Julius Molis (1923-1949): The Man in the Photo by Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 17 April 2023.

I have a photograph sent from Australia to Lithuania by my grandfather, Adomas Ivanauskas. On the back is a note of one of the men’s names, Julius. I started looking for his last name. Among the Bonegilla migrant camp cards, I found a card for Julius Molis and realised that it was the same person.

I was excited because I thought I could find him or his descendants so I could learn more about my grandfather. This didn’t happen, unfortunately. You will understand why when you read Julius Molis’ story.

In this photo from Adomas Ivanauskas, we have Julius first on the left,
then Barbara, his wife-to-be, an unknown man, then Beryl and her boyfriend Adomas

Source:  Rasa Ščevinskienė

Julius Molis born on 12 July 1923, in Telsiai district of Lithuania. His occupation in Lithuania was labourer. He was among the many who left Lithuania as the Soviet forces invaded it for the second time in 1944.

In Germany, he lived in Displaced Persons camp in the English zone. He left Bremerhaven, Germany for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947. Like the others in the group of 839 allowed to leave the Heintzelman in Fremantle, Western Australia, he stayed for four days before continuing eastwards on the HMAS Kanimbla. The group then travelled by two chartered trains to the part of Bonegilla army camp set aside for them.

Below is the front of the card recording Julius’ presence at the new Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre.

Bonegilla card for Julius Molis, 1947

Source:  NAA

Several Australian newspapers carried an announcement by the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, on 3 January 1948, on the work allocations of Baltic men at the Bonegilla Centre. Tasmania would receive 12 men for newsprint production and another 12 for zinc production.1

The first mill in the world to produce newsprint from eucalyptus hardwood was opened in the Tasmanian town of Boyer by Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd (APM) in 1941.2 During World War II, it was able to keep ten Australian dailies supplied with their paper, so serious wartime rationing of the major means of news distribution was not needed. In 1947, APM built a town about 50 road kilometres east of Boyer as a base for logging eucalypts in the nearby Florentine Valley. This town, Maydena, is where Julius and others were sent.3

By March 1949, Adomas Ivanauskas has managed to leave the outback town of Woomera for South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide. I think the photo above was taken in Adelaide in 1949 during April to November. In it, you can see some kind of celebration, perhaps a meeting of Lithuanians. On the other side of the photo, the words written in pencil are, ‘Julius and his wife to be Barbara, Beryl and Adomas’. Since Adomas and Julius had come to Australia on the same ship, the Heintzelman, in late 1947, they knew each other. This was a meeting of friends. Adelaide is more than 1,000 kilometres from Maydena. Perhaps Julius had come to Adelaide on holiday with his girlfriend, Barbara.

When I started looking for more information about Julius Molis, I found a sad report in the Tasmanian newspaper, the Mercury, from 6 December 1949. The title of the article was Man Found Hanged in Cell. Let’s read what was the report.

'Julius Molis (26) an unmarried Lithuanian employed by Australian Newsprint Mills Ltd. in the forest at Maydena, was found hanged in a police cell at New Norfolk yesterday morning. 

‘Molis was arrested at New Norfolk about 10 pm on Sunday on a charge of having attempted to operate a motor cycle while under the influence of liquor.

‘He was placed in the cell, and would have appeared in New Norfolk Police Court yesterday morning. 

‘About 8.30 am yesterday a police officer went to the cell and found Molis hanging with his feet about nine inches from the floor. He was dead. 

‘An inquest will be opened at New Norfolk today’.4

Julius Molis' photo from his immigration selection papers

Source:  NAA

On the same day as Molis’ death was reported, 6 December 1949, the Hobart Mercury newspaper carried a notice from funeral directors, Alex Fyle & Son. It advised that Julius Molis had died on 4 December 1949 and that his funeral was to arrive at the New Norfolk Cemetery on the same day, at 4 pm.5 Presumably there was no funeral mass because he was a Catholic who had committed suicide.

Julius Molis' headstone in the New Norfolk Old Council Cemetery

Source:  Gravesites of Tasmania

Julius has quite a substantial headstone in the Old Council Cemetery in the Tasmanian town of New Norfolk.  His grave would be unmarked unless someone had paid for the headstone and surround.  Presumably it was his fellow Lithuanians working in newsprint production in and around Maydena who passed the hat around, just as they did in the Bonegilla camp in December 1947 for their drowned compatriot, Aleksandras Vasiliauskas.

It is sad that Barbara did not become Julius Molis’ wife and they did not live a long and happy life together. The traumas of World War II had caught up with him.

That was not the end of the matter for officialdom though. International Refugee Organisation (IRO) records now held in the Arolsen Archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany, show that, on 10 May 1950, the Acting Head of the Australian Military Mission in Berlin, asked the IRO to inform the next of kin (NOK) of the deaths in Australia of 7 Displaced Persons or, as he put it, New Australians. Five of the deaths were due to drowning (but not including Aleksandras Vasilauskas) or other accidents, while Julius Molis was one of two suicides. The last item on the file, dated 25 July 1950, is an internal IRO message asking for the status of enquiries about next of kin, as the Australian Government was pressing for a reply.6

The intermediate correspondence amounted to the IRO saying that it did not have NOK information and the Australian Government had been unable to supply any more. This is sad, since all in the Bonegilla camp had been asked to nominate at least one NOK for recording on their Bonegilla card. It was a friend only in the case of Julius, but it could have been someone much closer. The correspondence indicates that, sadly, the Department of Immigration’s Central Office was ignorant of the kindly efforts of the Bonegilla camp administration.

FOOTNOTES

1. For example, ‘Share-Out of Balts‘, The Herald (Melbourne), 3 January 1948, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/243839773, accessed 30 January 2023. 

2. Boyer Newsprint Mill, New Norfolk, 1941-‘, Engineers Australia, https://portal.engineersaustralia.org.au/heritage/boyer-newsprint-mill-new-norfolk-1941, accessed 30 January 2023.

3. ‘Australian Newsprint Mills‘, The Companion to Tasmanian History, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/A/Australian%20Newsprint%20Mills.htm, accessed 30 January 2023.

4. ’Man Found Hanged in Cell’, The Mercury (Hobart), 6 December 1949, p 8, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26665433, 'Man Found Hanging', The Examiner (Launceston), 6 December 1949, p 5, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/52707905/4676682, ‘Found Hanging in Cell’, The Advocate (Burnie) 6 December 1949, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91766087, all accessed 30 January 2023.

5. 'Family Notices', The Mercury (Hobart), 6 December 1949, p 20, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26665617, accessed 30 January 2023.

6. 'Personal file of MOLIS, JULIUS, born in the year 1926, born in TELSIAI', Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/81104345?s=julius%20molis&t=3173288&p=0, accessed 30 January 2023.

OTHER SOURCES

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration; MOLIS, Julius: Year of Birth - 1923: Nationality - LITHUANIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number – 855; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=20391295, accessed 6 March 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; 808, MOLIS Julius DOB 12 July 1923; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=3010055, accessed 6 March 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42); 37/368, MOLIS Julius born 12 July 1923; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272921, accessed 6 March 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1182, Personal case files for non-British migrants who are deceased, lexicographical series; MOLIS, Molis, Julius [Lithuanian]; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1923533, accessed 6 March 2023.

Adomas Ivanauskas (1912-1980): The grandfather I never knew by Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 16 January 2023 

Adomas Ivanauskas was born on 11 February 1912, in the village of Pazapsiai, in the Seiniai district in Lithuania, only a couple of kilometres from the modern border with Poland. On one official Australian form, he gives his birthplace as the city of Kovno, now known as Kaunas, but we know that he was only serving there with the Lithuanian Army, before he left for Germany. 

As he turned 18 in 1931, he would have been called up for military training during the first half of the 1930s. 

Adomas in Lithuanian military uniform, 1935

Before WWII, he was a landowner in Pazapsiai. In 1938, he married Monika. They had a son, Alvydas, in 1940. Alvydas, who is my father, still lives in Lithuania, as do I. When WWII started in Lithuania, Adomas again joined the Lithuanian Army. 

If he gave an accurate date of arrival in Germany, July 1945, on his 1957 application for Australian citizenship, then it is likely that he somehow managed to escape Lithuania after the Soviet forces re-occupied it, in October 1944. Either that, or he omitted time spent in other countries, such as Czechoslovakia, en route (NAA: MT874/1, V1956/21973). 

In Germany, he lived in Displaced Persons camps in the English zone, including the “Riga” camp in Lübeck. He was living here on 6 October 1947, when interviewed by the Australian selection team operating in the German camps and accepted for resettlement in Australia, based on his previous farming experience (NAA: A11772, 377). He left Bremerhaven for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947. 

Like the others in the group of 839 allowed to leave the Heintzelman in Fremantle, Western Australia, Adomas stayed there for four days before continuing eastwards on the HMAS Kanimbla. The group then travelled by two chartered trains to the former Bonegilla army camp. Below is the front of the card recording Adomas’ presence at the new Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre. 

Adomas Ivanauskas, Bonegilla card, NAA: A2571, 110

Despite the desperate need for people with farming experience in Australia, to grow more food for the military returning from WWII and the ‘baby boom’ which their return was creating, Adomas was sent first to a sawmill. He was sent on 20 January 1948, after 6 weeks in Bonegilla, to Rylstone, a small town in the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales. There was also a desperate need for timber to build houses for the new families.

He returned to Bonegilla on 12 April 1948 but, three days later, was sent to Iron Knob in South Australia to work with a company then known as Broken Hill Pty Ltd – but now simply BHP. Like all of the Displaced Persons, he had agreed to stay in Australia, working, for at least two years. He was assisting the mining industry, however, rather than farming.

Adomas relaxes at the barracks, Iron Knob

By March 1949, Adomas has managed to leave the outback town of Iron Knob for South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide.

An Aliens Registration Card returned to the Commonwealth of Australia when Adomas received Australian citizenship shows a first address of 56 Maple Avenue, Goodwood. Goodwood is a suburb just south of the Adelaide Central Business District (CBD). This address was notified on 17 March 1949, so after less than one year in Iron Knob (NAA: B78, 1957/IVANAUSKAS A). 

The next address, Railway Hotel, Islington, was notified on 4 October 1949. Further evidence of the move to Islington is a classified advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser of 25 October 1949. It read, 'New Australian couple require bed-sitting room, with use of kitchen in metropolitan area. Apply A. Ivanauskas, Railway Hostel, Islington.'

Adomas' advertisement, Adelaide Advertiser, 1949

The only Islington now in Australia Post’s postcode directory is a suburb of Newcastle, New South Wales. A Wikipedia article about the South Australian Islington says that it is the site of the main workshops for the South Australian Railways. The suburb in which they are located is now Kilburn. As the Islington workshops opened in 1883, they may well have had a job to offer a ‘New Australian’ from Lithuania, with BHP experience, in 1949.

However, October 1949 also is the date Adomas gave for his move from Adelaide to Melbourne on his citizenship application form. His Aliens Registration Card gave an address with a near illegible suburb, but the most likely reading is 3 Mackenzie Street, Melbourne. This is an address almost at the northeast corner of the CBD. The date on which he advised this address was 12 November 1949.

Later addresses were Dalgety Street, St Kilda, advised on 23 December with an illegible year, Waltham Street, Richmond (7 January 1952) and Vaucluse Street, Richmond (24 October, again with an illegible year). All addresses were in inner Melbourne. They suggest someone forced by circumstance to move from one rental property to another, but he might have been moving to improved accommodation on each occasion. He was at the Vaucluse Street, Richmond address when he applied for Australian citizenship on 29 May 1957.

Adomas and Beryl captured by a Melbourne street photographer, 17 October 1950

The Aliens Registration Card should have been recording Adonis’ employers too. For some reason, those records did not start until 17 January 1952. Then it was noted that he was working as a welder at a company in South Melbourne. Again, this is in inner Melbourne but to the west of Richmond.

The next employment remark is dated 24 October 1955. Then, Adomas was working with Renault on Burnley Street, Richmond, much closer to home. The remarks include ‘Eng’, possibly ‘Engineer’ or ‘Engineering’.

He was a welder again with the Gas and Fuel Corporation as of 29 March 1956. The address given, Flinders Street, Melbourne, was that of the head office of this Victorian State Government instrumentality.

The final occupation information before Adomas received his citizenship calls him a welder again. This time, on 14 November 1956, he was working with a company called Goodwin’s Ltd, at the Shell Refinery at Newport. Newport is on the other side of Melbourne’s CBD, with the Yarra and Maribyrnong Rivers also impeding travel. There would not have been direct public transport, so Adomas undoubtedly was driving himself to work.

Perhaps on his farm in Lithuania, perhaps while exercising his survival skills in Germany and perhaps even at Iron Knob or the Islington Workshops in South Australia, Adomas had learnt welding. This is a highly skilled occupation, using gases at high temperatures. He could have gone back to farming, initially as a labourer or share farmer, but must have preferred the opportunities which welding offered.

A surviving photo shows Adomas sitting behind the wheel of a car, with Ocean Grove and 17 October 1950 written on the back. Co-incidentally, 17 October 1950 is also the date of the street photograph with Beryl, above, so the date may not refer to the day on which the photographs were taken.

From 1950 onwards, many families from Europe started to settle in Ocean Grove, a coastal town to the southwest of Melbourne. While at least 100 Km distant on the winding roads of the time, it was only 25 Km from the industrial town of Geelong. Geelong would have offered much employment and it is likely that the Ocean Grove land prices were cheap, just right for new arrivals wanting to build their own homes. Adomas must have had friends to visit in Ocean Grove.

Adomas shows off his car in Ocean Grove, Victoria, 17 October 1950

The car in which Adomas is seated looks remarkably like a 1925 Star Model F-25 Sedan, made by an American company which manufactured only between 1922 and 1928. Have a look at the restored example in the photograph below.

1925 Star Model F-25 Sedan, from Classiccarweekly.net

Later addresses for Adomas in Melbourne are Manton Street, Burnley, and Elgin Street, Hawthorn. While living in Melbourne, Adomas participated in gatherings organized by fellow Lithuanians, contributed help to compatriots and supported the construction of Lithuanian House in Melbourne. In the Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, I found a number of records of money donated by Adomas Ivanauskas during 1954-1956.

Adomas and friends, date unknown, place likely to be Melbourne
judging from the VB beer bottle near the centre of the table;
Adomas is second from left, the woman on the left is likely to be Beryl

Voting is compulsory in Australia, so once Adomas acquired his Australian citizenship on 22 November 1957, he was required to be on the publicly available electoral roll. He was also required to keep the Australian Electoral Commission notified of all changes of address.

Of particular interest is the 30 November 1963 issue of the electoral roll for the Subdivision of Hawthorn, Division of Yarra, since it records Jean Ivanauskas at the same address. This suggests that Adomas was married but we don’t know when or whether they had children. Jean’s occupation was stated to be ‘process worker’, someone employed in a factory or warehouse where she carried out routine tasks, perhaps on an assembly line. Again, Adomas’ profession was welder.

Pages from 1963 electoral roll for Federal Electorate of Yarra,
Sourced from the Australian Electoral Commission via Ancestry.com.au

Despite the requirement to notify all changes of address, the image above is the only one on Ancestry.com.au in which Adomas' name has been identified.  Ancestry.com.au has made available images of Federal electoral rolls to 1980, which ought to cover Adomas' movements until his death that year (see below).

During the 1950s and 1960s, Adomas wrote to his brother Vacys, another Displaced Person who had been resettled in England. He wrote also to his wife Monica and son, Alvydas, in Lithuania until 1961. The family doesn’t know why he stopped writing. The back of a postcard sent to wife and son from Melbourne is reproduced below.

Adomas' postcard to his son and wife in Lithuania

Photos sent to Vacys refer on the back to Beryl rather than Jean. One explanation for this mystery is that the one woman in Adomas’ life had been given the names Jean Beryl, but preferred to use her middle name. Jean appears on the electoral roll because the officials compiling it were interested in her first name only.

In 2013, I learned that my grandfather had died on 19 February 1980 in Perth, Western Australia. He is buried there in the Karrakatta Cemetery. When and why he settled in Perth is unknown but Department of Immigration records indicate that he was known to its Perth office in January 1972 (NAA: MT874/1, V1956/21973).

He died in the Swanbourne Hospital, Mount Claremont, in suburban Perth. The cause of death was partial pneumonia that lasted for a week. The death certificate states that he was a widower. It therefore leads to the conclusion that his wife Jean died even earlier than Adomas. The name on his death certification had been anglicised to Adam Ivanauskas.

This was the grandfather I never knew.

REFERENCES

Classic Car Weekly (2014), ‘1925 Star Sedan’,  http://www.classiccarweekly.net/2014/08/21/1925-star-sedan/, accessed 7 January 2022.

Adelaide Advertiser (25 October 1949), ‘Classified Advertising’, p 10, obtained through the National Library of Australia's Trove service, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article36693972.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]: A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; 110, Iliew, Marin to Ivankovic, Stanko.

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; 377, IVANAUSKAS Adomas DOB 11 February 1912.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch: MT874/1, European migrants general personal files 1956; V1956/21973, Ivanauskas, Adomas.

Wikipedia, 'Islington Railway Workshops', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islington_Railway_Workshops, accessed 12 September 2021.