Same father, different mothers?
Bolius and Vytautas Kunčiūnas have one record each in the Arolsen Archives. It shows them as having the same father, Stasys Kunčiūnas and coming from the same place, Raseiniai in Lithuania. This could either have been a small town with a population of 5270 in the 1923 Census, nearly half of whom were Jewish, or the larger county, part of Samogitia.
The difference is that Bolius’ mother is recorded as Konstancija Bendikaite while Vytas’ mother is said to be Konstancija Šilaikaite. The two American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) DP Registration Records were signed off with the same signature on the same date (13.10.45) and at the same place, Assembly Center No. 24.
Is it possible that there is a spelling mistake with one of the mother’s surnames? Rasa says yes, it is possible. Ann says that the same official filling out both forms on the day, in the same place, makes it unlikely.
Also unlikely is that two successive wives might be called Konstancija, but Ann suggests that this might be one of the reasons why Stays Kunčiūnas , if a widower with a baby son, might have started talking with the second Konstancija. By the way, there are no online records of a Konstancija Kunčiūnas dying or being buried.
Both young men are recorded as Roman Catholic on the General Stuart Heintzelman passenger list, so there was no possibility of Stasys and Konstancija Bendikaite divorcing in the 1920s, between the birth of Bolius, on 24 April 1924, and Vytas, on 12 September 1926. Should they have separated, the baby Bolius surely would gone with his mother, so what then were the chances of the two reaching Germany together or both applying for and being selected for the same ship to Australia?
Vytautas Kunčiūnas in Australia
Someone made sure that Vytas travelled under a false name though, because he became Vytas Kuniciunas on the Heintzelman passenger list and in subsequent documents on arrival in Australia.
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| Vytautas Kunciunas photograph from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
When he left the Bonegilla camp for the Pyramid Hill Quarries on 7 January 1948, the same hand which wrote his destination in flowing script also wrote “unknown” in the space for his next of kin. Whoever typed out Bolius’ Bonegilla card has recorded “brother, Vitas Kunciunas” in that next of kin space. Ann notes that “brother” is still shorthand when the accurate relationship is “half-brother” (and also in the case of step-brother).
The person completing Vytas’ card probably had forgotten to ask him.
The evening befoore Vytas’ departure from Bonegilla for Pyramid Hill on 7 January 1948 was memorable enough for Jonas Urbonas to record it in his diary for 6 January. The entry was republished in the Mūsų Pastogė edition of 5 August 1996, in preparation for the 50th anniversary of Lithuanian scouting in Australia. The translation of Jonas’ entry reads as follow:
“Tomorrow the first swallow will fly away from us into an unknown future. It is Brother Kunčiūnas. By the burning bonfire we say goodbye to him and the other brothers who are preparing to leave this emigrant camp. Brother Kunčiūnas' words, full of deep sincerity, touch the heart of every Scout. He remembers the last moments spent in the Homeland, the separation from his parents, and the tears rolling down his cheeks did not allow him to finish his farewell speech.
“Then we all parted ways and left the gardens of the homeland, hoping to return to the homeland again before the storms of war hit. We are tightly bound by our mutual promises, although the weapons of war do not ring and we are not pursued by the occupiers and our goals have already changed, but we are united by common ideas, we dare to meet in camps and at conventions. Although the vast distances and various obstacles separate us, we press on, wishing our brother Vytas good luck and a joint flight to the Pacific Jamboree. After the traditional words are said, we leave the campfire."
Vytautas While in Germany
As for other members of the family, an April 1946 notice in the post-War, Lithuanian language newspaper, Žiburiai (Lights), had Vytas looking for his sister, Aldona Kunčiūnaitė, and brothers Jonas and Algirdas Kunčiūnas.
Vytas was living at 6a Altenberg Strasse, Borghorst, Wesphalia. Vytas added Münster to this address, but this bombed city was close to uninhabitable at the time. Perhaps he was trying to give readers a better idea of where he was than using only the name of the much smaller Borghorst, which also offered support to DPs.
The address also shows that Vytas had found private accommodation rather than living in a DP camp.
Bolius in Germany
A mid-1947 issue of another Lithuanian-language newspaper, Lietuvių žodis (Lithuanian Word) reported on a basketball competition organised by the Reppner YMCA. B Kunčiunas played on the winning team. As Repner is some 200 Km from Münster, it is unlikely that Bolius was travelling that distance in the conditions of post-War Germany to play basketball.
It is worth noting that Camp 24, where both Bolius and Vytas were registered in 1945, was a Repner camp for Baltic refugees. It looks like Vytas moved out of the camp and to Borghorst for whatever reason.
On the other hand, it looks like the brothers were communicating with each other in order for both to be interviewed for the first refugee ship to Australia. And Vytas wasn’t looking for Bolius as well in that Žiburiai notice because he knew where Bolius was.
Bolius Kunčiūnas in Australia
While Vytas was one of the 7 sent to the Pyramid Hill granite quarry, Bolius was one of 2 sent to the sawmill at Togganoggera in New South Wales. We recently posted what we know of the other man sent to Togganoggera, Mečys Laurinavičius. Mečys moved to the NSW capital city, Sydney, but Bolius moved instead to Victoria’s capital, Melbourne – perhaps because his brother headed there when his time at Pyramid Hill was over.
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| Bolius Kunciunas from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
Bolius’ occupation on the AEF DP Registration Recorded was stated to be student. Student of what, you may well ask. It looks like architecture, because that is where he finished up in Australia.
Presumably he continued his studies when possible while he worked in jobs as relevant as possible. We draw this conclusion from Bolius being added to the Register of Architects in Victoria in 1964, his 17th year in Australia. This length of time suggests that he may have had something of a struggle to obtain his registration, as did a fellow architect from the First Transport, Ernst Kesa. Kesa, however, had qualified as an architect in Europe and was able to work in the field before registration because his qualification also encompassed engineering.
Moving as far away from Melbourne as Darwin in order to do related work shows how keen Bolius was. We know about his time in Darwin from social notes, Diana’s Diary, in a Darwin newspaper, the Northern Standard. In March 1953, “Diana” recorded Bolius Kunciunas among the staff of the Drawing Office of the Department of Works who met at a Darwin hotel to farewell one of their number leaving on a holiday.
The online Dictionary of Unsung Architects, in its entry on D Graeme Lumsden, mentions Bolius Kunciunas as an architect “known to have passed through the office over the years“. Since we cannot find Bolius’ work as an architect mentioned anywhere else on the Web, we could say that there was even less singing about it than about Graeme Lumsden’s work. Lumsden was based in Melbourne, so Bolius must have left Darwin.
Bolius, also known as Balys to Lithuanians and Bill to Australians, was in Melbourne in 1955. We know this because that is when he married another Lithuanian, Gražina Natalija, whose family name formerly was Bitė. He was living in the Melbourne suburb of North Coburg when he became an Australian citizen on 2 May 1957. Gražina had to wait one month more for citizenship, until 11 June 1957.
Bolius’ electoral roll records from 1963 to 1980 have been digitised by Ancestry. On 8 March 1963, he and Gražina still were living in North Coburg but, by 19 April, they had moved to from their inner city home to the outer suburb of Nunawading. On both occasions, his stated occupation was draftsman. This continued into the 1980 entry, despite his registration as a qualified architect in 1964.
What is different about the 1980 entry is that it includes two more members of the Kunciunas family, male and female, both students but clearly having reached the age of 18. This means that Bolius and Gražina had their two children 18 years before the unrecorded date on which the 1980 roll was made up, that is, in 1958 or earlier.
The Melbourne Immigration Museum has a public artwork that pays tribute to 7000 people who have made the journey to Victoria. Located in the northern garden of the Museum, its original artwork was designed by a Melbourne-based artist, Evangelos Sakaris, and launched in 1998. Gina Batsakis led the design for the following stages of the project, which concluded in 2002. Immigrants were invited to immortalise their own and family names there on payment of $100 for each name. Bolius and Gražina (nee Bitė) Kunčiūnas and family were among the names so immortalised.
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| Morta Prasmutiene, widow of First Transporter Karolis Prašmutas, centre, in the Immigration Museum's Tribute Garden Source: Birutė Prašmutaitė in Mūsų Pastogė |
Bolius died on 19 September 2011, aged 87, and was cremated in Springvale Botanical Cemetery. When Gražina died on 1 June 2019, she was cremated there too. The Cemeteries Trust notes that, in both instances, the cremated remains were collected. They would have no memorial gravestones.
Vytas in Melbourne
Vytas may well have settled in Melbourne before his older brother. For instance, he married there 2 years before Bolius, in 1953. His bride was the former Ina Irena Špokevičiūtė.
He and Ina already had become such a part of Melbourne’s Lithuanian community that their marriage was reported in the Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) national, Lithuanian-language newspaper, on 2 September 1953. Rasa’s translation of the correspondent’s report follows.
“A few weeks ago, the local Lithuanian community was expanded by another Lithuanian family, created by two regular local Lithuanian folk dancers and members of the Aidas choir, Vytautas Kunčiūnas and Ina Špokevičiūtė.
“V. Kunčiūnas has been diligently representing the Lithuanian name in Australia since his performances on the first transport ship. In addition to folk dances and Lithuanian songs, he is also hardworking in the scout organisation.
“The young Kunčiūnas couple settled in the beautiful Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe, in their own brick house, which they purchased with the joint efforts of the young woman's mother and two brothers. Good luck to the young couple in continuing to represent the Lithuanian name.”
Vytautas and Ina were naturalised together on 23 January 1958.
Vytas’ and Ina’s electoral roll entries record that they were still at the Ivanhoe address in 1958, when he had “nil” occupation but Ina was working as a nurse. By 1968 he was living without Ina in Armadale, a suburb about 12 Km south of Ivanhoe, and working as a draftsman. He most likely got the idea for that career from his brother, Bolius.
The next electoral roll entry, for 1968, has him at the same Armadale address, still working as a draftsman, but this time sharing his flat with Genovaite Kunciunas. The details for their 1972 entry are the same, while no later rolls for Vytas and wife have been digitised with indexing. While we have the marriage details for Vytas and Ina, his marriage to Genovaite was too recent for the details to be public yet.
The next news we have of Vytautas is not good. Tėviškės Aidai reported on 20 July 1993 that he was seriously ill, being treated in the intensive care unit of the Alfred Hospital. He received Sacraments of the Sick on 11 July.
Vytautas had died before the news of his illness was published. He passed on 12 July, aged only 66. The 27 July issue of Tėviškės Aidai reported that the Rosary was said at the Tobin Chapel in Malvern. The funeral Mass was celebrated by priest Pranas Dauknys at St. Mary Star of the Sea Church, West Melbourne, the Lithuanian community’s church, on 15 July. Vytautas was buried in the Cheltenham Cemetery. His wife Genovaitė, family and relatives were said to have remained in deep sorrow.
Vytautas and Ina probably had been able to divorce under Australian law, much more liberal than that of Lithuania in the 1920s. The Ryerson Index records that Ina Kunciunas, still using her married name, died when living at Safety Beach, on the Mornington Peninsula south of the main Melbourne conurbation. As Ryerson is recording a probate notice published on 2 November 2005 in the Melbourne Age, we don’t know her date of death but can assume that it was earlier in 2005.
Vytautas had moved from the brick home in Ivanhoe and the flat in Armadale to the inner south of Melbourne, the suburb of Elsternwick, before his death.
Vytautas and Bolius Both Scouts
Mūsų Pastogė noted above that Vytas had been “hardworking in the scout organisation”. In fact, both brothers were scouts. A history of Lithuanian scouting in Australia was published in November 1996 in Mūsų Pastogė, in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of its foundation on the First Transport sailing to Australia. It reported that the 46 boy scouts and 7 girl scouts on board were divided into 6 troops, with both Balys and Vytas in Troop 3.
Bolius was able to participate in the historic first gathering of Lithuanian scouts at the first Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree on the Yarra Brae property in Wonga Park, Victoria, organised by Borisas Dainutis. He was recorded there in a photograph of some attending published by Tėviškės Aidai in its preparation for the celebration of 50 years of Australian Lithuanian scouting.
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| Tėviškės Aidai published this photograph from the First Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree 47 years later, with a caption which reads, translated, "Lithuanian Scout camp at the Pan-Pacific Jamboree near Melbourne, 23.1.49. From left: Gabrielius Žemkalnis, Vytautas Neverauskas, Viktoras Kučinskas, Benediktas Kaminskas, an Australian priest in a scout uniform, the Bishop of Melbourne, Dr. J. Simonds; behind the Bishop from the left, Balys Kunčiūnas, behind the Bishop from the right in the back, unidentified, next to the Bishop with a smile, Borisas Dainutis, and at the back right, unidentified. Next year, 1997, will mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Lithuanian Scout Union in Australia. |
We do not know if Vytas was able to attend also, as promised by Jonas Urbonas in January 1948. The Melbourne Age of 27 December reported that Borisas with 29 other scouts had moved in already on Christmas Day. Vytas may have been among the 22 not included in the photograph above.
SOURCES
Age (1948) ‘Canvas Tent City Rises at Wonga Park’ Melbourne, 27 December, p 4 https://www.newspapers.com/image/124518561/, accessed 15 June 2025.
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