Zigmas Griganavičius (1927-2016): Another Who Left for America, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Zigmas Griganavicius’ Bonegilla card records that he was sent to Mount Gambier in South Australia, on 9 January 1948, to work with the State Department of Woods and Forests there. He was one of a group of at least 32 sent there.

He must have taken one look at Mount Gambier and the work expected, and turned around. He was back at the Bonegilla camp 6 days later, on 15 January.

There is nothing on his selection for Australia file to indicate why he might have found what was expected of him so difficult. He was young, having 5 months before turned only 20. The interviewers judge him suitable for heavy labour. At 5 feet 10 inches (1.8 metres) tall and weighing 180 pounds (82 kilos), according to his Bonegilla card, he should have been sturdy enough.

Zigmas Griganavičius photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  Bonegilla Migrant Experience

He had 4 years of primary education only, so he was unlikely to be looking for a more skilled job — or so it seemed at the time.  Could he have decided to move away from a personal issue?

Six weeks later, another job was found for him. He was sent back to South Australia, to Mr RO Burgh of Clare, to pick fruit. The Clare name will be very well known to Australian wine drinkers, so he may have been helping with the grape harvest. At the time, but no longer, the Clare region also was a major producer of fruits for drying, such as apricots in addition to suitable grapes.

Clare must have been kinder to Zigmas than Mount Gambier, because his next job, according to a card kept by the Department of Immigration, Adelaide Office, was with the South Australian Railways (SAR) based in Clare.

At some stage in 1949 he was sent to Leigh Creek, 400 km north of Clare, to work as a tractor driver for another State instrumentality, the Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA). Leigh Creek was known for the mining of brown coal then used to generate the State’s electricity – in a State which now has generates three-quarters of its electricity from renewables, wind and solar.

The Department of Immigration card records that he was released from his “two year” contract to work where sent on the same date as most others from the First Transport, on 30 September 1949.

It also records that his personal file was sent to the Department’s Melbourne Office on 10 October 1950, indicating that Zigmas had moved there also.

We next come across Zigmas on the occasion of his marriage, on 7 April 1956, to Ramūnė Elena Barkutė. The wedding was celebrated in the church of St John the Evangelist in East Melbourne. As explained in this blog’s entry for Napoleonas Butkūnas, this church had been adopted by Melbourne’s Lithuanian community. The entry for Antanas Varapnickas points out that this may have been because a priest called Pranas Vaseris had moved there.

The Barkus family was well known to Melbourne’s Lithuanian residents since Liudas Barkus was actively involved in various committees of the time.

Zigmas became an Australian citizen on 11 December 1957, when living on Earl Street, in Melbourne’s inner southeast suburb of Windsor. Only one electoral roll with his details has been digitised by Ancestry. It’s a 1963 roll showing him now living on Clayton Road, Clayton, when this was a new, outer suburb of southeast Melbourne. He was working as a wood machinist. Ramune had become an Australian by then too and was working as a clerk, telling us that she was highly literate in English.

There’s only one digitised roll because two years later, the family left Australia for life in the United States. They departed on 18 June 1965. In its issue of 5 July 1965, Mūsų Pastogė reported that, in a letter written from a ship in Sydney Harbour, Zigmas and Ramunė regretted that they were not able to say goodbye to all of their family members due to the illness of their children. They were planning to start their American life with a stopover in Chicago.

Zigmas was born to Ona, previously Pukaitė, and her husband, Juozas Griganavičius, on 12 August 1927. He was born in the Riklikai village in the Ukmergė district. This was recorded on one of those American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) DP Registration Records that we are so fortunate to have still in the Arolsen Archives. His usual occupation was recorded as mokinys, Lithuanian for student. This makes sense when you consider that he was only 12 years old when Germany invaded neighbouring Poland to start World War II during his summer holidays from school.

Rasa has found an online database for notable residents of Anykščiai, a winter resort city about 100 km due north of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, if more by road. One of those notable people is an Albertas Griganavičius, whose parents happen to be Ona and Juozapas (the long from of Juozas). His brother Zigmas was born in 1927, like our Zigmas.

Albertas in described in an English translation as “Physician, civic activist, memoirist”. Later, the biography mentions that Albertas was a board member of the Lithuanian Neurosurgeons Society. Yes, a brain surgeon, if not a rocket scientist …

There were 5 children in this family altogether. The eldest, Petras (1923-2001) is described as a mechanical engineer and emigrant in Chicago. The next in age is Vytautas (1925-2008), who became a priest. Zigmas was the middle child. Next came Marija (b 1931), with the married name of Stalioraitienė, who became a medical professional. Albertas, born in 1934, died in 2015.

The database finds nearly 8,000 words to say about Albertas, when translated into English, including a few about his family. That’s much more than we are going to devote to Zigmas here, but we are now not surprised if Zigmas reacted badly to finding that he was expected to spend the next 2 years chopping down trees.

Juozapas or Juozas was a farmer, manager of the Svirnai manor farm and chairman of the Kavarskas parish committee. The Web describes Svirnai manor as a historic estate in the Anykščiai District, first recorded in 1593. Its ownership fluctuated frequently between different families until the 19th century, when the Tanski family acquired it. They were aristocrats originally from the Mazovia region of Poland. From 1944, with the Soviet invasion, the estate belonged to the State, of course, and probably became a collective farm or part of one.

Ona was no mere housewife and mother, either. The biography of her youngest son describes her as an educator, civic activist, and a tretininkė, a Catholic layperson who followed a rule of life approved by the Church. In addition to such devotions as daily prayers and fasting, the life focusses heavily on charity, community service, and helping the poor.

The influence of his family on Zigmas might have made him much happier helping with a harvest, probably a frequent activity in Lithuania, than doing what was expected of him first in Australia.

Remembering that Petras was described as a mechanical engineer in Chicago, he may well have felt much more settled into his preferred profession than Zigmas felt while working as a wood machinist in Melbourne. Petras may have offered to help his brother find more satisfying work. While Ramūnė had family in Melbourne, Zigmas’ family in Chicago must have won the discussions.

In Albertas’ biography, Zigmas is described as a businessman in Chicago. He had moved to the Los Angeles district before he committed himself to becoming an American citizen on 17 September 1976.

The witnesses to his petition to naturalization swore that they had known him since 1971, indicating when he and his family might have left Chicago.

Various entries in Ancestry and Newspapers.com do not tell us much more about Zigmas than some changes of address. We do not know what business this “businessman” was conducting, or if he moved to another line of work.

There is confirmation of Ramune’s death on 20 February 2005, when she was only 68. She had been born in Lithuania in 1936, so was only 20 at the time of her marriage and 7 years younger than Zigmas. They had two sons, Victor and Edward in the English spelling, the children who were sick when the family sailed from Sydney Harbour. All of this is in an obituary published in the Los Angeles Times on 27 February 2005.

According to an entry on the Find A Grave Website, Zigmas died on Christmas Day in 2016, yet the photograph of the plaque for Ramune and Zigmas is blank where his details ought to be. The plaque tells us the Ramune preferred her middle name of Elena. There is no accessible evidence elsewhere in support of the death date for Zigmas. He was to be buried with her in the Laurel Cemetery, Murrieta, Riverside County, California.

The Griganavicius plaque in the Laurel Cemetery, with Zigmas' birth details only.

Source:  Find A Grave

If accurate, he had passed his 89th birthday at the time of his death. He had been lost to Australia, though, for more than 50 years.

SOURCES

‘AEF DP Registration Record, Griganavičius, Zigmas’ Folder DP1297, names from GRIGAL, ALBERT to GRYGIENCZA, Michal (2), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from G, DocID 67239918, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67239918, accessed 5 October 2026.

Anykštėnų biografijų žinynas (Biographical Directory of People from Anykščiai, in Lithuanian) ‘Albertas Griganavičius’ https://www.anykstenai.lt/asmenys/asm_print.php?id=113, accessed 6 October 2026.

Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980, ‘Zigmas Griganavicius’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1207/records/91133150?tid=&pid=&queryId=31519525-0f15-4e34-8679-740afa5e3900&_phsrc=mmH97&_phstart=successSource, accessed 6 October 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Zigmas Griganavicius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203643701, accessed 6 October 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 1 May, p 1362 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240891896/25975951, accessed 5 October 2026.

Find A Grave, ‘Zigmas Griganavicius’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/174887914/zigmas-griganavicius, accessed 6 October 2026.

Los Angeles Times (2005) ‘Obituaries, Funeral Announcements, Griganavicius, Elana Ramune’ https://www.newspapers.com/image/192635355/?article=5299ff31-f626-457b-98cc-52114ee0ed77&focus=0.26300535,0.21829554,0.38208008,0.3228447&xid=3355, accessed 6 October 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1956) ‘Nauja Lietuviska Seima’ (‘New Lithuanian Family’, in Lithuania) Sydney, NSW, 2 May, p4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259365600, accessed 6 October 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1965) ‘Kiek As Sužinojau!’ (‘As far as I know’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 5 July, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1965/1965-07-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 6 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 540, GRIGANAVICIUS Zigmas DOB 12 August 1927, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005777, accessed 6 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; GRIGANAVICIUS ZIGMAS, GRIGANAVICIUS Zigmas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7199430, accessed 6 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947-1956; GRIGANAVICIUS ZIGMAS, GRIGANAVICIUS, Zigmas : Year of Birth - 1927 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 914, 1947-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203643701, accessed 6 October 2026.

US, Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) ‘Zigmas Griganavicius’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1629/records/7943978?tid=&pid=&queryId=a91a67c2-25b6-44ce-8707-e756664dff1a&_phsrc=bUj251&_phstart=successSource, accessed 6 October 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Leigh Creek, South Australia’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Creek,_South_Australia, accessed 5 October 2026.

Romualdas Zeronas (1922-1995): Why Tiger? by Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 30 December 2024

When my grandfather, Adomas Ivanauskas, was sent to Iron Knob in South Australia to work for BHP’s predecessor, he did not travel alone. Ten other General Stuart Heintzelman passengers left the Bonegilla camp with him on 15 April 1948. One of them was another Lithuanian, Romualdas Zeronas. 

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company had pegged a claim around Iron Knob in 1897, quite soon after it was founded in the New South Wales town of Broken Hill in 1885. Mining at Iron Knob started in 1900. The iron ore was of such high quality that it is claimed that it led to the start of a steel industry in Australia. Mining ceased in 1998, but another company reopened the mine in 2010.

As for Romualdas Zeronas, he was born on 30 September 1922 in Kaunas, Lithuania, although documents from the Third Reich now in the Arolsen Archives have him born in Russia. His parents were Jonas Zeronas and the former Viktorija Sinkeviciute. He had an older brother Viktoras, born in 1920, two younger sisters, Rita and Danute, and a younger brother, Algimantas.

From Arolsen Archives documents, we can see that Viktorija and Viktoras were living separately from Romualdas in Germany. Romualdas was in Oldenburg in the northwest, while his mother and brother were in Uffenheim in the south. Jonas and the younger children are not in these records. 

From these documents we know also that Romualdas arrived in Germany on 22 April 1945. When he stopped travelling west, he had reached the British Zone. His mother and brother, in Uffenheim, were in the American Zone. They may not have realised that Romualdas was in Germany also and he may not have known where they were.

In March 1946, the Lithuanian language newspaper Ziburiai, published in Germany, had an advertisment placed by Romualdas who was looking for his wife, Genovaite Zeroniene. We have been unable to find a marriage record for them. Nor could Romualdas find Genovaite, it seems, since his Bonegilla card describes his marital status as single.

Romualdas’ mother, Viktorija, and brother, Viktoras, moved together to the United States. Romualdas travelled alone to Australia. Romualdas Zeronas left Bremerhaven for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947, arriving in Australia on 28 November 1947.

One week after arriving in the Bonegilla camp, on 15 December 1947, he started working in camp as a kitchen hand. He was no longer needed in this job after 18 January 1948, probably because so many other former Heintzelman passengers has left the camp for their first employment. 

Romualdas Zeronas’ photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

His first job outside the camp was with HE Pickworth of Ardmona, Victoria, picking fruit in an orchard. He left Bonegilla camp in 28 January with others and worked there until the end of March. These days are described in Endrius Jankus’ memoir at https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2023/01/bonegilla-1947-1948-at-last-off-to-work.html

On 1 April, he returned to the Bonegilla camp to wait for his next work assignment. On 15 April 1948 he and the ten others were sent to Iron Knob. His salary was to be £6.8.00 per week.

He left Iron Knob and on 28 May 1948 arrived at the Department of Works and Housing, Philip Ponds, Woomera, also in South Australia. He worked here as baker.

I think that Romualdas and my grandfather, Adomas, had become friends. This is because Adomas followed Romualdas to Woomera, arriving ten weeks later on 6 August 1948. I expect that Romualdas told Adomas that the pay was better in Woomera.

Huts 12 and 13 at Philip Ponds camp, 1948:
the FX Holden between the huts means that this photo was taken after 29 November

Source:  Steve Swayne on Flickr

Woomera was established as a Department of Defence testing facility in mid-1947. Civilians here earned at least £9.10.00 per week.

A nominal roll of persons employed at Woomera says that he was dismissed from here in 1948. Perhaps this former kitchen hand was not quite the skilled creator of daily bread that his employers had wanted.

After leaving Woomera, Adomas went to Adelaide, South Australia’s capital city, while Romualdas to Woodside, east of Adelaide.

Romualdas started working as cook at the Department of Immigration’s Woodside camp for new arrivals on 7 May 1949. He left this employment on 12 October 1949. Along with most other Heintzelman arrivals, he was released early from his contract to work in Australia for two years on 30 October 1949.

On 19 January 1950, he started work as cook in Leigh Creek, South Australia. This was with a South Australian Government authority, ETSA or the Electricity Trust of South Australia. We know that he moved then to the Northern Territory (NT).

Romualdas was a basketballer. At 5 feet 6 inches, according to his Bonegilla card, he did not have the height, but he must have had agility. On 7 March 1952, the Centralian Advocate newspaper had a report about basketball players and their points scored. Romualdas was third on the list. He also was fifth on the list of best and fairest player votes cast by the umpires.

The Centralian Advocate was published in Alice Springs, a vital town in the middle of Australia but still with a population of only 33,000.

His basketball team was called DCA, which I think stood for Department of Civil Aviation. It is possible that this team was based around DCA employees at the Alice Springs airport. As this was a Commonwealth Government department, the team may well have looked for other players with Commonwealth connections, such as a former cook in defence and migration camps.

The Centralian Advocate also carried reports of a player called Johnnie or Johnny Zeronis with the DCA team. Given that the population of Alice in the 1954 Census was less than 3,000 and would have been smaller still in 1951–53 when Zeronis was playing, this name has to belong to our Romualdas Zeronas – especially as one “Zeronas” spelling is preceded by the name “John”.

At the end of the 1951 season, Johnny Zeronis (or Romualdas Zeronas) had come second on the list of players with the most goals scored (Centralian Advocate,1951a).

After 1953, John, Johnny or Johnnie Zeronis or Zeronas disappeared from the Alice Springs basketball reports, possibly because he had moved again. When he granted a Certificate of Australian citizenship on 13 November 1961, his address was care of Railways, Mataranka, NT. 

Mataranka was a town even smaller than Alice Springs, best described as a village if this word was used in Australia, since its 2021 Census population was a tiny 384. The 1963 electoral roll for the Territory District of Elsey showed Romualdas still living in Mataranka, with the occupation of fettler. This was a labouring job, responsible for keeping the local railway lines in good and safe condition, in “fine fettle”.

After Romualdas left Germany, he most likely did not keep in touch with those members of his family who had left for the United States. His mother, Viktorija Zeroniene, died on 6 April 1972 in Chicago. The Lithuanian-Australian newspaper Mūsų Pastogė printed an advertisement on 20 November 1972 seeking Romualdas in connection with his inheritance after her death.

Romualdas died on 29 December 1995 and was buried in Alice Springs Garden Cemetery (Alice Springs Town Council). Sadly, his name was misspelt even in death, although this time it was his first name which suffered. Somehow he had acquired the nickname of Tiger and presumably was well known for the phrase on his plaque, “How to be like that”.

Romualdas Zeronas’ plaque in the Alice Springs Garden Cemetery, NT

Source:  Find A Grave

Sources

Alice Springs Town Council ‘Resident Info, Cemeteries’, https://alicesprings.nt.gov.au/community/residents-info/cemeteries accessed 15 December 2024.

Ancestry.com ‘Australia, Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 for Romualdas Zeronas’ https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1207/images/31242_178942__1963001-00398?treeid=&personid=&rc=&queryId=32c35b6e-3b62-48f8-b358-dcbb55432f98&usePUB=true&_phsrc=oIs566&_phstart=successSource&pId=104357994 accessed 13 December 2024.

Arolsen Archives Search ‘Zeronas’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/70252657?s=zeronas&t=567404&p=0 accessed 13 December 2024.

Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘Latest release, Mataranka, 2021 Census All persons QuickStats’ https://www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/SAL70179 accessed 13 December 2024.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience ‘Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup: Romualdas Zeronas’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203730950 accessed 13 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate (1951a) 'Basketball Trophy Winners Announced' Alice Springs, NT, 23 March p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59842057 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate (1951b) 'D.C.A. Defeat Eagles', Alice Springs, NT, 16 November, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59836286 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate (1951c) 'Dodgers Head Basketball Premiership Table', Alice Springs, NT, 19 January p 2 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59839262 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate (1952) 'Basketball Position' Alice Springs, NT, 7 March, p 16 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article59835438 accessed 12 December 2024.

Centralian Advocate (1953) ‘Basketball: Tigers Take Double’ Alice Springs, NT, 20 March https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/65172477 accessed 13 December 2024.

Commonwealth of Australia (1962) ‘Gazette, Certificates of Naturalization’, 1 November, page 3839 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241014568/25993941 accessed 14 December 2024.

FindAGrave ‘Romunaldas (sic) “Tiger” Zeronas’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/205989861/romunaldas-zeronas#view-photo=197703157 accessed 13 December 2024.

Iron Knob https://ironknob.org accessed 14 December 2024.

Mūsų Pastogė (1972) ‘Paieškojimas ’ (‘Search’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 20 November p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1972/1972-11-20-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 13 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D343, Woodside immigration holding camp nominal index cards, 1947-1962; ZERONAS R, ZERONAS Romuldas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Melbourne per General M B Stewart 30 November 1947, 1949-1949 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=33073091 accessed 14 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946 – 1976; ZERONAS ROMAULDAS, 1947 – 1950 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30039454 accessed 14 December 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1948-1950; Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948-1950 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 14 December 2024 [page 49].

National Archives of Australia: Investigation Branch, South Australia; D1918, Investigation case files, single number series with 'S' prefix, 1938-1960; S1493/5/2, Nominal roll of displaced persons at Woomera [Long Range Weapons Establishment, Woomera, SA], 1948-1949 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=856767 accessed 14 December 2024 [page 33].

Naujienos (1972) [Advertising, in Lithuanian] Chicago, Illinois, 24 May, page 4, https://spauda.org/naujienos/archive/1972/1972-05-24-NAUJIENOS.pdf accessed 15 December 2024.

Population Australia, Alice Springs Population 2024, https://www.population.net.au/alice-springs-population/ accessed 15 December 2024.

Wikipedia ‘Electoral Division of Elsey’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_division_of_Elsey accessed 12 December 2024.

Wikipedia ‘Iron Knob’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Knob accessed 15 December 2024.

Ziburiai (1946) ‘Teviskes ziburiai’ (‘Lights of the Homeland’ in Lithuanian) Augsburg, Germany, 16 March, page 10, https://spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_ziburiai/archive/1946-03-16-ZIBURIAI.pdf accessed 15 December 2024.