Helmut Nurmsalu (1927-2014): Assimilated Australian, Father of Star Designer, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Helmut is the fourth First Transport arrival recorded in the Thornton photograph turned into a postcard which Juozas Nakas sent to his brother, Osvaldas, still in Germany, in mid-1948. Helmut is the one sitting on the truck's step.

Helmut sitting on the truck's step with (left to right)
Edvardas Lapinskas, Bernardas Matkevičius and Juozas Nakas

Source:  Private collection

When I started to look for public evidence to add to that part of Helmut Nurmsalu’s life recorded in the files of the National Archives of Australia, I thought that it was scant. I thought his life story would be a brief one.

That was because I started by looking through the digitised Estonian-language newspapers which that country’s national library has made available on line through its Digar Website. While this produced 14 Results which included the Helmut Nurmsalu name, 13 of them were recent mentions of a person living or recently deceased in Estonia.

Our Helmut was included only in a 1948 list of Estonians refugees who had resettled already in Australia, published at the end of the year in a Swedish newspaper, Stockholms-Tidningen Eestlastele (a mixture of Swedish and Estonian which translates as Stockholm Newspaper for Estonians).

Then I discovered how much of his life was recorded in Australian publications digitised by Australia’s National Library in its Trove collection. I realised that the picture was very different.

How Helmut Assimilated

When the Federal Government took the lead in immigration matters after World War II, the official settlement policy was assimilation. Immigrants were expected to “forget the past, look forward to the future”.* Fortunately, the Government forgot to tell the immigrants much about this, as they set about starting new community groups or building on existing ones, publishing newspapers in their own languages and so on.

Some individuals – or were they individualists? – went their own way. We probably can describe Helmut as one of them, someone who assimilated although he possibly did not know that this was what he was doing. It must have started before July 1950. That’s when his engagement to marry a young Australian woman was announced by an advertisement in Melbourne’s Argus newspaper.

His intended was Elizabeth (Betty) Robinson, third daughter of Mr and Mrs RV Robinson of Sunbury. It was then a rural town, with a population of around one thousand, 38 kilometres northeast of Melbourne’s central business district. (Today it is more like an outer suburb of Melbourne, with many residents commuting by rail into the city for their work.)

His Marriage

The marriage took place on 5 February 1951 in Melbourne’s leading Catholic church, St Patrick’s Cathedral. Helmut had stated that he was a Protestant, most likely a Lutheran, before migration to Australia. In contrast, he is listed as a Roman Catholic on the passenger list (“nominal roll”) for the voyage of the Heintzelman. He may or may not have been required to convert to Catholicism before the marriage.

Having the marriage ceremony reported by newspapers probably required relatives to contact the social pages editor. That looks like what Betty’s family did, as reports subsequently appeared in two Melbourne newspapers, The Age and The Argus, on 7 February 1951.

The focus in the Argus article was on bridal wear, although the groom’s origin in the Estonian town of Türi got a mention. The Age added descriptions of the clothes worn by 2 bridesmaids and a flower girl, it named the best man and a groomsman, and it added a reception which followed Hotel Federal. What a contrast to what Helmut had endured during World War II, which had ended less than 6 years earlier!

Helmut's photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Both partners to the marriage were living in Sunbury. Helmut’s occupation was stated to be Process Worker (someone who carries out repetitive operations in a factory) while Betty was Receptionist.

Might the couple have moved then to rural Omeo? The National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch Web function can find files relating to one Nurmsalu only, our Helmut. In all cases, his first name is spelled with an addition H on the end, the German spelling. The Estonian T has a soft sound anyhow, more like our D, so Estonian orthography sees no need to add an H where German and even English writers often do. For example, the newly independent Estonian Government had to write to the Australian Government to beg it not to spell the English version of its name as ‘Esthonia’. There’s a whole file on that topic in the National Archives.

Helmuth Plays Australian Football

Back to Omeo, in rural Victoria’s far east. Actually, even more rural, to a town called Ensay on the Great Alpine Road, located between Swift’s Creek and Bruthen. If Australia had villages, this would be one, with a population of 109 in 2016. The local Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal reported on an Australian Rules football player with the family name Nurmsalu during the 1953-54 season.

He was named first as ‘H. Nurmsalu’, one of Ensay’s goalkickers, in the 1 June 1953 issue. He was named as one of Ensay’s 3 best players for the game. In the 15 June issue, he was named again as one of the goalkickers and best players for the team, although without an initial this time. His team reached the semi-finals played on 15 August 1953, losing to their Swift’s Creek rivals, when he again kicked one goal and was one of the best 6 players for the Ensay team.

For those readers more familiar with the type of football which Nurmsalu may well have played previously, soccer to Australians, jalgpall (literally, football) in Nurmsalu’s mother tongue, there are 18 players on an Aussie Rules team. This means that the top 6 are the best one-third, not more than half.

At the end of the season in August, votes for the Best and Fairest Player in the Omeo District League were tallied. Helmut was not the winner, but he scored a respectable 8 votes, enough to get a mention in the report in the Bairnsdale Advertiser. From this we learn also that his playing position was ruckman, normally the tallest player in the team whose main job is to contest the ball when play is not moving, particularly the centre bounce at the start of the game and boundary throw-ins after the ball leaves the playing oval.

Helmuth’s height according to his Bonegilla card was only 5 feet 6 inches, which is below 1.7 metres. The medical report completed at the Babenhausen camp before Helmut was accepted for migration to Australia says that he was taller, 1.8 metres (5 feet 11 inches, translated to the measurements still used in the USA). That could be tall enough to be a ruckman in a shorter community. (Babenhausen got a mention in our second last entry because Martha Donald, soon to travel to Australia on the same ship as Helmuth, moved to the same camp.)

At the start of the next season, 22 May 1954, Nurmsalu was again one of the goalkickers for Ensay and one of the team’s 4 best players. In the next Saturday’s game, he did not kick a goal but once again was one of the 5 best players. He was the team’s best goalkicker in the 26 June game, with 2 against Swift’s Creek, and of course one of the 3 best players, but his team lost heavily. The final score was Swift’s Creek 17 goals, 7 behinds for 109 points, while Ensay scored only 6 goals, 7 behinds for 43 points.

That’s the last we can read of Nurmsalu playing for the Ensay football team. However, the likelihood that it’s our Helmut is supported by Betty’s presence on the local Commonwealth-State electoral roll for the Division or Province of Gippsland in 1954. Her place of residence was Ensay North (apparently Ensay was much larger back then) and her occupation was Home Duties.

Another 1954 Electoral Roll, dated 25 February 1954 like the Ensay one, has Betty resident at 45 Waverley Street, W5 (Essendon), for the Commonwealth Division of Maribyrnong and the State Assembly District of Moonee Ponds. One of those two rolls was incorrect.

Helmuth Becomes an Australian Officially

The next public record is the grant to him of Australian citizenship in a ceremony on 16 October 1957. His address at the time was on Nepean Highway, Aspendale, now back in greater Melbourne. At nearly 30 kilometres southeast of the edge of Melbourne’s central business district, it was almost as far in the opposite direction as Sunbury was to the north west. A car trip between the two to visit Betty’s family would still take more than 2 hours today.

Helmut officially became Helmuth with his new citizenship. Maybe he just gave up trying to spell it the Estonian way. Maybe putting the H on the end helped other people to pronounce it in a way which sounded more Estonian. Maybe it helped them to stop saying his name as if it was protective headwear.

Helmuth's Residence and Occupations

He first appeared in a 1958 electoral roll, with Elizabeth, for Gisborne, the next town on the railway line beyond Sunbury. He had become a Linesman by occupation. The interesting thing about that is it was the occupation given by his father-in-law on the marriage certificate. Robert (Bob?) Robinson must have introduced Helmut to this work.

His occupation on the Personal Particulars of Person Wishing to Migrate to Australia form completed in Germany was given as Agricultural Work. It records no previous occupation but the AEF DP Registration Record, also completed in Germany, also in September 1947, records his previous occupation as Locksmith.

Maybe Helmut played more Australian Rules football with local teams. We don’t know if he did as not all the small newspapers with local circulations have been digitised for the National Library of Australia’s Trove Web service.

Helmuth and Elizabeth stayed at the same address for the 1963 roll, but moved to another home in Gisborne for 1967 and subsequent rolls, until 1980. The electoral rolls beyond that year have not been digitised yet.

Helmuth's Children

An interesting addition to the 1977 rolls in the appearance of Susan Mary Xavier Nurmsalu, who must have turned 18 on or after 21 March 1973. That’s the date on which Australia’s voting age was lowered from 21. According to Betty’s gravestone (see below) Susan is the middle child of Betty and Helmuth. Her older sister, Helene, does not appear at all on the electoral rolls as Helene Nurmsalu: perhaps she married before she became old enough to vote. Their younger brother, James, must have enrolled after the 1980 rolls closed.

Helmuth Becomes a  Public Servant

During this time, on 17 May 1973, the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette included a notice which said the Helmuth Nurmsalu had been appointed to the Department of Civil Aviation as a Fitter and Turner.  A later Gazette, published on 8 October, said that his appointment had dated from 20 February.

Helmuth was now an Australian Public Servant, at the age of 46. Having previously married an Australia, played Aussie Rules and become an Australian citizen, how much more Australian could Helmuth become?

He also had changed his occupation from Linesman to Fitter and Turner. Presumably he had been upgrading his skills and perhaps practising what he had learned in Estonia 30 or more years previously. Maybe he had the help of his father-in-law again.

Within a few months, Helmuth found out how the Public Service worked. In August he received a provisional promotion to a supervisor position. On 15 November, the Gazette announced that his promotion had been cancelled, with someone else being promoted to the position after going through a formal process of appeal.

He did try again, but it was 9 years later. The Gazette of 29 July 1982 announced that the has been promoted to Senior Fitter and Turner in the Department of Aviation (as it was called now) with effect from 24 June that year.

Public Servants are eligible to retire with superannuation (a pension to which they have contributed part of their salary) from the age of 55. In Helmuth’s case, that would have been on 10 February 1982, so clearly he had stayed on. Not having joined the Public Service until he was in his 40s, he did not have as much superannuation accumulated as someone who had started in their 20s or teens. The compulsory retirement age then was 65, so Helmut may well have stayed in his secure job until February 1992.

There should be a record of his retirement in an issue of the Gazette digitised by the National Library. If there is, it has been missed by the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process.

Deaths

Betty died on 22 April 1995. She was buried in the Sunbury Cemetery, under a plaque which names Helmuth, the three children and two grandchildren. It is in the shape of an open book, with the right page still blank and waiting for Helmut’s details. 

This should mean that he is with us still but contributor to this blog, Rasa Ščevinskienė, has found a death notice in a rural newspaper using the Ryerson Index.  The Great Lakes Advocate, published in the Gippsland town of Forster, carried the notice for Helmuth, also known as Charlie, on 12 March 2014, so he probably died soon after his 87th birthday.  Either he had moved back to Gippsland, where life certainly would have been more unhurried than in Melbourne, or someone remembered him from the Aussie Rules football days.

The plaque for Betty Nurmsalu in the Sunbury Cemetery

Source:  Robby in Find a Grave

Of the 3 children, Susan achieved national fame as the designer of a self-titled women’s clothing range.

Susan the Star Designer

The September 1993 appearance of the first Aboriginal model on the front cover of the local edition of Vogue magazine is regarded as a turning point. The model was Elaine George; her apparel was a white top by Susan Nurmsalu.

Elaine George with the September 1993 Vogue cover
featuring her in a Susan Nurmsalu top

Source:  Sydney Morning Herald

Susan’s Web presence indicates that she was designing tailored women’s workwear, jackets and coats, and using higher-quality natural fibres. Her output appears to have been aimed at professional women and was sold through boutiques and higher end chain-stores.

Sadly, her individual designing career did not last long. A 1997 issue of the Commonwealth Gazette carried a notice under the Federal Corporations Law, announcing that a receiver and manager had been appointed to Susan Nurmsalu Pty Limited. This meant that the company had been unable to pay a loan on time.

Susan moved on to design for Trent Nathan. This company, founded by a designer of the same name in 1980, had evolved into one where the brand was more important than the designer. It kept its new designer away from publicity.

The deregistration of Susan Nurmsalu Pty Ltd was announced in an ASIC Gazette (published by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission) on 18 October 2005. That was around the time that Susan left Trent Nathan. I’m guessing that she then was aged around 50, with decades of creativity left in her.

There has not been publicity about her since. Susan's skills as a designer remain on display, though, with clothing bearing her name still available on auction Websites.

Her siblings do not have a Web presence, either, unless under changed names. We can but wish all of them the best.

FOOTNOTE

* This quotation comes from a headlines after the arrival of the Heintzelman passengers in Victoria via the Australian military ship, the Kanimbla.  See, for example, the Courier-Mail of 15 December 1947.

SOURCES

‘AEF DP Registration Record, Nurmsalu, Helmuth’ Reference Code 03010101 17 193, Folder DP2908, names from NUN, Leiger to NUSBARD, Don (2), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from N, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/68445396, accessed 25 May 2026.

Age (1951) ‘Bride in Pink’, Melbourne, Vic, 7 February, p.7 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204966878, accessed 24 May 2026.

Ancestry ‘All Census & Voter Lists results for Nurmsalu’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35/?name=_Nurmsalu&birth=_Australia&residence=_australia_5027, accessed 24 May 2026.

Argus (1950) ‘Engagements’, Melbourne, Vic, 4 July, p 9 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22913198, accessed 24 May 2026.

Argus (1951) ‘… And the Bride Wore’, Melbourne, Vic, 7 February, p.7 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23042111, accessed 24 May 2026.

ASIC Gazette (2005) ‘Company/Scheme deregistrations’ Sydney, 18 October, p 69 https://download.asic.gov.au/media/1314613/ASIC41A_05.pdf, accessed 25 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1953) 'Omeo District League: Swift’s Creek win First Game of Season: Omeo Defeated by Benambra', Bairnsdale, Vic, 1 June, p 8 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269553315, accessed 24 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1953) ‘Ensay Inaccurate Down to Omeo: Benambra Win Again' Bairnsdale, Vic, 15 June, p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/269552237, accessed 24 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1953) 'Omeo District League, Swift’s Creek Defeat Ensay in First Semi-Final', Bairnsdale, Vic, 17 August, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269548234, accessed 24 May 2026

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1953) 'Omeo District League, Max Prendergast (Benambra) Wins Best and Fairest', Bairnsdale, Vic, 17 August, p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269548191, accessed 24 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1954) 'Omeo District Football League: Omeo’s 9 Goal Last Term Gives Them Win', Bairnsdale, Vic, 24 May, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269521159, accessed 24 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1954) 'Omeo District League: Benambra’s Run of Wins Broken', Bairnsdale, Vic, 31 May, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269524811, accessed 24 May 2026.

Bairnsdale Advertiser and East Gippsland Stock and Station Journal (1954) 'Omeo District League: Benambra Go Down to Omeo', Bairnsdale, Vic, 28 June, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article269525964, accessed 24 May 2026.

Carruthers, Fiona (2005) ‘What's in a name?’ Australian Financial Review https://www.afr.com/politics/whats-in-a-name-20050826-jkb6n, accessed 24 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 8 May, p 1439 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240891979/25976027, accessed 22 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1973) ‘Appointments, Retirements, Dismissals’ Canberra, ACT, 17 May, p 49 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241065574, accessed 24 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1973) ‘Provisional Promotions’ Canberra, ACT, 2 August, p 120 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240776760, accessed 25 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1973) ‘Appointments to the Public Service’ Canberra, ACT, 8 October, p 12 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240845126, accessed 25 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1973) 'Promotions—Section 50 (9)' Canberra, ACT, 15 November, p 90 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240846117/26080466, accessed 26 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1982) ‘Provisional Promotions’ Canberra, ACT, 29 July 1982, p 62 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/26363598, accessed 26 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1982) 'Confirmation of provisional promotions', Canberra, ACT, 29 September, p 92 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242098094, accessed 23 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1997) 'Susan Nurmsalu Pty Limited (Receiver and Manager Appointed)' Canberra, ACT, 18 November, p 3381 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article246948137, accessed 23 May 2026.

Courier-Mail (1947) 'Balts Start Life Afresh Here', Brisbane, Qld, 15 December, p 5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/49657309, accessed 26 May 2026.

Find A Grave, ‘Elizabeth Nurmsalu’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/220415883/elizabeth-nurmsalu, accessed 25 May 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Governor-General; A11804, General Correspondence of Governor-General (excluding War files), 1912-1927; 1921/183, Esthonia [Estonia], 1920-1921.

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; 610, NURMSALU Helmuth DOB 10 February 1927, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005841, accessed 26 May 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; NURMSALU HELMUTH, NURMSALU, Helmuth : Year of Birth - 1927 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 984, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203732700, accessed 26 May 2026.

Ryerson Index, Search for Notices https://ryersonindex.org/search.php, accessed 27 May 2026.

Sunday Age (1996) ‘What’s New’ Melbourne, Vic, 28 January, p 38 https://www.newspapers.com/image/120496213/?article=3a2e0319-268f-4a4d-8c30-b615438be1d6&xid=5904&terms=Susan_Nurmsalu&ancestry=true, accessed 25 May 2026.

The Fashion Spot, ‘Vogue Australia September 2023 : Tarlisa Gaykamangu by Robbie Fimmano’ https://forums.thefashionspot.com/threads/vogue-australia-september-2023-tarlisa-gaykamangu-by-robbie-fimmano.412187/#post-30981405, accessed 24 May 2026.

Singer, Melissa (2020) ‘The 'risky' Vogue cover that made history but almost never happened’ Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, NSW, 26 September https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/the-risky-vogue-cover-that-made-history-but-almost-never-happened-20200918-p55wxo.html, accessed 23 May 2026.

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Martha (nee Kivipuur) Donald Blažaitis (1912-1999) and Stanislovas (Stasys) Blažaitis (1906-1970): the Scottish connection, Estonian marries Lithuanian by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Scots?

Martha Donald came to Australia with a Scottish name despite possibly never having been outside the Baltic States or Germany before. She had married and divorced another Estonian with this most non-Estonian surname, Donald. His forenames were very Estonian though: August Voldemar. His father and grandfather before him were born in Estonia: any Scottish connection might have started with the great grandfather or earlier.

Martha Donald's colourised photo from her selection for Australia papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Stanislovas Blažaitis, on the other hand, had been born in Scotland on 3 August 1906 (although one record says 1908), despite the very Lithuanian name.

Stays Blažaitis, colourised photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

The Blažaitis family

Economic migration from Lithuania after the famine of 1867-88 and into early 20th century took many people as far away as the United States, Canada, South Africa, and even Australia, but others only got as far as Scotland or England. It looks like Stanislovas‘ parents or maybe even his grandparents were part of this movement.

Stanislovas‘ father was also Stanislovas, born in 1884. His mother was Katrina Lapinckute, born in 1878. Both lived in the village of Carfin in North Lanarkshire in the central lowlands of Scotland. Stanislovas senior lived on Bell Row while Katarina lived on Back Brick Row. Neither street still exists in Carfin according to Google Maps. Indeed, if anything, the whole village looks from the air as if it has been rebuilt since World War II.

Regardless, the two parents, Stanislovas, then aged 19 and working as a miner in the Carfin coal mines, and Katrina, aged 25, were married in Carfin’s Roman Catholic Church on 26 September 1903. They were to have 7 children altogether, but 2 of them died very young.

The Blažaitis family returned to now independent Lithuania on 15 May 1921, when Stanislovas junior was 14 years old. Unverified data shows that he initially lived in Kaunas. Stanislovas Blažaitis (in some documents simply Stasys) graduated from high school there. In 1928-30 he served in the Lithuanian army attaining the rank of non-commissioned officer.

Stasys in Lithuania and Germany

According to data from the first census of Lithuanian police officers in 1932, he was working as an ordinary guard with the border police of Pagulianka village, Ukmergė county.

He met his future wife, Konstancija Janonytė-Pociūnaitė, in Kernavė, Širvintos district. There he rented a room from his future wife's parents and worked as a policeman in the border service in the village of Gurakolnė. They married on 11 February 1934, when Stasys was aged 28, and continued to live in Kernavė.

On 27 September 1935, he was admitted to the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union.

According to data from the Lithuanian census of 27 May 1942, he and his family now were living in the town of Karmėlava near Kaunas. He is known to have worked as a police officer in the Kaunas County until 4 February 1943.

When Lithuania was occupied by the Soviets from August 1944, Stanislovas left for Germany. His wife and 5 children (4 sons and a daughter) stayed in Lithuania.

The Arolsen Archives have only one record for him, from an index compiled in the early 1980s from small sets of cards. Unfortunately, the handwriting in this record is such that neither the eye nor Google Translate’s phone app can decipher where he was or what work he was doing although, and it is a big although, one entry dated 17 May 1945 seems to read Wehrmacht, German for the Nazi Armed Forces.

This being the case, it is probably that he did not desert his wife and family, but was forcibly taken from them due to his position in the Lithuanian forces then fighting with the Germans against the Soviet Union.

The record of his interview with the Australian selection panel confirms this idea, as it says, ‘Forcibly brought by the Germans’. It also records that, at the time of his application for Australia, he was living in Camp Riga in coastal Lübeck, a camp which must have been set up to house Latvians. Among the languages he knew, English was second only to Lithuanian and ahead of Russian and Polish. His English language skills were described as “very fair” – probably as positive a description as anyone was going to get from this panel. Strangely, German was not mentioned.

Martha in Germany

The Arolsen Archives have been able to digitise 11 records for Martha Donald, all with the same birthdate of 9 April 1912 or, in one case, her maiden name of Kivipuur. They tell us that she was born in Harku vald, a local government area close to the western side of Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn.

Her parents were Johannes Kivipuur and Leena, formerly Tramm. The two languages she knew already when being registered as a Displaced Person were Estonian and German. Her previous place of residence was in Tallinn. Her place of residence in Germany was Marburg-Lahn, where she worked in local the Universität Ohrenklinik or University Ear Clinic.

We don’t know what kind of work she was doing there. Indeed, her previous occupation is not recorded either on the AEF DP Registration Record or the Australian selection panel’s interview record. There it was noted that she had 6 years of primary education and was suitable for work as a domestic. This was the occupation to which all the women were assigned unless they could type, had previous nursing experience or were young and presentable enough to work as waitresses in Government hostels in Canberra instead.

A fifth category for the chosen women was housemaid, but the difference between this and domestic is difficult to discern today, when probably there are no women admitting to either occupation.

One Arolsen Archives list indicates that, on 13 June 1947, Martha had left Marburg-Lahn for an UNRRA camp in Hanau, over 100 Km to the southeast and still around two hours travel away. There was a major DP camp near Hanau, at Babenhausen, handed over to UNRRA by the US Army in May 1947, which was listed as Martha’s last address in her papers for migration to Australia.

Babenhausen camp, orginally a military barracks  and later too, 
but a Displaced Persons camp after World War II

Source:  Martin Stenger, on-post.com

Martha and Stasys Meet

Martha and Stasys sailed to Australia from the German port of Bremerhaven on the American military transport ship General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947. If Stays thought that he had left his wife and children temporarily, he knew by 1947 that there was no going back, not perhaps for a lifetime. Similarly, Martha may have known that August Donald had been rounded up by the Communists but would not have known that he had died in prison on 15 August 1947, a relatively youthful 45 years old.

Stasys was 41 years old when he left Europe. Martha was 35. At some stage before embarkation or in the next two months, the two met. Ann thinks that Stasys might have made the first move on learning her name, which seemed so obviously Scottish. After all, Scotland was where he had lived for the first 14 years of his life.

They were married in the Bonegilla camp at the start of a new year in a new country, on 1 January 1948. Despite Stasys’ Roman Catholic upbringing, they were married by the local Lutheran pastor, Bruno Muetzelfeldt.

Early Years in Australia

One week after the Heintzelman passengers arrived at the Bonegilla, on 15 December, Stasys had joined the camp staff. His maturity at the age of 41, his former employment as a policeman and border guard and the fact that he had grown up speaking English (but probably Lithuanian in the home) would have made him quite an asset. Martha joined the staff on that date too. Again, at the age of 35, she was more mature than most of the women.

They stayed on the staff until 25 October 1948. On 1 November, they left for new employment at the Beechworth Mental Hospital, in Victoria but less than 50 Km southwest of the Bonegilla camp.

You may have wondered why we earlier made of point of Stasys’ admission Lithuanian Riflemen's Union in 1935. His interest in shooting as a sport became apparent after the move to Beechworth, when the local newspaper, the Ovens and Murray Advertiser, had 18 mentions of Vytautas participating in competitions between July and October 1949.

Undoubtedly, he and Martha were released from their contract obligation to work where sent by the Employment Service on 30 September 1949, along with nearly all the other First Transport arrivals. They are likely to have moved away from Beechworth then, but we will not know more until the National Archives of Australia releases their citizenship application files.

They Become Australian Citizens

Thinking of citizenship, Stasys was so keen to do something about his that he advertised his intention to apply for naturalization under the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948 in the Ovens and Murray Advertiser as early as 4 June 1949. At that time, the Act required one year‘s residence immediately preceding the date of the application and another 4 years in the preceding 8 years, 5 years in all, although there were exceptions. Perhaps the Beechworth lawyers advising Stays, named in the advertisement, thought he might be eligible under one of the exceptions as someone who had spent his first 14 years in Scotland. They were wrong.

Stasys tried again together with Martha in February 1955, advertising together in the Melbourne Argus newspaper. On both occasions, the naturalization law required advertisements in 2 newspapers but the second advertisement has not been captured yet by the National Library’s Trove digitising service.

This time Stays was successful, along with Martha, when they took their oaths and received their citizenship certificates on 23 January 1958 (Martha) and 4 February 1958 (Stasys). Why there should have been 11 days between 2 separate ceremonies is an unknown. They then were living at 35 Cecil Street, Fitzroy, close to Melbourne’s central business district.

In those days, 35 Cecil Street might have been shared accommodation, like that in which Kostas Bušma lived. Due to the pause in home building during the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II, this often was the only type of accommodation available to those who could not afford to buy land and build a house or buy an established house.

35 Cecil Street, Fitzroy, would have been designed and probably built in the 1880s,
and still has some of its original bluestone (basalt) paving in the street

Source:  Google Street View

Stasys took the English-language forename Stanley when he became a citizen.

In their first appearances on a digitised electoral roll, the 1958 and 1963 rolls for the State of Victoria, they were still at the Fitzroy address.

By the time the 1967 rolls were compiled, they were living in St Albans. This was a residential suburb only a few kilometres northeast of Melbourne’s centre. Martha was described as a machinist while Stasys was a guillotine operator, but we are not told the industries in which they were working.

Stasys Dies

On 14 September 1970, Stasys died of a heart attack while at work, at the age of 63. The Melbourne Lithuanian language newspaper, Tėviškės aidai, reported that he had married an Estonian and had been living without mixing with other Lithuanians. He was buried on 17 September in the Fawkner Cemetery from Melbourne’s Lithuanian (Roman Catholic) church.

A plaque for Stanislaus Blazaitis among others in a row of concrete suggests cremation;
Stasys has a 4th version of his name (Stanislovas, Stasys, Stanley and Stanislaus);  why Polish?

Source:  Patricia C on Find A Grave 

Martha stayed at the St Albans address, according to the electoral rolls, but by 1977 she had moved closer to central Melbourne, in her own flat in the suburb of North Melbourne. Downsizing, we probably would call it now.

Martha dies

She was still there when a 1980 roll for the electorate including North Melbourne was compiled but another 1980 New South Wales roll shows that she had moved to the Estonian retirement village on Estonian Road, Thirlmere. She was back among people who spoke her mother tongue, many of whom would have understood the twists and turns in her life.

Normally the Estonian newspaper in Australia, Meie Kodu, would have carried numerous advertisements from family and friends after a person’s death. For Martha there was one only, on 3 February 1999. It gave no details. In the Estonian language, it said, “Rest in peace” and recorded that it had been inserted by the Eesti Abistamise Komitee, the Estonian Relief Committee. This was the organisation which had founded the Estonian Village, Thirlmere, and was still running it in 1999.

From a photograph of a plaque for Martha in the Thirlmere Cemetery, we see that she died on 18 January 1999. She was 86 years old. An entry in the very reliable Website, Australian Cemetery Index, has her buried in Wollongong, but the Administrator of the site thinks that this may be instead where her body was cremated.

Martha Blazatitis' plaque in the Thirlmere Cemetery,
with her first name spelled as the Estonian Village administration thought it ought to be spelled;
the Estonian reads, "Born (née) Kivipuur, in Harku local government area, in Estonia,
Died in Picton:  Rest in Peace"

Source:  Ken on Find A Grave

Although Martha was well enough to make a donation to the Australian Estonians’ Rahvuskapital fund in 1983, we hypothesise that her health deteriorated quickly after she moved to Thirlmere, so soon that she was unable to make and keep friends there. Like Stasys not mixing with other Lithuanians in Melbourne, she possibly did not spend time with other Estonians there either, making friendships which might have followed her to Thirlmere.

Given that Martha was 11 years older than the average age of all the Heintzelman passengers and Stasys was 17 years older, they possibly felt that they had little in common with these younger people. Estonians and Lithuanians of their own age in the Melbourne communities mostly would have arrived before World War II or have been born here, not having life experiences in common with those of Martha and Stasys.

A person in poor health in the Estonian Village would have been cared for well, but possibly would have had little social interaction with other residents. This may well have been a lonely end. However, Martha may have been too unwell to notice.  The very end appears to have come in a hospital in the town of Picton, near the Estonian Village, which would have had better resources to care for the dying.

SOURCES

‘AEF (American Expeditionary Force) DP Registration Record, Donald, Martha, Folder DP0843, names from DON, RACHELA to DONNER, Herbert (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from D /’ ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66913948, accessed 11 May 2026.

Argus (1955) ‘Advertising’ Melbourne, Vic, 3 February, p 15 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/71631119, accessed 12 May 2026.

Australian Cemetery Index ‘Martha Blazaitis’ https://austcemindex.com/inscription?id=1157522, accessed 11 May 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Registration as Australian Citizens’, Canberra, ACT, 2 October, p 3300 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240882361, accessed 12 May 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, ‘Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, Stasys Blazaitis’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203693078, accessed 11 May 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, ‘Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, Martha Donald’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203693079, accessed 11 May 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Marta (sic) Blazaitis’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?fulltext=&firstname=marta&middlename=&lastname=blazaitis&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=&locationId=&bio=&linkedToName=&plot=&memorialid=&mcid=&datefilter=&orderby=r, accessed 15 May 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Stanislaus Blazaitis’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212524938/stanislaus-blazaitis, accessed 12 May 2026.

Geni.com ‘August Voldemar Donald’ https://www.geni.com/people/August-Donald/6000000029438163871?through=6000000039104063771, accessed 12 May 2026.

Geni.com ‘Martha Lisette Blazaitis {Donald} (Kivipuur)’ https://www.geni.com/people/Martha-Lisette-Blazaitis-Donald/6000000039104063771, accessed 12 May 2026.

Kuchel, Rachel (2015) ‘A hearty welcome and new beginning’ Lutheran Church of Australia, 10 June https://www.lca.org.au/blog/2015/06/10/a-hearty-welcome-and-new-beginning/, accessed 10 May 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1949) ‘Bonegillast, need, kes alustasid uut elu kahekesi’, (‘From Bonegilla, those who have started a new life as a couple’ in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 30 September, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85529251, accessed 11 May 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1983) ‘Rahvuskapitali Tanu’ (‘National Fund Thanks’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 31 August, p 6 https://dea.digar.ee/cgi-bin/dea?a=d&d=meiekodu19830831.1.6&e=-------et-25--1--txt-txIN%7ctxTI%7ctxAU%7ctxTA-------------, accessed 12 May 2026.

My Heritage ‘Morkuniene Family Tree, Blažaitytė (Morkūnienė), ‎‬Stanislovas (Stanley) Blažaitis’ https://www.myheritage.lt/family-trees/morkuniene/OYYV7JNVATLM736OPEKDPMDTD6DD4EY, accessed 11 May 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; 351, BLAZAITIS Stasys born 3 August 1908, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4695250, accessed 12 May 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; DONALD Martha DOB 9 April 1912, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005894, accessed 12 May 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; BLAZAITIS NEE DONALD MARTHA, BLAZAITIS (NEE DONALD), Martha : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1101, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203693079, accessed 12 May 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; BLAZAITIS STASYS, BLAZAITIS, Stasys : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 745, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203693078, accessed 12 May 2026.

‘Original collection, DE ITS 2.1.1.1 HE 033 EST 2 ZM, 2.1.1.1 HE 033 EST Nationality/origin of person listed : Estonian / 2.1.1.1 HE 033 EST 2 Information on foreigners being locally registered (after the war) in the district Marburg/lahn (SK)’ ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70452790, accessed 12 May 2026.

‘Original collection, DE ITS 2.1.1.1 HE 033 EST 2 ZM, 2.1.1.1 HE 033 EST 2 Information on foreigners being locally registered (after the war) in the district Marburg/lahn (SK)’ ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70452784, accessed 12 May 2026.

‘Original collection, DE ITS 2.1.1.2 HE 033 9 EST ZM, 2.1.1.2 HE 033 9 EST Nationality/origin of person listed : Estonian’, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70539799, accessed 12 May 2026.

‘Original collection, DE ITS 2.1.1.2 HE 033 11 EST ZM, 2.1.1.2 HE 033 11 EST Nationality/origin of person listed : Estonian,’ ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70539884, accessed 12 May 2026.

‘Original collection, DE ITS 2.1.1.1 HE 032 RUS 11 ZM, 2.1.1.1 HE 032 RUS 11 Information on foreigners extracted from files of social securities and employment agencies of the district Marburg/Lahn’ ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70451687, accessed 12 May 2026.

Ovens and Murray Advertiser (1949) ‘Advertising’ Beechworth, Vic, 4 June, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/268200609, accessed 15 May 2026.

Ovens and Murray Advertiser (1949) ‘Sweepstake Shoot To-Day’ Beechworth, Vic, 9 July, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/268193869, accessed 15 May 2026.

Ovens and Murray Advertiser (1949) ‘Rifle Shooting, Beechworth Club, To-day’s Shoot’, Beechworth, Vic, 8 October, p 5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/268197421, accessed 15 May 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) (1970) ‘Mirė Stasys Blazaitis‘ (‘Death of Stasys Blazaitis’ in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 29 September, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1970/1970-nr37-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf accessed 12 May 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Harku Parish’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harku_Parish, accessed 11 May 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Carfin’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfin, accessed 11 May 2026.

Hugo Jakobsen (1919-2010): Leader and Teacher by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 16 December 2024

Hugo Jakobsen obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma of Education soon after coming to Australia as a refugee on the First Transport in 1947. First, he had to serve out two years of labouring with the South Australian Railways.

He also had married an Australian, Denise Gum, within three years of arrival. What a quick start to a new life!

Wait, there’s more! He also is credited with being the person who suggested to the Department of Immigration that it should publish a newsletter for new arrivals. He offered to produce it himself. The first issue of the New Australian, produced instead by the Federal Department of Information (of which Arthur Calwell was also Minister) appeared in January 1949. It continued until December 1953, when it was merged with a similar publication with a broader audience, the Good Neighbour.

Hugo as the source of the New Australian idea is acknowledge in a memorandum
to the Minister for Information, Arthur Calwell (also Minister for Immigration)

Source:  NAA, CP815/1, 021.148

He had been born in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn on 3 October 1919, and his sister Anu was born five years later. They were the only children of the Prefect of Police for the Virumaa and Järvemaa provinces of Estonia, who was based in the Virumaa town of Rakvere. They moved upon their father’s retirement in 1934 to the town of Keila, much closer to the capital city of Estonia.

The family started both of the children at school when they were only six years old, although normally Estonian children in the 1920s and 1930s did not start until they were eight. In Rakvere, Hugo attended the Ühis Gümnaasium (the Co-educational High School). After the family moved to Keila, Hugo completed his secondary education at Estonia’s most prestigious school, the Gustav Adolf Gümnaasium in Tallinn.

He was always top of his class, except for one term in which a new arrival, a girl what is more, obtained better scores. He used to create crosswords for the school newspaper. He regarded crossword creation and solving as “mental gymnastics”.

Due to the early start at school, he was too young to undertake the compulsory national service with the military when he completed high school. He attended Tartu University first, completing two and a half years of an arts degree.

The Tartu University’s Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis has him enrolled as a student of filos (Philosophy, but maybe the same as an Australian Arts degree) for the years 1937 to 1939. Keeping in mind that the Estonian educational year is from September to June, with summer holidays in July and August, these were the two years and more of his three-year degree.

He was doing his national service when the Soviets invaded Estonia in June 1940. He found that he was now in the Soviet Army. The German military drove the Soviets out at the end of June 1941. Under the Malenkov-Ribbentrop pact, the Germans had evacuated persons in Estonia with German family connections already in 1939. They organised an additional evacuation to the fatherland in 1941. After his experience of the Soviet Army, Hugo was glad to make use of the opportunity to get further away.

The only digitised Arolsen Archives document relating to Hugo’s time in Germany shows that he was living in Schloss Werneck, the Werneck Castle in 1941. Werneck is a market town in Bavaria, in the south of Germany. His occupation is again given as 'Stud.phil.' or student of philosophy (maybe Arts in Australia).

Hugo’s father escaped deportation to Siberia in June 1941, when many thousands of others on Communist hit-lists were herded into cattle trucks in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Having previously held such a high position with the Estonian Government, it was very likely that he would have been on the next train out if the Germans had not arrived first. He died before the Soviets returned in September 1944.

His family realised that they also would have been targeted, so mother and daughter left when warned.

In western Germany, they got word that Hugo was being held in a prisoner of war camp for Latvian generals. Knowing that a big mistake must have occurred, twenty-year-old Anu travelled by herself to this camp, and begged for her brother’s release. He was being held because a Jewish person in the French Zone had claimed that a person with a very similar name had been involved in the torture of Jews.

Anu’s story must have corroborated the one which Hugo was trying to offer, as she was told that he would be released the next day without being asked for further evidence or papers. He was released as promised, from cramped confinement in a space resembling a cage, and spent a short time with his mother and sister in the Augsberg camp for Estonians. Then he found work with an American army unit.

It must have been through this unit that he found out about the Australian team which was in western Germany, recruiting workers.

He was one of the English speakers among the 62 sent from Bonegilla to work for the South Australian Railways (SAR), initially at Wolseley, but then moved to a camp of their own at Bangham.

Hugo Jakobsen’s 1947 ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source: NAA: A2572, JAKOBSEN HUGO

When a journalist from the Border Chronicle reported on them on 15 January 1948, he said of Hugo, “University student for two years in Estonia, and for a further period in Munich, 28-year-old Hugo Jakobsen anticipated with enthusiasm the time when he could resume his broken studies. He had trained as a teacher of German and English in his country, and had studied German, English, philosophy and pedagogics (art of teaching) to fit him for his profession.

“He, too, hoped their period of prescribed labour would not be increased beyond the promised period of one year. In 1944 he had been forced to work in Germany as a farm labourer and waiter. His first impression of the Bangham camp was that they had been ‘buried alive with little opportunity to increase their knowledge of Australia and its language.’”

Hugo and Latvian Nick Kibilds were 2 of 17 men transferred from Bangham to Peterborough, selected because the SAR thought that they had the capacity to be trained as cleaners and porters rather than utilised as unskilled labour. Since these two were fluent in English already, they acted as interpreters for the first two weeks of the course. After that, the other wrote their notes as the words sounded, in phonetic English. They also had teachers from Peterborough running English language classes three times a week.

Flaavi Hodunov (L) with Hugo Jakobsen (R)
possibly at Peterborough, South Australia

Source:  Tatyana Tamm

They also did practical work, with the Adelaide Mail reporting on 8 May 1948 that, “Everyone co-operated, because the Balts were so keen to learn”. They did their exams in English and all obtained good passes, to the delight of their instructors.

While there, Hugo organised a concert for the local residents which featured other Displaced Persons working there. The concert, held on 24 June 1948, was reported the next day by the local Times and Northern Advertiser newspaper.

The local Secretary of the concert’s beneficiary, the Railway Institute, introduced Hugo to the audience. He was described by the newspaper as “an (arts) student from (Estonia) who speaks six languages and acted as announcer”. By June, refugees from later ships had reached Peterborough, so none of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian performers were from the First Transport.

After the concert, a Baltic Boys’ Jazz Dance Band, consisting of Hugo on piano with an accordionist and a trumpeter, played music to which all present could dance.

Hugo met Denise at a dance in Adelaide, after the SAR realised that his proficiency in three languages (or was it six?) could be put to better use there than in Peterborough. Denise may well have been an intellectual equal in addition to being a good dance partner. While the public knows nothing about her as an individual after their engagement announcement in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3 October 1949 and marriage on 4 March 1950, pieces of her earlier life made the newspapers.

Before World War II, young Denise was having her creative writing published in the Adelaide Mail. Her poems and a couple of stories appear 6 times between February 1938 and January 1940. She sent in drawings too but was not successful in having them published. In January 1940, having completed seventh grade, she was the top student of the 3 completing their primary education at the Gumville School in the Karte district on the border with Victoria. In a bigger field at the Adelaide High School next year, she won an Adelaide Circulating Library Prize – perhaps for her writing again.

Even before his engagement and marriage, Hugo had returned to study, this time at the University of Adelaide. What he told a fellow student of life at his previous university, in Munich, was so interesting that it was reported to all in the student newspaper, On Dit.

Source: On Dit 4 July 1949

To fund his studies and married life, Hugo moved from the SAR to commerce, selling membership of Adelaide’s Mutual Hospital Association to new arrivals. Mutual Hospital provided both health and life insurance.

He took the oath of allegiance and became an Australian citizen on 15 April 1953.

'Thrilled to become Australians' read the headline, while the caption started, 'Mr Hugo Jakobsen (left), 34, of Warradale Park and Mr Jonas Jakaitis, 33, of Woodville, examining their naturalisation papers at a reception given by the Good Neighbour Council yesterday to mark the naturalisation of 13 New Australians.  Mr Jakobsen is from Estonia and Mr Jakaitis is from Lithuania.' 
Jakaitis has arrived also on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 April 1953

His graduation with a degree in German and history plus a Diploma of Education was reported in the Adelaide Advertiser of 16 March 1954. He had been fortunate enough to have 3 of his previous subjects recognised as equivalent by the University of Adelaide, shortening his course significantly.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 March 1954

By then, Hugo and Denise had two daughters, born in April 1951 and October 1952. Their only son was born in February 1963.

The Advertiser article noted also that he recently had been appointed the manager of retail books at Rigby Ltd. Rigby’s was a part of Adelaide’s and Australia’s history, having once being the largest publisher in Australia. The company was started with a bookshop on Hindley Street, Adelaide, in 1859 by William Charles Rigby. Being appointed to managed the bookshop 95 years later would have indicated Hugo’s prominence in Adelaide’s commercial world.

Hugo had a letter published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 1 January 1954. The Advertiser headed it, “Speech Rights of Migrants, Right to own language”. Hugo wrote, “'Unity' (30/12/53) need not be unduly alarmed about so much 'foreign gabble' in Australia, as it is only a temporary inconvenience he has to put up with.

“When the children of the migrants now attending Australian schools have grown up and start to dominate the scene, they will push the older generation still clinging to their mother tongue into the background.

“His concern, therefore, revealing a spirit more Nazi like than even Hitler's, is entirely uncalled for. It smells of ignorance, immaturity, and intolerance.

“He does not realise that this is a free country where everybody is entitled to live his own private life in pursuit of his individual happiness within the limit of the law without any nosey interference from outsiders.

“Migrants learn, and have learned, English with much better results without legal compulsion because they realise the tremendous advantages which the knowledge of English gives them.”

Being told in public to speak to each other in English was a harassment with which many post-War migrants were greeted. Hugo provided a most sensible answer, perhaps too logical for the “talk Australian” locals.

Hugo did not forged a career with Rigby’s, returning instead to his love of teaching. A daughter remembers that his first appointment was to Elizabeth High School.

Elizabeth was established in 1955 in Adelaide’s north as a home for the workers which South Australia needed for its industrialisation under the Playford Government. Teaching here was a challenge for Hugo, not only because few students were academic achievers but also because of the distance to travel each way when his home was in Warradale, some 40 Km away in Adelaide’s south.

He also taught at LeFevre High, Croydon High and Mitchell Park Boys Technical High School. Towards the end of his career he trained as a teacher librarian and worked at Seacombe High School. He was much happier doing that.

I was taken by Denise to meet Hugo some 50 years later, on 2 January 2004. He was too ill to be interviewed, she had said and, indeed, his dementia made him barely aware of his nursing home surroundings. He seemed not aware that he had visitors, not even his own wife.

But Hugo was tough, lasting more than another 6 years until 8 October 2010. He was 91 years old.

I was shocked to find that Denise had died even as I started to prepare this tribute. She died on 10 January 2024, aged 96, after a short illness.

Footnote

While sorting through his mother's papers after her death, Hugo and Denise's son came across an article in English by his father on how Estonians celebrate Christmas.  No it's posted online at https://www.thevarnishedculture.com/christmas-in-estonia/.

Sources

Advertiser (1953) 'Thrilled to become Australians' Adelaide p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48284822 accessed 26 October 2024.

Advertiser (1954) ‘Letters to The Editor’ Adelaide 1 January p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47581070 accessed 28 December 2023.

Arolsen Archives (1941) ‘Name list of resettlers from Estonia and Latvia, who lived in Schloß Werneck in the year 1941’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70553643 accessed 24 October 2024.

Australia, Department of Immigration (1949-53) The New Australian.

Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham’ Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125 accessed 28 December 2023.

Frey, Anne (2024) Personal communication, 26 September.

Jakobsen, Denise and Anu (2004) Personal communications, Adelaide, 2 January.

Jakobsen, Peter (2024) Personal communications, 22 February, 25 September and 25 October.

Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railwaymen’ Adelaide, South Australia, 8 May p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55905773 accessed 29 December 2023.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Information, Central Office; CP815/1 General correspondence files, two number series, 1944 –1950; 021.148, Immigration - From Minister [correspondence with Immigration Publicity Officer], 1947 – 1948, p20-21 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=263676 accessed 26 October 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; Jakobsen, Hugo : Year of Birth – 1919 : Nationality – ESTONIAN : Travelled per – GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 931, 1947 – 1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620853, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Genera; JAKOBSEN Hugo DOB 3 October 1919, 1947 – 1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005793, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series 1923 – 1971; JAKOBSEN Hugo - Nationality: Estonian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947 – 1953, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4077744, accessed 22 February 2024. 

On Dit (1949) ‘Student Body With No Apathy’, Adelaide, Adelaide University Students’ Representative Council, 4 July, p 3, https://connect.adelaide.edu.au/nodes/view/2087?type=all&lsk=13deab63089f66f25769c519cb7d1780, accessed 23 October 2024.

Rahvusarhiiv Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis  https://www.ra.ee/apps/andmed/index.php/matrikkel/view?id=16119&_xr=eNpLtDK0qs60MrBOtDKGMIqtDI2slIpSC0tTi0v0ExNLS5SAYhZWSgWpRal5mbmZUG5WYnZ%252BUnFqHohraKVUCKUNlaxrawGJmhp5 accessed 26 October 2024.

Šeštokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp Sale, Victoria, Little Chicken Publishing, pp 141-142.

Times and Northern Advertiser (1948) ‘A Musical Treat’ Peterborough, South Australia, 25 June p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110548699 accessed 9 January 2024.

Wikipedia, ‘Education in South Australia’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Australia#Early_childhood_education accessed 17 January 2024. 

Wikipedia, 'Elizabeth, South Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth,_South_Australia accessed 26 October 2024.

 Wikipedia, ‘Rigby Ltd’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigby_Ltd#Rigby_Ltd accessed 21 January 2004.