3x Kazys Alseika
The first thing to note about Kazys Alseika is that there were 3 of them. That is to say, 3 men called Kazys or Kazimieras (the long form of Kazys) with the family name Alseika came to Australia during the 1947-49 period. What’s more, the 3 were the only men with the family name Alseika to arrive under the IRO Mass Scheme, to give the movement of Displaced Persons to Australia during 1948-54 its formal name.
How do we separate them one from the other? If you haven’t thought about it before, the answer is birthdates, the reason why officials, the health system, and anyone else who needs to sort one namefellow from another, immediately wants to know your birthdate as well as your full name.
Our Kazys Alseika, the one who came on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, was born on 8 June 1917. The second Kazys was born on 15 December 1918 and arrived on the Nelly on 15 July 1949. Kazimieras was born on 27 February 1918 and arrived on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart, on 14 February 1948.
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| The Kazys Alseika who came to Australia on the Heintzelman Source: National Archives of Australia |
Newspaper reports are unlikely to distinguish one Kazys Alseika from another, although Kazimieras might stick to that form of his name. This means that we need to rely on those official documents with birthdates, although they may give us other clues, like where they lived and worked.
Those documents tell us that the second Kazys Alseika was sent to Yallourn, Victoria, for his first job. His naturalization record and a newspaper obituary say that he stayed in Victoria. Kazimieras was sent initially to Western Australia but received Australian citizenship when resident in South Australia. We’ll soon find that our Kazys was sent to Tasmania after his initial fruit-picking, so place of residence is another way to separate these three.
Our Kazys Goes to Work
Starting with the Bonegilla card for our Kazys, we see that he was one of the 187 or more fruit pickers sent to Victoria’s Goulburn Valley in late January 1948. He was allocated to AW and JF Fairley of Shepparton. He stuck it out for more than 9 weeks, returning to the Bonegilla camp on 7 April.
His next allocation was to the Commonwealth Carbide Company at Electrona, Tasmania, which actually was a different company with a similar name, the Australian Commonwealth Carbide Company. Thanks to Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, we have an assessment from Jonas Motiejūnas of the hard physical nature of the work.
If a former DP has moved around a lot, we often can follow those movements from their application for naturalization. When our Kazys applied in October 1953, he did not mention Electrona or a carbide company. Instead, he recorded that he was then working as a spray painter for a company called Cannon & Hornby of Glenorchy, Tasmania. He had been there since 8 November 1949, the second anniversary of the day he arrived at the Bonegilla camp.
An article in Launceston’s Saturday Evening Express newspaper of 31 May 1952, headed New Firm’s Success, tell us about Kazys’ employer. Cannon & Hornby made electric coppers (presumably to heat water for laundry), domestic hot water services and a hot water service specially for the dairy farmer. They also made refrigerator cabinets for Australian-made refrigerator units and electric cooking ranges. At this time, 18 months before Kazys submitted that he had been working for them since late 1949, they employed 28 staff.
Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, notes that Kazys were first at Electrona but then with a company called Derby Products. This seems to have been a company specialising in heating and air-conditioning products. I write “seems”, as references to the company are still on the Web, but links lead to dead pages. If Kazys had become a specialist spray painter, his work on heating and air-conditioning products would have been similar to his work at Cannon & Hornby.
Tarvydas has called Alseika “Kazimieras” on page 158, but this also was the version of his name used on the one document in the Arolsen Archives which relates to him. We know that the Arolsen Archive document is about our Kazys because of the birthdate.
Kazys Marries
Kazys married Marcia Ina Paul at New Town, Hobart, on 5 January 1950. They were living on Butler Avenue, Moonah. She had brought 2 children into the marriage. It looks like Marcia won any discussion about religion, given that they were married in a Congregational Church although Kazys had previously stated that he was a Roman Catholic.
The wedding made the social pages of the Hobart Mercury newspaper, on 28 February 1950, under the heading of Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings.
Kazys became an Australian citizen on 15 December 1955. It’s interesting to note that the two women who swore in relation to his application that they had known him for some years and that he was a person of good repute had married into his wife’s family. Her maiden name was Cook, and these two women, both of whom gave their occupation as housewife, used the family name Cook also.
Rocky Kazys Alseika
It seems that at least one child was born in the marriage. A football club register of all players prepared by a diligent supporter and placed on the Web gives the birthdate of Rocky Kazys Alseika as 19 December 1959. The football club was the Cygnets, Australian Rules players from the township of Port Cygnet in Southern Tasmania, but the register records zero games for Rocky.
That is an unusual name to give a child, but Rocky Marciano, undefeated world heavyweight boxing champion from 1952 to his 1956 retirement, certainly was a well-known name in the 1950s. Rocky Marciano might have been on Kazys’ mind when his very own son was born.
Our Kazys Dies Early, After Building a House
Sad to report, Kazys had died already when Ramunas was doing his research in the 1990s. His date of death was 21 November 1984, so he was only 67 at the time. Ramunas was able to interview Marcia though, using her report on the building on their own Derwent Park house in his book.
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| Source: Ramunas Tarvydas, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, p 64 |
Marcia lived as a widow for another 15 years, dying in 1995 and being buried besides Kazys. Their burial place is the Kingston Cemetery, in a town so close to Hobart that it might well be a suburb now.
The plaque where Kazys and Marcia, or their ahses, are buried
Rocky did not survive long after his parents, dying on 29 August 2005 when only 45 years old.
Rocky Alseika's plaque in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery needed restoration
when this photograph was taken, but his image is clear still
Our Kazys in Lithuania and Germany
Kazys had been born on 8 June 1917 in Kretinga, in Klaipėda County, making him another Samogitian. His parents were another Kazys and Adolfina. The Hobart Mercury report on the Alseika wedding calls Kazys “the youngest son of Mr and Mrs K Alseika”.
On a statutory declaration in relation to his application for naturalization, Kazys declared that he had left Lithuania on 10 October 1944, which was rather late to be leaving that invaded nation. He arrived in Germany on 12 October 1944, he declared.
In an Arolsen Archives list of Lithuanians living in Oldenburg in the British Zone of occupied Germany, Kazys is shown at the same address as one “Viktora” Alseika. The occupation for both is Bauer, German for farmer. Since first I thought that this had something to do with building, I looked more closely at “Viktora”, to see that “she” was männl., short for männlich, German for male or masculine. Someone has left the “s” off the end of Viktoras’ name. He was born 9 years before Kazys, in 1908.
This would have made him only 39 in 1947, within the age range Australia was considering and raising the question of why he did not come to Australia with Kazys. The possibilities are that he applied but was rejected, or that he decided to hold out for another country. Either way, 3 documents digitised by the Arolsen Archives have him setting out for Canada on 13 April 1949.
Perhaps Viktoras preferred a colder climate. Kazys certainly got a climate as cold as Australia gets in Tasmania.
CITE THIS AS: Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Kazys Alseika (1917-1984), the Tasmanian One'
SOURCES
Australijos Lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) (1950) 'Mišri šeima’ (‘Blended Family, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, SA, 20 March, p 31 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280319034, accessed 28 February 2026.
Britannica ‘Rocky Marciano, American boxer’ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rocky-Marciano, accessed 28 February 2026.
‘Correspondence and nominal roles, done at Bremen-Grohn: transport by ship (USS GENERAL HOWZE, USS GENERAL MCRAE); transit countries and final destinations: Canada, USA’, 3.1.3 Emigrations, DocID: 81660307 ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/81660307, accessed 2 March 2026.
Cygnet Football Club, ‘Register of Games Played’ http://cygnetfc.com.au/index.php/download_file/-/view/61, accessed through Internet Archive Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/web/20260000000000*/http://cygnetfc.com.au/index.php/download_file/-/view/61, accessed 2 March 2026. [The Cygnet FC is moving its website to a new location. As of 2 March 2026, the new site did not include this version of the Register.]
‘Folder DP0049, names from ALPINA, STANISLAW to ALTAZIN, Louis’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 66415045 (VIKTORAS ALSEIKA) ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66415045, accessed 28 February 2026.
‘Folder DP0049, names from ALPINA, STANISLAW to ALTAZIN, Louis’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 66415046 (VIKTORAS ALSEIKA) ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66415046, accessed 2 March 2026.
Mercury (1950) 'Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings’ Hobart, Tas, 28 February, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26686218, accessed 28 February 2026.
‘Original collection’ 2.1.2.1 NI 054 2 Information on foreigners being locally registered (after the war) in the district Oldenburg/oldenburg (SK), DocID: 70713224, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70713224, accessed 2 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1955/6002, Application for Naturalisation - ALSEIKA Kazys born 8 June 1917, 1955-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8858840, accessed 2 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 8, ALSEIKA Kazys DOB 8 June 1917, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005451, accessed 2 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P3, Personal case files, annual single number series with 'T' (Tasmania) prefix, 1951-; T1969/1987, Alseika, Kazys, 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9588585, accessed 2 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; ALSEIKA KAZYS, ALSEIKA, Kazys : Year of Birth - 1917 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 408, 1947-1948; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203676793, accessed 2 March 2026.
Saturday Evening Express (1952) ‘New Firm’s Success’ Launceston, Tas, 31 May, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/265092824, accessed 2 March 2026.
Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, Tasmania, pp 64, 145, 158.
Tarvydas, Ramunas (2000) ‘Lietuviai Tasmanijoje 1950 – 2000’ (‘Lithuanians in Tasmania 1950 – 2000’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 31 July, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/2000/2000-07-31-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 2 March 2026.
Welcome to Cygnet Football Club https://cygnetfc.tidyhq.com/, accessed 28 February 2026.
