Girts Broders (1923-2006): Industrialist’s Son to Company Manager by Ann Tündern-Smith

Girts Broders was chosen in the Bonegilla camp to lead a band of men sent to the South Australian Railways at Wolseley because of his excellent English. 

Further evidence is on his Displaced Persons Registration Card from Germany in September 1945, where he stated that his usual profession was “tulks”, Latvian for “translator”, and his languages spoken in order of fluency were Latvian, of course, and English ahead of German. Elsewhere he has stated his previous occupation as “student”. 

Evidence of Girts’ high standard of English is a letter he wrote, published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 15 March 1948. His English was flawless, unlike that of the journalist who headlined his letter or perhaps the printer who set the headline type. 

Source: Brisbane Courier-Mail, 26 December 1947

His first name, Girts, is the Latvian equivalent of the Germanic and Nordic “Gert”, which in turn is the equivalent of the English “Gerard”. While Gerard would have been the direct translation for Australians, it’s diminutive, “Gerry”, sounds the same as the World War II derogatory term for a German soldier, “Jerry”. It’s no surprise then, that he became known as George in Australia.

Girts Broders' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A2571 BRODERS, G

As the head of the party of 62 moved on from Wolseley to another camp for the new arrivals at Bangham, he was the spokesman, although he wasn’t the only one in the party with fine English. Hugo Jakobsen from Estonia and Nikolajs Kibilds from Latvia were two others. More about them soon. 

The 62 had been selected by the Commonwealth Employment Service at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre for the South Australian Railways (SAR), which had an overdue need to widen its tracks from narrow gauge. The one thing holding them back, their Minister announced, was lack of manpower. 

When the press came calling, Girts told Bordertown’s Border Chronicle that “the men had been busy preparing camp and were maintaining excellent spirits. Their average age was 24 and all were single and ‘anxious to meet the local ladies’. They would miss the excellent swimming facilities which had been provided at Bonegilla camp. 

"The brilliantly-lighted Australian cities and their peace-time spirit had created a deep impression on (him) after seven years of war conditions in Europe. His own country had suffered alternatively from German and Russian occupation, and after three years among German ruins, the sight of a normal city was ‘pleasing’. 

“Questioned as to their political views, (Girts) said he represented every member of the party when he answered, ‘Everything, but not communistic’.” 

Imagine his feelings then, and that of the other men in the Bangham camp, when they learned of the words of an Adelaide City Councillor at a Municipal Association meeting.  The Mayor of Glenelg had suggested that the councils investigate the possibility of obtaining refugee labour for their projects. 

Adelaide City Councillor FC Lloyd, Liberal Municipal League, as quoted in the Adelaide Advertiser of 11 March 1948 said, “I do not agree with Mr. Calwell's policy. I think we should show him that we don't want this type of labour and that we don't want these people among us. They are only going to divide us and do not forget that there are plenty of Communists among them. It is time we turned the whole thing down with a thud." 

Girts’ letter in reply, as published in the Advertiser of 15 March is worth quoting in full. 

He wrote, “Sir—Apparently Councillor FC Lloyd is either badly informed about the political happenings in Europe since 1940 or he hates Baltic migrants for some reason, but most likely he just uses the word ‘Communists’ as a swear word, not knowing its meaning and not knowing the aims of Communists. 

“Councillor Lloyd admits that we are refugees, but there is nothing else at present in Europe to do but to take refuge from Communism, so we cannot possibly be Communists. If we were, we would, after liberation in 1945 from Nazi slave labour camps, have returned to our home countries and not come to Australia to displease Councillor Lloyd. 

“I can say, on behalf of many of us, that as soon as our home countries become independent again, we will return. The Baltic countries, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, were the first victims of the aggression by the Soviet Union in 1940. Our countries were promptly incorporated into the Soviet Union as ‘fraternal republics’. After one year's Communistic domination, 120,000 were deported from those countries to Siberian slave labour camps and 25,000 were shot as ‘enemies of the people’. 

“When, in 1941, war broke out between Russia and Germany, what the Russians started was continued by the Nazis, who looted what the Communists had left. The remaining people were taken as forced laborers to Germany. In this group were most of the Balt laborers now coming to Australia. Almost every one of them has a close relative deported by the Communists and killed by the NKVD or by the Gestapo. We have been accused of being plutocrats, capitalists, Nazis and Fascists, but never before of being Communists. Hence our disgust.” 

[To clarify, for those who think of World War II starting on 1 September 1939, the Soviet Union (Russia) remained neutral, but enjoyed the benefits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with Germany’s Foreign Minister 23 August 1939. Then Germany broke the Pact on 22 June 1941 with a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the Soviet Union had scooped up spoils allocated to it in the Pact by invading and occupying the Baltic States in mid-June 1940. 

[During the year after June 1940, it perpetrated many acts of violence in the Baltic States against individuals known or thought to be opposed to it. One of the worst acts of all, still commemorated wherever there are people of Baltic descent, was the mass deportation to Siberia of tens of thousands from each of the three countries in train cars meant for carrying animals, starting from the early hours of 14 June 1941. This act in particular, and the knowledge that they might be destined for the next mass deportation, is the reason why more tens of thousands fled their homelands ahead of the Soviet return in the late summer of 1944.] 

We know that Nikolajs Kibilds and Hugo Jakobsen left the Bangham camp and the task of relaying rail tracks to a wider gauge quite early. That’s because the Adelaide Mail of 8 May 1948 reported that they were among 17 from the First Transport selected to train in Peterborough as cleaners and porters for SAR. The Mail was reporting that all had passed their exams so well that their instructors were delighted. 

Girts Broders stayed at Bangham until May, at least. We know that because the Bordertown Border Chronicle reported, on 6 May 1948, that he had been the interpreter for an evening social and dance organised by the Tatiara Youth Club on the previous Monday night. 

In thanking the organisers, Girts had said that they “appreciated the change after the ‘tedious, everyday life at Bangham, which is not one of the most fashionable and entertaining places’.” 

Girts had become engaged to be married to Maimu Naar in Germany. They met because they were both working for the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the international agency tasked with providing assistance to the victims of World War II.

Maimu, an Estonian, was tracing lost children while Girts was working in transport. As luck – or maybe skills and ability – would have it, Maimu had been able to relocate to Australia on the First Transport with Girts, and with her older sister and younger brother. I hope to write more about the Naar siblings soon. 

By the time Girts filled out the application form for migration to Australia on 2 October 1947, his employer had become the International Refugee Organization (IRO). He gave his address as “DP Camp Wildflecken IRO Team”. The functions of UNRRA, which existed for only 4 years, were being handed over to the newer IRO gradually. 

Maimu’s first job was in Canberra, where she was a typist in the Department of Immigration. She lived in the Mulwala Hostel, where the strike involving Margarita Vrubliauskienė occurred. 

Through her work colleagues, she was able to arrange a transfer for Girts to Canberra. He worked there for 18 months as a clerk in a hostel at the Fairbairn Royal Australian Air Force Base. He was there when advised that the Minister for Immigration had shortened the length of most contracts, so he was free to find his own employment if he wished after 30 September 1949. 

Source:  The New Australian, October 1949

The certificate in the photograph above would have been numbered 1 as, seven years later, Girts was sharing this with a suburban Adelaide newspaper, Coromandel. He was the “first certificated non-British migrant under the post-war scheme”. Perhaps this occurred because he was first in the alphabetical surname list of those eligible in Canberra, where the Central Office of the Department of Immigration was located. 

Girts and Maimu married in Sydney in 1949. Their only child, Linda, was born in Sydney. Later they moved to Adelaide, where they spent the rest of their lives. They changed officially from migrants to citizens there on 17 October 1955, although they would have had to wait longer to take the oath of allegiance and receive their citizenship certificates in the sort of public ceremony which continues today. 

Girts’ working life led to a position of Supply Manager, in charge of purchasing for the South Australian branch of the Gilbert & Barker Manufacturing Co, which traded as Gilbarco. The company now is a supplier of fuel dispensers, point of sales systems, payment systems, forecourt merchandising and support services. You’ve almost certainly seen its name on petrol pumps at Australian service stations. 

Girts had been born in Koknese parish, Latvia, on 9 November 1923. His father, Alberts, was arrested by the KGB on 25 October 1940 and imprisoned before being shot with 99 other Latvian men. Their execution occurred on 21 June 1941, the day before the German started their return to Latvia. The dead Latvians were buried in a mass grave at Baltezer, a lake near Riga. 

Alberts owned a textile factory employing about 500, so clearly was exploiting the working class. His record as a fighter for Latvian freedom in 1919-20 may have gone against him too. 

Later, the corpses were exhumed and the bodies identified and reburied. Now the site of the former mass grave has a memorial bearing the names of the 100 men shot there. 

Girt’s mother, sister and an older, married brother with his family had been able to escape to Germany in 1944. His mother and sister had been able to join their son and brother in Australia via the Wooster Victory in March 1949. Falks-Andrievs, his wife Skaidrite, and their two young children arrived on the Castel Bianco in May 1950. 

Maimu had studied one year of medicine in Germany after her flight from Estonia. Co-incidentally, Girt’s mother, Marianna, had started to study medicine too before marrying his father in 1918. 

Girts died on 6 October 2006, in Riga, aged 82, while visiting his homeland. He was brought back to South Australia, to be buried with Maimu, who had died in 1995. He remains in his second homeland where his family members live now. Indeed, he became so Australianised that he is buried under the name of George Martin Broders. 

His older brother, Falks or Jack in Australia, is 102 years old now and has only recently moved into an aged care residence. His sister, Ilze, is still in Adelaide at 89 years old. 

Girts and Maimu have one grandchild, screenwriter, film director and composer Dario Russo. Dario has directed and acted in a couple of cult classics, Italian Spiderman and Danger 5, the latter having been commissioned by SBS Television. 

He described himself to Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul Kalina in 2015 as a “textbook only child”. Paul Kalina added that “Russo credits his ‘highly artistic and theatrical’ parents for supporting his passion. "They never encouraged me to get a real job and as far as I know I don't have one. I was never encouraged to get the fall-back career and for that I have to be eternally grateful. Mum was an art teacher, dad a guitar teacher, both into creativity. They're incredible, model parents. I feel guilty.” 

Below: The Age Green Guide, 1 January 2015, featured Dario Russo’s Danger 5.

Image used by kind permission of Fairfax Media

SOURCES 

Advertiser (1948) ‘Councillor’s Attack On Balt Labor’, (Adelaide) 11 March, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759190 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Arolsen Archives, ‘Broders, Girts’, AEF DP Registration Record, DocID: 66705455, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66705455, accessed 7 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham, To Help Broaden Rail Gauge’, Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125, accessed 8 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ‘Balts Welcomed by Council Chairman (Cr Hunt)’, (Bordertown, SA) 6 May p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212919306 accessed 8 January 2024. 

‘Broders, Alberts’, L.k.o.k. biogrāfija, LKOK nr.3/414, http://lkok.com/detail1.asp?ID=246 (in Latvian) accessed 10 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (1948) ‘Attack of Balt Labor Resented’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 15 March, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759705 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (2004) Personal communication, 4 January. 

Coromandel (1956) ‘Migrant With Card No. 1’, (Blackwood, SA), 27 July, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article261058228 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Courier-Mail (1947) ‘Wasn’t White But’, (Brisbane) 26 December, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49664209 accessed 9 January 2024.  

Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=broders&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=South+Australia%2C+Australia&locationId=state_577&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=r&plot=, accessed 31 December 2023. 

Geni, https://www.geni.com/people/George-Martin-Broders/6000000008871342239, accessed 30 December 2023. 

Gilbarco Veeder-Root, ‘Company History’, https://www.gilbarco.com/us/company-history, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Kalina, Paul (2015) ‘Lunch with TV Writer and Actor Dario Russo’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/lunch-with-tv-writer-and-actor-dario-russo-20150101-12ahoz.html, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railway Men’, (Adelaide) 8 May p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55905773 accessed 8 January 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947–1956; BRODERS, Girts : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1085, 1947–1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203687219, accessed 7 January 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); 712, BRODERS Girts [Girto] DOB 9 November 1923 (1947–47); https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118086, accessed 8 January 2024 

New Australian (1949) ‘New Australians Released From Contracts; More Follow Soon’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

New Australian (1949) ‘Proud of Their Certificates’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

Russo, Linda (2004-2024) Personal communications. 

Wikipedia, ‘Gilbarco Veeder-Root’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbarco_Veeder-Root#History accessed 16 April 2024.

WHAT LED TO THE FIRST DISPLACED PERSONS: A TIMELINE by Ann Tündern-Smith & Department of Information staff

I’m looking through a Department of Information file on correspondence from the Minister for Immigration (and Information, Arthur Calwell) during 1947 and 1948. For anyone who wants to follow up, its NAA: CP815/1, 021.148 (Item number 263676) – there are more details below. What has caught my eye is a timeline of “the Government’s achievements in the migration field in the past three years”. 

I thought it was an excellent summary of the context in which the Displaced Persons (refugees in reality) from the Baltic States were brought to Australia in November 1947. It is part of a draft for a proposed article for the Catholic Weekly to appear under the byline of Minister Calwell. I have highlighted the parts of particular significance to the passengers on the First Transport by using an italic typeface.  Also, I've had to change the layout a little to fit Blogspot's formatting limitations.  [My comments within the timeline are in square brackets.]

1945 July:  Cabinet [actually, Prime Minister Chifley, in establishing his first           Cabinet] appoints the Hon Arthur A Calwell Minister for Immigration. 

August:  Mr Calwell announces the Government’s immigration policy to the House of Representatives. 

September:  Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Committee, under the Chairmanship of Mr LC Haylen, MHR, begins European tour to investigate emigration possibilities. 

1946 February:  Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Committee’s report published; advocates encouragement of emigration from Europe as well as Britain. 

March:  Mr Calwell announces signing of agreement between United Kingdom and Commonwealth Governments to provide free and assisted passages to Australia for British ex-servicemen and their dependents, and other selected British migrants.

August:  Commonwealth and State Ministers confer in Canberra on nation’s immigration programme. 

December:  Cabinet approves agreement with Netherlands Emigration Foundation to bring Dutch farmers to Australia. 

1947 January        First party of British building tradesmen arrive under special arrangements made with United Kingdom Government. 

February:  Mr Calwell announces formation of Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council to advise on immigration matters. 

March:  United Kingdom and Australian Governments announce that free and assisted passage schemes will come into operation on March 31. 

April:  Announcement of scheme for assisted passages for British ex-service personnel of European descent not eligible on residential grounds for such passages. 

June:  First free and assisted passage migrants arrive from United Kingdom. First child migrants arrive under reopened child migration schemes. Mr Calwell begins world tour to study immigration questions and seek more shipping for migrant carriage.

July:  Agreement signed between International Refugee Organization and Commonwealth Government for migration to Australia of 12,000 selected displaced persons from camps in occupied Europe. 

September:  First party of assisted passage United States ex-servicemen reaches Australia. 

November:  Establishment of Bonegilla, first reception and training centre for education of migrants from displaced persons’ camps in Europe. 

December:  First party of 843 [actually 839, as 4 did not leave the Heintzelman in Fremantle and were returned to Europe on health or security grounds] displaced persons of Baltic origin arrive at Bonegilla from Europe. First “all migrant” ship reaches Australia from Britain. 

1948 February:  Mr Calwell announces that nearly half a million tons of shipping is in sight to bring British migrants to Australia.

March:  Following ratification of peace treaties with Italy, Roumania, Bulgaria and Hungary, Mr Calwell announces modified policy allowing entry of nationals of those countries in certain circumstances. 

April:  First party of Dutch farmers under agreement with Netherlands Emigration Foundation, together with Dutch ex-servicemen, sail from Rotterdam. 

May:  Bathurst reception and training centre for displaced person migrants [sic] opens. 

The minute continues with the prediction that, “These ‘Migration Milestones’ may well become milestones in Australian history." Such foresight! 

While the article was drafted for proposed publication in the national Catholic Weekly, it first appeared as part of a series by Calwell on the resettlement of the Displaced Persons in the Sydney Catholic Weekly of 21 October.  

The series was repeated in the South Australian Catholic weekly, the Southern Cross, with the milestones section being published on 29 October. It then appeared in the Advocate, "a Catholic Review of the Week", with the milestones appearing on 4 November.

It later appeared different form, as part of a 70-page booklet on the progress of migration published in March 1949. The December 1949 election was then looming, an election lost by the Labor Party to Robert Menzies’ Liberal-Country Party coalition. 

A journalist inclined to irony, David McNicoll, included the launch of the booklet in his Town Talk column in the 8 March 1949 issue of the Daily Telegraph. See below.

Source:  Trove 248149510

SOURCES

Advocate (1948) 'Australia's Future', Melbourne, 4 November, p 11, accessed 1 Mar 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article172500091.   

Catholic Weekly (1948) 'Strength Will Come out of Population Melting-Pot', Sydney, 21 October, p 3, accessed 1 Mar 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article146660540   

McNicoll, David (1949) 'Town Talk', Daily Telegraph, Sydney, 8 March, p 1, accessed 1 Mar 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248149510.   

National Archives of Australia, Department of Information, Central Office; CP815/1, General correspondence files, two number series, 1938 - 1951; 021.148, Immigration - From Minister [correspondence with Immigration Publicity Officer], 1947-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=263676.

Southern Cross (1948) 'Europe's "D.Ps." and Australia (5) Immigration -- Policy and Progress', Adelaide, 29 October, p 8, accessed 1 Mar 2024, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article167722104.

   

Why did Australia have an immigration program which brought our families here? Arthur Calwell (1896-1973) by Fiona Basile

Arthur Calwell, Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, had been thinking and reading about population growth as a means of ensuring Australia’s security even before he became a Federal Member of Parliament in 1940. No, he did not coin the ‘populate or perish’ phrase – that honour goes to Billy Hughes – but he certainly popularised it. This summary of the life of the man who brought our family members to Australia in 1947 as part of the commencement of his migration program, by Fiona Basile, was published in the Melbourne Catholic on 21 September 2022. It is reproduced here by kind permission. Additional footnotes have been provided by Mary Elizabeth Calwell, Arthur Calwell's one surviving child.

Arthur Augustus Calwell

Source:  Museum of Australian Democracy

Mary Elizabeth Calwell was just a schoolgirl when her father, Arthur Calwell, was sworn in as Australia’s first federal minister for immigration in 1945. Labor’s Ben Chifley had become prime minister, and World War II was coming to an end. Calwell had a visionary plan for a large-scale immigration scheme—a plan that would later see him labelled ‘the father of multiculturalism in Australia’.

In his inaugural parliamentary speech on 2 August 1945, less than three weeks after his appointment, and before the official end of World War II, Calwell presented his vision for Australia:

If Australians have learned one lesson from the Pacific War, it is surely that we cannot continue to hold our island continent for ourselves and our descendants unless we greatly increase our numbers. We are about 7 million people, and we hold 3 million square miles of this earth's surface … much development and settlement have yet to be undertaken. Our need to undertake it is urgent and imperative if we are to survive … The door to Australia will always be open within the limits of our existing legislation ... We make two things clear ... The one is that Australia wants, and will welcome, new healthy citizens who are determined to become good Australians by adoption. The second is that we will not mislead any intending immigrant by encouraging him to come to this country under any assisted to unassisted scheme until there is a reasonable assurance of his economic future ... 

Though Calwell died in 1973, having served in federal politics from 1940 to 1972, the impact of his policies and work in initiating and implementing post-WWII immigration to Australia continues to be felt today, including within our Archdiocese’s rich tapestry of multicultural faith communities.

Reflecting on her father’s legacy, Calwell’s daughter Mary Elizabeth notes that both historian Geoffrey Blainey and former Prime Minister Bob Hawke believed that Labor’s greatest achievement in the 20th century was probably Calwell’s ambitious immigration scheme.

Calwell was born in 1896 in West Melbourne. Many immigrant families lived nearby, so he enjoyed friendships with people from Jewish, Lebanese, Italian, Greek and Chinese backgrounds. He spoke fluent Irish and some Mandarin and French.

Calwell was raised in the Catholic faith of his mother and Irish grandparents, and was the eldest of seven children. He attended St Mary’s Boys’ School in West Melbourne and won a scholarship to attend St Joseph’s College in North Melbourne, both run by the Christian Brothers. He is reported as saying, ‘I owe everything I have in life, under Almighty God and next to my parents, to the Christian Brothers.’

Arthur Calwell’s mother died in early 1913. Although his father was a policeman and later Police Superintendent, a university education was not possible, so Calwell began work as a clerk for the Victorian State Government, first in the Department of Agriculture and then in the Department of Treasury. He was secretary of his ALP Branch at just 18 years of age, and was elected to many ALP and union positions, including Victorian ALP president from 1930 to 1931—the youngest person at that time to have held that position—and was the first president of the Victorian branch of the Amalgamated Australian Public Service Association, Clerical Division, from 1925 to 1931.

In 1921, Arthur Calwell married Margaret Murphy, who died just five months later. Ten years on, in 1932, he married Elizabeth Marren, an Irishwoman who was social editor of the Catholic weekly newspaper, the Tribune, and had also been a journalist at the Advocate. They met through Irish organisations. They had two children, Mary Elizabeth and Arthur Andrew, who died of leukaemia when he was 11 years old.

Mary Elizabeth, who went to boarding school at the age of 10, says she was fortunate to have grown up in a home that valued intellectual activities. Both her parents wrote extensively, and in 1933, they established the Irish Review, which continued under other auspices until 1954. Mary Elizabeth says both her parents had a ‘big influence’ on her life.

‘My father wrote for the Age Literary Supplement on American history for the 4th of July, and he quoted spontaneously from the Bible, history or literature in parliament. He was elected to positions in social, cultural and sporting organisations.’

However, it was Calwell’s role as [Australia's first] Immigration Minister that cemented his place in history. To win support, he emphasised the importance of immigration for national development and defence. ‘Australia’s population was 7.4 million with 250,000 available jobs,’ Mary Elizabeth says, ‘and he used the slogan “populate or perish”.’ According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, Calwell’s immigration scheme brought more people to Australia than had come in all the previous years since settlement.

In 1947, Arthur and Elizabeth Calwell, along with his secretary Bob Armstrong, visited 23 countries in just under 13 weeks, travelling by flying boat, plane and ship. In July, Calwell signed an agreement with the United Nations Refugee Organisation to accept displaced persons from European countries ravaged by war. Despite shipping shortages, 100,000 British and 50,000 assisted migrants had arrived in Australia by August 1949, along with many thousands of sponsored migrants.

The Calwell party in Berlin, 18 July 1947
From left: Brigadier T. White, Head of Australian Military Mission to Germany, Harry Beilby (Department of Immigration), Malcolm Booker (Second Secretary (Political) Australian Military Mission [Department of Foreign Affairs]), possibly Ian Hamilton (Department of Information), Elizabeth and Arthur Calwell, Bob Armstrong (Arthur Calwell's Secretary), the Military Mission's Australian driver with car

Source:  Calwell collection

'He allowed Holocaust survivors to come to Australia when other countries were uninterested,’ says Mary Elizabeth. ‘Descendants and survivors are proportionately greater here than in any country outside Israel.’ In 1946, 100 trees were planted in Israel by the Melbourne Jewish Community through the Jewish National Fund (JNF). In 1995, trees were also planted in Melbourne, and in 1998, the Australian Jewish Community established and dedicated the JNF Arthur A Calwell Forest of Life at Kessalon near Jerusalem, Israel.

Mary Elizabeth is particularly proud of her father’s implementation of the Nationality Act 1946, which enabled Australian women to retain their nationality after marriage to a foreigner [an international rarity then], and the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, proclaimed on Australia Day 1949, with the first citizenship ceremony taking place in Canberra on 3 February 1949. He also introduced the term ‘New Australian’ to discourage hostility to migrants, and he approved the introduction of Good Neighbour Councils. By 1952, the Australian population had increased to 8.7 million through births and immigration.

When not engaged in politics, Calwell was devoted to the North Melbourne Football Club, becoming the club’s first life member. According to Mary Elizabeth, he was also devoted to the Church, receiving a papal knighthood from Pope Paul VI and being made a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great with Silver Star in 1963.

'My father had a very deep and informed knowledge of his faith, which sustained him and complemented his commitment to Australian Labor values,’ Mary Elizabeth says. Among his many initiatives, for instance, he arranged for paid chaplains to be appointed to immigration reception centres, where displaced persons were welcomed, and he was on the committee that bought the first Maronite Church in Rathdowne Street, Carlton.

Having served as both deputy leader and leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party—narrowly missing out on becoming prime minister in 1961, when Democratic Labor Party preferences were directed to the Liberal and Country Parties—Calwell retired from politics in 1972. He died on 8 July 1973 in East Melbourne and was given a large state funeral at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Looking back on her father’s legacy, Mary Elizabeth observes, ‘There were 7.5 million in Australia in 1945, and by the time Dad died in 1973, we had an extra 6 million people.’ She agrees with sociologist Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki that her father’s immigration policies ‘changed Australia in a far more fundamental way than anything else since the end of the Second World War’, and that our nation is a richer place for those changes.

[I thank Mary Elizabeth Calwell for her support of my research for more than 20 years now, and Fiona Basile with the Melbourne Catholic for permission to reproduce Fiona's article.]

Footnotes

Arthur Calwell released an autobiography in 1972, titled Be Just and Fear Not, and Labor’s Role in Modern Society in 1963.

Mary Elizabeth published a biography of her father in 2012, titled I Am Bound to Be True.

It was the July 1947 agreement with the Preparatory Commission of the International Refugee Organisation signed by Calwell in Geneva which led, in September and October 1947, to staff from the Australian High Commission in London joining the deputy head of the Australian Military Mission to Berlin as the interviewing panel for the first group of displaced people. That first group were the passengers on the General Stuart Heintzelman arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947 – our First Transporters.

Arthur Calwell not only started government-sponsored migration to Australia, which continues today, especially for those determined to be refugees under the terms of the 1951 International Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. He not only was responsible for establishing the legal concept of Australian citizenship. He established Australia as a place of refuge for Holocaust survivors in 1945 as well as those displaced by Hitler’s war and Stalin’s expansion of the Soviet Union to its west despite very little shipping after WWII.

Professor Louise Holborn, in her official history of The International Refugee Organization, stated that Australia was the country which most generously responded to the resettlement needs of family units, promoted the resettlement of unmarried mothers and was the only country to perform its own orientation work.

As Minister for Information (1943-1949), Arthur Calwell was in charge of the wartime Censor, employed war correspondents, and controlled Radio Australia and its translators.  He ensured that the Australian flag flew on major occasions and that Advance Australia Fair (not God Save the Queen) was played on official occasions, at picture theatres and before the ABC News broadcasts.  His department had a film unit which produced many documentaries and employed many important journalists, who promoted our literature and culture in Australia and to millions of people overseas.

Arthur Calwell opposed conscription for military service outside Australia from 1917, vehemently opposed our involvement in Vietnam, defended the separation of Church and State, and worked for social justice through Labor’s commitment to democratic socialism and democracy as the best political system available in the world.

Margarita Vrubliauskienė (1911 - ?): Canberra goes on strike over Balt housemaid, by Daina Počius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024

‘When attractive Balt housemaid Margarita Vrubliauskiene waved a mop at the manageress of the hostel where she is employed, it nearly plunged Canberra into a major upset’.

So began one of many newspaper stories about an altercation which almost brought Canberra to a standstill. Over a three-day period in August 1949, newspapers from Innisfail in North Queensland south to Hobart in Tasmania, through Melbourne and Adelaide to Perth and Geraldton in Western Australia reported the situation. Grafton, Lismore, Wagga Wagga, Broken Hill, and Narrabri worried as Canberra negotiated.

The housemaid was Margarita Sadauskaitė-Vrubliauskienė. She was born in 1911 in St Petersburg. She arrived in Australia aged 36 on the First Transport ship, the General Stuart Heintzelman, on 28 November 1947. She was sent to work at the Mulwala Hostel in Canberra on 22 December. The hostel was run by the Department of the Interior for up to 240 public servants in Canberra.

Margarita Vrubliauskiene's photo from her Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When Margarita was ill in bed, she had refused a request from the new management for her to work. This had led to what the Secretary of the Canberra Branch of the Liquor and Allied Trades Employees' Union called “pin-pricking”. Margarita had interpreted something said as a threat to return her to Germany and understandably became hysterical.

On 10 August, she was given 48 hours’ notice of dismissal for alleged insolence and insubordination. Fifty colleagues walked off the job in support of her. The Department of the Interior sent some staff to help but they could not cope, leaving 202 Mulwala residents to prepare their own dinners and breakfasts.

Margarita had worked at Mulwala for nearly two years with no fault found in her work. The local Conciliation Commissioner said that she could stay at Mulwala until another job was found for her but refused to order her reinstatement. Hearing this decision, the 40 employees of Mulwala Hostel who had walked out stayed out. They were on strike! As the strike continued, the residents had to make their own beds and clean up after themselves …

The Commissioner stated that he thought it was in Margarita’s own best interests that another place of work be found for her. He would not reinstate her because, if he did, “Mulwala might as well be handed over to the staff to run it themselves”. Revolutionary thought!

The strikers comprised 23 Balts and 17 Australians. The Balt strikers probably included Viktoria Berdagans who had been sent from Bonegilla to the Hostel together with Margarita. As well, we know from their Bonegilla cards that Ramona Biemelis and Jevgenija Zagorska had arrived to work there soon after. The 202 residents included 13 First Transport women who had been sent to Canberra to work as typists: Irina Fridenbergs, Elvira Kärmik, Heldi Kull, Valeska Lans, Veronika Ludzitis, Lucia Maksim, Vally Meschin, Aino Meere and her sister Maimu Naar, Elin Põldre, Reina Roosvald, Natasha Shersunova and Juta Usin. This headcount from the Bonegilla card records does conflict with statements elsewhere that 10 of the women in Canberra were working as typists.

On the following day, the strikers decided to join Margarita’s case with that of another migrant employee alleged to have received unsatisfactory treatment. Unless both issues were settled, and the manager with his wife removed from Mulwala within 24 hours, the Mulwala staff would seek the support of the staff of 15 other hostels in Canberra, and 5 hotels. Such a general strike would affect around three thousand residents of these establishments.

What was more, a number of newspapers noted, State Premiers, the Federal Cabinet and members of the Liberal Party, all of whom were due to meet in Canberra the following week, would be preparing their own meals. As the Hobart Mercury headlined on 12 August, ‘Tin-openers may be in demand’.

Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior, responsible for the hostels, asked the Conciliation Commissioner to order the Mulwala strikers back to work. He refused to do this. However, he told the Union that he would not hear an application to vary the award governing its members’ pay and conditions unless they returned to work on 12 August. The hearing for the award variations had been due to start on 15 August, but the Commissioner proposed not starting for another 3 months.

The Union Secretary told the Commissioner that he had advised the staff against striking but they had been reluctant to return to work. They had asked that their problems be discussed with the Union’s executive. The Secretary advised that the general strike would not be started until NSW State executive had considered the situation.

However, the threat of not hearing the case for the award variations worked. On Friday night, 12 August, the strikers decided to return to work on Saturday morning and abide by the decisions of a special meeting of Union members on Sunday. A deputation of staff from Mulwala and another hostel with some issues, Gorman House, headed by the Union Secretary, had called on the head of the Department of the Interior. He had promised to investigate their complaints if they returned to work. The strikers were concerned that if they stayed out, they would prejudice the claims of their fellow members to early consideration of improved conditions.

The Sunday night meeting of 150 Union members decided unanimously that the Mulwala staff should remain at work and abide by conciliation. This was on the basis that the head of the Department of the Interior would make full in inquiries into the actions of the manager and his wife while at both Gorman House and Mulwala House. The strike was over.

The husband and wife management stayed on. We know that Margarita would have been found a new workplace but do not know where it was. As other women from the First Transport were working at 6 of the 15 hostels, there was plenty of choice. We do know that, later on, she was the manager of the Astor Motel in Albury but had remarried a Pole and so changed her family name. The Astor Motel, by the way, recently has been renovated in such a retro style as to earn a report in the New York Times.

As for the hysteria on misunderstanding that she would be sent back to Germany, Margarita has gone out of her way to ensure that she was on the first ship of displaced persons to Australia. She must have heard that all of its passengers were supposed to be single. She had separated from her husband so that she could claim to be single when interviewed, even though anyone with a knowledge of Lithuanians could tell from her surname ending that it belonged to a married woman. She had placed her daughter (actually, her adopted niece) in a German hospital run by nuns. Clearly, she was very keen to get out of Germany, maybe – like many others – keen to get as far away as possible from Europe and war.

Lioginas, her husband, reached Australia on the Svalbard transport on 29 June 1948. He had been a judge in Lithuania but was sent to the Department of Works in Canberra, perhaps so that he could be near his wife. Her daughter, Henrika, was 18 when she arrived on the 12 February 1948 on the Second Transport, the General Stewart. She was employed at Mulwala Hostel with her stepmother. In September 1948, she married a General Heintzelman passenger, Alfredas Kuljurgies, in Canberra.

Henrika painted landscapes from the area surrounding her home on the road from Wodonga to the Bonegilla camp. One painting is held in a public collection, at the Murray Art Museum, Albury. She died in October 2010. She is remembered by the Henrika Kuljurgies Reserve, on a creek which runs through the new Killara village built across the Murray Valley Highway from where she used to live and into the Kiewa River.

Lioginas, Leo in Australia, died in 1984 in Canberra. If we had Margarita’s later married name, we could tell you more about her life too.

Lionginas Vrubliauskas is on the right of this Canberra photo,
a First Transporter, Birute Gruzas, is in the middle and
a gentleman remembered only by the family name Ceposz is on the left.

Source:  Collection of Birute Gruzas

Note:  We have used the 'Balt' descriptor in this article because this is the word that nearly all the newspaper reporters used.  As a noun to describe a native or inhabitant of the 3 Baltic states, it has been around since at least the late 18th century.  It was quickly applied to the Displaced Persons who arrived on the First Transport, since all of them were from the Baltic states.  The Second Transport, however, brought a greater variety of nationalities, mostly from the Baltic States and Yugoslavia but including 11 Poles, 4 Ukrainians and 2 from Czechoslovakia.  From then on, the variety of source countries grew to include all which now had Communist governments.  'Balt' was becoming inaccurate.

In August 1949, Arthur Calwell, who was Minister for Information as well as Australia's first Minister for Immigration, begged the press to use the term 'New Australian' instead of 'Balt, DP or Displaced Persons'.  However, his request was issued on exactly the day that our strikers walked off the job, so the message had not reached the journalists whose reports we have used.

References

Archives ACT, ‘Find of the month, February 2019, Mulwala House, https://www.archives.act.gov.au/find_of_the_month/2019/february/previous-find-of-the-month-22019, accessed 4 July 2023.

Australian National University Archives, ‘Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees' Union of Australia’, https://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/federated-liquor-and-allied-industries-employees-union-of-australia, accessed 3 July 2023.

Holden, Katrina, ‘The Return Of The Great Australian Motel, with Wi-Fi and a Day Spa’, New York Times Style Magazine: Australia, 23 March 2021, https://taustralia.com.au/the-return-of-the-great-australian-motel-with-wi-fi-and-a-day-spa/#, accessed 4 July 2023.

‘Margarita Vrubliauskiene’, AEF DP Registration Record, Arolsen Archives DocID 69771010, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69771010, accessed 5 July 2023.

Mercury (Hobart), 'Tin-openers may be in demand', 12 August 1949, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26635831, accessed 4 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; KULJURGIS NEE VRUBLIAUSKAITE, Henrika : Year of Birth - 1929 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL STEWART : Number - W 1974, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203635339, accessed 5 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; VRUBLIAUSKAS, Lionginas : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - SVALBARD : Number - V 11912, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203714270, accessed 5 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; VRUBLIAUSKIENE, Margarita : Year of Birth - [UNKNOWN] : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1190; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203714271, accessed 5 July 2023.

Papers held in the Lithuanian Archives in Australia, https://www.australianlithuanians.org/uncategorized/adel-arkhives/ accessed 25 May 2024.

 

The Age (Melbourne), 'ACT domestics talk strike', 12 August 1949, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189454321, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Liquor trade to review strike at Mulwala House', 13 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818471, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Mulwala Hostel Staff to Accept Arbitration', 15 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818666/692528, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'No award while Mulwala staff is on strike', 12 August 1949, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818296, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Week-end penalty rates for nurses at Hospital’, 16 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818809, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW), 'Hostel strike over Balt girl', 11 August 1949, p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248978113, accessed 4 July 2023.

 

The Sunday Times (Perth), ‘Waved mop and started a dust-up’, 14 August 1949, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59493257, accessed 5 July 2023.

The Sydney Morning Herald, '25 D.P.s on strike in Canberra', 11 August 1949, p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18125036, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Canberra hostel staff to end strike',13 August 1949, p 10, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27584469, accessed 5 July 2023.

Wikipedia, ‘Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees' Union of Australia’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Liquor_and_Allied_Industries_Employees%27_Union_of_Australia, accessed 3 July 2023.

From a Lithuanian farm to Australian lawyer: Stasys Čibiras (1923-2012) by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 4 August 2024

Stasys Čibiras was born on a farm in Lithuania but retired from a law practice in South Australia. Learning the law means a close grasp of the meanings of words: for Stasys, known as Stan in Australia, English would have been his third or even fourth language. World War II changed the course of his life but this strong man survived and bettered himself. 

Stasys Cibiras at age 24 in 1947, on his 'Bonegilla card'

Source: National Archives of Australia

The farm was in senas (old) Daugeliškis, where he was one of seven brothers and a sister. Born on 13 October 1923, he was a student of mechanical engineering at a trade school when the Germans invaded his country in the summer of 1941. 

In 1944, he was taken to Germany to labour for the German Army, digging trenches between the opposing forces. He dug for eight months before being shot.  

He was taken a prisoner-of-war by the British. At the War's end, he got himself to the American Zone of occupied Germany, to the city of Kassel. He had become a Displaced Person, able to complete high schooling there in 1946. The following year in Eichstädt he studied philosophy. Like so many other Displaced Persons, his hope was to go to America, but he answered an earlier call to consider Australia instead. 

His appearance before the three-man Australian selection team took place a couple of hours away from Kassel by rail, in the town of Butzbach, near Frankfurt. Success in the selection process doubtless occurred because the team saw before it a 6-foot (183 cm) tall man who had just celebrated his 24th birthday and was healthy apart from the bullet wound. It was followed by a return to his camp on the outskirts of Kassel, hasty packing, another trip to Butzbach, then train travel to the Bremerhaven assembly point for his journey to Australia. 

Four weeks on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman were followed by four days in Fremantle and another voyage to Port Melbourne on board the HMAS Kanimbla. 

After one month in the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, probably attending English language classes every weekday, he was one of a group of 33 men sent to Mount Gambier, South Australia, for their first Australian employment. For nearly two years, they laboured there for the Department of Woods and Forests, but were told that their two-year obligation had ended two months early for good behaviour like the rest of their fellow passengers.

Moving to Adelaide, Čibiras lived initially in a large tin shed in the western suburbs with other refugees. He continued to work as a labourer, mostly in an Adelaide factory. Later he became an orderly at the Daws Road Repatriation Hospital. During this time, he decided to study law at the University of Adelaide. This was no easy undertaking. As mentioned above, he would be studying in a very recently acquired language, at least his third after Lithuanian and German. 

Those who had migrated to Australia in 1947 were not eligible to apply for Australian citizenship until after 5 years residence here. Stasys beat the gun by one day, publishing the required notices in two newspapers on 27 November 1952 when his date of arrival was 28 November 1947. He managed, however, to hold off completing his application form until 5 days later. His citizenship was conferred on 15 April 1953. 

Stasys, or Stan, was already an articled law clerk when he applied for citizenship in 1952. Indeed, his law career probably started even earlier, because we know he instigated the Australian Lithuanian Student Association, Adelaide Branch, (Australijos Lietuvių Studentų Sąjunga or ALSS), with an establishment date of 25 August 1951. Members were university students or those studying at a higher professional level who had completed a diploma. 

With part-time study, it took him until 1958 to graduate from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Laws degree. 

Stan Cibiras as a successful immigrant: the full caption for this 1958 Australian Government publicity photograph reads, "When Stan Cibiras came to Australia 11 years ago from Lithuania he was employed as a labourer. Later he became a male orderly in an Adelaide Hospital. Working at night and weekends, he was able to undertake a Law Course at the Adelaide University and recently qualified as a Bachelor of Laws.  He is now employed as a solicitor with the
Crown Law Department of South Australia."

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Meanwhile, he had involved himself in the early days of the Adelaide Lithuanian Society.  A meeting was held to discuss the establishment of a Lithuanian community house and Stasys became a member of the committee to look into this. He was a member of the Australian Lithuanian community court, President of the Baltic Communities committee and became President of the Adelaide Lithuanian community for 1956-57.

While studying, and working, he even found the time to undertake a pilot's course with the University Air Squadron, attaining the rank of Flight Lieutenant. 

A 1962 publication on the South Australian Lithuanian community, Blėzdingėlės prie Torrenso or Swallows by the Torrens, had a sketch of Stasys in his role as community leader.  Jonas Mockunas has provided what he calls a very loose translation.  "Completely straight, never wrapping anything in cotton wool, Čibiras seems not to have felt any of the attacks directed at him and always did what he was determined to do.  A young, energetic lawyer, having finished his studies in Adelaide, Stasys  Čibiras would dress down those who tried to insert sour notes into the life of the community.  To the sorrow of his friends and the joy of his enemies, Čibiras has temporarily left Adelaide simmering in disputes and settled in pleasant Renmark ..."

After completing his articles, Stan's first job was as a crown prosecutor. While visiting Renmark, he found out that a local solicitor, wished to retire. It was agreed with the solicitor that Stan would take over his business. 

Stan married a fellow Lithuanian, Dalia Pyragius, and they had two sons. The family stayed in Adelaide, so Stan travelled more than 250 Km every weekend to see them. 

Stan Cibiras (centre) with his sons, Tony (left) and Paul (right)

Photograph kindly supplied by Paul Cibiras

After Stan's death in Canberra in February 2012, his friend and former business partner, Malcolm Daws, described his Renmark life in an obituary in a local newspaper, the Murray Pioneer.

Stan, Malcolm wrote,  "lived in makeshift accommodation in Renmark while renting office space in the old State Bank building in Renmark Avenue and because he could not afford his own car to drive to Adelaide, he would ‘grab a lift’ with whoever was going there on weekends. 

"After the first three months of hard work, Stan was left with just over $2 to his name. 

"However, his hard work started to produce results and he then quietly prospered, being able to afford to buy a house, a car and  about 10 years later, a share in the building which now houses the Renmark Medical Clinic and the Riverland Denture Clinic. 

"Although Stan was able to afford to have his two sons at boarding school in Adelaide, his marriage became a casualty but nevertheless his optimism remained undimmed. 

"He was proud of the later achievements of his sons Tony, a law graduate, and Paul, a mining driller. 

Tony Cibiras (left) at his graduation with his father, Stan (right)

Photograph kindly supplied by Paul Cibiras

"During his 30 years of legal practice in Renmark, Stan involved himself in a community in which he felt so much at home. A president and life member of the Renmark Club, he was also a president of the Rotary Club and a keen participant in tennis and golf where his enjoyment of both games outshone his prowess." 

Stan retired from his business, Cibiras & Daws, and from legal practice in 1990. He moved to Canberra, where his son Tony had obtained his legal education and was in practice. 

Renmark High School’s annual Stan Cibiras Award is presented to a Year 12 student who has overcome adversity to become successful. Stasys donated $500 annually until 2011 when the award was taken over by the Renmark Lions Club. Malcolm Daws wrote that, "The award came about after Stan lamented that he had always intended to write a book on constitutional law but had not done this, so he regarded himself as a failure.  Nothing could have been further from the truth."

By 2010, Stan's health deteriorated to such an extent that he was moved into a nursing home. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When he passed away in February 2012, he had reached the grand age of 88. 

Malcolm Daws finished, "That the business name of Cibiras & Daws was registered for more than two decades causes your correspondent immense pride.  Stan's first consideration, when assessing a client's chances, was whether the client was 'a good bloke'.  Stan Cibiras was a good bloke."

In memory of Stasys (Stan) Čibiras, 13 October 1923 – 6 February 2012, and Anthony (Tony) Benius Čibiras, 26 August 1956 – 24 August 2022. 

SOURCES

Andriušis, Pulgis and Vladas Radzevičius (eds), Blėzdingėlės prie Torrenso (Swallows by the Torrens), J. J. Bachunas, Sodus, Michigan, 1962. (Jonas Mockunas advises that blėzdingėlė is also the name of a popular Lithuanian folk dance, performed by women only, so there is a connotation in the books title of Lithuanian cultural tradition being maintained in Adelaide.)

Čibiras, Paul, personal communications, 2022.

Daws, Malcolm, 'Farewell Stan Cibiras, just a genuinely good bloke', The Murray Pioneer (Renmark, SA), 14 March 2012, p 16.

Fatchen, Max, 'Their celebration was just like home', The Mail (Adelaide, SA), 30 October 1954, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58098347 viewed 12 December 2022.

Gordon, Dalia, personal communications, 2012 and 2022.

J. Kalvaitis, 'Mokslo Keliu' ('Through Learning'), Musu Pastoge (Our Haven), Sydney, NSW, 20 June 1956, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259365397 viewed 12 December 2022.

National Archives of Australia: Australian Customs Service, State Administration, South Australia; Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-1971; CIBIRAS S, CIBIRAS Stasys - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1953.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A439, Correspondence files, multiple number series, Class 11 (Migrants A-C); 1952/11/8364, Cibiras, S, 1949-1953, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=802671 accessed 4 August 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, 1947-1947; 534, CIBIRAS Stasys DOB 13 October 1923, 1947.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12111, Immigration Photographic Archive, 1946 - Today; 1/1958/29/1, Immigration - Migrants in the professions - When Stan Cibiras came to Australia 11 years ago from Lithuania he was employed as a labourer. Later he became a male orderly in an Adelaide Hospital. Working at night and week-ends he was able to undertake a Law Course at the Adelaide University and recently qualified as a Bachelor of Laws. He is now employed as a solicitor with the Crown Law Department of South Australia, 1958, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8109934 accessed 8 June 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-56; CIBIRAS STASYS, CIBIRAS, Stasys: Year of Birth - 1923: Nationality - LITHUANIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number - 908, 1947-48, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203680665 accessed 4 August 2024.

Papers held in the Lithuanian Archives in Australia, https://www.australianlithuanians.org/uncategorized/adel-arkhives/ accessed 25 May 2024.

(Pocius, Daina), 'Australian Lithuanian Students (Australijos Lietuvių Studentų Sąjunga (ALSS))', Lithuanian History in Australia, https://salithohistory.blogspot.com/2013/11/australian-lithuanian-students.html viewed 12 December 2022.

Riverland Weekly, 'Renmark Lions Club honour', Riverland Weekly (Berry, SA), 8 December 2011, p 4, https://issuu.com/riverlandweekly/docs/rw_207_dec_8_2011 viewed 12 December 2022.

The Mail, 'Want to be Good Australians', The Mail (Adelaide, SA) 15 October 1949, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55782457 viewed 12 December 2022.