Bernardas Matkevičius (1922-1992) A Labourer's Life, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Bernardas first job in Australia

We’ve met Bernadas Matkevičius already. He was a workmate of Juozas Nakas, when both were employed by CJ Webb, Row & Anderson at Thornton, in northeast Victoria’s timber country. He was the truck driver in the June 1948 photograph below.

Aged 24 when selected for Australia and 5 feet 11 inches tall, that’s 180 centimetres, he would have had the physique for which the selection team were looking. We can’t tell you anything more about his selection at this time, as his papers are yet to be digitised.

While they were still working at Thornton, Bernardas, Juozas Nakas and a third Lithuanian in the photograph below, Edvardas Lapinskas, subscribed to the fledgling Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Lithuanian-Australian newspaper by sending £3 each. That may well have been a large slice of their savings. It was appreciated by the newspaper, which thanked them publicly in its 16 February 1949 edition.

Bernardas is in the cab with fellow workers Lithuanian Edvardas Lapinskas on the left, an Estonian, probably Helmut Nurmsalu in the middle and Lithuanian Juozas Nakas on the right:
the message on the back of this photo printed on postcard paper was dated 19 June 1948
and sent from Thornton, Victoria, where the group worked

Source:  Private collection

Later employment and residence

There is no citizenship file on the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch Web service and no digitised announcement in the Commonwealth Gazette of Bernardas becoming an Australian citizen. He clearly did, though, as he is on electoral rolls from 1963 to 1980. (Later rolls have yet to be digitised.)

The digitised rolls enable us to see where Bernardas lived and his stated occupation. In 1963, he was a rubber worker who lived on Bayswater Road, Wantirna, in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs. By 1968, he was living on nearby Orchard Road in Bayswater and had become a labourer.

Bernardas' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In 1977, he had moved again, to the suburb of Heathmont but was still a labourer. In 1980, he was still at the Heathmont address and a labourer.

We can see that Bernardas was already a rubber worker in 1957 and, probably, 1956 from a Victoria Government Gazette. The issue for 9 January 1957 contains a notice from Dunlop Rubber which includes Bernardas in a list of people for whom the company held unclaimed money. This may have been because of a pay rise where the retrospective amount was not included in his pay packet, or some other problem with his pay. The amount was only 7 shillings and 11 pence, but probably could have bought him several beers after work.

At the time, he was recorded as living in the inner, then industrial suburb of Port Melbourne, likely to have been close to his place of work.

Bernardas' early life

Also in 1957, in October, Mūsų Pastogė published a notice for him, saying that it had news for him from S. Daugėliškis. Senasis Daugėliškis was his birthplace, a village in the Ignalina district, Utena County in Lithuania.

Bernardas was a Christmas present to his parents, Anupras Matkevičius and the former Izabelė Peciulevičiūtė, as he arrived on 24 December 1922. This happiness was followed by sadness though, as Izabelė died only 19 months after his birth, on 24 July 1924. She was aged 39.

She had already born two older sons, Edmundas around 1913 and Jonas around 1917. He also had 3 half-sisters. We have this information because someone has been interested enough in him and his family to include their details on a family history Website, geni.com.

Bernardas' death

Bernardas was only 69 when he died at Heathmont on 15 October 1992. Unfortunately, whoever gave his name to officialdom misspelled it as Beranardas Markevicius. That also is how is burial in the Yan Yean Cemetery on 22 October is recorded.

At least the Melbourne Lithuanian-language newspaper, Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland), knew the correct spelling of his name when it carried a report of his death and burial in its 27 October 1992 issue.

Bernardas’ death certificate shows that he died from heart disease, and that he also was known as Ben Markevicius. Maybe he had noted that Australians found Markevicius easier to say than Matkevicius. But the death certificate also contains the incorrect Beranardas spelling of his forename.

Not surprisingly, given the low income occupations since his arrival in Australia, Bernardas’ final occupation was given as pensioner.

His grave is unmarked still. Presumably his estate was not large enough to cover the costs of a grave marker. Also, he may have died intestate, that is, without a will. We think this was the case since an online search for a possible will held by the Public Records Office of Victoria did not produce any results under either the proper spelling of his name or the misspelling.

Bernardas' burial site is in the middle of this photograph

Source:  Geoff F on Find A Grave

His grave might be a pauper’s grave.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com, ‘All Census & Voter Lists results for Bernardas Matkevicius’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35/?name=Bernardas_Matkevicius&location=5027&priority=australian, accessed 26 March 2026.

Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria [search for Beranardas Markevicius’ (sic) death] https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/69a880855cdccbdd88c2952f/results?q=efamily, accessed 26 March 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Bernardas Matkevicius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203611495, accessed 26 March 2026.

Electronic Archive Information System, ‘Švenčionių dekanato gimimo metrikų knyga’ (Svencionys Deanery Birth Register, in Lithuanian) [Bernardas’ birth is recorded in the Senasis Daugėliškis church 1922 register, on page 66 as number 187] https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext/view/267143226, accessed 26 March 2026.

Find a grave, ‘Beranardas Markevicius, Yan Yean Cemetery’) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231620463/beranardas-markevicius?_gl=1*w6jern*_gcl_au*ODk2ODA1MDgxLjE3Njg0MTYwMDM.*_ga*MTU0MjMxMjQ3Mi4xNzM3Mzk2NDY1*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czAzMTNiOWM0LTA0NjEtNGFhZi05NzkxLTU1MDM1ZGRjMzY0NSRvMjYkZzEkdDE3NzI2NTA0NjQkajU5JGwwJGgw*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czAzMTNiOWM0LTA0NjEtNGFhZi05NzkxLTU1MDM1ZGRjMzY0NSRvMjYkZzEkdDE3NzI2NTA0NjQkajU5JGwwJGgw, accessed 26 March 2026.

Geni.com ‘Bernardas Matkevičius’ https://www.geni.com/people/Bernardas-Matkevi%C4%8Dius/6000000070489407928?through=6000000070492006821, accessed 26 March 2026

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1949) ‘Aukos Mūsų Pastogei’ (‘Donations to Musu Pastoge’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 16 February, p 6 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1949/1949-02-16-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1957) ( ‘Pajieškojimai‘ (‘Searches‘, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 14 October, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1957/1957-10-14-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 March 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; 482, MATKEVICIUS Bernardas DOB 24 December 1922, 1947-1947.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MATKEVICIUS BERNARDAS, MATKEVICIUS, Bernardas : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 857, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203611495, accessed 26 March 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1992) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Melbournas‘ (‘From Our Parishes, Melbourne’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 27 October, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1992/1992-nr42-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Victoria Government Gazette (1957) ‘Dunlop Rubber Australia Limited, Register of unclaimed money held by Dulop (sic) Rubber Australia Limited, 108 Flinders-street, Melbourne’ Melbourne, Vic, 9 January, p 117 https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/vic_gazette/1957/22.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Vikipedija, ‘Senasis Daugėliškis’ in Lithuanian, https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senasis_Daug%C4%97li%C5%A1kis, accessed 24 March 2026.

Izidorius Smilgevičius with friends, by Ann Tündern-Smith

If you've looked through old photo albums, you may well have seen a street photograph or several.  We have one in this blog already, in the story of Rasa Ščevinskiene's grandfather, Adomas Ivanauskas.  

Adomas Ivanauskas with friend Beryl on a Melbourne street, 17 October 1950

Source:  Private Collection

This form of street photography is said to have started in the United Kingdom in the 1930s and flourished during the period when few people had their own cameras, let alone phones which took more photographs than they took calls.

Given the size of cameras in those days, those being photographed would have been aware of what was happening and probably smiled because they knew they had been "caught".  An assistant handed the subjects a card to tell them where they could view contact prints in the next or following days.  There was a price to pay but, given the absence of personal cameras, many were willing.

Some of these photographers operated also at social events, as Rasa's blog entries about friends of her grandfather testify.

An niece of Izidorius Smilgevicius' wife, Joy Spain, gave me access to his small photograph collection when we met in Melbourne.  It included these two  photographs of Izzy with friends, likely to be fellow Lithuanians. 

One was definitely taken on a street, but by a photographer who was not accomplished.  A  better photographer would have not have cut off some of the man on the left by including less background on the right.  

Young Lithuanian men, probably on a Melbourne street —
might some of the others be those who absconded from EZ Rosebery with Izzy?

Source:  Private collection

The photograph below probably was taken at a social event.  That's my guess because the young men, all from the First Transport, I was told, are all dressed in their best (and probably only) suits.

Five Lithuanian men from the First Transport

Source:  Private Collection

So, who do you recognise in the photographs above?

SOURCES

Murray, Lisa (2019) 'Street Photography' State Library New South Wales, Dictionary of Sydney, https://dictionaryofsydney.org/blog/street_photography, accessed 24 March 2026. 

Museums of History NSW, 'Street Photography' https://mhnsw.au/whats-on/exhibitions/street-photography-touring-exhibition/, accessed 24 March 2026.

Museums of History NSW, 'The street snapshot craze' https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/street-snapshot-craze/, accessed 24 March 2026.

Mečys Laurinavičius (1922-1984) Becomes Max Laurin, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Mecys' first assignment

You may never have heard of Togganoggera in New South Wales. Neither has Google Maps, although the Australian-based Bonzle Maps can locate it. So can Phillip Simpson’s massive 2020 publication, Historical Guide to New South Wales.

We want to know where it is because the Commonwealth Employment Service at the Bonegilla Camp sent 2 of the First Transporters to work for WL Moore, Sawmillers, at Togganoggera, NSW. They were Mečys Laurinavičius and his fellow Lithuanian, Bolius Kunčiunas.

Mečys Laurinavičius photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Simpson writes that Togganoggera is 29 Km southwest of Braidwood, on the Shoalhaven River. Its main industry is grazing. It has an airfield and a quarry, but there is no mention of a sawmill. The telephone arrived in 1918. The population of the locality in 1933 was 49 people (and 1933 probably was the last time anyone found it for a census).

Mecys finds trouble

Mečys appeared in the local newspaper, The Braidwood Review and District Advocate, a little after the first anniversary of the First Transport arriving at Fremantle, on 30 November 1948. He had been found drunk on the main street of Braidwood at “4.5 o'clock on the morning following the Ambulance Ball”, arrested by a constable and taken to the police station.

Presumably he had been released later that day because on the following day, when called at the Court of Petty Sessions, he failed to appear and his 10 shillings bail was forfeited.

The Ambulance Ball would have to be held in Braidwood’s Show Pavillion on 27 November, so Mečys was found to have overindulged on the morning of 28 November, exactly one year after he disembarked for a new life in Australia. Had he been trying to forget the next year? Had he been celebrating how wonderful it was compared with the previous 7 years of his life?

Mecys in NSW and citizenship

Mečys stayed in New South Wales after finishing his contract, presumably on 30 September 1949 along with nearly all the other First Transporters. We know that because on 29 June 1954, in the Sydney Morning Herald and one other newspaper, he was advertising that he intended to apply for naturalization under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948-1953.

He was naturalized, granted Australian citizenship, on 30 November 1955, from an address in Eastwood, a suburb in the north of Sydney.

Mecys married, their address and occupations

In 1958, the first time Mečys appeared on a publicly available electoral roll, he had already married his Australian wife, Joan, and his occupation was given as rubber worker. Joan was a typist. They lived in Eastwood. In 1963, their occupations and street address were the same, but their suburb had become Rydalmere. All the details were the same on the 1968 and 1977 rolls.

Given that any marriage occurred more than 50 years ago, its record should be available, but a search of the New South Wales Government’s Marriage records said initially that it was unavailable. That was because someone has managed to massacre the spelling of both Mečys’ first name (“Mercys”) and his last name. A wildcard (*) is essential in such situations.

The marriage took place in 1951.

Mecys becomes Max

Before the production of the 1980 electoral roll, Mečys had decided to make things easier for his fellow Australians and, perhaps, especially his wife. He had changed his name to Max Laurin.

On the 1980 roll, Joan Laurin is still a typist but Max also may have made life easier for himself in another way, by ceasing to work with rubber and becoming instead a driver.

Mečys is a very Slavic name, short for Mečislovas, which in turn is the Lithuanian form of the Slavic forename whose Polish version is Mieczysław. This name combines miecz or meč meaning “sword” and slava or slav meaning “glory” or “fame”, so its meaning approximates “one who gains glory with the sword.” There being no immediate English or Germanic equivalent, Max was a well-chosen alternative.

Mecys and Mūsų Pastogė

The Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, had thanked Mečys in its 8 October 1973 edition for donating 8 books and 3 Lithuanian records to the Sydney Lithuanian Club Library’s Reading Room. No, it was more than mere thanks: it was sincere gratitude

Mūsų Pastogė next had occasion to discuss Mečys in its 14 January 1985 edition, when it reported that he had died of cancer on 14 October in the Westmead Hospital. He was buried in Castlebrook Rosehill Cemetery. He left behind a grieving wife, an Australian woman. They did not have a family. He was a relatively youthful 62. Although he did not participate in Lithuanian life, he was a long-time reader of Mūsų Pastogė.

Mecys' death, funeral, burial

The Sydney Herald Sun newspaper of 15 October 1984 had carried the English-language death and funeral notice. Not only was Max Laurin the beloved husband of Joan but he also was the loved brother-in-law of Eric, Ken, Ron and Gwen and loved uncle of their families. He still was living on Bennetts Road, which original had been in Eastwood but which now, 30 years later, was in West Dundas.

His relatives and friends were invited to attend his funeral to leave the all Saints Anglican Church, Victoria Road, Parramatta after a service commencing at 9.30 for the interment in the Castlebrook Lawn Cemetery, Windsor Road, Rouse Hill. If Mečys was originally Roman Catholic like the majority of Lithuanians, he had become a Protestant for Joan’s sake.

Mecys and assimilation

He had assimilated even more by becoming a Freemason. The newspaper notice invited officers and brethren of Corinthian No 100 UGL of NSW attend the funeral of their late esteemed member Max Laurin. Regalia was to be worn. UGL was the United Grand Lodge.

At least Max and Mečys had never stopped the subscription to Mūsų Pastogė.

Mecys' past

We do not have access to a digitised version of Mecys’ selection papers at this time. The Arolsen Archives has yet to digitise any papers relating to his time in Germany. All we know about Mecys’ past is that his parents were Bronius and Marija; we know this from his death certificate. We will update this page with particular reference to Mecys’ time before Australia as more information becomes available.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com, ‘All results for Max Laurin’, https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=max_laurin&event=_australia_5027&searchMode=advanced, accessed 23 March 2026.

Ancestry.com, ‘All results for Mecys Laurinavicius’, https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=mecys_laurinavicius&event=_australia_5027&searchMode=advanced, accessed 23 March 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Mecys Laurinavicius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203619596, accessed 23 March 2026.

Braidwood Review and District Advocate (1948) ‘Ambulance Ball’, Braidwood, NSW, 30 November, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/119376162, accessed 23 March 2026

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1956) Canberra, ACT, 24 May, p 1513 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/25099858, accessed 23 March 2026.

Death Search Results, NSW Registry of Births, Deaths & Marriages, ‘Laurin Max, 23254/1984’ https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search/deaths?1, accessed 23 March 2026.

Herald Sun (1984) ‘Deaths, Laurin, Max’ Sydney, NSW, 15 October, p 27 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=lL5f5cZgq8MC&dat=19841015&printsec=frontpage&hl=en, accessed 23 March 2026.

Herald Sun (1984) ‘Funerals, Laurin, Max’ Sydney, NSW, 15 October, p 27 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=lL5f5cZgq8MC&dat=19841015&printsec=frontpage&hl=en, accessed 23 March 2026.

Klubo Valdyba (Club Board) (1973) ‘Padėka‘ (‘Acknowledgements‘ in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 8 October, p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1973/1973-10-08-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 23 March 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) 1985 [No heading] Sydney, NSW, 14 January, p 12 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1985/1985-01-14-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 23 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations [Main correspondence files series of the agency] 1926-2001; 1955/32795, Application for Naturalisation - LAURINAVICIUS Mecys born 19 August 1922, 1954-1955.

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; 175, LAURINAVICIUS Mecys DOB 19 August 1922, 1947-1947

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; LAURINAVICIUS MECYS, LAURINAVICIUS, Mecys : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number – 572, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203619596, accessed 23 March 2026.

Sydney Morning Herald (1954) ‘Public Notices’ Sydney, NSW, 9 June, p 15 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18427320,  accessed 23 March 2026.

Vaclavs Kozlovskis in Pyramid Hill, July 1948

 

PYRAMID HILL, 3.7.48, Sat

Now and then the Australian papers hold some sensible words as well - today’s articles for example - this cutting from Smith’s Weekly.

Note that the Communists illustrating the Smith's Weekly article of 5 June 1948
appear to have the heads of clowns

Source:  Trove

Early this evening I went to the dance with Kukusinski*. We took a bottle of wine to Fred’s, and soon enough we became very talkative and merry. Fred told us that tonight there was a farewell evening for our old foreman, Bill, in progress, and tried so hard to talk us into going that finally we agreed.

On the other side of town, in a building on the football field, a large crowd of men had gathered. All of them were full, one had just climbed onto the table extolling the praises of Bill, who was swaying in some remote corner and smiling, while everyone else was half listening, and half talking in drunken voices amongst themselves.

In one corner the barkeeper sat with a beer cask, handing out free drinks. It was there that Fred dragged us and now we had to enjoy it as well, even though we’d already drunk over our limit. In fact we came into town to go dancing, so we tried to disappear from this boozing company, but the first try failed — Fred caught us and dragged us back.

Our next try ten minutes later met with success and soon enough, breathless from our zigzag running, we were drinking lemonade at Naschke’s café, and then went to the dance. It was already late and after several dances the national anthem played and nothing much came of our much-anticipated dancing. Next time we will definitely have to try to drink less, and dance more.

PYRAMID HILL, 4.7.48, Sun

Those damned sparrows: they’ve found their way into the loft of my cabin and chirp annoyingly, disturbing my sleep. I can’t throw a boot at them for it might rip the paper ceiling, so I was up by eight. Because I happened to be up in time, I went to church at St Patrick’s — the only thing here that is the same as in Latvia.

In the afternoon, Kukusinski and I discovered a new pursuit: we played basketball with the ladies. And so, larking around, the whole afternoon passed, and it was especially pleasant, when you take into account the merry, pretty lasses.

But about the basketball itself I have to say that it’s only the name that is similar to basketball in Europe. First of all the basket is without boards, and is raised on one post. You are not allowed to dribble the ball forward, or run around the whole court, and you have to let the opponents throw the ball without interference from a certain distance. Such basketball I couldn’t have imagined even in my dreams.

But our primary aim isn’t to play, but rather to spend some pleasant time in the company of females, and this is where we find them, for in Australia this game is generally only played by women. The men give precedence to their foolish football, which is supposed to be the most advanced and highest form of football (of course, only in their own minds!).

The 7 from the First Transport, in their best outfits,
 with 2 local women (and a dog) who found them interesting

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 6.7.48, Tues

The boss showed up, but we didn’t see him all day. It was only after work that he came into my cabin and widened his eyes in amazement at the changes we’ve wrought. Apparently it’s unusual here that a simple labourer organises his dwelling so pleasantly. You can see this when you compare ours with the Australians’. And why wouldn’t he marvel, when I’ve made so cosy and pleasant a room from a simple wooden shed.

Of course, he brought some changes with him. Starting from tomorrow we have a new foreman, who the whole village says is an exploitative, bad person. The boss’s task is to raise production from one hundred and thirty to two hundred or three hundred yards, but I doubt we’ll be able to manage that. We won’t let this foreman pull us around by our noses, after all we’re not slaves and can “escape” at any time back to Bonegilla.

He also said that a sand-digging vehicle will arrive soon along with five more Balts. The new crusher will also be ready soon, and then production will most likely increase, but whether we can reach three hundred yards a day, and how we will get on with the new foreman, I don’t know. Bill, the old foreman, was a very nice person, it’s a pity he has to go to another quarry.

PYRAMID HILL, 17.7.48, Sat

“Time to go for firewood!”, we resolved yesterday as we observed the empty woodpile beside the kitchen, so today we did. Around lunchtime we brought a large truckload home, and so the unpleasant threat of cold meals has been held at bay again.

We hadn’t bought any wine for today, but without fortification my legs couldn’t follow the strange movements called “Australian dance” here, so this afternoon we brought home bottles of gin and lemonade. It was nothing special, but climbed into the head well, and by the time we arrived at the hall, life looked pretty rosy.

To my mind these Australian dances are very strange - sometimes dropping onto the knees, sometimes sliding across the floor as if ice-skating, sometimes everyone goes forward at once, then back again, now and then lifting one leg, then the other, and sometimes, it seems, even both at once; how can a man make any sense of it all without a bottle?

Usually a prize-giving dance is held each evening, during which a man waves cards around energetically. The music halts frequently, at which point he sends a large number of the dancers off the floor. The last dancer on the floor wins a prize. This sort of dance, of course, happened tonight as well, and just this evening it happened that I was the last dancer on the floor.

This feeling wasn’t particularly enjoyable, especially because I was dancing with Margot and all the gossips will now start saying that we’re together, but nothing can help that now. After the dance, to a loud ovation, I went to the centre of the hall to receive my prize — a wonderful shaving kit. Soon after that the musicians started playing the national anthem, and it was time to go home.

PYRAMID HILL, 20.7.48, Tues

IIt’s amazing how swiftly the earth turns - it seems that July has only just begun, but the calendar already shows the other end of it … be that as it may, another dance day is here, even though it’s the middle of the week. After work I spruced myself up, but then listening to the fine raindrops clattering on the roof, it seemed that our plans to go to the dance would fall through. As soon as it was dark the boss appeared and helped me to fill in my income tax forms, which are to be sent to Melbourne as soon as possible.

With these forms he’s also sending a courteous letter, pointing out that I am a poor DP, and that for the last three years I haven’t had any income, so now I have hopes of my tax deductions returning to my pocket. It seems that the rain wanted to detain us just long enough for the boss’s visit, for soon after he arrived it stopped, and we renewed our resolve to go to the dance.

We arrived around ten, but there was plenty of time left until two. As usual during this type of dance, it was crowded and all the girls were wearing long dresses, but the empty gin bottle sent to the devil my remaining shyness, and I began dancing the moment we arrived.

I danced a lot this time, even the dances I haven’t been game to try up to now. Suddenly, in the middle of one dance the master of ceremonies appeared beside me, pointed to the coloured balloons above my head, then murmured something in English and slapped me on the shoulder, while the rest of the crowd started their embarrassing clapping, just like last Saturday. It’s not my fault that when the music suddenly stopped I happened to be standing right under the balloons, but I was the winner again, and this time the prize was an ashtray with the words “From Pyramid Hill” inscribed on it.

I didn’t get home until three. It’ll be a hard day at work tomorrow!

PYRAMID HILL, 31.7.48, Sat

I’ve become a student again, and spent the first two hours yesterday sitting on a child’s seat in the local primary school. This time I’m learning English, or should I say, learning how to properly pronounce English words much differently to how I’ve been taught before. The government has given us this opportunity, and it certainly is a good thing, if for nothing else than it will be useful for when I seek a place in one of the local naval schools.

This afternoon Vik* and I emptied the usual wine bottle and went dancing. I happened to dance with Jan, who invited me to play tennis tomorrow afternoon at two — exactly the same time I’ve been invited to play basketball by Velma. I like this tall lass very much, so I accepted her invitation, but after the dance while I was sitting on a chair waiting for a sudden rain shower to pass, I suddenly remembered that I’d promised to show up in two different places at exactly the same time. To make it worse both courts are right next to each other.

Where will I go, and where not? Oh well, I’m sure I’ll work things out tomorrow … but perhaps rain will come and rescue me from this awkward situation? That would really be the best solution.

* Neither Kukusinski nor Vik (Viktor, Viktors or Viktoras?) are names appearing among the 7 from the First Transport sent to Pyramid Hill.  A search for Kukusinski in the records of the National Archives of Australia did not produce any results, which a search for the Vik variations produced too many (1215 from 1947).

Vaclavs Kozlovskis Goes to Kerang, June 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

Updated 21 March 2026.

KERANG, 3.6.48, Thurs

At the start of this week I noticed with fear in my heart that another of my healthy teeth has begun to show an ugly hole in its sides. Instantly, I remembered my last tooth extraction by the local butcher, and also the enormous bill I later received in the mail. I’m not so rich that I can pay one and a half pounds for every pulled tooth. I don’t want false teeth in my mouth either, which in the Australian mind is no bad thing.

Here almost everyone has dentures. From the age of twelve, some of them have all their teeth pulled out and replaced with false teeth. This could be very unpleasant, if you happened to kiss a lady, and in the height of passion you swallowed some of her false teeth. I don’t want to have them either and in some passionate moment to lose them down some lady’s girdled stomach, from where I couldn’t retrieve them ... but it’s not pleasant to live without teeth, so I’ll just have to resign myself to paying a fortune for them.

After weighing up all the advantages and disadvantages of false teeth, I decided to travel to Kerang to see the dentist. This morning I was seated in the dusty driver’s cabin of the truck that carries ground rock from the crusher. Despite the winding, potholed road and the doubtful-looking bridges built over the canals last century, which sometimes fall to pieces under the weight of passing cars, after an hour we reached the point where I had to get out and travel the remaining eight miles by bicycle.

Kerang's main street, 1948

Source:  Historic Photos

I realised that this road was built with my assistance, for some time ago the crusher created the first blisters on my hands to produce many of the small stones pressed into the road, and here and there the sand brought from the quarry was mixed in with the small rocks. This seemed to have been piled here recently, so I would have had a hand in creating those piles as well. Of course, I’ve been paid for doing that, and some of that wage was spent on the bicycle I ride. 

So now, as it turns out, with the fruits of my wages I was riding along the source of my wages, watching the rabbits bolting into the roadside bushes, and occasionally blowing on my hands as they froze in the morning air. The road is good, even better because I’ve helped to build it, and in half an hour the eight miles were behind me and I arrived in the city centre.

There are three dentists in Kerang, all with Melbourne University training. My tooth began itching pleasantly and rejoicing that it would soon be cleaned and mended. But the repairer himself wasn’t that easy to find. 

On ringing the doorbell at the first dentist’s, a red-haired lady, quite young, opened the door. With an ear-to-ear smile, her dentures gleaming in the sunlight that streamed through the partly open door, she kindly asked how many teeth I wanted extracted (Australians are not accustomed to only pulling one out at a time!). 

When I replied that I only have the one hole in my tooth and I want that filled, she gave me such a strange look, and with sudden sympathy in her voice and under her slightly overlong nose apologised in a whisper that the dentist didn’t work today. Then her overpainted red lips twisted into a friendly, but argument-excluding smile, and I soon found myself back outside, in the brisk autumn air.

This first setback was soon repeated. The second dentist had gone to Cohuna, and the third wasn’t in, and didn’t do fillings in any case. So the only fruits of my thirty-seven mile journey were the greens I ate for lunch in Kerang and the shilling I spent in a bar to repair my lost mood, and meanwhile the hole in my tooth has not become any smaller.

In 1948, Kerang celebrated its centenary of settlement with a Back to Kerang event:
some of those attending are photographed here

Source:  Kerang's 1948 Settlement Centenary celebrations,

prints by Elsie M Dicker held at the Kerang Museum

(Click once on the image to see a larger version in a new page)

Who knows, maybe I’ll have to have it extracted after all and exchanged for a false one, for what the crowd does, you have to follow. If you’re living with wolves, you have to howl like a wolf. I had another look at the streets and several decorous looking women, then headed back on my bicycle in time to catch the last vehicle going to Pyramid, so that instead of having to ride my bike all the way I could sit in the dusty cabin next to the truck driver. I’m not too concerned about my unrepaired tooth, by now I’m accustomed to the calm English way of dealing with problems.

PYRAMID HILL, 18.6.48, Sat

We’ve waited for the promised cabins for five long months, and started moving into them today. There’s nothing much to them — cement foundation, one layer of thin, holey bricks in the walls and a tin roof, without ceiling or inner walls. But it’s still an improvement — at least we’ve dispensed with the continual driving around in the car, and also the town is nearby, so close that we can almost touch it with our hands. After we’ve hammered paper onto the inside walls, sorted out a cupboard and table, then they will be really nice, cosy rooms: what else could we ask for?

Are these 6 of the 7 cabins in the new barracks?
It's a question because Vaclavs says that they have "holey bricks in the walls",
while these walls clearly are weatherboard,
but in his 6 July diary entry he does write about a "simple wooden shed";
if this is the barracks, note the "ablutions block" to the right

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 26.6.48, Sat

To our surprise we only today realised that Midsummer had passed unnoticed, so of course we had to celebrate. And how else are bachelors to celebrate a holiday? We bought wine and quietly drank it. But the wine wasn’t calm at all, it climbed into the head, made me put on my recently bought suit and go to the dance. 

I only danced two of the comical Australian dances, the rest of the time was occupied with drinking with my friends, so that in the end I even found it difficult to climb onto my bike and return home along the suddenly smooth-seeming road.

PYRAMID HILL, 28.6.48, Mon

It was my turn to go to the city for the groceries today, so straight after work I sat on my bicycle’s back. I rode home with an unexpected thrill in my heart - I’ve received two more letters from my homeland’s girls. These two envelopes, having measured the long road from distant Latvia, now lie in my pocket rustling and creating this thrill in my heart, quite similar to the first letters.

The whole world has suddenly become so sweet, and my thoughts fly far, far away. Ausma has befriended my youngest sister Erasma; now at last my family will know what’s become of me. Ah, how I would love to be with my loved ones, for no matter how brief a moment! I quickly read both letters, and all evening I was unable to recall my thoughts from home. 

They lingered a long time in that land, now strewn with the marvels of spring, until finally, sleep came to drive off my unneeded pain and longing for the impossible. Who can tell when the strength of the Red tyranny will end and my home will be free again? I search for answers in vain, for even the shadows of the past, roaming through the night’s darkness, don’t know.

Vaclavs Kozlovskis at Pyramid Hill, March-May 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 22.3.48, Mon

The end of the month has arrived, and also the boss, to calculate our accounts.  He’s decided to make some changes.  From Monday Kevin will work at the crusher, and I’ll be the boss of the quarry.  I’ll work with the explosives all by myself, and so the key to the dynamite room came into my pocket.  Of course my wage will increase as well, although only by twopence per hour.  It’s not all that pleasant, but what can I do, someone has to be the supervisor.

PYRAMID HILL, 5.4.48, Mon

Today I lay once more in the now familiar hospital, and once more the dentist worked on my tooth.  This time the pain was over quickly.  Soon the root was out and I could get up again.  This time, it seems, I’m free from that unrelenting toothache.

PYRAMID HILL, 10.4.48, Sat

Although it’s Saturday I worked this afternoon.  The hospital organised a working bee, in which we were also invited to participate, so it wouldn’t have been right to not show up.  The distance wasn’t any particular problem, for all seven of us have bicycles.  We worked at this voluntary job right up to five thirty and only then got to go home.  The locals will have something new to say about us now.

Riding back I realised that I’d left my swimming trunks behind, so all I could do was watch while the others swam.  This wasn’t much fun, but it was my own fault.

Modelling swimming trunks, possibly outside the men's original Pyramid Hill home

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

I felt quite tired and didn’t go to the dance this time, but that’s all right.  Around the time I’d normally be coming home from the dance there was a heavy rain shower.  I listened to the raindrops clattering on the roof and rejoiced that I’d escaped a thorough soaking.

PYRAMID HILL, 11.4.48, Sun

I’ve waited for rain for a long time and finally it’s here, apparently the Australian winter is starting. T he whole sky is blanketed in grey clouds, the large clay field has become quite sodden, and puddles have appeared in the courtyard.  The kitchen tap is working again now that fresh roof water has poured into the water tank.  

In the evening the rain eased and I climbed on my bike and rode into town.  I barely recognised the road - all the potholes are full of water, and the rain has washed a great many new ruts in the road, so I had to be careful not to slip over in the mud.  By the time I returned home the bicycle was covered in red clay. I’ll have my job cut out for me until everything is clean again.

PYRAMID HILL, 28.4.48, Wed

Alas, poor diary, less and less frequently have I begun to turn your pages and fill them with words ... but what else can I do, when I have so little time left over from my other pursuits: I have to work on the weekdays, go rabbit hunting and dancing on Saturdays, play golf with the girls on Sundays, so when can I find the time to spend with you?  But don’t despair - I’ll try to improve!  The hot Australian summer is over and now it’s autumn.

Increasingly the sun hides behind the clouds, and for some time now the cold has begun to shiver through my body on my ride to work.  Less and less sweat forms at work, and we haven’t been swimming for a long time.

Thus gradually the days of my life hurry by, they can’t be caught or turned back.  Only my yearning rushes away to strange, and also to some familiar places, while the kookaburra laughs raucously about the people haunted by their longing for distant places ... be patient, heart, even these eight remaining months of slavery will pass.  Then I’ll be able to climb onto a steel ship, and search for my dreams in the wide oceans!

PYRAMID HILL, 5.5.48, Thurs

Tooth extraction is very expensive in Australia - today I received the dentist’s bill, and I will have to part with one pound, eleven shillings and sixpence.  So incredibly expensive was my aching tooth!

PYRAMID HILL, 10.5.48, Mon

Finally the building of our long-awaited cabins is underway.  The only question is, how many months will it take to complete them?  Today’s post brought me medicine from Sydney, to help me give up smoking.  I’ll have to wait to see what the result will be.

PYRAMID HILL, 13.5.48, Thurs

I didn’t want to go anywhere after work, but when the others decided to go to the cinema, I went with them.  The entire horizon was covered in grey, ominous clouds, and occasionally the darkness shot through with a flash of lightning.  Suddenly in the middle of the second film, heavy raindrops began spattering on the tin roof.  I wasn’t enjoying the coloured film at all by now.

Although the rain passed quickly, we didn’t make it home without getting wet.  The road was muddy and our clothes, as well as bicycles, splattered with clayey mud.  We squelched through this red mud for almost an hour, until finally we were home and could stretch out in bed.

PYRAMID HILL, 23.5.48, Sun

Autumn has arrived, and winter will follow, but summer’s not retreating yet.  Today it seems that summer has vanquished autumn’s superiority and sent as a sign of its power one of the warm days that it always has in reserve.  The weather was too fine to spend all day inside labouring over my foolish letter writing, so straight after breakfast I took my rifle and went out into the fresh autumn air.

The evidence of changing seasons is very interesting in Australia.  As little as a month ago I would gaze at the sky and long to see even the smallest of rain clouds momentarily cover the face of the smiling sun and give some respite to my burning skin!  But in vain — there was nothing to be seen except for the sunlit pale blue sky and the dust raised into the air by the rock crusher, and in some secret bush hiding-place the kookaburra hid, laughing and jeering to see the hot sun beating down on the rock splitters.

But now the cool breath of autumn has begun to caress the earth.  It seems a long time since my back was soaked in sweat, and since my teeth started chattering during my morning ride to work.  The face of the sun has become anxious; increasingly often she hides behind the clouds; sometimes white ones, other times quite grey and spitting lightning, and the water canals have become quite clear for there are no longer swimmers desirous of refreshing themselves, to muddy them.  The water reservoir in the sky bursts through often, and onto the parched earth falls abundant, life-giving rain.

That's definitely Pyramid Hill in the background, and it may be a local canal in the foreground

Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

Autumn has come, bringing with it several surprises, which it seems are possible only in this strange land.  I recall autumn in Latvia — there in that distant Happy Isle it was grey and mostly unpleasant.  Grass and flowers died under the cruel bites of the frost beast, to transform into black dust.  Onto the ground fell tree leaves bitten by the same beast, amongst which boys squabbled as they searched for acorns, and all of this was cloaked in grey, dirty, autumn mud.

Here things are very different.  Up until now I’ve been accustomed to seeing a vast field of yellow grass which seemed to have existed from a time before the world drew its first breath.  But now suddenly this yellowness is disappearing, and in its place, wherever my gaze lingers there is green, freshly grown grass.  My eyes feast often on this transformation, and my thoughts rummage confusedly in the past trying to work out whether I haven’t again moved to some new continent, without noticing.  But no, I’m still here, still surrounded by twisted trees with white rabbit tails disappearing quickly under them.

The sheep rejoice in the food autumn has brought them, and only the black, raven-like birds seem dissatisfied with the changes.  They flutter around, caw and with malevolent voices curse in some incomprehensible English dialect.  And why wouldn’t they curse?  After all, the sheep now have food in plenty, and there are few who are weak enough to collapse helplessly for the pleasure and sustenance of these cawing spectres, in a short time to transform into a small bundle of bones and wool.

But the parrots don’t show the slightest interest in all these proceedings; as usual they argue and try to divide Australia amongst themselves, and with perfect English calm the koalas marvel at such behaviour.  This is autumn, but what winter is like I will discover only later, because I can’t make any sense out of what the locals have to say about it.

Suddenly a small grey rabbit leaped out of a clump of grass to remind me that I’m hunting.  I came back to the present, and by the end of the hunt four of these Australian pests lay by my feet, lifeless.  Having visited nature for long enough, I returned home.

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

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

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

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

Karolis Varkunas' photograph on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Words of wisdom

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

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

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

Karolis' last years

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

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

Karolis in Lithuania

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

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

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

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

Karolis in Germany

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

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

Karolis is selected for Australia

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

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

Karolis in Australia

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

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

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

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

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

Karolis Varkunas in 1955

Source:  National Archives of Australia

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

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

His Australian citizenship was granted 9 April 1956.

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

Was he clinically depressed or otherwise ill?

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

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

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

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

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

SOURCES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kazys Alseika (1917-1984), the Tasmanian One, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 13 March 2026.

3x Kazys Alseika

The first thing to note about Kazys Alseika is that there were 3 of them.  That is to say, 3 men called Kazys or Kazimieras (the long form of Kazys) with the family name Alseika came to Australia during the 1947-49 period.  What’s more, the 3 were the only men with the family name Alseika to arrive under the IRO Mass Scheme, to give the movement of Displaced Persons to Australia during 1948-54 its formal name.

How do we separate them one from the other?  If you haven’t thought about it before, the answer is birthdates, the reason why officials, the health system, and anyone else who needs to sort one namefellow from another, immediately wants to know your birthdate as well as your full name.

Our Kazys Alseika, the one who came on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, was born on 8 June 1917.  The second Kazys was born on 15 December 1918 and arrived on the Nelly on 15 July 1949.  Kazimieras was born on 27 February 1918 and arrived on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart, on 14 February 1948.

The Kazys Alseika who came to Australia on the Heintzelman

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Newspaper reports are unlikely to distinguish one Kazys Alseika from another, although Kazimieras might stick to that form of his name.  This means that we need to rely on those official documents with birthdates, although they may give us other clues, like where they lived and worked.

Those documents tell us that the second Kazys Alseika was sent to Yallourn, Victoria, for his first job.  His naturalization record and a newspaper obituary say that he stayed in Victoria.  Kazimieras was sent initially to Western Australia but received Australian citizenship when resident in South Australia.  We’ll soon find that our Kazys was sent to Tasmania after his initial fruit-picking, so place of residence is another way to separate these three.

Our Kazys Goes to Work

Starting with the Bonegilla card for our Kazys, we see that he was one of the 187 or more fruit pickers sent to Victoria’s Goulburn Valley in late January 1948.  He was allocated to AW and JF Fairley of Shepparton.  He stuck it out for more than 9 weeks, returning to the Bonegilla camp on 7 April.

His next allocation was to the Commonwealth Carbide Company at Electrona, Tasmania, which actually was a different company with a similar name, the Australian Commonwealth Carbide Company.  Thanks to Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, we have an assessment from Jonas Motiejūnas of the hard physical nature of the work.

If a former DP has moved around a lot, we often can follow those movements from their application for naturalization.  When our Kazys applied in October 1953, he did not mention Electrona or a carbide company.  Instead, he recorded that he was then working as a spray painter for a company called Cannon & Hornby of Glenorchy, Tasmania.  He had been there since 8 November 1949, the second anniversary of the day he arrived at the Bonegilla camp.

An article in Launceston’s Saturday Evening Express newspaper of 31 May 1952, headed New Firm’s Success, tell us about Kazys’ employer.  Cannon & Hornby made electric coppers (presumably to heat water for laundry), domestic hot water services and a hot water service specially for the dairy farmer.  They also made refrigerator cabinets for Australian-made refrigerator units and electric cooking ranges.  At this time, 18 months before Kazys submitted that he had been working for them since late 1949, they employed 28 staff.

Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, notes that Kazys were first at Electrona but then with a company called Derby Products.  This seems to have been a company specialising in heating and air-conditioning products.  I write “seems”, as references to the company are still on the Web, but links lead to dead pages.  If Kazys had become a specialist spray painter, his work on heating and air-conditioning products would have been similar to his work at Cannon & Hornby.

A group of Hobart Lithuanians about 1950:  Kazys Alseika is on the right

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė 31 July 2000 p 4

Tarvydas has called Alseika “Kazimieras” on page 158, but this also was the version of his name used on the one document in the Arolsen Archives which relates to him.  We know that the Arolsen Archive document is about our Kazys because of the birthdate.

Kazys Marries

Kazys married Marcia Ina Paul at New Town, Hobart, on 5 January 1950.  They were living on Butler Avenue, Moonah. She had brought 2 children into the marriage.  It looks like Marcia won any discussion about religion, given that they were married in a Congregational Church although Kazys had previously stated that he was a Roman Catholic.

The wedding made the social pages of the Hobart Mercury newspaper, on 28 February 1950, under the heading of Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings.

Kazys became an Australian citizen on 15 December 1955.  It’s interesting to note that the two women who swore in relation to his application that they had known him for some years and that he was a person of good repute had married into his wife’s family. Her maiden name was Cook, and these two women, both of whom gave their occupation as housewife, used the family name Cook also.

Rocky Kazys Alseika

It seems that at least one child was born in the marriage.  A football club register of all players prepared by a diligent supporter and placed on the Web gives the birthdate of Rocky Kazys Alseika as 19 December 1959.  The football club was the Cygnets, Australian Rules players from the township of Port Cygnet in Southern Tasmania, but the register records zero games for Rocky.

That is an unusual name to give a child, but Rocky Marciano, undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion from 1952 to his 1956 retirement, certainly was a well-known name in the 1950s.  Rocky Marciano might have been on Kazys’ mind when his very own son was born.

Our Kazys Dies Early, After Building a House

Sad to report, Kazys had died already when Ramunas was doing his research in the 1990s.  His date of death was 21 November 1984, so he was only 67 at the time. Ramunas was able to interview Marcia though, using her report on the building on their own Derwent Park house in his book.

Source:  Ramunas Tarvydas, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, p 64

Marcia lived as a widow for another 15 years, dying in 1995 and being buried besides Kazys.  Their burial place is the Kingston Cemetery, in a town so close to Hobart that it might well be a suburb now.

The plaque where Kazys and Marcia, or their ahses, are buried

Source:  Julie Henderson & Lacey Milier on Find A Grave

Rocky did not survive long after his parents, dying on 29 August 2005 when only 45 years old.

Rocky Alseika's plaque in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery needed restoration
when this photograph was taken, but his image is clear still

Source:  MargaretM on Find A Grave

Our Kazys in Lithuania and Germany

Kazys had been born on 8 June 1917 in Kretinga, in Klaipėda County, making him another Samogitian.  His parents were another Kazys and Adolfina.  The Hobart Mercury report on the Alseika wedding calls Kazys “the youngest son of Mr and Mrs K Alseika”.

On a statutory declaration in relation to his application for naturalization, Kazys declared that he had left Lithuania on 10 October 1944, which was rather late to be leaving that invaded nation.  He arrived in Germany on 12 October 1944, he declared.

In an Arolsen Archives list of Lithuanians living in Oldenburg in the British Zone of occupied Germany, Kazys is shown at the same address as one “Viktora” Alseika.  The occupation for both is Bauer, German for farmer.  Since first I thought that this had something to do with building, I looked more closely at “Viktora”, to see that “she” was männl., short for männlich, German for male or masculine.  Someone has left the “s” off the end of Viktoras’ name.  He was born 9 years before Kazys, in 1908.

This would have made him only 39 in 1947, within the age range Australia was considering and raising the question of why he did not come to Australia with Kazys.  The possibilities are that he applied but was rejected, or that he decided to hold out for another country.  Either way, 3 documents digitised by the Arolsen Archives have him setting out for Canada on 13 April 1949.

Perhaps Viktoras preferred a colder climate.  Kazys certainly got a climate as cold as Australia gets in Tasmania.

CITE THIS AS: Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Kazys Alseika (1917-1984), the Tasmanian One'

SOURCES

Australijos Lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) (1950) 'Mišri šeima’ (‘Blended Family, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, SA, 20 March, p 31 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280319034, accessed 28 February 2026.

Britannica ‘Rocky Marciano, American boxer’ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rocky-Marciano, accessed 28 February 2026.

‘Correspondence and nominal roles, done at Bremen-Grohn: transport by ship (USS GENERAL HOWZE, USS GENERAL MCRAE); transit countries and final destinations: Canada, USA’, 3.1.3 Emigrations, DocID: 81660307 ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/81660307, accessed 2 March 2026.

Cygnet Football Club, ‘Register of Games Played’ http://cygnetfc.com.au/index.php/download_file/-/view/61, accessed through Internet Archive Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/http://cygnetfc.com.au/index.php/download_file/-/view/61, accessed 2 March 2026. [The Cygnet FC is moving its website to a new location. As of 2 March 2026, the new site did not include this version of the Register.]

‘Folder DP0049, names from ALPINA, STANISLAW to ALTAZIN, Louis’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 66415045 (VIKTORAS ALSEIKA) ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66415045, accessed 28 February 2026.

‘Folder DP0049, names from ALPINA, STANISLAW to ALTAZIN, Louis’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 66415046 (VIKTORAS ALSEIKA) ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66415046, accessed 2 March 2026.

Mercury (1950) 'Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings’ Hobart, Tas, 28 February, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26686218, accessed 28 February 2026.

‘Original collection’ 2.1.2.1 NI 054 2 Information on foreigners being locally registered (after the war) in the district Oldenburg/oldenburg (SK), DocID: 70713224, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70713224, accessed 2 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1955/6002, Application for Naturalisation - ALSEIKA Kazys born 8 June 1917, 1955-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8858840, accessed 2 March 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; 8, ALSEIKA Kazys DOB 8 June 1917, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005451, accessed 2 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P3, Personal case files, annual single number series with 'T' (Tasmania) prefix, 1951-; T1969/1987, Alseika, Kazys, 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9588585, accessed 2 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; ALSEIKA KAZYS, ALSEIKA, Kazys : Year of Birth - 1917 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 408, 1947-1948; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203676793, accessed 2 March 2026.

Saturday Evening Express (1952) ‘New Firm’s Success’ Launceston, Tas, 31 May, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/265092824, accessed 2 March 2026.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, Tasmania, pp 64, 145, 158.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (2000) ‘Lietuviai Tasmanijoje 1950 – 2000’ (‘Lithuanians in Tasmania 1950 – 2000’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 31 July, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/2000/2000-07-31-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 2 March 2026.

Welcome to Cygnet Football Club https://cygnetfc.tidyhq.com/, accessed 28 February 2026.