Jonas Jakaitis (1919-2010), Australian Citizen, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Jonas Jakaitis was one of the 62 men from the First Transport, General Stuart Heintzelman, sent to Bangham in South Australia to work for the SA Railways.  He became an Australian citizen at the same 1953 Adelaide ceremony as his fellow SAR worker, Hugo Jakobsen.  At the time, they were photographed together for posterity by the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper.  What else do we know about him?

Hugo Jakobsen (left) and Jonas Jakaitis (right) at their 15 April 1953 citizenship ceremony

Source:  Adelaide Advertiser, 16 April 1953

Rasa Ščevinskienėhas found an index to the South Australian Railways (SAR) records which shows that, having started with the others at Bangham on 15 January 1948, Jonas left the SAR on 11 July 1952.  He had been released from his work contract earlier though, on 30 September 1949.

From the Adelaide News newspaper of the day after Jonas obtained Australian citizenship with Hugo, 15 April 1953, we know that Jonas now described his occupation as ‘motor mechanic’. 

Jonas was born in Lithuania on 4 July 1919.  Rasa has discovered a 1942 census of Lithuania online, which tells us that he was the oldest of four children fathered by Juozas Jakaitis.  Jonas and his sister Ona, born in 1924, had a mother who had died when they were young. 

Naturally Juozas looked for another mother for his children and married again, in March 1930.  With Agota, he had two more children, Augustinas, born in 1930, and Marijona, born in 1937.

The family lived in the tiny village of Ziliai, which is 7 kilometers from a much larger settlement of Kiduliai.  Ziliai now is about 11 kilometers from the post-WWII border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, between Lithuanian and Poland.  Jonas always stated that Kiduliai was his birthplace, probably because his mother was more likely to find a midwife or other assistance there.

The census took place in April 1942.  It recorded that Jonas, aged about 23, and Ona, aged about 18, were already in Germany.

However, Jonas’ selection documents for migration to Australia say that he arrived in Germany in June 1944.  While this certainly is earlier than the more usual September-October 1944, it is not 1942.  Perhaps Jonas and Ona had returned to Ziliai when circumstances seemed better, only to decide to leave again.

The selection papers record that Jonas had had the basic 4 years of elementary school and was suitable to be a ‘medium labourer’ in Australia.  His occupation at the time of interview, on 24 September 1947, was ‘motor mechanic’ and he had been working at this occupation for the previous 13 months.  He previously had been a driver in Lithuania for 2 years.

His Lithuanian, of course, and German language skills were regarded as fluent, while his English was marked ‘fair’.

Jonas Jakaitis identity photograph from his selection papers

Source:  NAA:  A11772, JAKAITIS Jonas DOB 4 July 1919

Up to the point of his naturalisation ceremony on 15 April 1953,  a card kept in the Adelaide Office of the Department of Immigration records his changed of employer and residential address.  This was required under the Alien Registration Act 1947.

 

From this record, we can see that his first and last reported employment was with car manufacturer, General Motors Holden (GMH), where he was employed as a labourer.  He worked as a machinist at Pope Products from 19 November 1949 and several smaller companies for nearly 5 years.  He obtained the specialised position of fitter and turner with the South Australian Brush Company, better known as SABCO, from 16 August 1952 but only for two months.  He then moved back to GMH, again with the job title of labourer, but maybe because the pay was better.

 

That 19 November 1949 employment date with Pope Products and the later employment information conflict with the SAR record of Jonas staying in its employment until 11 July 1952.  A human error will have occurred with one of the records.  Of the two, the Department of Immigration record is likely to be the more accurate since Jonas would have had to report each change in address or employer in person.

 

We know little about the rest of Jonas’ life in Australia except that, in 1960, he donated £1 to a collection in support of Adelaide’s Lithuanian House.  The Reserve Bank of Australia says that what £1 would buy in 1960 would cost more than $35 now.  Perhaps we could think of Jonas’ donation as putting forward $50 now.

Jonas left a widow, Adele Milita, when he died on 1 April 2010 aged a remarkable 90 years.  His funeral took place on 12 April.  He is buried in the Roman Catholic section of the Enfield Memorial Park.  

With a previous family name like Adele Milita Gleichforsch, his widow probably was a Baltic German but she also had been born in Lithuania.  Her German background would explain why a card kept by a Lithuanian Catholic priest lists her and the two older children of the family as ‘Eveng’ or Evangelical Lutheran.

The third child was born 8 years after the previous one.  Given that the oldest was born in 1946, when we understand Jonas to have been single, this could well be a melded family, with Adele bringing into it the two older children from a previous marriage.

Adele also lived to a robust age, 92, dying on 5 July 2015.  The Find A Grave Website photograph of Jonas' plaque in the Enfield Park shows a blank besides his name.  The exact place of burial is not recorded.  Adele’s place of burial is recorded as being within the Catholic section, despite her Lutheran faith.  In all probability, Jonas and Adele now rest side by side.

SOURCES

Advertiser (1953) 'Thrilled To Become Australians' Adelaide, 16 April, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48284822 accessed 10 April 2025.

 

[Church card], ‘Jakaitis, Jonas’, held by Australian Lithuanian Archives, Adelaide.

 

Find A Grave, ‘Adelle Milita Gleichforsch Jakaitis’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/202129584/adelle_milita_jakaitis accessed 9 April 2025.

 

Find A Grave, ‘Jonas Jakaitis’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154554810/jonas-jakaitis accessed 9 April 2025.

 

Government of South Australia, State Records (2021) ‘Index, GRS 10638, Record of employment sheets – South Australian Railways’

https://www.archives.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/830188/GRS_10638-index-I-L.pdf  accessed 9 November 2024.

 

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, 1947-47; 93, JAKAITIS Jonas DOB 4 July 1919, 1947-47 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005526 accessed 10 April 2025.

 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-56; JAKAITIS JONAS, JAKAITIS, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number – 493 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620759 accessed 10 April 2025.

 

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-76; JAKAITIS JONAS, JAKAITIS Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-53

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9187517 accessed 10 April 2025.

 

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1937-65; JAKAITIS J, JAKAITIS Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-53 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4077737 accessed 10 April 2025.

'Personal file of JAKAITIS, IONAS, born on 4-Jul-1919, born in KIDULIAI', 3.2.1. / 79213085 / ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79213085 accessed 10 April 2025.

 

Reserve Bank of Australia, ‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 9 November 2024.

 

Šeimos Surašymas 1942 Metais (Family Census in 1942) (Search Results for Jakaitis Jonas) https://eu3.ragic.com/genealogija/census/3/13586.xhtml accessed 9 November 2024.

 

The Advertiser (1953) ‘Thrilled to Become Australians’ Adelaide, 16 April, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48284822 accessed 9 November 2024

 

The News (1953) ‘13 Migrants to Become Aussies’ Adelaide, 15 April, p 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article134289724 accessed 9 November 2024.

 

Alfonsas Ragauskas (1914–1988): First Transporter Who Overcame Obstacles by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 9 February and 6 April 2025

Alfonsas, known as Alf, was born on 19 January 1914 in Šiauliai, in the Lithuanian district of Joniskis, where he spent his youth. Life was not easy for him, so he emigrated to Germany in 1935.

Alfonasas Ragauskas' identity photo on his migration application form, 1947

Source:  Sestokas, Welcome to Little Europe

There he lived in even more difficult conditions, working hard until 1947, when he immigrated to Australia on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

At least that is what his anonymous obituarist in the Teviskes Aidai edition of 17 May 1988 had been led to believe.  Teviskes Aidai was a national Australian Lithuanian Catholic newspaper published weekly in Melbourne; it now is published fortnightly.

What the obituarist wrote contrasts with the more usual story that Ragauskas gave to the Australian three-man panel selecting Displaced Persons for the first voyage to Australia.  The paper record from his interview says that he arrived in Germany in December 1943, having been "forcibly removed by the Germans".

The two versions are not incompatible, if Alf in 1935 was the equivalent of a modern backpacker.  Aged only 21 in 1935, Alf would have missed his family and friends.  He possibly stayed in Germany long enough to make good money, then returned home.  We have to hope that he did this before September 1939, when the German military invaded Poland,  the nation between his temporary residence and his homeland.

Alternatively, Alf may have learnt the back story expected of the DPs being interviewed for Australia before his turn came.  In this case, he had to remember the story -- or forget the previous German residence -- in future dealings with Australian officials.

None of this prevented Alf from becoming an ideal settler in Australia and contributor to his new home.  And there is no mention of time in Germany before 10 December 1943 in Alf's application for Australian citizenship, lodged on the first available date, 1 December 1952.  Any time in Germany in 1935 must have been too brief to mention (or forgotten).

In addition, Alf had been so keen to become an Australian citizen that he was one of those who first enquired in September 1949, as soon as he was freed from his contract to work here.

Alfonasas Ragauskas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card, 1947

Source:  NAA, A2571, RAGAUSKAS, Alfonsas

His first job was in the State Electricity Commission of Victoria’s Yallourn open-cut brown coal mine. Later he became an electrician in the power plant, then a pump operator until retirement.  

Alf was a resident of Yallourn North when he applied for Australian citizenship.  He renounced previous allegiances and was granted Australian citizenship there on 23 July 1953.

In Josef Šestokas’ book, Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp , Josef’s father, Juozas, writes about the Yallourn camp where both he and Alf lived initially, “All were single men. They were accommodated in tents under pine trees behind the school. Local people were friendly and welcoming.”

Alf wrote in Juozas’ autograph book, presumably in Lithuanian, in 1955, “Really we are happier here, but you could only appreciate that if, having lost your country and your people, you were so hospitably welcomed as victims of war.”

While working at Yallourn, Alf met his wife, Agota and they married in 1962. They later moved to Kew, Melbourne. Josef Šestokas reports that they were thought not to have had children.

Alf led a quiet life, keeping dairy goats and chickens in his large backyard. He was remembered in his obituary as a fun, friendly and helpful. Although his life he was full of difficulties and surprises, he was able to overcome all these obstacles.

Alf died at Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne on 28 April 1988, aged 64, and is buried in Kew Cemetery, now known as Boroondara General Cemetery. Agota was buried with him when she died 4 years later.

Headstone on the grave of Alfonsas and Agota Ragauskas, 
Boroondara General Cemetery, Melbourne

Source:  Boroondara General Cemetery

References

Anon (1988) ‘AA Alfonsas Ragauskas (in Lithuanian)’ Tėviškės Aidai [The Echoes of Homeland] Melbourne, 17 May, p 7.

Boroondara General Cemetery, Grave Locator, <Ragauskas>, https://boroondaracemetery.discovereverafter.com/ accessed 23 January 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A435, Class 4 correspondence files relating to naturalisation, 1939-50; 1949/4/4224, RAGAUSKAS Alfonsas - born 19 January 1914 - Lithuanian, 1949-53 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6944679 accessed 9 February 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, 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; 245, RAGAUSKAS Alfonsas DOB 19 January 1914 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005655 accessed 6 April 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947-1956; RAGAUSKAS, Alfonsas : Year of Birth - 1914 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 641, 1947-1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203913539 accessed 24 January 2025.

Sestokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe, Displaced Persons and the North Camp, Little Chicken Publishing, Sale, Victoria, pp 1, 87, 261. [This now is out of print but a digitised version can be read at https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Welcome_to_Little_Europe/PqDgc5KKfvIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Welcome+to+Little+Europe&pg=PT58&printsec=frontcover accessed 24 January 2025.

Viktoras Kuciauskas (1929-2008): Not All Stayed, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 5 December 2023 and 6-9 May 2025.

A small number of the First Transporters moved to third countries after their initial settlement in Australia.  Broadly, their reasons for leaving were reunion with family who had settled successfully elsewhere or being able to practise their professions when this was denied to them without "retraining" in Australia.

One who left was Viktoras Kuciauskas.  He stayed in Australia long enough to obtain citizenship here in 1953.  He was the only recipient of citizenship at his ceremony in Burnie, Tasmania, on 17 July, but the event was seen as so important that he had to listen politely to at least 6 speeches.  He was surrounded by around 20 very important people, according to the local newspaper.

In 1954, the Burnie Advocate newspaper carried a photograph of him as the radiographer in charge of a mobile X-ray unit (part of the then national campaign against tuberculosis).  A short article in the local Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, reports that he was deputy chairman of the Lithuanian community in Hobart in early 1956 as well as the rapporteur for its audit committee.  

Victor Kuciauskas as radiographer in charge of a mobile Xray unit
in Burnie, Tasmania, October 1954

Source: Burnie Advocate, 20 October 1954

Yet only one year later, he was entering the United States via Canada, to reside there for the rest of his life.  

Born in Marijampolė County on 8 April 1929, he was only 18 when he arrived in Australia.  This age makes it unlikely that he had qualified as a radiographer already, but perhaps he had undertaken some relevant studies which made qualifying here easier.  His Bonegilla card records his English as 'fair':  it must have quickly become good enough for him to complete technical studies successfully maybe less than 5 years later.

Bonegilla card for Viktoras Kuciauskas

Source:  NAA

The Bonegilla card shows that he stayed in the camp until 28 January 1948, so he had nearly 2 months there to attend English classes and improve his language skills.  On 28 January, he and others were sent to HE Pickworth in Ardmona in Victoria to pick fruit.  He spent more than 2 months there, returning to the camp at the end of the fruit-picking on 1 March.  Only 4 days later, on 5 March, he was part of a group sent as labourers to Tasmania.  It seems that the others were offered more fruit-picking but Viktoras alone was sent westwards to the Electrolytic Zinc Company in Rosebery.

Viktoras Kuciauskas is third from the left in the front row in this photograph
taken at the burial of Aleksandras Vasilauskas in Albury's Pioneer Cemetery, 5 January 1948

Source: Collection of Endrius Jankus

Rosebery was the site of the Electrolytic Zinc Company's mine.  Mining is skilled work, and the miners initially forbade the new arrivals to work underground with them.  In those days, we can be sure that their trade union was involved.

The general labouring that they involved cutting tracks through the forest for surveyors and ore samplers.  It probably was very hard work for young men who had been not particularly well fed during their 3 years in Germany.  There's more about this work in a later post.

After some months cutting track, Viktoras and a Latvian from the First Transport, Leons Mikelans, were transferred to the Farrell Mine at Tullah, 14 kilometres northeast of Rosebery.  After a year of cutting track and whatever they had to do at the Farrell Mine, they decided that they had fulfilled their contract and left for Hobart.

Department of Immigration officials had a different view of the contract to Viktoras and Leons.  They were threatened with deportation, according to Ramunas Tarvydas in his book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle.  Ramunas reports that Viktoras, at least, "showed that he was not too worried at the prospect and the matter was dropped".

Presumably this was in early 1949 and presumably Viktoras was included in those notified at the end of September 1949 that they were no longer required to work in Australia.  What Ramunas does not tell us is the work that Viktoras undertook between January and September.

Records digitised by Ancestry.com show that Viktoras travelled to the United States in 1955. He was on the RMS Orion, an Orient Line ship which berthed in San Francisco on 18 April 1955. By this time, his father was living in the US, in New York, while his mother was somewhat closer to San Francisco, in Omaha, Nebraska. His daughter, Victoria Siliunas, has advised that while visiting his mother, he went on a blind date with the woman who was to become his wife. 

His application for US citizenship shows that he arrived in the US again on 7 February 1957. This time, he had travelled from Sydney to Vancouver on another Orient Line ship, the SS Oronsay. His date of arrival in Vancouver is not yet public, but he reached Honolulu en route on 30 July 1956. 

Modern cruise ships take 9 to 13 days to travel from Honolulu to Vancouver, so Viktoras probably arrived in Vancouver before the end of August 1956. Between September and January 1957, did he stay in Vancouver with his sister, Stase, or did he drop into the US on visits to the special new woman in his life? If those records have been kept, they are not yet public. 

Less than one year after his second arrival, on 25 January 1958, he married Regina Parulis (Parulyte in Lithuanian), who had been born in Tauragė, Lithuania. By the time of the citizenship application they had a son, born in December 1959, and were to have another child, their daughter Victoria.

Based on decades of prior experience as a country of mass immigration, the US naturalization application form provided for applicants to change their name at this point in their lives.  Viktoras made use of this opportunity:  henceforward, he wished to be known as Victor Kucas.  

Victor's occupation is recorded as 'X-ray' on the application form.  An obituary written by a friend since school days, Edvardas Šulaitis, says that Victor obtained an additional nuclear medicine technician's qualification in the US.  Victor became the head radiographer in the Frank Cuneo Memorial Hospital, Chicago, for the more than 30 years that this hospital operated from 1957.

Ancestry.com has collected some information about Victor Kucas' life in the United States, mainly in the form of addresses from 1996 onwards.  They reveal that he was living in Lockport, Illinois, a city some 50 Km southwest of Chicago.

More is revealed in the Šulaitis obituary, published in Draugas, a Chicago-based newspaper which has been the only Lithuanian-language daily published outside Lithuania.  Having been a scout in childhood, Victor led the Lithuanian scout troop Lituanicas in Chicago and, during 1960-1963, was a member of the Council of the Lithuanian Scouts Union.  He edited the children's magazine, Eglutė, during 1994-2003, and for six years edited the Pasaulio lietuvio magazine.  He was active in a number of other organisations.

Edvardas Šulaitis described his friend as 'hard-working, calm-mannered' and added that 'Viktor remained in my memory as a quiet but accomplished person who paid tribute not only to his family, but also to the entire Lithuanian community.'

A portrait of Victor in later life on display at his funeral

Source:  Draugas

Sadly, Victor's life had ended in 7 months of pain after an accident in his home in December 2007.  He died on 17 July 2008, aged 79 years old, but he did live long enough to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary earlier that year.  His ashes were buried in a Chicago cemetery under the names of both Kuciauskas and Kucas.

Victor Kucas is buried with his father and wife in the St Casimir Catholic Cemetery,
Chicago, Illinois

Source:  FindaGrave

His wife, Regina, born on 24 January 1929, died 7 years later on 9 December 2015, aged 86.  She is buried with Victor.

The original burial in this plot would have been that of Pranas Kuciauskas, Victor's father.  His name appears on a nominal roll of Displaced Persons Departing From Resettlement Repatriation and US Migration Center Butzbach on 6 May 1949, held by the Arolsen Archives.  The Archives also have digitised a record which shows that Pranas was in Hanau, Germany, with his two children.  Why then did the three of them settle in three different countries?  Was the absence of any next of kin on Victor's Bonegilla card an oversight, or was it deliberate?

Others who asked the selection team for the First Transport if their relatives could come too were assured that they could follow.  In at least one instance that I am aware of, the relative came on the Second Transport.  Why was Victor not declaring that he had family and arranging for them to join him in Australia?

Pranas at the time of his migration to the US was aged 52, his occupation was given as Caretaker and his marital status was signified with a D, presumably for Divorced.  Somehow he was travelling independently when everyone else on his page of the nominal roll had a sponsoring organisation.  He was headed for Henry Street in Kings Park, Suffolk County, on New York State's Long Island.  Who did he know there?

Born on 4 June 1897, Pranas died on 1 October 1962 aged 65.  He died in Cook County, Illinois, so he was living with or near his son in Lockport.

The simple answer to many of the questions raised above might be that the young Victor was as adventurous as any other 18-year-old, maybe even more so given his scouting background.  When he heard about the possibility of moving to Australia, it may have seemed also like a quick way out of the previous 7 years of war and deprivation. 

Viktoras Kuciauskas is third from the left in the front row of this 1944 photo
of the fifth form students of the Kybartai Gymnasium in Lithuania

Source:  Collection of Edvardas Šulaitis via Draugas

If there were other young people from the same refugee camp answering Australia's call, that would have added to the pull factor.

Victor clearly did well in Australia.  It's likely, however, that he realised that he needed Australian citizenship for the passport to travel to reconnect with family members who had resettled in North America.  He must have been earning enough money through his responsible job in Australia to make not one, but two trips to North America. 

Returning to the US was a wise personal decision for Victor, not only for marriage and children but he was able to achieve more qualifications and a job which probably gave give security and satisfaction for the rest of his working life.  His move was Australia's loss, though.

I thank Jonas Mockunas for drawing attention to Edvardas Šulaitis' Draugas obituary, which has filled in gaps in Victor's life in the US.

Sources

'Documents from AIDUKAS, ADOLFAS, born on May 20th, 1895, born in LAUCIUNISKE and from other persons', Arolsen Archives, DocID 78869128, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/78869128.

'Draugas' (1 February 2023), in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugas, accessed 8 April 2023.

'Hobartas, Nauja apylinkės valdyba' (Hobart, New community board), Musu Pastogė, (Sydney, NSW), 8 February 1956, p 4, via Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259359765, accessed 31 March 2023.

Jankus, Endrius, personal communication, 25 September 2009.

'Migrant Culture Praised at Naturalisation Ceremony', Advocate (Burnie, Tas),  18 July 1953, p 6, via Trove,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69481268, accessed 25 March 2023.   

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration; Kuciauskas, Viktoras: Year of Birth - 1929: Nationality - LITHUANIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number – 941; accessed 27 March 2023. 

'Naturalisation ceremony at Burnie on Friday ... ',  Advocate (Burnie, Tas), 20 July 1953, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69481365, accessed 25 March 2023.   

[Pranas Kuciauskas], Arolsen Archives, Document ID: 81711918, Correspondence and nominal roles [sic], done at Butzbach: means of transport train, plane; Transit countries and emigration destinations: Australia, Italy, Canada, USA, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/81711918.

Pranas Kuciauskas, in Cook County, Illinois, Death Index, 1908-1988, Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Pranas Kuciauskas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782705/pranas-kuciauskas, accessed 25 March 2023.

'Regina T. Parulis Kucas', Petkus & Son Funeral Homes (Lemont, Illinois), [December 2015], https://www.petkusfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/Regina-T-Parulis-Kucas?obId=2585224, accessed 25 March 2023.  

'Regina Kucas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782753/regina-kucas, accessed 25 March 2023.

Siliunas, Victoria, 2023, personal communication, 17 April.

Šulaitis, Edvardas, 'Dar Viena Skaudi Netektis, Atsisveikinta Su A. A. Viktoru Kuču' (Another Painful Loss, Goodbye Said to Viktoras Kučas RIP), Draugas (Chicago, IL), 20 August 2008, p 8, https://www.draugas.org/key/2008_reg/2008-08-20-DRAUGASo.pdf.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Island, Hobart, Tasmania, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committe, pp 44-45 and 170.

'Viktoras Kucas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782738/viktoras-kucas, accessed 25 March 2023. 

'Victor Kuciauskas, in the California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959', Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Victor Kuciauskas, in the Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1900-1959', Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Viktoras Kuciauskas, in the Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991' Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'X-ray unit', Advocate (Burnie, Tas), 20 October 1954, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69880102, accessed 25 March 2023.  

Endrius Jankus (1929-2014): From Sea Scout to Mining Engineer by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated on 23 September 2024, 30 April 2024 and 11 April 2023

The most recent 7 entries in this blog were Endrius Jankus' recollections of his arrival in Port Melbourne and his stay at the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre.  Now let's find out more about the author himself, starting with his important grandfather.

Martynas Jankus (1858 – 1946) was known, even in his lifetime, as ‘the Patriarch of Lithuania Minor’. This was a part of Prussia with a Lithuanian-majority population. From 1871 it had been part of a unified Germany. On the Baltic Sea, with Lithuania to the north and east and modern Poland to the south, it included what is now Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave.* 

Self-educated after primary school, Martynas became a printer of Lithuanian-language books, often their first publisher. He was one of the publishers of Aušra (Dawn), the first Lithuanian-language newspaper, and a number of other periodicals. As one of 24 signatories of the 1918 Act of Tilsit, he demanded the unification of Lithuania Minor with the rest of Lithuania, which led to the persecution of some signatories when Nazi Germany invaded during WWII. He was a member of the State Council of Lithuania, the law-making body between 1928 and 1940.**

Martynas Jankus in the United States, 1926

Source:  Wikipedia

During the Nazi occupation, Martynas was banned from giving public speeches. In 1944, he was forced to evacuate to Germany by the Nazis. He died in Flensburg, northern Germany, one year after the end of WWII. He had told his oldest daughter that he wanted to be cremated so that his ashes could be returned to his homeland after independence.

This major figure in the development of modern Lithuania was the grandfather of one of the First Transporters, Endrius Jankus. Born in Draverna, Lithuania, on 7 July 1929, to Martinas (sometimes also known as Martynas, like his father) and Ane Jankus, Endrius was the youngest of three children. He knew his grandfather well, having grown up in the village of Bitėnai, where his grandfather had his printing press.

After the Soviet Army invaded Lithuania in June 1940, Endrius’ father was fired from his job. Learning that the family had been on a list for deportation to Siberia, they left by train for the comparative safety of Germany ahead of the second Soviet invasion in 1944.

The older Martynas and his family had experienced deportation to Siberia already, after Tsarist Russia occupied their part of Lithuania in 1914. It was there that Martynas’ father, Endrius’ great grandfather, and Martynas' youngest son, Andrius, Endrius’ uncle, had died.

In Germany, the family found refuge in the Flensburg Displaced Persons camp, where the Patriarch of Lithuania Minor died in 1946. Flensburg was in the British Zone of Occupation, meaning that daily life there was much tougher there than in the American Zone: the British were suffering post-War privations at home too. As a young man living in these harsh conditions, Endrius saw the need to seek further refuge in a country where life seemed more certain. He applied to move to Australia as soon as the opportunity came up.

Endrius in the uniform of a Lithuanian Sea Scout on 10 September 1947,
in Flensburg, one month before the opportunity to migrate to Australia came

Source: limis.lt

At the age of 18, he set out for Australia alone from Germany, one year after his grandfather’s death. By then, he had completed his secondary education at a gymnasium or high school for Lithuanians in Germany.***

There is more detail of his early life in Lithuania in a couple of online obituaries, at Voruta.lt and Silaine.lt (both in Lithuanian). The Voruta tribute is wrong, however, in declaring that with Endrius’ death, the male line of Martynas’ family had ended forever. While Endrius' son, Martin, sadly had predeceased him in 2008 at the early age of 44, Martin had a son who is a member of the Facebook community of Heintzelman family members and friends.

Endrius kept a diary of his journey, from at least the day of arrival in Port Melbourne on the Kanimbla, 7 December 1947, until he was sent to work in Tasmania on 18 March 1948. He used this diary as the basis for writing a memoir of the period, which he sent to me in 2012. Due to its length, I have split it into the 7 entries immediately preceding this one in this blog. It gives an insight into life in Bonegilla, particularly for the Lithuanian men who were half the passengers on the Heintzelman and Kanimbla, which I have yet to find elsewhere. 

He stayed in the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre for more than 6 weeks until sent with a group to pick pears in an orchard at Ardmona in Victoria. The fruit-picking experience lasted a bit over 6 weeks. The group then returned to the Bonegilla camp for their next work assignment.

The 'Bonegilla card' for Endrius shows his father still in Flensburg and
Endrius' early employment in Australia

Source:  NAA

Endrius’ ‘Bonegilla card’ records this as more fruit picking in Tasmania from 18 March, 5 days after the return to Bonegilla. He stayed there for a short time only, since his own record of his residence outside Bonegilla on his application for Australian citizenship records the first place as Railton, Tasmania, from 23 March. Railton was the home of the Goliath Portland Cement Company, where Endrius had been sent to work, probably as soon as the fruit picking finished.****

He was at Railton for more than 11 months. The application for citizenship lists further addresses: Melbourne, Victoria, next for more than 5 months; back to Tasmania, Hobart this time, for the next two months; then Storey’s Creek from October 1949 to October 1950. There he worked for the Storey’s Creek Tin Mining Co (NL).  By the time he completed his application for citizenship in January 1953, he was living in Hobart and had been working for the Hydro-Electric Commission in Moonah as a 'diesel engineer' for 10 months.  When I visited him and his wife in September 2009, he was living out of Hobart with a beautiful River Derwent view, at Sandford.

An earlier Declaration of Intention to Apply for Citizenship was signed on 29 December 1949, a little over two years after Endrius’ arrival in Australia but three years before he would become eligible. He stated a motivation for applying so early. ‘I would like to visit my auntie in England who is my only relative living in 1953/54 for 5 months.’  This would have been stretching the truth a bit.  His parents may still have been alive and his older sister, Ieva (1924–2014), definitely was.  The statement was repeated in similar words on the January 1953 application.

In the end, his grant of citizenship was notified in a Commonwealth Government Gazette dated 16 July 1953. His receipt of his citizenship certificate was an occasion of great rejoicing, since it was part of a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the opening of Tasmania’s Pine Tier Dam. The whole event merited nearly half a page of reporting and photography in the Hobart Mercury newspaper of 3 June 1953.

Endrius was next in the news some 15 years later when the Good Neighbour, a monthly newsletter from the Department of Immigration, headlined his story, ‘Former Lithuanian set task of moving half an island’. At this stage, he was known as Christopher, based on his middle name, Kristups. He was running his own excavation company, employing 12 men. Its name, Explosives Engineering, is still in use by a Tasmanian company but whether this is the firm founded by Endrius is an open question.

'Christopher' Jankus at work, 1968

Source:  NAA

The Good Neighbour reported that he had worked on the Trevallyn power station, the Butlers Gorge power scheme and the Wayatinah power station, all in Tasmania, and the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme in New South Wales. Overseas, he had been involved in Niagara Falls power stations in Canada and construction of early warning radar stations in Alaska.

As for the half of an island he was to move, it blocked the mouth of the Tamar River to larger ships which otherwise could use the Bell Bay wharves in Launceston. Garden Island was 10 acres in size: Endrius’ task was to move 5 acres from the eastern side for land reclamation on the western side.

While single at the time of his citizenship ceremony, he advised the Good Neighbour that, “My travelling days are over. The family is keeping a pretty tight rein on me.” He had married Rosemary and they had three children, Linda, Martin and Maryanne.

A 1996 family portrait:  front row (L-R) Endrius, daughter Maryanne with her daughter, Megan, wife Rosemary; back row (L-R) son Martin with his wife, Kelly,
and daughter Linda with her husband, Steven.

Source:  Voruta, 30 August 2014, No. 12 (802)

The obituaries record that he had gone to Perth to study mining engineering at the Perth Institute of Technology (School of Mines). It seems more likely that he attended the West Australian School of Mines in Kalgoorlie. As Boas notes, this was somewhat in contrast with maritime aspects of his life in Lithuania, like the Sea Scouts. His experiences in helping to mine limestone and tin in Tasmania must have sparked a continuing interest.

According to Boas, Endrius Jankus did leave Australia in 1953, after he received citizenship and an Australian passport. She says that he stated, in answering a questionnaire, he was ‘disillusioned with his situation after the completion of his contract’. Even though the Australian Government thought of him as one of its citizens, ‘We were classed (as) stateless, the perpetual refugees of the world’. She doesn’t record what made him change his mind, but it could be that the UK and Europe in 1953 were even less appealing than Australia. He certainly made a success of himself after his return.

Having re-settled in Tasmania and started a family, he is reported to have said: ‘I didn't instil love for Lithuania in my children, I didn't want them, like me, to be heartbroken over the lost homeland.’ He himself followed events in Lithuania and was more than delighted with the restoration of an independent Lithuanian state in 1991.

As a former Sea Scout, he continued to be active in the Australian Lithuanian community. He wrote historical and polemical articles for Australian and American newspapers, some in English. He financially supported publications about Lithuania Minor and was a patron of the Lithuania Minor Foundation, which promoted his grandfather’s ideas.

Endrius or Andrew Jankus later in life
Source:  Voruta.lt

Martynas Jankus’ wish that his ashes could be buried in a free Bitėnai was overseen by his grandson and the grandson’s sister, Ieva, on 30 May 1993. Endrius visited his birthplace once again, in 1998. Captions in the Voruta tribute imply that he visited also in 1992 and 1994. He believed, along with other Lithuanians, that ‘my homeland is always in me’.

At the burial for Martynas Jankus' ashes in Bitėnai on 30 May 1993 are, left to right,
Algirdas Šarauskas (son of Juozas Šarauskas, chief scout leader of the interwar Lithuanian Scout Union), Endrius Jankus, Laimutė Šarauskaitė (daughter of Juozas Šarauskas)
and Endrius' older sister, Ieva

Source:  Europeana.eu

Endrius died in the Royal Hobart Hospital on 23 July 2014. His remains were cremated also so that he could be buried in the Bitėnai cemetery with members of his family.

Addendum 1

Ramunas Tarvydas' 1997 book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, has an explanation of those 5 months and 2 weeks in Melbourne.  On page 32, he writes:

' ... problems arose with the men of the First Transport in regard to the length of their period of contract.  They claimed that in Germany they had signed on for one year only.  If the authorities had changed it to two years while they were on the high seas, the men said that they were not bound by such a change.

'Consequently, after working for a year at Railton, Viknius, Kalytis, Jankus, Vilutis and Stasiukynas decided to leave, despite the wishes of management and the admonitions of the government employment officers from Devonport.  They soon found work in various parts of Melbourne, but were contacted by the Immigration Department, who threatened the five with deportation to Germany if they did not return to Tasmania.  Andrew received the following letter:

'COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA

DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION,

455 COLLINS STREET,

MELBOURNE, C.1.

1st July 1949

'Dear Sir,

        You are directed to return to Tasmania and report to the Commonwealth Employment Officer within seven (7) days.

        You are reminded of your obligations to only accept employment as directed.

        Failure to obey this instruction will be viewed seriously and action will be taken for your deportation.

                                                                Yours faithfully,

                                                                         (signed) J Raftis

                                                                         for Commonwealth Migration Officer

'Andrew went to see the immigration authorities in Melbourne, and argued his case.  The officer became annoyed and threatened Andrew with the infamous Foreign Language Reading Test; the test could be in any language, so that if the authorities really wanted to deport Andrew and his accomplices, they could have given him a test in Mandarin or any other language "foreign" to him!

'Jankus and Viknius returned to Tasmania, but were not sent back to Railton.'  

Addendum 2

BBC Travel on 17 September 2024 published an article on 'Panemunė:  The scenic road that saved Europe's banned language'.  The banned language was Lithuanian and the author was Eglė Gerulaitytė.  She wrote that the Tsarist authorities during 1865 to 1904 had banned any publications in Lithuanian, expecting this to result in Russification.  

The ban had the opposite effect, leading to the smuggling of more than 40,000 publications annually into Lithuania.  They were produced by Lithuanians in what was then East Prussia as well as the emigrant community in the United States.  The Wikipedia article on Martynas Jankus notes that he was one of the suppliers for the smugglers.

I thank Jonas Mockunas and Daina Pocius for their assistance in the preparation of this article.

 

Footnotes

* More on Lithuania Minor can be found at https://www.draugas.org/news/lithuanian-minor-cradle-of-lithuanian-culture/.  

** The Lithuanian National Museum of Art, ‘Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System Virtual Exhibitions: Homeland is Always in Me’, https://www.limis.lt/en/virtualios-parodos/-/virtualExhibitions/view/151059, accessed 2 May 2021; Wikipedia, ‘Martynas Jankus’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martynas_Jankus, accessed 1 May 2023. There is a short video of a Kaunas monument to Martynas Janus at https://depositphotos.com/video/monument-of-martynas-jankus-kaunas-lithuania-martynas-jankus-or-martin-jankus-was-prussian-lithuanian-printer-128457826.html accessed 30 April 2024.

*** See here for more information on the education system which the Lithuanian Displaced Persons set up in Germany.

**** We know from Erika Boas (below) that the place in Tasmania where Endrius picked fruit was Huonville and can guess that he was helping to harvest an apple crop. Background to the Goliath Portland Cement Company at Railton, Tasmania can be found here.

Sources

Boas, Erika (1999) ‘Leading Dual Lives’, Lithuanian Displaced Persons in Tasmania, BA (Hons) thesis, University of Tasmania, https://eprints.utas.edu.au/7913/, accessed 12 January 2023.

‘Bronte Park Town of Pageantry in Tasmania's Most Colourful Coronation Rejoicing’ (1953) Mercury, Hobart, 3 June, p 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27149957, accessed 16 January 2023.

'Certificates of Naturalization' (1953) Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 16 July, p 1977, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232810367, accessed 16 January 2023.

‘Former Lithuanian set task of moving half an island’ (1968) Good Neighbour, 1 November, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17653211, accessed 16 January 2023.

Gerulaitytė, Eglė (2024) 'Panemunė:  The scenic road that saved Europe's banned language' https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240917-panemune-the-scenic-road-that-saved-europes-banned-language?fbclid=IwY2xjawFccgxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHZyX3bj-m4EYMmzZEN9IQ8Uu1dFnHJMlo2bbo6QlJlL9SAq1DfGJZjwkmg_aem_73PKb1RiIWd1S167kZY7YQ, accessed 24 September 2024.

'Jankuviene Ane Kerkujyte', Fragebogen für DP, Arolsen Archives, Doc ID 79220657, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79220657

Kernius, Vytas (1995) 'Lithuania Minor, Cradle of Lithuanian Culture', Draugas News: Lithuanian World Wide News in English, 15 March, https://www.draugas.org/news/lithuanian-minor-cradle-of-lithuanian-culture/ accessed on 16 January 2023.

Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System (LIMIS), Virtual Exhibitions, Exhibition ‘Homeland is Always in Me’, https://www.limis.lt/en/virtualios-parodos/-/virtualExhibitions/view/151059, accessed 16 January 2023.

Lithuanian Integral Museum Information System (LIMIS), Virtual Exhibitions, Exhibition ‘Ieva Jankutė – daugther (sic) of Minor Lithuania’, https://www.limis.lt/en/virtualios-parodos/-/virtualExhibitions/view/21689455, accessed 13 January 2023.

'Mirė Martyno Jankaus vaikaitis Endrius Jankus’ (2014) Šilainės sodas, 20 August, https://silaine.lt/kulturos-naujienos/mire-martyno-jankaus-vaikaitis-endrius-jankus/, accessed 16 January 2023.

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; 380, JANKUS Endrius DOB 7 July 1929.  https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005677, accessed 5 March 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P2836, Tasmanian Naturalisation, Citizenship and Alien records; JANKUS E, JANKUS, Endrius - application for naturalisation [arrived Fremantle per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN, 28 November 1947].  https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9593711, accessed 5 March 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571: Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration; JANKUS E, JANKUS, Endrius: Year of Birth - 1929: Nationality - LITHUANIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number – 765.  https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203627501, accessed 5 March 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12111, Immigration Photographic Archive 1946 – Today; 1/1968/16/158, Immigration - Migrants in employment - Civil Engineering - half an island in Tamar River moved - Lithuanian migrant, Christopher Jankus.  https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7456662, accessed 5 March 2023.

National Archives of Estonia, National Archives of Latvia, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Lituanica Department (2014) ‘Education’, Camps in Germany (1944-1951) for refugees from Baltic countries, http://www.archiv.org.lv/baltic_dp_germany/index.php?lang=en&id=419, accessed 16 January 2023.

Rimon, Wendy, ‘Goliath Cement’, The companion to Tasmanian history, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/G/Goliath%20Cement.htm, accessed 16 January 2023.

Skipitienė, Giedrė (2014) 'Mirė Endrius Kristupas Jankus’, Voruta, Trakai, Lithuania, 30 August 2014, No. 12 (802), https://www.voruta.lt/mire-endrius-kristupas-jankus/, accessed 1 May 2021.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle:  Fifty years of Baltic immigration in Tasmania, 1948–1958, Hobart, Tasmania, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee.

Wikipedia, ‘Martynas Jankus’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martynas_Jankus, accessed 23 September 2024.