

On 2 August 1957, Kostas and Justina together became Australian citizens, while resident at 66 Ardmillan Road, Moonee Ponds.

We can catch up with Justina and Kostas through a Lithuanian Entrepreneurs profile published in Tėviškės Aidai in June 1959. They owned what Australians call a mixed business, sometimes milk bar or a deli, on Melrose Street, North Melbourne. Sometimes this sort of business is called a corner store, and theirs did indeed stand on a corner.

The older portion of this property housed the Kuzmickas corner store on
Melrose Street, North Melbourne:
the date on the building is 1889, meaning that it was almost 70 years old
when the couple purchased it and perhaps in need of some repairs

Source:  Google Street View

The report is implausible at the point where we are told that Kostas had purchased the shop in early 1948. We already know what Kostas and Justina were doing in early 1948, and it was not amassing a deposit on the purchase of a shop. Given that they were living in the nearby suburb of Moonee Ponds when they became Australians in August 1957, it is possible that “1948” is a typographic error for 1958.

There is no reason to think that Justina had not working under contract like Kostas, perhaps in the Beechworth tannery but perhaps originally providing domestic assistance in the manager’s home. A letter from the Department of Immigration in November 1949, in response to a form notifying intention Justina’s intention to apply for Australian citizenship, was addressed to her at a Department of Mental Hygiene at Beechworth, meaning that she had found employment at the Beechworth Mental Hospital. Justina and Kostas would have been a two-income couple in 1948-49, which certainly would have helped them save to buy property early.

The Tėviškės Aidai report explains that Kostas obtained work in the Hilton Hosiery factory, also in North Melbourne, when they moved to Melbourne after their contracts ended. His Alien Registration file in the Melbourne office of the National Archives of Australia contains his most recent Alien Registration Certificate, a blue-covered, passport-like book. It contains two entries only, to say that Kostas had reported that he was working for Hilton Hosiery only on 10 May 1956, when he lived at an address in East Keilor, in outer Melbourne, not yet allocated street numbers.  We might find out what work Kostas was doing before that date when the National Archives opens more files for this couple.

Owning a shop as well, from early 1958, meant that the family again had a second income, while their daughter Ramunė-Marija, who was two and a half years old, could stay with Justina when her mother worked.

Mrs Kuzmickienė was of Yugoslav nationality, the reporter noted, but spoke Lithuanian perfectly, so that it was impossible to tell from her speech that she was not Lithuanian. The reporter was "introduced" by the older daughter, Ona-Gražina, 7 years old, who also "chattered" Lithuanian beautifully. One could only be surprised and delighted by such Lithuanity of the family, especially now that there were families where both parents were Lithuanian and the children could barely "translate" a Lithuanian word. (The quotation marks are from the original Lithuanian-language text.)

Although the shop was small, both it and the storeroom next to it were overflowing with goods. The store was mainly administered Mrs. Kuzmickienė. Mr. Kuzmickas, on shift work, could only help for a few hours a day during the opening hours. They had hired workforce of one, a young Lithuanian boy still in school. When asked if he was satisfied, Mr Kuzmickas replied: "The profit from trade gives us a second salary. Since my wife, due to her family situation, cannot leave the house anywhere, we feel very well off in this regard."

And indeed they would have been, compared with the many married couples were the wife was following society’s expectations of staying at home without additional paid employment.

Kostas’ employer, Hilton Hosiery, had been founded in Melbourne in 1936 by Len G Smith as Hilton Knitting Mills, which produced women’s stockings in silk, rayon and fine cotton. There was no nylon for nylon stockings available during WWII, as it all was being used in parachutes and their rip cords. The company expanded in 1947 when nylon did become available, moved beyond legwear to undergarments in the mid-1950s, and at times also made socks for men as well as women and fine knitwear.

It's possible that Kostas never used the main entrance to the Hilton Hosiery company premises,
as it may have been reserved for managers and salespeople:
the sawtooth roofline to the left of this photo is the location of the factory with its own entrance

Source:  State Library of Victoria image a19349 via Pittwater Online News

Hilton merged with the British giant, Courtaulds, in 1969 but this company then went through a period of pressure from tariff reductions, increasing foreign imports and rising local costs. It was wound up at the end of the century and the land on which it operated was sold for apartments. The building which replaced the Hosiery business occupies the same footprint and is called Hilton Hosiery Mills. The new building did not have to include the art deco entrance to the old so it, sadly, was demolished.

As men used to qualify for the age pension in Australia when they had their 65th birthdays, it became a de facto retirement age. We do not know if Kostas continued to work with Courtaulds Hilton Limited until he turned 65 in May 1985 or left earlier. Perhaps he and Justina figured before this that they could afford to run the corner store together and still make a good income.

Justine had told a reporter from the Advocate newspaper that she hoped that her future work would take her among children. She worked as a nurse in a kindergarten conducted by the Red Cross in one of the DP camps in Germany. She possibly was nursing, with children as well as adults, at the Beechworth Mental Hospital.  Now with her own young daughters to look after, perhaps her wish had been fulfilled again, at least until they were older.

Kostas was yet another an active Scout leader from the First Transport, who has been entrusted with the duties of head of the district and of district supply department.

Mūsų Pastogė published a special Melbourne edition on 9 May 1962. Among the donors it thanked for supporting the edition were J and K Kuzmikas, who still were running a shop selling fruit, vegetables and confectionery, on Melrose Street, North Melbourne.

Kostas died 27 years later on 10 May 1989, at a relatively young age, 12 days before his 67th birthday. He had been a distinguished volunteer for Lithuanian scouting. He was buried by an Australian priest in the Springvale Botanical Cemetery in southeastern Melbourne.

Justine or Justina Frances Kuzmickas lived another 25 years, to the good age of 91, but died on 4 April 2014. She too was buried in the Springvale Botanical Cemetery, with her husband.

A relationship which had started when both were in their very early 20s, and which had been tested by the requirements for early migration to Australia from the chaos of post-WWII Germany, had certainly stood firm through other tests until Kostas’ death 45 years later. Despite that subterfuge to get Justina into Australia with Kostas, the couple had contributed to their new home through their work, to the North Melbourne community through their shop, and to the future through their 2 daughters.

CITE THIS AS: Ščevinskienė, Rasa and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Kostas Kuzmickas (1920 - 1989) and Justina (Gustine) Kuzmickienė (Kuzmickas) (1922 -2014), a Yugoslav among the Balts?'

SOURCES:

Advocate (1947) ‘300 Catholics Among Baltic Immigrants, Lithuanians Attend First Mass at Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre‘ Melbourne, Vic, 27 December, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172493478, accessed 7 August 2026.

Advocate (1948) 'Joyous D.P.’s Greet Bishops at Bonegilla', Melbourne, Vic, 8 January, p 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/172493804, accessed 7 August 2026.

‘American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) DP Registration Record, Kuzmickas, Kostas’ 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File, Postwar Card File (A-Z), Cards extracted from files subsequently, DocID: 87900627, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/87900627, accessed 5 August 2026.

‘American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) DP Registration Record, Kuzmickiene, Justina’ 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File, Postwar Card File (A-Z), Names in "phonetical" order from KR, DocID: 67949088, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67949088 and https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67949089, accessed 7 August 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Kuzmickas, Kostas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203625136, accessed 7 August 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Kuzmickiene, Justine’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/2036251367, accessed 7 August 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 24 April, p 1255 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240891861, accessed 7 August 2026.

Elektroninis Archyvų Informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archives Information System), Ukmergės dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga' (Ukmerge deanery church birth register book', in Lithuanian [1920 Kavarskas church birth record Nr. 76]) p 87, https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267626965/280278724/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=87, accessed 7 August 2026.

Find a Grave, ‘Justina Frances Kuzmickas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231320325/justina_frances-kuzmickas, accessed 7 August 2026.

Find a Grave, ‘Kostas Kuzmickas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231320326/kostas-kuzmickas, accessed 7 August 2026.

‘Heiratsurkunde, Eisenbahnarbeiter, Kostas Kuzmickas und Rotkreuzschwester, Gustine Tchutschak’ (‘Marriage Certificate, Railway worker, Kostas Kuzmickas and Red Cross Nurse, Justina Cucek, in German’ 2.2.2.2 Official Certificates (marriages and deaths), western zones, general, Official Certificates (marriages and deaths), western zones, general https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/76792919, accessed 5 August 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1962) ‘Melbourno numeris‘ (‘Melbourne number’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 9 May, p 1 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1962/1962-05-09-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 6 August 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration (Central Office); A435, Class 4 correspondence files relating to naturalisation, 1944-1950; 1949/4/4865, KUZMICKAS Justine – Lithuanian, 1949-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6965090, accessed 7 August 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; 575, KUZMICKAS Kostas DOB 22 May 1920, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005810, accessed 7 August 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; 752, KUZMICKIENE Justina DOB 30 September 1922, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005911, accessed 7 August 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents, 1948-1965; 1957/KUZMICKAS K, KUZMICKAS Kostas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per USAT General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1957 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4275356, accessed 7 August 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KUZMICKAS, Kostas : Year of Birth - 1920 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 949, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203625136, accessed 7 August 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KUZMICKIENE JUSTINE, KUZMICKIENE, Justine : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1121, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203625137, accessed 7 August 2026.

Pittwater Online News (2012) ‘Hilton Lingerie – Slips’ 21 -27 October https://www.pittwateronlinenews.com/collectors-corner---hilton-lingerie---slips.php, accessed 7 August 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) (1959) ‘Lietuviai Verslininkai, Kuzmickų Kolonialinių Prekių Krautuve‘ (‘Lithuanian Entrepreneurs, Kuzmickas Corner Store’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 10 June, p 4 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1959/1959-06-10-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 6 August 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) (1989) ‘Is Mūšų Parapijų‘ (From Our Parishes‘, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 23 May, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1989/1989-05-23-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 6 August 2026.

Victorian Government Gazette, G37 (2014), 'Estates of Deceased Persons' Melbourne, Vic, 11 September, p 2037 https://resources.reglii.com/VGG.2014.9.11.G37.pdf, accessed 8 August 2026.