Edmundas Obolevičius (1906-96), Doctor of Economics and Slave Labourer, by Ann Tündern-Smith, Daina Pocius and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Updated 21 April 2026.

Edmundas' background

Edmundas was one of the older refugees on the First Transport, having turned 41 in the middle of the selection process.  He had been born in Lithuania on 17 October 1906.

An entry on the Geni.com genealogy Website records his parents as Kiprijonas and Elžbieta.  He had a brother and 2 younger sisters.

Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius in his selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Australian documents give his birthplace in Lithuania as either Pasekine, Pocejkien or Pacejkinie but Web searches could not find these places with these spellings.  Rasa has found that, in 1909, Edmundas family were recorded as attending their church from a place called Paceikiniai, which no longer exists.  

The nearest place now is the village of Ceikiniai, which perhaps is Paceikiniai renamed.  It is possible that Paceikiniai was lost in the heat of a WWII battle.

Edmundas' selection documents reveal someone single at 40, who had spent 25 years as a farmer in Lithuania but was well educated.  In addition to 4 years of primary school, he had 5 years at a teachers' college and 4 years in a faculty of economics.  

The economics presumably had been studied at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania's only university during the inter-War period.  It offered economics, but did not have a separate faculty in this area.  He was enrolled in doctoral studies in economics at the time of applying to move to Australia.

Edmundas the Displaced Person

Edmundas was living in '46 DPAC Brauweiler' at the time of the application.  DPAC stands for Displaced Persons Assembly Centre.  While there are 2 places called Brauweiler in Germany, the one in which a DPAC was known was just west of Cologne.  The British occupation administration repurposed the Brauweiler Abbey to accommodate the Displaced Persons, while the Wikipedia summary of its history indicates that it has accommodated a wide variety of other people during its now 1000-year history.

Brauweiler Abbey, the former Assembly Centre (hardly a 'camp')
for Obolevičius and other WWII Displaced Persons

Source:  A Savin in Wikipedia

Edmundas scored a D Recommendation after his interview, possibly because of his age, lack of English, and academic interests.  His 25 years of farming and his recent employment as a mechanic should have stood in his favour.  Despite the D, he was a passenger on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, leaving Bremerhaven and Germany on 30 October 1947.

Edmundas in Australia

His Bonegilla card tells us that he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley in late January 1948.  His employer there was TE Young of Ardmona.  He picked the fruit for more than 2 months (unlike some who gave up much earlier) returning to Bonegilla on 10 April.  He was then employed as a casual labourer in the camp for one week, between 13 and 20 April.

Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was one of a group of 20 sent to the Goliath Portland Cement company in Tasmania on 22 April 1948.  Ramunas Tarvydas, in his 1997 book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, has been able to compile a detailed picture of life there for the 20, and another 3 who joined them later.  It’s worth noting here that Edmundas gets a special (misspelt) mention, as a teetotaler who was saving his money to return to Europe.

More on Life in Germany

Where in Europe is the question, with Lithuania occupied and the only available Arolsen Archives document suggesting that Edmundas had a nasty time in Germany while the War was still on.

The Arolsen Archives document is stamped Organisation Todt Speer, indicating that Edmundas was likely to have been employed as a slave labourer.  Apart from Edmundas’ birthdate, the only date on it is 6 December 1944.  A second page notes, in German, that it has been recorded, and was received from the Federal Archives in Aachen.  This is a city in the west of Germany, near its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.

If there was any more detail, it has gone.  The Organisation Todt Speer name, however, is enough to tell us that Edmundas survived probable hard labour in difficult conditions.

Despite this, his Australian interview form reports that he 'fled from Russian regime'.  Most likely he had, but into the worst that Germany had to offer, it seems.

After what must have been equally hard labour but under much better employment conditions, Edmundas is said to have moved on from Goliath Cement to the Electrolytic Zinc company’s Risdon operation in Hobart.  Zinc from Tasmania’s west coast was smelted there.  This information was recorded by Ramundas Tarvydas during his research.

Edmundas Leaves Australia Early

Records maintained by the Goliath Company (now part of Cement Australia) show a different picture.  Papers which appear to be working documents created by Ramunas Tarvydas were acquired from the Company’s office through Stephen Niaura, son of Povilas (Paul or Cocky).

Obolevičius is one of 11 with Absconded, or Left of Own Accord, written against their names.  In his case, the approximate date recorded is 16 March 1949.  In Edmundas’ favour, the date is more than two weeks after the date recorded for most of those absconding, and more than one month after the first 2 disappeared.  He had plenty of examples to follow.

Underneath the record of absconding, someone has written, possibly in pencil ‘Back to Germany; why?’

An item in the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper in August 1951 suggests that Edmundas was still in Australia and perhaps in Melbourne.  This is because he had donated 7 books to a library which the Lithuanian community had started in Melbourne.  Could he have donated them from Germany?

A 1956 Mūsų Pastogė item reports that enough candidates had been found to have an election for a committee to oversee the Sydney community’s affairs.  Obolevičius (no given name) was one of them.  The National Archives of Australia has only one Obolevicius in its RecordSearch: Edmundas.

This conflicts with a 1952 comment in a Canadian newspaper, Tėviškės Žiburiai, reporting on Lithuanian students still in Germany.  The report includes the Doctor of Economics Obelevičius, who went to Australia but who has returned to Hangelar (a district of the city of Sankt Augustin located between the centre of Sankt Augustin and Bonn).  If that Dr Obelevičius is indeed Edmundas, the question asked by the Goliath Cement management is answered easily.

Despite the absence of a second Obolevicius from the National Archives’ records, a report in the Mūsų Pastogė sports section of the 8 May 1959 includes a B Obelevičius living in a Snowy Mountains settlement named River Camp.  This is some distance from Sydney in 1956, but it is possible that B Obelevičius was volunteering then for the Sydney community committee, rather than Edmundas.

We’ve tried to find more information about the PhD in Economics, but available evidence on the Web has not yielded more information. 

The best that Artificial Intelligence can do is suggest a number of reasons why further information is missing, such as, the successful candidate was not required to lodge his thesis back then, or, it was completed at the University of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, whose records might be buried in Russian Archives.

The University of Cologne, with an excellent reputation in the field of economics and near Brauweiler, replied to a query that its 1947 enrolment records could be examined in person only.

Edmundas Returned to Lithuania

What we can find is the return of Edmundas Obelevičius to a liberated Lithuania, where he died in 1996. He may not have married, or remarried, as he is buried by himself in the Ignalina City Cemetery.  

Remember that we told you earlier that Edmundas' birthplace of Paceikiniai seems to have been replaced by Ceikiniai?  This village is 12 Km southeast of Ignalina, so Edmundas now lies as close as is possible to his birthplace.

He had lived what must have been a varied life to a considerable age of around 90.

Edmundas' headstone in the Ingalina Cemetery, Lithuania

Source:  Cemety.lt

Ignalina Cemetery from the air

Source:  Cemety.lt

SOURCES

Cement Australia ‘Railton community’ https://www.cementaustralia.com.au/railton-community, accessed 18 April 2026.

Cemety.lt ‘Edmunas Obolevičius’ https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/2287576?type=deceased, accessed 18 April 2026.

(Edmunas Obolevicius) DocID: 77182225, 2.2.3.1 Card file of the "Organisation Todt" / File cards of foreigners who were deployed by the OT/Speer, 12.7.1934, 16.1.1941, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/77182225, accessed 16 January 2026.

Geni ‘Edmundas Obolevičius’ https://www.geni.com/people/Edmundas-Obolevi%C4%8Dius/6000000181316756829?through=6000000026482812166, accessed 16 January 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1951) Iš mūsų buities’ (‘From our Life’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 30 August, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259365682, accessed 167April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Sydnejus, Nauja LN taryba’ (Sydney, New Lithuanian Council’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 5 September, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1956/1956-09-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1959) ‘Sportas, Sportiškumo pavyzdys’ (‘Sport, An Example of Sportsmanship’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 8 May, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1959/1959-05-08-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 18 April 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; 858, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas DOB 17 October 1906, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005963, accessed 20 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42), 1937-1948; 37/395, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas born 17 November 1906; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272948, accessed 20 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; OBOLEVICIUS EDMUNDAS, OBOLEVICIUS, Edmundas : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 1231 1947-48 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203728249, accessed 20 April 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 48, 174.

Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (1952) ‘Iš lietuviškojo pasaulio’ (From the Lithuanian world’, in Lithuanian) Toronto, Ont, 3 July, p 4 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/1952/1952-07-03-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026

Wikipedia 'Brauweiler Abbey' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brauweiler_Abbey, accessed 19 April 2026.

Wikipedia 'Ceikiniai' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceikiniai, accessed 21 April 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Hangelar’ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangelar, (in German) accessed 18 April 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Organisation Todt’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_Todt, accessed 16 January 2026.

Saliamonas Antanas Martišius (1920-1971) Early Accidental Death, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Saliamonas Antanas’ life ended tragically, when he was aged only 51.  After work one day, as he tried to cross Macquarie Street near its intersection with Elizabeth Street in Hobart’s business district, he was hit by a bus.

He received serious head injuries and was taken to hospital for an operation.  He died the following day, 5 October 1971, without regaining consciousness.

For Tasmania’s Lithuanian community, what made this accident even more distressing was that the bus driver was another Lithuanian.

St. Teresa’s Church was almost full with Lithuanians for his funeral and the procession to the cemetery had about 50 cars in the convoy.  Juozas Paškevičius, the Chairman of the District, gave a farewell speech at the grave on behalf of the Lithuanian Community, and a fellow First Transporter, Vladas Mikelaitis, also said some words.  Saliamonas was buried in Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart.

Saliamonas Antanas was an unusual example of a Lithuanian commonly known by his middle name, Antanas.  From the viewpoint of this blog, this presents a problem: there was another Antanas Martišius on the ship which brought him to Australia, the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.  The other Antanas, the namefellow, already has a biography on this blog which you can find here.

For the remainder of this biography, though, we can used the name by which Saliamonas Antanas was called in life, Antanas.  And we will ignore one given to him by someone at the Bonegilla camp, who crossed out Saliamonas on his Alien Registration form and wrote instead, ‘Selemous’.  He also got ‘Selemons’ on his file when he applied for citizenship, and when that citizenship was granted and gazetted.  Really, Antanas was a safer option.

His Mūsų Pastogė obituarist described him as a quiet, modest Lithuanian, but sensitive and generous to the activities of Lithuanians.  He supported the work of Lithuanian organisations as much as he could, and every year, when he sent his subscription fee to the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper, he added extra to help the publication.

He wanted his children to speak Lithuanian, and sent them to weekend school, as well as national dancing and singing lessons.  Despite being in poor health himself, he volunteered as a teacher at the school when needed.

Antanas had been born in Sintautai in the Lithuanian district of Šakiai, into a farming family.  There is official confusion about the date of his birth, with some records stating 23 April 1920 and others 4 March 1920.  His obituarist preferred 1921.

His Australian selection papers say that he “fled from Russian regime”, which differentiates him from all those forced to travel to Germany by the German military.  He did this in August 1944, so he somehow got out despite the Soviet military have returned to Lithuania in July 1944.

He was recorded to have had 3 years of primary school education and 2 years in secondary school, so more than the minimum for a Lithuanian at the time.  Although rated as B+ by the selection team, he certainly got onto the First Transport.

At the time of his interview and health examination for Australia, it looks like he was living in Camp 223/H, Assembly Centre 223, Controlled by 11 DPACS, wherever that was.  Fortunately, ChatGPT has been able to decode this, based on a German language account of the Baltic camps in the Oldenburg region by Günter Heuzeroth.  

Herr Heuzeroth and Chat GPT say that this camp was in Oldenburg in the Lower Saxony region, there being a second Oldenburg in Holstein, near Lübeck on the Baltic coast.  11 DPACS was the joint British and UNRRA administrative unit responsible for the centre

Now that we know that Antanas was in the British zone of occupation, we can point out that he was living in harsher conditions that the refugees in the American zone.  After all, Britain itself had been bombed and battered during WWII, unlike the United States.

He had been working as a cleaner for two years, while the examining doctor rated him suitable for agricultural work.  The Particulars of Displaced Person Wishing to Migrate to Australia form completed on his behalf before his interview recorded that he had farmed in Lithuania for 10 years and also in Germany for 8 months.  Since those ten years would have been before July 1944, it looks like he started when he was aged 14.

After World War II in Germany, while being treated in a military hospital, he met a nursing sister called Helma Rohleder.  Even though he left for Australia on 30 October 1947 on the First Transport, they stayed in touch through letters.

Post-War photograph of Saliamonas Antanas included with his selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

From the Bonegilla camp, Antanas was one of 12 men sent to Tasmania to work for the Electrolytic Zinc (EZ) company at Burnie.  It may be that he completed his two-year contract at another EZ facility, at Risdon in the State’s capital city, Hobart.

Antanas Martišius from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

He later worked at the Cadbury chocolate factory.  In his spare time, he built a house and in 1955 invited Helma to be his wife.  She arrived from Germany in April 1955.

The coroner’s report into his death gave his then occupation as carpenter.  He certainly would have learned a lot of carpentry from practical experience when he built his own house.

The Melbourne Tėviškės aidai newspaper reported in June 1958 that Antanas Martišius had been seriously injured in a car accident, as a result of which he had lost an eye “some time ago”.  We know that this refers to Saliamonas Antanas because the report is in a column headed with a poetic version of “From Tasmania”, while the other Antanas Martišius left Bonegilla to spend the remainder of his Australian time in Victoria.

Is this why the Tasmanian Antanas did not see the bus coming 13 years after the first accident?  The coroner’s cursory finding made no mention of anything which might have contributed to the second, fatal accident.

Antanas’ sudden death later left Helma to raise two children on her own, 12-year-old Petras and 9-year-old Alyssa.  Valued for probate in January 1998, his estate amounted to $2865, but that is around $40,000 in today’s prices so enough to give the family some initial support.

SOURCES

Augustavičius, S (1994) ‘A † A Helma Martišius’ (‘RIP Helma Martisius’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 27 June, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1994/1994-06-27-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 10 April 2026.

Heuzeroth, Günter (2014) Baltenflüchtlinge nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg im deutschen Exil, Ein Balanceakt zwischen Diktaturen und Demokratie, Dargestellt an den Baltenkolonien im Oldenburger Land (Baltic refugees in German exile after the Second World War: A balancing act between dictatorships and democracy, illustrated by the Baltic colonies in the Oldenburg region) Günter Heuzeroth, Oldenburg www.oldenburg.de/startseite/kultur/freizeitstaetten/kulturzentrum/geschichte.html, accessed 17 April 2026.

Libraries Tasmania, Names Index, ‘Martisius, Saliamonas Anton’ [Inquest report] https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=martisius#, accessed 15 April 2026.

Libraries Tasmania, Names Index, ‘Martisius, Saliamonas Antanas’ [Will] https://librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names/search/results?qu=martisius#, accessed 15 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1971) ‘Dar viena skaudi eismo nelaimė’ (‘Another painful traffic accident’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 6 December, p 8, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1971/1971-12-06-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 14 April 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; 195, MARTISIUS Saliamonas DOB 23 April 1920, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005612, accessed 10 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1939-1966; MARTISIUS H, 1955-1955; MARTISIUS H, MARTISIUS [nee ROHLEDER] Helma [German], 1955-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1776113, accessed 16 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1939-1966; MARTISIUS S, MARTISIUS Selemous (sic) [Lithuanian], 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1776115, accessed 15 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MARTISIUS SALIAMONAS, MARTISIUS, Saliamonas : Year of Birth - 1920 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 591, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203615120, accessed 10 April 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (1958) ‘Iš Tasmanijos padangės’ (‘From under Tasmanian skies’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 4 June, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1958/1958-06-04-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 13 April 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (1971) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Hobartas, A A Antanas Martišius‘ (‘From Our Parishes, Hobart, RIP Antanas Martisius’ , in Lithuanian), Melbourne, Vic, 19 October, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr40-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 12 April 2026.

Anton Warapnickas, formerly Antanas Varapnickas (1914-1995), by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

The Germans use the letter W to represent the sound we make when a V is used in Lithuanian and English.  Antanas, the Lithuanian equivalent of the English language Anthony, also is likely to be Anton in Germany.  Changing his name to make it easier for the Germans is the most likely explanation for the Lithuanian refugee, Antanas Varapnickas, arriving in Australia as Anton Warapnickas.

The Arolsen Archives is yet to digitise any German records for Anton Warapnickas or Antanas Varapnickas.  Likewise, the Australian Archives in yet to digitise Anton Warapnickas’ papers relating to his application to migrate to Australia and his selection interview.  This means that we do not know when or how Antanas or Anton arrived in Germany.

However, a Lithuanian language newspaper published in Germany, Mūsų kelias (Our Path), carried advertisements from Antanas in May 1946.  He then was looking for his brother Jonas and someone called Ona Šimonelytė.  He also enquired after his married sister, Ona Kikilenė, her husband, Zenonas Kikilas, and their children, Gyliai and Gylytė. At this time he was based in the German coastal city of Lübeck.

We also know that he had married in Lithuania, to Judita Stonkutė.  Their marriage took place on 18 September 1938, when Antanas was 24, in the Seda parish church.  He had been born on 11 March 1914 in Grūstė village, Seda parish, Mažeikiai district, in Lithuania.  From the marriage record, we know that his mother’s name was Petronėlė Varapnickaitė (the name of an unmarried woman) and his father’s name was not stated.

The marriage record also tells us that his occupation, in Lithuanian, was darbininkas. This is the equivalent of labourer in the English language.

Anton Warapnickas from his Bonegilla card --

whatever was wrong with the eyelid on the right had been fixed by the photograph below

Source:  National Archives of Australia

His Bonegilla card confirmed that he had been the Antanas Varapnickas whose next of kin was a mother called Petronėlė Varapnickienė living in the Seda Grūstės village.  It might have been that a new Lithuanian arrival with good English and typing skills was helping the staff fill out the Bonegilla cards (someone like Viltis Salyte), in which case the married form of the family name (the one ending in -ienė) would have been assumed — and who was Anton to argue against this?

His Bonegilla card also advises us he had arrived in Australia on 28 November 1947 on the First Transport.  He then became one of the 26 men sent from the Bonegilla camp to help build the Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme.  He left the camp on 14 January 1948, so he had spent roughly 5 weeks there.  For his sake, we hope that he was committed to attending the weekday English language classes.

He married for a second time in Melbourne in 1951, to Maria Pilelis.  It looks like she too modified her first name, perhaps in Germany, to suit the local orthography, as it usually is spelled Marija in Lithuania and Latvia.

She had arrived with Stepas Pilelis, 11 months older than her, on the Amarapoora.  This ship reached Fremantle in Western Australia on 22 July 1949.  Sad to say, Stepas was dead just over a year later, at the age of only 49.  An unsourced newspaper clipping on one of his files said that he was a tuberculosis patient who had hung himself from a tree, leaving a letter of explanation behind.  (The National Library’s Trove service reveals that the relevant newspaper was the West Australian.)

Stepas’ tuberculosis would not have been detected until Australia despite the careful checking for possible tuberculosis among all potential immigrants, which continues to this day.

Stepas was Latvian.   We know from a Tėviškės aidai obituary for Marija that her brother, Juozas Narušis, had a Lithuanian name. From this we deduce that Marija too was from a Lithuanian family and we know already that she was a widow before her second marriage to Anton or Antanas.

Together Anton and Maria advertised their intention to apply for Australian citizenship in the required 2 newspapers in August 1954.  They received this citizenship on 25 November 1955, when living on Bardsley Street, Sunshine, a northwest Melbourne suburb.

Antanas Varapnickas was another friend of Rasa's grandfather, Adomas Ivanauskas:
here, Adomas (standing, left) has his hand on Antanas' shoulder (standing, right);
others in the photograph include Adomas' friend Beryl (front left) and, possibly, 
Marija Varapnickas (second from left)

Source:  Private collection

The earliest available digitised electoral roll on the Ancestry Website, for 1963, shows Anton working as a labourer while Maria had found employment as a weaver.  She may have been working for a factory in the Sunshine area manufacturing fabrics – or perhaps at home, weaving folk fabrics for members of the Lithuanian community.  Their situation remained the same in electoral rolls for 1967 to 1972.

At some stage they sought the rural life, moving to Daylesford, a spa town 114 Km northwest of central Melbourne.  Perhaps they thought that living here was more like living in Lithuania than Sunshine had been.

Their move to Daylesford occurred before one of two joint Commonwealth-State electoral 1977 rolls for Bendigo were compiled.  The compilation date for the digitised one possibly is 22 April 1977.  Anton still was working as a labourer, while “Mary”, now 67 years old, had moved to home duties.  This means that her previous work as a weaver was likely to have been in a factory.

On the 1980 roll, Anton had modified his occupation to builder’s labourer and they were at a different Daylesford address, suggesting that they were renting rather than buying.  From the Ancestry digitising we cannot tell the date on which the roll was compiled, but Anton had reached eligibility for the age pension on his 65th birthday, 11 March 1979.  The roll makes it look like Anton preferred to continue working for builders to retirement.

It was in Daylesford that Marija died on 13 January 1993 at the age of 82.  The Tėviškės aidai obituary records that she had been seriously ill for 26 years, a statement that suggests cancer as the cause of death. In Lithuanian, the obituary continued, “Deeply saddened are her husband, Antanas Varapnickas, sister Mercelė Matulionienė, sister Magdė Rimušaitienė in Berlin (and) brother Juozas Narušis, who endured 26 years of suffering in Siberia and lives in Lithuania”.

Anton or Antanas followed nearly 3 years later, on 19 September 1995. Both had spent their last days in the Daylesford Hospital. Antanas was 81 when he passed, a good age.

Although Anton Warapnickas never had changed his name back to its Lithuanian spelling, Tėviškės aidai used the Lithuanian version in its brief obituary.

This notes that he was buried with Marija in the Daylesford Cemetery. It adds, “We have no further information about the deceased.”

May this blog entry put on record that he was one of the 727 men thought young, fit, sturdy and alert enough to be chosen for inclusion in the first post-WWII party of refugees from Germany to Australia – a social experiment testing whether or not the Australian people were ready for migration from Europe so soon after the War’s end. The experiment was an immediate success and a resounding one too, in that it started the culturally diverse migration program Australia still has today.

The headstone on the Warapnickas grave in the Daylesford Cemetery

Courtesy Daylesford & District Historical Society

SOURCES

Ancestry, ‘Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 for Anton Warapnickas’ [1963] https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/33112_202632__151-00315?rc=&queryId=a21ba650-ff59-47ae-8859-f0a92b1cb248&usePUB=true&_phsrc=caR321&_phstart=successSource&pId=80213119, accessed 10 April 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Anton Warapnizkas’ (sic) https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203910028, accessed 9 April 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1955) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ [Maria Warapnickas’ naturalization] Canberra, ACT, 26 April, p 1154 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232877677/25099499, accessed 10 April 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1955) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ [Anton Warapnickas’ naturalization] Canberra, ACT, 10 May, p 1303 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232877677/25099499, accessed 10 April 2026.

Metrikai.lt [Search for a marriage certificate for Varapnickas, Location = Seda, County = Mažeikiai, Parish/village = Seda RKB] https://www.metrikai.lt/?F6=Sedos%20RKB&title=Varapnickas, accessed 10 April 2026.

Mūsų kelias (Our path) (1946) ‘Mes ieškome savųjų‘ (‘We are looking for relatives’, in Lithuanian) Dillingen, Germany, 23 May, p 7 https://spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_musu_kelias/archive/1946-nr20-MUSU-KELIAS.pdf, accessed 9 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A7109, "Dead" card index of Registered Aliens, 1948-1951; PILELIS, Stepas: Year of Birth - 1910: Place of Birth - LATVIA: Travelled per - AMARAPOORA: Certificate No – 95035, 1948-1951 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=205653436, accessed 10 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; K1331, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1948-1965; 1950/PILELIS S, PILELIS Stepas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per Amarapoora 22 July 1949, 1949-1949, recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3102072, accessed 10 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; WARAPNIZKAS (sic) ANTON, WARAPNIZKAS (sic), Anton : Year of Birth - 1913 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 826, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203910028, accessed 10 April 2026.

Sunshine Advocate (1954) ‘Public Notices’ Sunshine, Vic, 15 August, p 12 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/74772914?searchTerm=Warapnickas, accessed 9 April 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (1993) ‘A † A Marija Varapnickienė ‘ (‘RIP Marija Varapnickiene’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 2 February, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1993/1993-02-02-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 10 April 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (1995) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Melbournas‘ (‘From Our Parishes, Melbourne’, in Lithuanian), Melbourne, Vic, 3 October, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1995/1995-10-03-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 10 April 2026.

West Australian (1950) ‘Migrant Found Dead’ Perth, WA, 9 August, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47879465, accessed 10 April 2026.

Wikipedia, 'Daylesford, Victoria' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylesford,_Victoria, accessed 10 April 2026.

Bolius (Balys) (1924-2011) and Vytautas (Vytas) (1926-1993) Kunčiūnas: Lithuanian brothers or half-brothers? By Rasa Ščevinskiene and Ann Tündern-Smith

Same father, different mothers?

Bolius and Vytautas Kunčiūnas have one record each in the Arolsen Archives.  It shows them as having the same father, Stasys Kunčiūnas and coming from the same place, Raseiniai in Lithuania.  This could either have been a small town with a population of 5270 in the 1923 Census, nearly half of whom were Jewish, or the larger county, part of Samogitia.

The difference is that Bolius’ mother is recorded as Konstancija Bendikaite while Vytas’ mother is said to be Konstancija Šilaikaite.  The two American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) DP Registration Records were signed off with the same signature on the same date (13.10.45) and at the same place, Assembly Center No. 24.

Is it possible that there is a spelling mistake with one of the mother’s surnames?  Rasa says yes, it is possible.  Ann says that the same official filling out both forms on the day, in the same place, makes it unlikely.

Also unlikely is that two successive wives might be called Konstancija, but Ann suggests that this might be one of the reasons why Stays Kunčiūnas , if a widower with a baby son, might have started talking with the second Konstancija.  By the way, there are no online records of a Konstancija Kunčiūnas dying or being buried.

Both young men are recorded as Roman Catholic on the General Stuart Heintzelman passenger list, so there was no possibility of Stasys and Konstancija Bendikaite divorcing in the 1920s, between the birth of Bolius, on 24 April 1924, and Vytas, on 12 September 1926.  Should they have separated, the baby Bolius surely would gone with his mother, so what then were the chances of the two reaching Germany together or both applying for and being selected for the same ship to Australia?

Vytautas Kunčiūnas in Australia

Someone made sure that Vytas travelled under a false name though, because he became Vytas Kuniciunas on the Heintzelman passenger list and in subsequent documents on arrival in Australia.

Vytautas Kunciunas photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When he left the Bonegilla camp for the Pyramid Hill Quarries on 7 January 1948, the same hand which wrote his destination in flowing script also wrote “unknown” in the space for his next of kin.  Whoever typed out Bolius’ Bonegilla card has recorded “brother, Vitas Kunciunas” in that next of kin space.  Ann notes that “brother” is still shorthand when the accurate relationship is “half-brother” (and also in the case of step-brother).

The person completing Vytas’ card probably had forgotten to ask him.

The evening befoore Vytas’ departure from Bonegilla for Pyramid Hill on 7 January 1948 was memorable enough for Jonas Urbonas to record it in his diary for 6 January.  The entry was republished in the Mūsų Pastogė edition of 5 August 1996, in preparation for the 50th anniversary of Lithuanian scouting in Australia.  The translation of Jonas’ entry reads as follow:

“Tomorrow the first swallow will fly away from us into an unknown future.  It is Brother Kunčiūnas.  By the burning bonfire we say goodbye to him and the other brothers who are preparing to leave this emigrant camp.  Brother Kunčiūnas' words, full of deep sincerity, touch the heart of every Scout.  He remembers the last moments spent in the Homeland, the separation from his parents, and the tears rolling down his cheeks did not allow him to finish his farewell speech.

“Then we all parted ways and left the gardens of the homeland, hoping to return to the homeland again before the storms of war hit.  We are tightly bound by our mutual promises, although the weapons of war do not ring and we are not pursued by the occupiers and our goals have already changed, but we are united by common ideas, we dare to meet in camps and at conventions.  Although the vast distances and various obstacles separate us, we press on, wishing our brother Vytas good luck and a joint flight to the Pacific Jamboree.  After the traditional words are said, we leave the campfire."

Vytautas While in Germany

As for other members of the family, an April 1946 notice in the post-War, Lithuanian language newspaper, Žiburiai (Lights), had Vytas looking for his sister, Aldona Kunčiūnaitė, and brothers Jonas and Algirdas Kunčiūnas.

Vytas was living at 6a Altenberg Strasse, Borghorst, Wesphalia. Vytas added Münster to this address, but this bombed city was close to uninhabitable at the time. Perhaps he was trying to give readers a better idea of where he was than using only the name of the much smaller Borghorst, which also offered support to DPs.

The address also shows that Vytas had found private accommodation rather than living in a DP camp.

Bolius in Germany

A mid-1947 issue of another Lithuanian-language newspaper, Lietuvių žodis (Lithuanian Word) reported on a basketball competition organised by the Reppner YMCA.  B Kunčiunas played on the winning team.  As Repner is some 200 Km from Münster, it is unlikely that Bolius was travelling that distance in the conditions of post-War Germany to play basketball.

It is worth noting that Camp 24, where both Bolius and Vytas were registered in 1945, was a Repner camp for Baltic refugees.  It looks like Vytas moved out of the camp and to Borghorst for whatever reason.

On the other hand, it looks like the brothers were communicating with each other in order for both to be interviewed for the first refugee ship to Australia.  And Vytas wasn’t looking for Bolius as well in that Žiburiai notice because he knew where Bolius was.

Bolius Kunčiūnas in Australia

While Vytas was one of the 7 sent to the Pyramid Hill granite quarry, Bolius was one of 2 sent to the sawmill at Togganoggera in New South Wales.  We recently posted what we know of the other man sent to Togganoggera, Mečys Laurinavičius.   Mečys moved to the NSW capital city, Sydney, but Bolius moved instead to Victoria’s capital, Melbourne – perhaps because his brother headed there when his time at Pyramid Hill was over.

Bolius Kunciunas from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Bolius’ occupation on the AEF DP Registration Recorded was stated to be student. Student of what, you may well ask.  It looks like architecture, because that is where he finished up in Australia.

Presumably he continued his studies when possible while he worked in jobs as relevant as possible.  We draw this conclusion from Bolius being added to the Register of Architects in Victoria in 1964, his 17th year in Australia.  This length of time suggests that he may have had something of a struggle to obtain his registration, as did a fellow architect from the First Transport, Ernst Kesa.  Kesa, however, had qualified as an architect in Europe and was able to work in the field before registration because his qualification also encompassed engineering.

Moving as far away from Melbourne as Darwin in order to do related work shows how keen Bolius was.  We know about his time in Darwin from social notes, Diana’s Diary, in a Darwin newspaper, the Northern Standard.  In March 1953, “Diana” recorded Bolius Kunciunas among the staff of the Drawing Office of the Department of Works who met at a Darwin hotel to farewell one of their number leaving on a holiday.

The online Dictionary of Unsung Architects, in its entry on D Graeme Lumsden, mentions Bolius Kunciunas as an architect “known to have passed through the office over the years“.  Since we cannot find Bolius’ work as an architect mentioned anywhere else on the Web, we could say that there was even less singing about it than about Graeme Lumsden’s work.  Lumsden was based in Melbourne, so Bolius must have left Darwin.

Bolius, also known as Balys to Lithuanians and Bill to Australians, was in Melbourne in 1955.  We know this because that is when he married another Lithuanian, Gražina Natalija, whose family name formerly was Bitė.  He was living in the Melbourne suburb of North Coburg when he became an Australian citizen on 2 May 1957.   Gražina had to wait one month more for citizenship, until 11 June 1957.

Bolius’ electoral roll records from 1963 to 1980 have been digitised by Ancestry.  On 8 March 1963, he and Gražina still were living in North Coburg but, by 19 April, they had moved to from their inner city home to the outer suburb of Nunawading.  On both occasions, his stated occupation was draftsman.  This continued into the 1980 entry, despite his registration as a qualified architect in 1964.

What is different about the 1980 entry is that it includes two more members of the Kunciunas family, male and female, both students but clearly having reached the age of 18. This means that Bolius and Gražina had their two children 18 years before the unrecorded date on which the 1980 roll was made up, that is, in 1958 or earlier.

The Melbourne Immigration Museum has a public artwork that pays tribute to 7000 people who have made the journey to Victoria.  Located in the northern garden of the Museum, its original artwork was designed by a Melbourne-based artist, Evangelos Sakaris, and launched in 1998.  Gina Batsakis led the design for the following stages of the project, which concluded in 2002.  Immigrants were invited to immortalise their own and family names there on payment of $100 for each name.  Bolius and Gražina (nee Bitė) Kunčiūnas and family were among the names so immortalised.

Morta Prasmutiene, widow of First Transporter Karolis Prašmutas, centre,
in the Immigration Museum's Tribute Garden

Source:  Birutė Prašmutaitė in Mūsų Pastogė

Bolius died on 19 September 2011, aged 87, and was cremated in Springvale Botanical Cemetery.  When Gražina died on 1 June 2019, she was cremated there too.  The Cemeteries Trust notes that, in both instances, the cremated remains were collected. They would have no memorial gravestones.

Vytas in Melbourne

Vytas may well have settled in Melbourne before his older brother.  For instance, he married there 2 years before Bolius, in 1953.  His bride was the former Ina Irena Špokevičiūtė.

He and Ina already had become such a part of Melbourne’s Lithuanian community that their marriage was reported in the Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) national, Lithuanian-language newspaper, on 2 September 1953.  Rasa’s translation of the correspondent’s report follows.

“A few weeks ago, the local Lithuanian community was expanded by another Lithuanian family, created by two regular local Lithuanian folk dancers and members of the Aidas choir, Vytautas Kunčiūnas and Ina Špokevičiūtė.

“V. Kunčiūnas has been diligently representing the Lithuanian name in Australia since his performances on the first transport ship.  In addition to folk dances and Lithuanian songs, he is also hardworking in the scout organisation.

“The young Kunčiūnas couple settled in the beautiful Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, in their own brick house, which they purchased with the joint efforts of the young woman's mother and two brothers.  Good luck to the young couple in continuing to represent the Lithuanian name.”

Vytautas and Ina were naturalised together on 23 January 1958.

Vytas’ and Ina’s electoral roll entries record that they were still at the Ivanhoe address in 1958, when he had “nil” occupation but Ina was working as a nurse.  By 1968 he was living without Ina in Armadale, a suburb about 12 Km south of Ivanhoe, and working as a draftsman.  He most likely got the idea for that career from his brother, Bolius.

The next electoral roll entry, for 1968, has him at the same Armadale address, still working as a draftsman, but this time sharing his flat with Genovaite Kunciunas.  The details for their 1972 entry are the same, while no later rolls for Vytas and wife have been digitised with indexing.   While we have the marriage details for Vytas and Ina, his marriage to Genovaite was too recent for the details to be public yet.

The next news we have of Vytautas is not good.  Tėviškės Aidai reported on 20 July 1993 that he was seriously ill, being treated in the intensive care unit of the Alfred Hospital.  He received Sacraments of the Sick on 11 July.

Vytautas had died before the news of his illness was published.  He passed on 12 July, aged only 66.  The 27 July issue of Tėviškės Aidai reported that the Rosary was said at the Tobin Chapel in Malvern.  The funeral Mass was celebrated by priest Pranas Dauknys at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church, West Melbourne, the Lithuanian community’s church, on 15 July.  Vytautas was buried in the Cheltenham Cemetery.  His wife Genovaitė, family and relatives were said to have remained in deep sorrow.

Vytautas and Ina probably had been able to divorce under Australian law, much more liberal than that of Lithuania in the 1920s.  The Ryerson Index records that Ina Kunciunas, still using her married name, died when living at Safety Beach, on the Mornington Peninsula south of the main Melbourne conurbation.   As Ryerson is recording a probate notice published on 2 November 2005 in the Melbourne Age, we don’t know her date of death but can assume that it was earlier in 2005.

Vytautas had moved from the brick home in Ivanhoe and the flat in Armadale to the inner south of Melbourne, the suburb of Elsternwick, before his death.

Vytautas and Bolius Both Scouts

Mūsų Pastogė noted above that Vytas had been “hardworking in the scout organisation”. In fact, both brothers were scouts.  A history of Lithuanian scouting in Australia was published in November 1996 in Mūsų Pastogė, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of its foundation on the First Transport sailing to Australia.  It reported that the 46 boy scouts and 7 girl scouts on board were divided into 6 troops, with both Balys and Vytas in Troop 3.

Bolius was able to participate in the historic first gathering of Lithuanian scouts at the first Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree on the Yarra Brae property in Wonga Park, Victoria, organised by Borisas Dainutis.  He was recorded there in a photograph of some attending published by Tėviškės Aidai in its preparation for the celebration of 50 years of Australian Lithuanian scouting.

Tėviškės Aidai published this photograph from the First Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree 47 years later, with a caption which reads, translated, "Lithuanian Scout camp at the Pan-Pacific Jamboree near Melbourne, 23.1.49.  From left: Gabrielius Žemkalnis, Vytautas Neverauskas, Viktoras Kučinskas, Benediktas Kaminskas, an Australian priest in a scout uniform, the Bishop of Melbourne,
Dr. J. Simonds; behind the Bishop from the left, Balys Kunčiūnas, behind the Bishop from the right in the back, unidentified, next to the Bishop with a smile, Borisas Dainutis, and at the back right, unidentified.  Next year, 1997, will mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the
Lithuanian Scout Union in Australia.

Source:  Tėviškės Aidai 

We do not know if Vytas was able to attend also, as promised by Jonas Urbonas in January 1948.  The Melbourne Age of 27 December reported that Borisas with 29 other scouts had moved in already on Christmas Day.  Vytas may have been among the 22 not included in the photograph above.

SOURCES

Age (1948) ‘Canvas Tent City Rises at Wonga Park’ Melbourne, 27 December, p 4 https://www.newspapers.com/image/124518561/, accessed 15 June 2025.

'AEF DP Registration Record' [Bolius KUNCIUNAS], Folder DP2214, names from KUNCAR, Jan to KÜHNE, Horst (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from KR /, DocID: 67916900 (Bolius KUNCIÚNAS), https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67916900, accessed 29 March 2026.

'AEF DP Registration Record' [Vytautas KUNCIUNAS], Folder DP2214, names from KUNCAR, Jan to KÜHNE, Horst (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from KR /, DocID: 67916901 (Vytautas KUNCIUNAS) https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67916901, accessed 29 March 2026.

Ancestry.com ‘All Census & Voter Lists results for Bolius Kunciunas’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35/?name=Bolius_Kunciunas+&birth=_victoria-australia_30099&location=5027&priority=australian, accessed 6 April 2026.

Ancestry.com ‘All Census & Voter Lists results for Vytautas Kunciunas’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35/?name=Vytautas_Kunciunas+&birth=_victoria-australia_30099&location=5027&priority=australian, accessed 6 April 2026.

Births Deaths and Marriages Victoria [1953 marriage of Vytautas Stasys Kunciunas and Ina Irena nee Spokevicius] https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/69c720acba4add19229d3dfe/results?q=efamily, viewed 28 March 2026.

Births Deaths and Marriages Victoria [1955 marriage of Balys Kunciunas and Grazina Natalija nee Bite] https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/69c720acba4add19229d3dfe/results?q=efamily, viewed 28 March 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Bolius Kunciunas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203635508, accessed 28 March 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Vytas Kuniciunas’ (sic) https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203635549, accessed 28 March 2026.

Built Heritage Pty Ltd, ‘Dictionary of Unsung Architects, D Graeme Lumsden (1915-1995)’ https://www.builtheritage.com.au/dua_lumsden.html, accessed 28 March 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1957) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ [Bolius Kunciunas], Canberra, ACT, 3 October, page 2976 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232986663/25082694, viewed 28 March 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ [Grazina Kunciunas], Canberra, ACT, 8 May, p 1438, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240891979/25976026, viewed 28 March 2026.

Immigration Museum, ‘Tribute Garden’ https://museumsvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/whats-on/tribute-garden/, accessed 28 March 2026.

Lietuvių žodis (Lithuanian Word) (1947) ‘Sportas’ (‘Sport’, in Lithuanian) Detmold, Germany, 31 July, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_lietuviu_zodis/archive/1947-07-31-LIETUVIU-ZODIS.pdf, accessed 28 March 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1953) ‘Nauja šeima‘ (‘New Family’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 2 September, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259363045, accessed 6 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1996) ‘Pėdsekys: LSS Australijos rajono 50-mečiui artėjant‘ (‘Footprint: As the 50th anniversary of the LSS Australian District approaches’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 18 November, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1996/1996-11-18-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 6 April 2026.

My Tributes, ‘Funeral Notice for Kunciunas, Bolius’ [Publication: Herald Sun; Date Listed: 22/9/2011] https://www.mytributes.com.au/notice/funeral-notices/kunciunas-bolius/3385212/, accessed 6 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KUNCIUNAS BOLIUS, KUNCIUNAS, Bolius : Year of Birth - 1924 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 557, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203635508, accessed 6 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; KUNICIUNAS (sic) VYTAS, KUNICIUNAS (sic), Vytas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 556, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203635549, accessed 6 April 2026.

Northern Standard (1953) 'Diana's Diary' Darwin, NT, 12 March, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49484566, viewed 28 March 2026.

Prašmutaitė, Birute (2001) ‘Melbourne Imigracijos Muziejus’ (Melbourne Immigration Museum’ in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 29 January, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/2001/2001-01-29-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 28 March 2026.

Ryerson [Ina Kunciunas] https://ryersonindex.org/search.php, accessed 6 April 2026.

Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, ‘Bolius Kunciunas, Springvale Botanical Cemetery’ https://www.smct.org.au/deceased-search/detail?id=f4310462-509a-ef11-8a6a-6045bdc2c606, accessed 6 April 2026.

Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, ‘Grazina Natalija Kunciunas, Springvale Botanical Cemetery’ https://www.smct.org.au/deceased-search/detail?id=156f3df1-559a-ef11-8a6a-002248957765, accessed 6 April 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1993) 'Iš mūsų parapijų, Melbournas' ('From our Parishes, Melbourne', in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 20 July, p 7 http://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1993/1993-07-20-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 8 April 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1993) 'Iš mūsų parapijų, Melbournas' ('From our Parishes, Melbourne', in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 20 July, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1993/1993-07-27-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 8 April 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1996) ‘Rajono Vadija (‘District Governor’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 6 August, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1996/1996-nr30-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 29 March 2026.

Victoria, Government Gazette (1965) ‘Architects Act, The Architects Registration Board of Victoria, Additions To The Register Made During the Year Ended 31st December, 1964’ [1896, Kunciunas, Bolius] Melbourne, Vic, 3 March, p 468 https://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/images/1965/V/general/14.pdf, accessed 6 April 2026.

Žiburiai (Lights) (1946) ‘Paieškojimai’ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian), Augsburg, Germany, 27 April, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_ziburiai/archive/1946-04-27-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 6 April 2026.

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.