Showing posts with label Heintzelman passenger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heintzelman passenger. Show all posts

31 January 2026

Vaclavs Kozlovskis starts work at Pyramid Hill, 8-31 January 1948, translated by Monika Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 8.1.49, Thurs 

This morning we looked over the quarries, our new workplace. We were quite surprised to see only five Australians working here; apparently it’s not a desirable job.  Work is carried out in two areas - the rock quarry and the sand quarry, where we’ll be working alone.

In the rock quarry holes are bored in the rock with a compressor, then filled with explosives.  The large rocks are always exploded, but the small ones are hit with a hammer into pieces to fit into the crusher.  These pieces are tipped into trucks with some sort of digger, and driven to the crusher. 

Drilling a hole into the granite, Pyramid Hill
Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

In the other place, where for the time being we three Letts* will work, sand is poured into the trucks without the help of a of digger, and by our hands alone.  This sand is ground up with the rock, then carted away to be tipped out where a road is being built, about thirty miles from here.

Afterwards we drove into town, where the boss gave us an advance to buy the necessary clothes, as well as two pounds each for various other trifles.   He also gave us two pounds of tobacco, for it’s difficult to obtain here.

After lunch we changed into our work clothes and drove off to begin our labouring job. The boss himself is pleasant, but not so pleasant is the job.

For four hours we poured sand into trucks, and for four hours we scorched mercilessly in the hot sun; this is no longer just work, it is punishment.  Soon our hands were covered in blisters of unhappiness and protest, and our muscles in pain.

Worst of all, I’d left my water at home so I had to work with a dry throat and get by without a drink, for there’s no water here.

Finally the work hours were over, and we looked for some water to wash in.  Near the quarry there is a pond full of brown water in a gravel pit.  Not worrying overmuch about the leeches and abundant tadpoles we jumped straight in.  It’s amazing how cool this chest-deep water was,  it greatly refreshed us and took out the tiredness put there by the sun.

Our first work day over, we drove home.

PYRAMID HILL, 9.1.48, Fri 

On our second day of work we began throwing sand into the trucks from the morning on, the blisters on our hands becoming more and more unbearable.  We worked hard until lunchtime and it even seemed that we weren’t overly tired, but the picture was quite different that afternoon: on throwing the first shovelful tears almost came into my eyes, from the pain in my muscles and blisters.

We could no longer work as hard or fast as we had in the morning.  The four hours crawled past slowly, we could hardly wait to leave.  I was weary as never before.  My blisters hurt, my arm and stomach muscles ached, and so did even my sunburned back. This job is really terrible; only one year, and not one minute more!

PYRAMID HILL, 11.1.48, Sun 

We went to church. It’s a long time since I’ve been in this quiet place.  Nothing is different here, everything is familiar, even the pictures are the same as in the church in Latvia. T he priest’s robes are quite the same that the priest wore in my distant homeland, and it even seemed to me that the grey-haired priest himself, Father O’Connor, was one and the same, except that he spoke a different, more difficult to understand language.

For about half an hour he spoke of the eight hundred Balts who have come to this country, of our lost homeland, and of we seven, who have come to the quarries.  I listened and marvelled — are we really as good as the priest says?  He said we are pleasant and hardworking, and good Catholics.  The priest said even more, but I don’t know the language well enough to understand it all.  The mass was over, we came out of the church and drove home.

PYRAMID HILL, 13.1.48, Tues 

Another work day, and another bone-weary drive home.  I still had dinner to prepare for us all as it was my turn.  Yesterday I caught some rabbits and penned them up to fatten up for Saturday, but today I let them go again, after all they might drop dead because they haven’t touched their food yet.  Late at night, completely exhausted, I went to sleep.

PYRAMID HILL, 14.1.48, Wed 

Today things turned out a little better.  We were very productive in the morning, but to make up for it we had more of a rest in the afternoon. T o begin with, half way back from lunch the truck broke down and we had to walk the rest of the way.  The truck was fixed and returned, but when a driver wanted to use it for sand pouring, it broke down again and wouldn’t budge.

So this afternoon we worked with only a small vehicle.  But despite our frequent rests, coming home I was even more tired than before. I  didn’t feel like doing anything, so I went to bed straight after dinner, even though it was only seven o’clock.

One of the trucks, with its driver, maybe 3 Letts and a ring-in,
probably a Lithuanian or Australian
Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 20.1.48, Tues 

This was a really terrible day.  Yesterday afternoon we moved to the rock quarry, and today we worked there all day.  There wasn’t a breath of wind and the sun scorched down, little water blisters forming on our skins from the heat.

I drank a lot of water, but it was warm, and instantly converted into sweat.  Wherever I put my hand, my body became wet straight away, and perspiration dripped in large drops from my hair.  Finally work was over, but we still had to go into town for some bread.

A fire was raging there — the whole street was full of women standing beside belongings that had been carried out of their houses, and the men, thoroughly soaked, were attempting to put the fire out.  After we’d helped to extinguish the fire we took our bread, prised the driver out of the pub, and drove home.

Although it’s night, there’s still no relief from the bone-wearying sun’s heat.  I tried to sit outside, but a hot northerly wind is blowing.  It will be a miracle if I can sleep tonight.

PYRAMID HILL, 22.1.48, Thurs 

This is the worst day I’ve endured here — I couldn’t sleep at all last night and it’s already hot this morning.  Through the day perspiration poured down even when standing completely still, and on top of that we had to work!  My arms tired quickly and my glance moved all too often to my watch. I n the morning the watch hands seemed to move a little, but in the afternoon they even seemed to be moving backwards.

Finally, though, even this hot day reached its end and we drove home completely exhausted.  I went to bed straight after dinner, but it was too hot to fall asleep even sleeping completely naked on top of the blankets.  Suddenly it began to rain and the wind changed, and it cooled down straight away.  I crawled under the blankets and fell deeply asleep.

Vaclavs added these newspaper cuttings to his page on 22 January 1948;
all except the top left are from the
Argus, Melbourne, 23 January 1948 
Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

PYRAMID HILL, 22.1.48, Wed (sic) 

The boss showed up, and from morning his car was parked by the crusher.  The first thing we found out about was the change in our workplace — now the digger would be sent to the sand quarry, and the diggers themselves moved to rock loading.  When the boss arrived he said various things as well.  He said that several of us work well, but others don’t.  The wage we are paid is high, therefore we need to show good progress — the government can’t carry people who don’t do anything.  We’re not in forced labour, but work for our own wage, which is comparatively high, therefore we have to work hard, he said.

This year we will have two week’s holiday around Christmas.  By early February a barracks will be completed for us right here at the quarry and we won’t have to travel so far to go to work.

Petrol is rationed and expensive — each time we are driven into the town on Saturday or Sunday it costs one whole pound.

In fact I would prefer to live at the quarry, for then the town would be close by and we could easily go there whenever we wanted to, and we would no longer have to live in the jungles, where only quite rarely some seventeenth century limousine drives past, entirely without tyres.  Also at lunchtime we wouldn’t have to get in a car every day to drive into town, so we could spend more time resting.

The boss added that on rainy days when it’s too wet to work in the quarries, we still have to show that we’re willing to work and go to the workplace.  In this case we will still be paid whether we work under shelter or sit there all day and do nothing.  That’s all the boss said, the rest returned to work, while I accompanied him to translate to the tall Estonian who works on the trucks.

The tall—and only—Estonian was Lembit Koplus, whose Bonegilla card says that he was 6 ft 3 in or 190 cm tall; note that his two "boxing" companions are standing slightly in front of him
to increase the emphasis on his height, and it looks they are still in their pyjamas
Source:  Collection of Vaclavs Kozlovskis

Now I understood where the boss’s reprimand was aimed — apparently the Estonian is the worst of all.  It seems he often sits and smokes, holding up the trucks with their loads.

Towards evening the boss left to return to Melbourne, so we’ll have some peace again for the next fourteen days.

PYRAMID HILL, 27.1.48, Tues 

Yesterday the drivers had a booze-up, and today they had hangovers so they couldn’t work all day.  The morning passed unusually quickly, and we worked in the shade almost all the time.  We rested after each truckload, until the driver finally got around to exchanging a full truck for an empty one. The afternoon was much hotter, but the work wasn’t heavy at all, for again we rested after each truckload.

I discovered how poor provincial towns such as this must be — I tried to buy sixteen pounds of sugar, but the shopkeeper’s eyes just widened when I asked him for it.  He merely said ‘too short’, and weighed out eight pounds instead.  Who knows, perhaps his shop only carries some twenty pounds of sugar at once?  In the early evening there was a small rain shower, but despite this I was perspiring when I went to bed and tried to sleep.

PYRAMID HILL, 31.1.48, Sat 

First thing in the morning we began our preparations to celebrate our first pay packets. I’d brewed some beer, bought wine and invited all six of the quarry drivers, but whether any of them would show up, remained to be seen.

Around nine thirty the car arrived to drive us into town.  We bought glasses, pickles and all the other necessities for our party, and then waited as usual for the driver to finish his beer.

After a long wait we gave up and went into the pub ourselves to drink beer and toss quoits, as the Australians do.  We discovered that the pub has no tables or even chairs. In the middle of the room is a round bar in the centre of which the publican works, and around which were gathered almost all the men of Pyramid, drinking beer.  In this way they can forget the week’s sweat, and begin work next week with an empty pocket.

Only cold beer is drunk here, other drinks are neither suitable nor valued in this heat. We managed to get the driver out of the pub and drove home, where we put the table in order and began our wait.

We waited from five to six, but no one came.  At seven we decided to start drinking, but had only polished off two bottles of wine and several of beer, when suddenly a truck drove up with two of the drivers and two friends.

Now we let fly in earnest, until one of them fell into a drunken stupor and the others carried him into the truck.

We drank a bit more, then the others prepared to leave.  Only then did they discover that the headlights weren’t working, but this was soon remedied — two of our hurricane lanterns were hung on the car, and they drove off slowly and carefully.

Then we climbed into bed as well, and peace descended over the house.

FOOTNOTE

* Lett is another word for Latvian.  Besides Vaclavs, the other two were Persijs Arndts and Edgars Osis.

CITE AS:  Kozlovskis, Monika (2026) 'Vaclavs Kozlovskis starts work at Pyramid Hill, 8-31 January 1948', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2026/01/vaclavs-kozlovskis-starts-work-at-Pyramid-Hill-Victoria-8-31-January-1948.html.

29 January 2026

Petras Juodka (1919-1978): A Troubled Start in Australia, by Rasa Ščevinksienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

We have written a little about Petras Juodka in the blog entry for Domas Valancius.  After maybe two weeks of fruit-picking in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley for Anton Lenne, he had returned to the Bonegilla camp.  Less than one week later, on 19 February 1948, he was sent to Iron Knob in South Australia.  There he met Domas and trouble.

The Port Augusta District Employment Officer travelled to Iron Knob following a phone call from the Registrar of the Broken Hill Proprietory Limited company, to talk with Broken Hill’s Iron Knob foreman.  Two First Transport arrivals, Domas and Petras, were said to have ‘given quite a lot of trouble on and off the job’.

Disorderly Behaviour

Both had been before the Iron Knob court where they had been fined for disorderly behaviour in a public place.

Petras Juodka around 1947

The foreman told the Employment Officer that Domas was ‘of an argumentative and repulsive nature’.  Domas was considered the leader with Petras a follower, despite Petras having been before the local court one more time than Domas.  The foreman thought that Petras would settle down if separated from Domas.

The local policeman said that he thought it would be necessary to transfer both of the men ‘as there appeared to be a feeling amongst others that there was trouble ahead.’

The Employment official and the foreman then interviewed the two men together.  The Employment official recorded that Petras ‘was very repentant, but (Domas) did not appear to care what happened to him’.

The company agreed to give the men one week’s notice and told them that they would have to pay their own fares to Adelaide in order to visit the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) there.  Their ‘services were terminated’ on 23 September.

Domas had caught the express train eastwards on the night of 25 September.  He had stated that he was returning to the Bonegilla camp.  This would have left Petras on his own in Adelaide, unless he knew how to contact friends from the First Transport.

From Iron Knob to Harbours Board

Petras reported to the CES as directed and was found employment with the SA Harbours Board.  He started there on 27 September, according the Alien Registration card record kept by the Adelaide office of the Department of Immigration.

Someone has made sure that the card also recorded some of the trouble he got into while in Iron Knob. P olice Gazette 39 of 1948 recorded an appearance before the Iron Knob Police Court on 14 September 1948, when he was fined 30 shillings plus 10 shilling costs, a total of 40 shillings or £2, for disorderly behaviour.

The second court appearance is not recorded but a large file from the Department of Immigration’s Adelaide office contains Petras’ original application for citizenship.  Having been told the penalties for not being completely truthful, he recorded all 6 court appearances between 1948 and 1953, plus their consequences.

The first Iron Knob Iron Knob Police Court appearance had been on 21 June 1948, when he was fined 27 shillings and 6 pence (27/6 or £1/7/6) for being drunk.  This would have been in a public place.

More court appearances and fines

He did not calm down in Adelaide, at least, not initially.   Police List 8 had him fined £7 for indecent exposure, which would have been urinating in public, thanks to an appearance in the Adelaide Police Court.

The Adelaide Advertiser newspaper reported the appearance as well, saying that it was on 10 July 1950.  His occupation was given as sawyer.

In his application for citizenship, Petras admitted to having to pay an extra 7/6 for court costs on this occasion.

In the Port Adelaide Police Court of 14 August 1950, according to Police List 9, he was fined a further 10 shillings for being drunk, which also would have been in a public place.

He was still working for the Harbour Board in September 1949 when, in excellent handwriting, he filled out a form labelled Application for Release from Period of Exemption.  In more than 25 years of researching the First Transport arrivals, this is the first time that Ann has seen such a form on one of National Archives’ files.  The form was dated 27 September 1949 and, like most of the other arrivals, Petras was granted his release 3 days later.

Petras Juodka's completed Application for Release from Exemption form;
the result of a successful application was a Certificate of Authority to Remain in Australia
click once on image for a more legible version 

The Alien Registration card record kept by the Department of Immigration in Adelaide then has an undated transfer to General Motors Holden (GMH), Woodville, and a total of 5 residential address for the period from April 1950 to February 1951.

He then had 2 changes of employment, to the Shell petroleum company in April 1951 and back to the Harbour Board about 2 weeks later.  In July 1952, he was back to GMH as a machine operator.

A Re-entry Permit

The Adelaide Immigration office’s file shows that, in June 1952, Petras applied for a re-entry permit, that is, permission to come back into Australia if he left.  His reason for the application was that he wanted to be away for 2-3 years to get his seaman’s ticket on a foreign ship before joining the Australian merchant marine.

Petras' 1952 photo for his Application for a Re-entry Permit

The Department did issue a Re-entry Permit to Petras, but it never was used.  Perhaps an Immigration official took the time to explain to him that any time outside Australia would be deducted from the 5 years required to obtain Australian citizenship.  The next papers on his file are the several pages of his citizenship application form, completed on 14 January 1953.

Dairy Farming But More Trouble

In early December 1952, he had had a change of scenery.  He had left urban Adelaide to became a labourer on a dairy farm operated by H Brown at Nangkita, on the Fleurieu Peninsula.  Nangkita is still around 80 Km and 75 minutes by road from Petras’ previous address in Adelaide.  While the change of employment was noted, a change of address was not, unless it was assumed that the address of H Brown at Nangkita was sufficient.

The record of misbehaviour published by the Adelaide Advertiser does not stop though. On 14 January 1953, the date that he completed his naturalisation application, he had been found by the police hammering on a door in the suburb where he used to live, Semaphore.

When the occupant of the house told him to go away, he shouted, “I’m cold and I want shelter”.  He was fined £3 and had to pay an additional 7/6 court costs.  Presumably there would have been additional charges if the police had judge that he had been drinking.  His address was given as Nangkita.

He may well have felt that the next move, away from Nangkita, was a great opportunity, since it was to a winery.   His new employer, as of April 1953, was Hamilton Wines of Glenelg, in inner urban Adelaide.   He lasted less than 5 weeks there though, as it was back to GMH in May.

He changed his home address 5 months later, then moved to what may have become a permanent employer, the South Australian Railways, in July 1954.  At first he was employed as a porter, someone moving heavy luggage and freight, in Port Adelaide. Then came what seems to have been a longterm move, with the Railways to Port Lincoln.

Port Lincoln is around 650 Km by road from the northern Adelaide suburbs and nearly 7 hours away. Perhaps Petras had removed himself from bad influences. His date of arrival there, as recorded on his citizenship application, was 30 December 1954.

Citizenship and the Army

For some reason not explained by the papers on file, he was sent a form letter on 16 January 1953, stating that he would not be eligible to apply for citizenship unless he continued to reside continuously in Australia for another two years.

As a former Immigration official, Ann can work out that he was eligible to apply from 28 or 29 November 1953. Admittedly, he had applied early, a good sign, but was misdirected by officialdom, bad practice.

On 15 March in the same year, he wrote to the Department of Immigration to say that he was interested in joining the Army.  He had attended a recruiting office but there was told that he should be in contact with the Department of Immigration.

The reply he received said that he should present his receipt for his Declaration of Intention to become Naturalised to the recruiting centre.  The Department thought that this would be sufficient for enlistment, if the Army found him otherwise eligible.

What motivated him to want to join the Army, after a previously expressed desire to join the merchant marine?  Was he just a restless person, as suggested by the changes of employment listed on the Department’s Alien Registration card?

Yet more trouble

Later the same year, he gave a Cheltenham address in suburban Adelaide and a press operator occupation when he appeared before a court yet again.  This time the charge was offensive behaviour in a Port Adelaide hotel on 12 September.  He admitted the charge and was fined £2/10/- and ordered to pay another £1/8/6 court costs.

This was the last court appearance to be reported by Petras himself, or the police.  However, it was not the end of his appearances in the press, with the Port Lincoln Times taking over the role of the Advertiser.

A list of Petras' offences supplied to the Department of Immigration by the police

Port Lincoln and Citizenship

On 15 March 1955, following the incorrect previous advice from the Department of Immigration, he wrote to ask what he now needed to do to obtain citizenship.  He was sent the appropriate forms and told about the requirement to advertise his intention in two newspapers circulating where he lived.

On 7 July, the Department of Immigration wrote to the CES, asking that it make someone available in Port Lincoln to interview Petras.  That interview took place during that month.

He gave his previous occupation as labourer or deckhand.  The second would explain the interest in returning to shipboard life evinced in June 1952.

At the time of the interview, he was described as a porter for South Australian Railways, living in the South Australian Railways Hostel.

The Port Lincoln Times carried an advertisement, also on 7 July, in which he was seeking somewhere to live other than his current home in the Hostel.  Of particular interest is his description of himself as “respectable sober gent”.  He must have really cleaned up his act in the 21 months since his last court appearance!

Looking for somewhere else to live
Source: 
Port Lincoln Times through Trove

Yes, all of that offending did interfere with Petras’ application to become an Australian citizen.  The Adelaide office of the Department of Immigration referred the application to its Canberra head office in January 1956.  Two weeks later, Canberra wanted more details.  Adelaide replied that it was due primarily to drinking.  Petras had not been recorded adversely in the 3 years prior to February 1956 (if the 12 September 1953 conviction for offensive behaviour in a hotel was ignored).

On 7 May 1956, Petras was sent a letter which said that “… the Minister has decided to withhold the grant of naturalization (sic) to you for a period of twelve months.”  He was not told why this decision had been taken or what would make a difference at the end of the twelve-month period.

On 7 October 1956, Petras wrote to the Adelaide office enclosing another letter which he wanted to be sent to the Minister for Immigration.  No copy of the second letter is on file.  The second letter was forwarded to the Department’s Canberra office with a note that said he had not been recorded adversely since 18 November 1953.

The public record does not say anything about an 18 November charge or conviction. Nor, for that matter, does the list of 6 offences to which Petras admitted on his application or the police version above.  This ends, as does the public record on 14 (rather than 12) September 1953.

On 22 March 1957, Petras wrote again, asking to revive his application for naturalisation.

Railway Injury

Petras had moved to Port Lincoln, but not away from trouble.  The Port Lincoln Times reported on 6 September 1956 that he had been badly injured when coupling railway trucks on a jetty.  Two fingers on his right hand were crushed by coupling hooks.  The injury was treated in the local hospital.

He responded to the hospital treatment by inserting an advertisement in the same 6 September issue of the Port Lincoln Times, thanking the doctor and nursing staff who had helped him after the accident.  He started, “I am grateful to all those very good Australian people …” and ended, “… that further obliges me for a greater contribution to this country.”

Petras (Peter) thanks all who helped him
Source: 
Port Lincoln Times through Trove

What we don't know is whether he was recovering from his injury or, indeed, has lost those two fingers.

Citizenship, Finally!

The last Port Lincoln Times report is the most positive.  Petras was one of 13 people to receive Australian citizenship at a ceremony led by the Mayor of Port Lincoln on 5 December 1957.  That’s 10 years to the day since he was travelling across the Great Australian Bight on the temporary warship, the Kanimbla.

Had he really given up alcohol?  He certainly had learned to moderate his behaviour, as we know of no more court appearances.  The overuse of alcohol was almost certainly connected with what he had experienced in 5 years of war, with 2 more years in an occupied but still troubled Germany no help either.

It should be possible to follow any further changes of residence through an Ancestry.com account, since Ancestry has digitised all electoral rolls for Australia up to 1980.  However, checking using all three known spelling variants of Petras' surname (see below) produced no results.  This suggests that having been granted Australian citizenship, Petras failed to accept its major obligation, to enrol for elections and vote, at both the State and Federal levels.

In Germany

On his citizenship application form, Petras had written that left Lithuania and arrived in Germany on the same day, 7 July 1944.  This probably seemed easier than explaining how it may have taken several days to travel from the Lithuanian border to Germany, avoiding bombing and gunfire from the Soviets, the Germans and the Allies.

His name appeared in a list of Lithuanians searching for others in a Lithuanian language newspaper, published in Augsburg, Germany, in January 1946.  The notice indicates that, at that time, he was living in Karolinenschloschen, Bad Aibling.

Karolinenschloschen means Caroline’s Little Palace in English.  If his DP camp really was in a former palace, it must have been an interesting place in which to live.

Bad Aibling is a spa town in the far south of Germany, between Munich and Salzburg, the latter in Austria.  He had managed to get as far away from the Soviets as he could go, without crossing mountains into Austria or Switzerland.

An American Expeditionary Force (AEF) DP Registration form filled out at the very end of 1945 tells us that Petras was born on 2 March 1919, so he was 26 years old at the time.  His parents were recorded as “Johann”, probably meaning Jonas in Lithuanian, and Aniela, the latter being an equivalent of Angela.

Life in Lithuania

He had been born in Serasai, according to the AEF form, probably meaning Zerasai in northeastern Lithuania.  His place of birth on the application form for migration to Australia was recorded oddly as Rainiai-Salakas, 2 towns in the north of Lithuania which are nearly 300 Km apart by road.  Zerasai is less than 30 Km from Salakas, so more likely to be the birthplace.

His usual occupation on the AEF form was farmer.  In mid-October 1947, the Australian selection panel’s report recorded that he had only 3 years of primary schooling but 2 more years at a commercial school.  His previous occupation was not recorded on the application form, where his current occupation was said to be general labourer.

Languages

Neither form nominated English as one of Petras’ languages, although he had Polish as well as Lithuanian.  We have to hope that he attended Edna Davis’ classes on board the Heintzelman.  Problems with understanding those around him in Australia would have added to his psychological difficulties.

On the other hand, the letters that he clearly wrote himself, since all are in the same script and use the same ink colour, indicate somewhere who had learned to express himself well – if not with complete fluency – in English by the mid-1950s.

Later years

After so much publicity for Petras in his first 10 years in Australia, the record goes quiet.  That’s apart from 2 appearances in Australia’s Lithuanian-language press.  Mūsų Pastogė, in a September 1968 edition, published a letter from Petras.  He noted the approach of the 48th anniversary of Poland seizing the Lithuanian capital city, Vilnius, in October 1920, and thanked 2 Adelaide residents who he said had participated in the return of Vilnius to Lithuania in October 1939.

He signed himself as a dragoon of the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union, a soldier of the Lithuanian Self-Defense Units of the Homeland Protection Team, and a member of the ex-servicemen’s organisation, Ramovė.

In November 1973, he offered to finance the restoration of the missing metal Vilnius city coat of arms in the Lithuanian Land Monument in the churchyard of St Casimir's Church. St Casimir’s is the Lithuanian Catholic community’s church in Adelaide.

Death

Finally, Tėviškės aidai in its issue of 4 March 1978, carried a sentence about recent deaths in Adelaide.  This included Petra Jotka (sic), who had died on 17 February 1978. He was said to be 60 years old but, given several records of his birthdate on different forms, he would have been 58, 2 weeks short of his 59th birthday.  He had returned to Adelaide, to his previous suburb of Semaphore.

It looks like the earlier hard living had caught up with Petras.

CITE THIS AS:  Ščevinksienė, Rasa and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Petras Juodka (1919-1978):  A Troubled Start in Australia' 

SOURCES

Note: Petras' surname has 3 variants in the sources, even in the Lithuanian language: Juodka, Juotka and Jotka.

Advertiser (1950) ‘Charge Admitted’ Adelaide, SA, 11 July, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/44919776, accessed 26 January 2026.

Advertiser (1953) ‘Unlawfully On Premises’ Adelaide, SA, 16 January, p 5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47526251, accessed 26 January 2026.

Advertiser (1953) ‘Offensive Behaviour’ Adelaide, SA, 15 September, p 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48928540, accessed 26 January 2026.

Billion Graves ‘Petras Juodka’ https://billiongraves.com/grave/Petras-Juodka/44357799, accessed 27 January 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, ‘Petras Juodka’ Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203731915, accessed 26 January 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) ‘Certificates of Naturalization (sic)’ Canberra, ACT, 18 September, p 3099 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/240882136/25977671, accessed 27 January 2026.

Find a Grave ‘Petras “Peter” Juodka’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/151279180/petras-juodka, accessed 27 January 2026.

‘Folder DP1689, names from JUNOS, BARBARA to JUOZUVAITIS, Otonas (1)’ 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67523592, ITS/Arolsen archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67523592, accessed 26 January 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1968) ‘Padėka‘ (‘Gratitude’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 2 September, p 6 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1968/1968-09-02-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 27 January 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; 556, JUODKA Petras DOB 2 March 1919, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005792, accessed 27 January 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D400, Correspondence files, annual single number series with 'SA' and 'S' prefix, 1949-1965; SA1956/8813, JUODKA PETRAS, 1949-1957 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=31672421, accessed 27 January 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D401, Correspondence files, multiple number series with 'SA' prefix, 1946-49; SA1948/3/512, VALANCUS Domas - application for admission of relative or friend to Australia - KLINGBEIL Loni, 1948-53 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=12455258, accessed 27 January 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1937-1965; JUODKA P, JUODKA Petras - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1957 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4078212, accessed 27 January 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; JUODKA PETRAS, JUODKA Petras - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Melbourne per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1957 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9181028, accessed 27 January 2026

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; JUODKA PETRAS, JUODKA, Petras : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 930, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203731915, accessed 27 January 2026.

News (1953) ‘Laborer (sic) fined £3’ Adelaide, SA, 15 January, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130926042, accessed 26 January 2026.

Port Lincoln Times (1955) (Advertising) Port Lincoln, SA, 7 July, p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/266921092?searchTerm=p.%20juodka, accessed 26 January 2026.

Port Lincoln Times (1956) ‘Shunter Injured’ Port Lincoln, SA, 6 September, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/267051164, accessed 26 January 2026.

Port Lincoln Times (1956) 'Expression of Thanks' Port Lincoln, SA, 6 September, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/267051150accessed 28 January 2026.

Port Lincoln Times (1957) ‘They Want to be Australians’ Port Lincoln, SA, 21 November, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/267059474, accessed 26 January 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1973) ‘Adelaidės kronika‘ (‘Adelaide Chronicle’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 6 November, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1973/1973-nr43-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 27 January 2026.

Tėviškės aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1978) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Adelaide’ (‘From Our Parishes, Adelaide’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 4 March, p 8 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1978/1978-nr08-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 27 January 2026.

Wikipedia, Bad Aibling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Aibling, accessed 27 January 2026.

Ziburai (Lights in Darkness) (1946) ‘Paieškojimai‘ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian) Augsburg, Germany, 19 January, p 9 https://spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_ziburiai/archive/1946-01-19-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 26 January 2026.

18 November 2025

Three Jakstas refugees on the First Transport, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Having noted the names Žilinskas and Smilgevičius three times each on the First Transport passenger list, Daina also wanted to know if the 3 Jakštas men were related.

Aleksas Jakštas (1921-1977)

Aleksas Jakštas started his working life in Australia by picking fruit for W Young of the Kelvin Orchards, Ardmona. He stayed more than one month at this assignment before returning to the Bonegilla camp on 3 April. He would not have needed to unpack because, on 5 April, he was off to Tasmania.

Aleksas in Tasmania

His Bonegilla card provides no more details but Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, says that he was sent to Premaydena locality in rural southeast Tasmania. Ramunas confirms that Premaydena involved more fruit picking. Both Ramunas and Aleksas’ obituarist, Aleksas Kantvilas, write that his next destination was Ida Bay. If you look back at our entry on the Electrona Carbide Factory, you’ll find that Ida Bay was the source of the limestone needed for the Factory to manufacture its calcium carbide.  The Factory was located near Ida Bay in a place that became Electrona.

Aleksas Jakstas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card

Ramunas quotes from Adomas Stasytis, who he says arrived at Electrona in mid-1948 with his wife, Veronika, both Second Transport (General MB Stewart) refugees, to find that there were 3 Lithuanians there already. From Bonegilla cards, we know that they were Kazys Alseika, Anicetas Grigaliunas and Algirdas Jonas Smelstorius. Either Jakštas arrived later still, or he really was moving limestone at Ida Bay into its transport to Electrona than moving it into the factory.

Aleksas' Personal Life

In Tasmania, he met and married another refugee, Klavdia. His obituarist wrote, in Lithuanian, "They had a daughter but she died early".  From the family's grave (see photograph below), it looks more like Klavdia brought Nina into the marriage from a previous marriage -- perhaps to someone who did not migrate to Australia as there is no public record of him.*

The Klavdia spelling of Aleksas' wife's name and Cyrillic script plus an orthodox cross on the family's grave are among hints that she and Nina were refugees from Russia.  Also, Utkina on the grave is the feminine form of a Russian surname, Utkin, meaning Duck.

Aleksas originated from Kaišiadorys, a village near Kaunas on the road to Vilnius. He was born on 5 October 1921. He spent his childhood and started his education in Kaišiadorys. His AEF (American Expeditionary Force) DP (Displaced Person) Registration form says that he was born in Trakai, a town 50 Km from Kaišiadorys and closer to Vilnius. The form says also that this was his last place of residence.

His parents were Jonas Jakštas and Marijona, maiden name Jurskaitė. His occupation was still student and he hoped to go to Canada. Australia must have come up first.

Aleksas' Education

From Trakai, he moved to Vilnius and studied architecture at the Vilnius Technical University. After the War, according to his obituarist, he continued his studies in Darmstadt, but it was not at the Technical University. That University’s Archives has written to us to say that he is not on its list of past students.

His education is downgraded in the papers which survive from the selection process for his migration to Australia. The tertiary education becomes instead “2 years building technical school” and “2 years secondary in Germany”. Given that Aleksas was already 24 at the start of the 1946 academic year, tertiary study is much more likely than attending a secondary school. Indeed, the selection papers later say that he did not work at all but was a full-time student, making secondary study all the more unlikely.

Aleksas in the Community

Aleksas was part of the Lithuanian community in southeast Tasmania from the start. In 1953, he was first elected to the committee of Hobart Lithuanian Community as its secretary, as reported in the Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) of 21 February that year. Soon he became its treasurer instead.

In 1956, Aleksas represented Tasmania at a Lithuanian sports festival in Sydney. Back home, his goal was to put together a team of Lithuanian basketballers for the 1957 festival in Geelong. The Hobart sports club he founded, Perkūnas (Thunder) was the result of that effort. He managed for it for a long time.

The Perkūnas Sports Club organises its 50th anniversary celebration

Like Juozas Zilinskas in Canberra, Aleksas and Klavdia were to be seen “everywhere and often” in Hobart community life. There were said to be no gatherings, commemorations or entertainment of the Lithuanian community without their participation.

On 30 January 1963, both Klavdia and Aleksas Jakstas of 623 Seventh Avenue in the Hobart suburb of West Moonah received their citizenship certificates.

Aleksas' Early Death

In 1970 Aleksas was diagnosed with a serious illness, threatening the rest of his life.

Aleksas was an amazingly caring and talented person, his obituarist wrote. What he did, he did well, so that it was beautiful, perfectly finished; he had "golden hands", people used to say. He was open and honest; he didn't have any anger or deceit.

A hundred of his friends, compatriots and acquaintances gathered for his last farewell on 2 April 1977. He had lived for only 55 years, destined never to see the forests and fields of his motherland again. Accompanied by song, he descended to the ground covered by the tricolour flag and a handful of sand from the Neris river in Lithuania, as a farewell trumpet sounded.

The deceased left behind his lovely wife, who was loved and respected by everyone. He also left behind his father in Vilnius and three sisters and their families in Lithuania. Klavdia passed away early also, less than 15 months after Aleksas.

They are interred with Nina in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart.

The grave of the Jakštas family in Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart:
the Cyrillic at the top translates as "Ninochka", clearly her mother's pet name for Nina and
it is likely that "Aliusik" was Klava/Klavda's pet name for her husband, Aleksas;
note also the Orthodox cross at the top of the grave, which is in the Cemetery's Methodist section

*  The Arolsen Archives has a file for Klavdia Utkina (b 21 May 1928) and her daughter, Antonina (b 5 March 1948) which reveals that Klavdia married Peter Ivanovich Utkin, a fellow teacher, in Harbin, China, in 1947.  As of 1 May 1957, they were separated and his whereabouts were unknown.  

Klavdia and Nina set out for Tasmania from Hong Kong on 30 December 1957 by ship, with Klavdia's aunt, Cleopatra Krasovskaya.  They would have been travelling under an immigration program which Australia ran for White Russians from China.  This program was started after lobbying co-ordinated by the Australian Council of Churches and was at its peak during 1957-59.  The Utkina/Krasnovskaya party was headed for Klavdia's friend who was living in the inner Hobart suburb of Glebe.  All of this is to say that Aleksas and Klavdia would not have met until 1958 at the earliest. 

Algirdis Jakštas (1926-1999)

Algirdas or, in a more familiar manner, Algis, Jakštas hit the page 1 headlines in various editions of Sydney’s Daily Mirror afternoon newspaper on 25 August 1949. They reported that he had been found that morning with a knife wound above the heart, in the East Hostel, Yallourn, Victoria.

In most of its editions, the newspaper added that Algis has sought treatment the previous day for mental illness from a Yallourn doctor. It added that he now was in a serious condition in the Yallourn Hospital.

He must have recovered both from the knife wound and the mental illness, as his life continued for nearly another 50 years. He was 73 years old when he died on 26 February 1999. He was buried in Melbourne’s Springvale Botanical Cemetery on 2 March 1999.

Indeed, he was the longest lived of the three Jakštas men from the First Transport.

Algis in Germany

Algis was born 16 January 1926. His Australian Selection Report says that he had “Fled from Russian regime with parents”. He had 6 years of secondary schooling in addition to 6 years of primary, so he was well educated.

Algirdas Jakštas from his October 1947 selection papers

The selection team thought that his General Appearance was “Good” and he could be suited to heavy labour. His previous work experience was on his father’s farm, for 2 months every year (doubtless during the summer).

He was quite a linguist, with a knowledge of Russian and Polish in addition to the expected Lithuanian and German. In addition, his knowledge of English was “fair”.

Someone has added in pencil to another form used in the selection process, “Parents lost in East Prussia”.

His identity photographs came from a photographer operating in the Baltic Camp Watenstedt, where he was living. Another First Transport Lithuanian living in the same camp with his parents and siblings was Vladas Akumbakas.

Algis' First Jobs in Australia

Accepted for migration to Australia, his work contract took him to the pine forests of Mt Gambier in South Australia where he worked for the State Forestry Department.

By August 1949, he had been transferred to Victoria’s State Electricity Commission, Yallourn, where he made page 1, at least of the Daily Mirror.

Algis Starts a Family

The RecordSearch index to its digitised documents maintained by the National Archives of Australia shows only one Algirdas Jakstas entering Australia. Therefore, it would be the same person who next appears in the Australian press prior to his marriage, on 10 February 1951, to “Heather Jean, second Daughter of Capt. and Mrs A. Moore, Kew Street, Indooroopilly.” This notice appeared in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper of 8 February 1951.

During the next year, Capt. and Mrs A. Moore announced in the Courier-Mail that Heather Jakstas had given birth to a son on 13 July.

Algis Goes Flensing

So it would be the same Algirdas Jakštas who had an article headed, Beprotnamis Ar Banginių Medžioklė (Madhouse or Whaling), published in the Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) newspaper of 10 January 1953. It describes the author and his wife travelling by motor boat to Moreton Island, where they met the director of a whaling company. This director had promised his wife a job as a cleaner previously.

Moreton Island is a large sand island sheltering Brisbane, in Moreton Bay, from the Coral Sea. The former whaling station at Tangalooma now is an education and conservation centre.

Algirdas was put to work on the flensing deck, presumably on one of the 3 Norwegian ships whose crews were teaching Australians how to process the whales they had caught. The Australians, so Algirdas wrote, then started to attack him verbally. 

Flensing deck at Tangalooma Whaling Station, 1960

Those Australians were replaced by others but “they” (the new employees? the company?) “began to use other methods (so runs the translation into English) such as not letting him sleep during the day to recover from his night shift, threatening to fence his accommodation off with barbed wire, and even to deport him”.

As a result of this, Algirdas wrote, he was admitted to a Brisbane hospital where he remained for 2 weeks. In view of his previous medical history, the reader does have to wonder if this was a mental hospital or ward.

In the same issue, Algirdas inserted an advertisement which advised that people wishing to write to Liutaveras Januškevičius should use the address, “Algirdas Jakštas, 21 Bromston Street, Gladstone, Queensland”. Gladstone is a coastal city still more than 500 road kilometres and 6 hours driving north of Brisbane. 

Algirdas must have thought that moving further north would help him escape tormenting Australians. Ann, who lived even further north in Queensland for 6 years more than 50 years ago, know that this was a mistake: the further north you go, the more isolated from the outside world and its events the other residents become …

Algis Writes Again

Three years later, Algirdas had another long article headed, “Įdomūs Kelionės Įspūdžiai ...” (Interesting Travel Impressions) published in Australijos Lietuvis. This piece was based on a story Algirdas found a magazine published by a Melbourne Lithuanian sports club, about a drive from Melbourne to Adelaide. A friend who was driving in his small car was so worried about making the trip that he made his will beforehand. 

The driver, his wife and passengers saw the car in front of them leave the road and land upside down in a field but no-one was injured. Adelaide was disappointing because the friend’s Melbourne sports club did not win and for other, apparently minor, reasons. Algirdas suggested that his friend’s next trip to Adelaide should be by train or even plane.

Algis Back in Victoria

On 3 December 1960, Algirdas was granted Australian citizenship. He had left Queensland for Victoria, wisely in Ann’s opinion, and was living at Clarke House, Elmshurst Road, Bayswater, then on Melbourne’s rural-urban fringe. As far as we can find, Clarke House was the residence of a Clarke family, identified as such for the Post Office and visitors before the new Elmshurst Road received street numbers from the local government.

And that’s all the public information we have about Algirdas, until the appearance of his 1999 burial on the Find A Grave Website.  The headstone shows that his marriage to Heather Jean did not last, as the person buried with him is called Wanda.

Algirdas and Wanda Jakstas' headstone at Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Melbourne

Fridrikas Jakštas

Fridrikas came from Žiogaičiai village in the county of Tauragė. The summary report on him by the Australian selection committee categorises him as someone “forcibly evacuated by the Germans” from Lithuania in 1944.

He had 5 years of primary education and 2 years of secondary. His employment experience consisted of 2 years of farming in Lithuanian plus one year as a lumber worker in Germany. He had no knowledge of English.

His Bonegilla card shows that his next of kin was an uncle living in the Rotenburg DP camp in Hannover, in the British Zone. As this was where Fridrikas had his medical examination for migration, he probably was living there too.

Fridrikas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card

Did Fridrikas' Uncle Stay in Germany?

The uncle did not come to Australia nor was he resettled in another third country according to the available evidence. Indeed, one of two Refugee/Displaced Person Statistical Cards describes him as ineligible for IRO assistance. He was a 56-year-old farmer. Maybe officialdom had decided that he would be better off returning to Lithuania or saw him as helped already by another program, perhaps run by the Germans. Maybe he became one of the older, sicker Lithuanians in Germany for whom those in Australia collected money frequently.

Fridrikas Goes to Bangham

Fridrikas was one of the 62 Balts who arrived in Wolseley, a small town halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne, on Wednesday night, 14 January 1948. They were sent there to work for the South Australian Railways. They were to widen the district’s railway gauge. From Wolseley, they were moved to a camp of their own at Bangham.

During their five-weeks' sojourn in Bonegilla migrant camp the new arrivals learned some basic English, but only three or four of the men could converse fluently. They adopted German as the common language of conversation. While the men hoped to improve their English, it would be extremely difficult while living together in such an isolated spot. The camp was situated about 14.5 kilometres from Custon, where the predominant features of the surrounding country were scrub and sand. The men were housed in tents.

The men had been promised by Australian immigration authorities in Germany that they would only be required to work one year. After having spent years in limbo in DP camps, they hoped to find permanent positions quickly so as to end camp life.

A representative of the Commonwealth Employment Service met the party at Wolseley. The twenty Lutheran members of the party were welcomed on Wednesday afternoon at the Bangham camp by Pastor K. Hartmann, of the Lutheran Church, Bordertown. Pastor Hartmann planned to conduct services at the camp. Fridrikas was of the Lutheran faith.

Fridrikas Goes to Adelaide

There is no notation on Fridrikas’ Aliens Registration record card, now in the Adelaide collection of the National Archives of Australia, to say that he was released from his contract to the Australian Government on 30 September 1949. There also is no known reason why he would not have been released on that date. Along with the others, he probably headed for the State capital, Adelaide, as quickly as could be arranged.

The Aliens Registration record card notes that his next employment was as a labourer with Chrysler Dodge and his residential address had become 16 North Parade, North Adelaide. This change is undated.

The next notation of the record card is employment as a labourer with Hansen & Yuncken of Torrensville, builders. Fridrikas’ new personal address was 10 Athol Street in Woodville North, as of 27 October 1949.

Fridrikas Goes to Sydney

The following notation records that the South Australian Department of Immigration file of papers about Fridrikas had been sent to the Department’s Sydney office on 6 January 1950. Fridrikas had spent less than 2 years in South Australia.

He had moved to St. Mary's, now a western suburb of Sydney, 45 Km for its Central Business District. Although closer to the Blue Mountains than to central Sydney, the area has seen European settlement, initially in the form of land grants, since 1807. Even the Anglican Church after which it was named was built more than 180 years ago, between 1837 and 1840.

In St Mary’s, Fridrikas built a house with his own hands.

Fridrikas is Married

Fridrikas Jakstas and Lidia Ruta Jakstas, both of 160 Bestic Street in Kyeemagh, a Sydney suburb where the Georges River meets Botany Bay, obtained Australian citizenship on 30 October 1960.

If we knew more about the life history of Lidia Ruta Jakstas, we might know why Fridrikas moved to Sydney rather than staying in South Australia. The vast majority of First Transport men sent to South Australia lived the rest of their lives there.

The person who wrote his obituary less than 18 months after the citizenship ceremony, for Mūsų Pastogė, someone who signed himself only as J, wrote that Fridrikas had moved to Rockdale “a few years ago”.  Rockdale is the larger, better known suburb to the west of Kyeemagh, so the reference is to his Kyeemagh move.

Fridrikas Goes into Business

The obituarist wrote that Fridrikas had bought a “colonial goods store”.  The 160 Bestic Street address is indeed part of a commercial street front with second floor residences. The Jakstas’ address now houses a personal fitness and weight-loss business, according to Google Street View.

The shops at 158-164 Bestic Street, Kyeemagh, as recorded by Google Street View in June 2022;
160 Bestic Street is second from the corner, now housing Advanced Personal Training

The building’s style is 1930s Art Deco, so it would have been about 20 years old when Fridrikas and Lidia owned or were buying part of it.

Fridrikas Dies Young

Fridrikas died in Rockdale Hospital on 31 March 1962 after being unwell for three days. This young man, just 34 years old, left behind a grieving wife and parents and brothers in Lithuania.

In death, Fridrikas returned to his previous Australian home. Fr. E. Lyenert and Fr. Kosticin officiated at the funeral rites in St Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in St Mary’s and at the graveside. A representative of the Sydney Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Parish Council spoke beside Fridrikas’ grave, in St Mary’s Cemetery. More than 70 people accompanied him to his eternal resting place.

The anonymous obituarist saw Fridrikas as a sincere Lithuanian and a quiet, hardworking and dutiful family man.

From her gravestone next to that of her husband, it looks like Lidia lived another 44 years without remarrying. She was buried there on 9 August 2006.  

Frederick has been buried under the Australianised version of his forename.  Since we know so little about Lidia Ruta, we do not know if Lidia was an Australian version of the Lithuanian Lidija or a variant from another language, let alone if Lida on her headstone is her proper name, a misspelling or a pet name.  We can tell that her married name is misspelt, however.

Lidia's burial in 2006 was next to the grave of her husband,
who had died too young 44 years earlier

CONCLUSION

There are no hints at relationships between these three men on their Bonegilla cards, and we cannot find any other evidence that these three men with the family name Jakštas are related. 

Another nine people with the same surname arrived in Australia in the following years. They also were unrelated to the first three, we believe.

CITE THIS AS:  Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Three Jakstas refugees on the First Transport', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/11/three-jakstas-refugees-on-first-transport.htm.

SOURCES

AEF DP Registration Record, ‘Aleksas Jakštas’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67433246, accessed 23 September 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1953) ‘Chronika’ (‘Chronicle’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, 21 February, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280311807, accessed 23 September 2025.

Border Chronicle (1948), '62 Balts at Bangham, to help broaden rail gauge', Bordertown, SA, 15 January, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212918125, accessed 19 April 2024.

Border Watch (1948) ‘Broad Gauge Engineer Gives Amazing Facts Of Huge Undertaking’ Mount Gambier, SA, 25 September, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78591298, accessed 19 April 2024.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1963) 'Certificates of Naturalization', Canberra, 24 April, p 1428, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241013003, accessed 23 September 2025.

Courier-Mail (1951) ‘Family Notices’ Brisbane, 8 February, p 16 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50091069, accessed 23 September 2025.

Courier-Mail (1952) ‘Births’ Brisbane, 15 July, p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50512361, accessed 15 November 2025.

Daily Mirror (1949) ‘Migrant Found with Knife Wound’ Sydney, 25 August, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/273698139, accessed 24 September 2025.

Dalyvis (Participant) (1955) 'Hobart' (in Lithuanian), Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian), Adelaide, 7 February, p 8 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280313783, accessed 23 September 2025.

Find a Grave 'Algirdas Jakstas (1926-1999)' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231318643/algirdas-jakstas, accessed 16 November 2025.

Find a Grave 'Frederick Jakstas (1928-1962)' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/211910034/frederick-jakstas, accessed 16 November 2025.

Gravesites of Tasmania, 'Jakstas Aliusik' http://gravesoftas.com.au/Cornelian%20Bay%20Live/Methodist%20Weslyan/EM/3/Jakstas%20Aliusik.jpgaccessed 16 November 2025.

Jakštas, Algirdas (1953) ‘Beprotnamis ar Banginių Medžioklė’ (‘Madhouse or Whaling’, in Lithuanian), Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) Adelaide, 10 January, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280311958, accessed 23 September 2025.

Jakštas, Algirdas (1956) 'Įdomūs Kelionės Įspūdžiai ... ', (‘Interesting Travel Impressions, in Lithuanian) Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian), Adelaide, 5 March, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280316318, accessed 23 September 2025.

J (1962) ‘Naujas Lietuvio Kapas’ (‘A New Lithuanian Grave’, in Lithuanian’ Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, 7 April, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1962/1962-04-07-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 24 September 2025.

Juragis, Juozas Almis (Ed.). (1961) Australijos Lietuvių metraštis I (Australian Lithuanian Yearbook I, in Lithuanian) Sydney, Australijos Lietuvių Fondas.

Kantvilas, A. (1977) ‘Hobartas, A A Aleksas Jakštas’ (‘Hobart, RIP Aleksas Jakštas’, in Lithuanian), Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), Melbourne, 23 April (No. 16), p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1977/1977-nr16-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 22 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1953) ‘Išrinko naują Valdybą, Hobartas’ (New Board Elected, Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 11 February, p 4 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259366077, accessed 23 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Hobartas, Nauja Apylinkės Valdyba’ (Hobart, New District Board’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 8 February, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359765, accessed 22 September 2025.

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; 98, JAKSTAS Aleksas DOB 5 October 1921, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005530, accessed 15 November 2025.

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; 97, JAKSTAS Algirdas DOB 16 January 1926, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005529, accessed 15 November 2025.

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; 117, JAKSTAS Fridrichas DOB 11 March 1928, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005546, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; JAKSTAS ALGIRDAS, JAKSTAS Algirdas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9187680, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; JAKSTAS FRIDRIKAS, JAKSTAS Fridrikas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1950 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9187681, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS ALEKSAS, JAKSTAS, Aleksas : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 497, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620931, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS ALGIRDAS, JAKSTAS, Algirdas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 496, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620932, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS FRIDRIKAS, JAKSTAS, Fridrikas : Year of Birth - 1928 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 514, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620933, accessed 15 November 2025.

'Personal file of UTKINA, KLAVDIA, born on 21-May-1928, born in HARBIN and of further persons' 3.2.3 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/81637386?s=utkin%20klavdia&t=3229806&p=0accessed 15 November 2025.

Sengalvėlis (Old Timer) (1956) ‘Hobartiečiai Rinko Valdyba’ (‘Hobart People Elected a Board’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 15 February, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359981, accessed 22 September 2025.

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, p 165.

Wikipedia ‘Moreton Island’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Island, accessed 24 September 2025.