Girts Broders (1923-2006): Industrialist’s Son to Company Manager by Ann Tündern-Smith

Girts Broders was chosen in the Bonegilla camp to lead a band of men sent to the South Australian Railways at Wolseley because of his excellent English. 

Further evidence is on his Displaced Persons Registration Card from Germany in September 1945, where he stated that his usual profession was “tulks”, Latvian for “translator”, and his languages spoken in order of fluency were Latvian, of course, and English ahead of German. Elsewhere he has stated his previous occupation as “student”. 

Evidence of Girts’ high standard of English is a letter he wrote, published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 15 March 1948. His English was flawless, unlike that of the journalist who headlined his letter or perhaps the printer who set the headline type. 

Source: Brisbane Courier-Mail, 26 December 1947

His first name, Girts, is the Latvian equivalent of the Germanic and Nordic “Gert”, which in turn is the equivalent of the English “Gerard”. While Gerard would have been the direct translation for Australians, it’s diminutive, “Gerry”, sounds the same as the World War II derogatory term for a German soldier, “Jerry”. It’s no surprise then, that he became known as George in Australia.

Girts Broders' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A2571 BRODERS, G

As the head of the party of 62 moved on from Wolseley to another camp for the new arrivals at Bangham, he was the spokesman, although he wasn’t the only one in the party with fine English. Hugo Jakobsen from Estonia and Nikolajs Kibilds from Latvia were two others. More about them soon. 

The 62 had been selected by the Commonwealth Employment Service at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre for the South Australian Railways (SAR), which had an overdue need to widen its tracks from narrow gauge. The one thing holding them back, their Minister announced, was lack of manpower. 

When the press came calling, Girts told Bordertown’s Border Chronicle that “the men had been busy preparing camp and were maintaining excellent spirits. Their average age was 24 and all were single and ‘anxious to meet the local ladies’. They would miss the excellent swimming facilities which had been provided at Bonegilla camp. 

"The brilliantly-lighted Australian cities and their peace-time spirit had created a deep impression on (him) after seven years of war conditions in Europe. His own country had suffered alternatively from German and Russian occupation, and after three years among German ruins, the sight of a normal city was ‘pleasing’. 

“Questioned as to their political views, (Girts) said he represented every member of the party when he answered, ‘Everything, but not communistic’.” 

Imagine his feelings then, and that of the other men in the Bangham camp, when they learned of the words of an Adelaide City Councillor at a Municipal Association meeting.  The Mayor of Glenelg had suggested that the councils investigate the possibility of obtaining refugee labour for their projects. 

Adelaide City Councillor FC Lloyd, Liberal Municipal League, as quoted in the Adelaide Advertiser of 11 March 1948 said, “I do not agree with Mr. Calwell's policy. I think we should show him that we don't want this type of labour and that we don't want these people among us. They are only going to divide us and do not forget that there are plenty of Communists among them. It is time we turned the whole thing down with a thud." 

Girts’ letter in reply, as published in the Advertiser of 15 March is worth quoting in full. 

He wrote, “Sir—Apparently Councillor FC Lloyd is either badly informed about the political happenings in Europe since 1940 or he hates Baltic migrants for some reason, but most likely he just uses the word ‘Communists’ as a swear word, not knowing its meaning and not knowing the aims of Communists. 

“Councillor Lloyd admits that we are refugees, but there is nothing else at present in Europe to do but to take refuge from Communism, so we cannot possibly be Communists. If we were, we would, after liberation in 1945 from Nazi slave labour camps, have returned to our home countries and not come to Australia to displease Councillor Lloyd. 

“I can say, on behalf of many of us, that as soon as our home countries become independent again, we will return. The Baltic countries, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, were the first victims of the aggression by the Soviet Union in 1940. Our countries were promptly incorporated into the Soviet Union as ‘fraternal republics’. After one year's Communistic domination, 120,000 were deported from those countries to Siberian slave labour camps and 25,000 were shot as ‘enemies of the people’. 

“When, in 1941, war broke out between Russia and Germany, what the Russians started was continued by the Nazis, who looted what the Communists had left. The remaining people were taken as forced laborers to Germany. In this group were most of the Balt laborers now coming to Australia. Almost every one of them has a close relative deported by the Communists and killed by the NKVD or by the Gestapo. We have been accused of being plutocrats, capitalists, Nazis and Fascists, but never before of being Communists. Hence our disgust.” 

[To clarify, for those who think of World War II starting on 1 September 1939, the Soviet Union (Russia) remained neutral, but enjoyed the benefits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with Germany’s Foreign Minister 23 August 1939. Then Germany broke the Pact on 22 June 1941 with a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the Soviet Union had scooped up spoils allocated to it in the Pact by invading and occupying the Baltic States in mid-June 1940. 

[During the year after June 1940, it perpetrated many acts of violence in the Baltic States against individuals known or thought to be opposed to it. One of the worst acts of all, still commemorated wherever there are people of Baltic descent, was the mass deportation to Siberia of tens of thousands from each of the three countries in train cars meant for carrying animals, starting from the early hours of 14 June 1941. This act in particular, and the knowledge that they might be destined for the next mass deportation, is the reason why more tens of thousands fled their homelands ahead of the Soviet return in the late summer of 1944.] 

We know that Nikolajs Kibilds and Hugo Jakobsen left the Bangham camp and the task of relaying rail tracks to a wider gauge quite early. That’s because the Adelaide Mail of 8 May 1948 reported that they were among 17 from the First Transport selected to train in Peterborough as cleaners and porters for SAR. The Mail was reporting that all had passed their exams so well that their instructors were delighted. 

Girts Broders stayed at Bangham until May, at least. We know that because the Bordertown Border Chronicle reported, on 6 May 1948, that he had been the interpreter for an evening social and dance organised by the Tatiara Youth Club on the previous Monday night. 

In thanking the organisers, Girts had said that they “appreciated the change after the ‘tedious, everyday life at Bangham, which is not one of the most fashionable and entertaining places’.” 

Girts had become engaged to be married to Maimu Naar in Germany. They met because they were both working for the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the international agency tasked with providing assistance to the victims of World War II.

Maimu, an Estonian, was tracing lost children while Girts was working in transport. As luck – or maybe skills and ability – would have it, Maimu had been able to relocate to Australia on the First Transport with Girts, and with her older sister and younger brother. I hope to write more about the Naar siblings soon. 

By the time Girts filled out the application form for migration to Australia on 2 October 1947, his employer had become the International Refugee Organization (IRO). He gave his address as “DP Camp Wildflecken IRO Team”. The functions of UNRRA, which existed for only 4 years, were being handed over to the newer IRO gradually. 

Maimu’s first job was in Canberra, where she was a typist in the Department of Immigration. She lived in the Mulwala Hostel, where the strike involving Margarita Vrubliauskienė occurred. 

Through her work colleagues, she was able to arrange a transfer for Girts to Canberra. He worked there for 18 months as a clerk in a hostel at the Fairbairn Royal Australian Air Force Base. He was there when advised that the Minister for Immigration had shortened the length of most contracts, so he was free to find his own employment if he wished after 30 September 1949. 

Source:  The New Australian, October 1949

The certificate in the photograph above would have been numbered 1 as, seven years later, Girts was sharing this with a suburban Adelaide newspaper, Coromandel. He was the “first certificated non-British migrant under the post-war scheme”. Perhaps this occurred because he was first in the alphabetical surname list of those eligible in Canberra, where the Central Office of the Department of Immigration was located. 

Girts and Maimu married in Sydney in 1949. Their only child, Linda, was born in Sydney. Later they moved to Adelaide, where they spent the rest of their lives. They changed officially from migrants to citizens there on 17 October 1955, although they would have had to wait longer to take the oath of allegiance and receive their citizenship certificates in the sort of public ceremony which continues today. 

Girts’ working life led to a position of Supply Manager, in charge of purchasing for the South Australian branch of the Gilbert & Barker Manufacturing Co, which traded as Gilbarco. The company now is a supplier of fuel dispensers, point of sales systems, payment systems, forecourt merchandising and support services. You’ve almost certainly seen its name on petrol pumps at Australian service stations. 

Girts had been born in Koknese parish, Latvia, on 9 November 1923. His father, Alberts, was arrested by the KGB on 25 October 1940 and imprisoned before being shot with 99 other Latvian men. Their execution occurred on 21 June 1941, the day before the German started their return to Latvia. The dead Latvians were buried in a mass grave at Baltezer, a lake near Riga. 

Alberts owned a textile factory employing about 500, so clearly was exploiting the working class. His record as a fighter for Latvian freedom in 1919-20 may have gone against him too. 

Later, the corpses were exhumed and the bodies identified and reburied. Now the site of the former mass grave has a memorial bearing the names of the 100 men shot there. 

Girt’s mother, sister and an older, married brother with his family had been able to escape to Germany in 1944. His mother and sister had been able to join their son and brother in Australia via the Wooster Victory in March 1949. Falks-Andrievs, his wife Skaidrite, and their two young children arrived on the Castel Bianco in May 1950. 

Maimu had studied one year of medicine in Germany after her flight from Estonia. Co-incidentally, Girt’s mother, Marianna, had started to study medicine too before marrying his father in 1918. 

Girts died on 6 October 2006, in Riga, aged 82, while visiting his homeland. He was brought back to South Australia, to be buried with Maimu, who had died in 1995. He remains in his second homeland where his family members live now. Indeed, he became so Australianised that he is buried under the name of George Martin Broders. 

His older brother, Falks or Jack in Australia, is 102 years old now and has only recently moved into an aged care residence. His sister, Ilze, is still in Adelaide at 89 years old. 

Girts and Maimu have one grandchild, screenwriter, film director and composer Dario Russo. Dario has directed and acted in a couple of cult classics, Italian Spiderman and Danger 5, the latter having been commissioned by SBS Television. 

He described himself to Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul Kalina in 2015 as a “textbook only child”. Paul Kalina added that “Russo credits his ‘highly artistic and theatrical’ parents for supporting his passion. "They never encouraged me to get a real job and as far as I know I don't have one. I was never encouraged to get the fall-back career and for that I have to be eternally grateful. Mum was an art teacher, dad a guitar teacher, both into creativity. They're incredible, model parents. I feel guilty.” 

Below: The Age Green Guide, 1 January 2015, featured Dario Russo’s Danger 5.

Image used by kind permission of Fairfax Media

SOURCES 

Advertiser (1948) ‘Councillor’s Attack On Balt Labor’, (Adelaide) 11 March, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759190 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Arolsen Archives, ‘Broders, Girts’, AEF DP Registration Record, DocID: 66705455, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66705455, accessed 7 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham, To Help Broaden Rail Gauge’, Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125, accessed 8 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ‘Balts Welcomed by Council Chairman (Cr Hunt)’, (Bordertown, SA) 6 May p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212919306 accessed 8 January 2024. 

‘Broders, Alberts’, L.k.o.k. biogrāfija, LKOK nr.3/414, http://lkok.com/detail1.asp?ID=246 (in Latvian) accessed 10 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (1948) ‘Attack of Balt Labor Resented’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 15 March, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759705 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (2004) Personal communication, 4 January. 

Coromandel (1956) ‘Migrant With Card No. 1’, (Blackwood, SA), 27 July, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article261058228 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Courier-Mail (1947) ‘Wasn’t White But’, (Brisbane) 26 December, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49664209 accessed 9 January 2024.  

Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=broders&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=South+Australia%2C+Australia&locationId=state_577&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=r&plot=, accessed 31 December 2023. 

Geni, https://www.geni.com/people/George-Martin-Broders/6000000008871342239, accessed 30 December 2023. 

Gilbarco Veeder-Root, ‘Company History’, https://www.gilbarco.com/us/company-history, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Kalina, Paul (2015) ‘Lunch with TV Writer and Actor Dario Russo’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/lunch-with-tv-writer-and-actor-dario-russo-20150101-12ahoz.html, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railway Men’, (Adelaide) 8 May p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55905773 accessed 8 January 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947–1956; BRODERS, Girts : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1085, 1947–1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203687219, accessed 7 January 2024. 

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 (1947–47); 712, BRODERS Girts [Girto] DOB 9 November 1923 (1947–47); https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118086, accessed 8 January 2024 

New Australian (1949) ‘New Australians Released From Contracts; More Follow Soon’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

New Australian (1949) ‘Proud of Their Certificates’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

Russo, Linda (2004-2024) Personal communications. 

Wikipedia, ‘Gilbarco Veeder-Root’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbarco_Veeder-Root#History accessed 16 April 2024.

Biruta Pabrants (1922-1965): Was she happy?

The biographies posted here so far, with one exception, have been of men of achievement. 

Elsewhere, I have written the stories of two women of achievement from the First Transport, for a Canberra centenary celebration on the online Australian Women’s Register (Tündern-Smith 2013a, 2013b). The story of another woman of achievement, Helgi Nirk, is on this blog now too. 

Many of those on the First Transport would have been glad just to live a quiet life in Australia after seven years of turmoil, which started for them with the Soviet invasion of the Baltic States in the 1940 summer. They included 112 women, whom I have summarised in an article published in the Canberra Historical Journal (Tündern-Smith, 2020). 

Here is more detail about the life of one of the quiet women, Latvian-born Biruta Pabrants. We do not know much about her early life, only that was born in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on 22 August 1922 and she had had 7 years of primary school and 5 years at secondary school. 

Her ‘general appearance’ was rated ‘above average’ by the Australian selection team. She appeared before these three men in the Butzbach DP Camp on 14 October 1947. She travelled there, possibly even in the back of a truck, from a DP Camp in Hanau, near Frankfurt am Main in the middle of the far west of Germany.

A smiling Birute photographed in October 1947,
in preparation for her voyage to Australia
Source:  NAA: 2571/1, 201

The General Stuart Heintzelman sailed from Bremerhaven on 30 October, so those two weeks of her life must have been hectic indeed. They included a chest X-ray on 22 October, which detected no signs of tuberculosis (NAA: A11772, 784). Everything else about her health was fine, there was no record with security agencies, so she was ready to go! 

We have the declaration she made to a Customs official at the Graylands Army base in Perth, the day after her arrival in Australia. This says that her previous occupation was ‘saleswomen’ and her expected occupation in Australia was ‘domestic’. One page of her selection papers said that her ‘present occupation’ in Germany was a ‘domestic worker’, with two years of experience. Another page says that she had worked as a ‘sales clerk’ in Hanau for one year also. 

She also was ‘Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue’, as the popular American song of the 1920s put it, with blond hair as well. She brought no money at all to Australia. The blond hair and blue eyes caught the attention of newspaper photographers. On the very day of their arrival in Australia, the Perth Daily News had front page photographs of some of the passengers including Biruta.

The caption for this page 1 photo read, "These three Latvian domestics--J Zogorska (sic), B Pabranto (sic) and A. Marchilevics--are going to Canberra"
Source:  Perth Daily News, 28 November 1947

The arrival in Melbourne led to another newspaper photograph, at the top of page 1 of the Sun News-Pictorial of 9 December 1947. Biruta is sitting on the right, facing the camera. While her hair looks dark in the Daily News photograph, the Sun photographer caught the blond colouring better.

Biruta is on the right of this group, attracting some of the stares
Source:  Reinhold-Valter Põder collection, Estonian Archives in Australia

One passenger list on a National Archives file records that Biruta left the Bonegilla camp for her first job in Canberra on 14 December 1947, only five days after the train trip from Port Melbourne to the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre (NAA: PP482/1, 82). This makes her one of the first group to be sent into the community to work. Her English must have been excellent to earn her inclusion, although rated only ‘fair’ in the selection papers. 

A list recording the distribution of Aliens Registration Certificates to the new arrivals in January 1948 shows that Biruta was resident at and working in the Mulwala House (NAA: A437/1, 1948/6/11; ArchivesACT (2019)). She received another Aliens Registration Certificate on 12 October 1951, when she was still living at Mulwala House (NAA: A437/1, 1948/6/469). Presumably she was working there still. 

She next appears in the public record on 7 March 1955. It was then a legal requirement that anyone applying for Australian citizenship had to publish a notice of their intention in two Australian newspapers. The Canberra Times, page 3, was one of her choices. Note that Biruta used the opportunity of applying for citizenship to drop the very Latvian ‘S’ from the end of her family name.

Biruta's notice of intention to apply for naturalisation
Source:  Canberra Times, 7 March 1955

There being no objections raised, Biruta became an Australian citizen on 21 June of that year. She took part in an ‘impressive, but largely informal ceremony’ according to the Canberra Times report of the following day. 

Newspaper report of Biruta's naturalisation ceremony
Source:  Canberra Times, 22 June 1955

Only six years since the commencement of Australian citizenship on Australia Day 1949, the ceremonies which still surround the grant of it were important enough for detailed journalism. This included foreshadowing Biruta’s participation in the Canberra Times of the preceding day.

The Canberra Times foreshadows Biruta's receipt of citizenship

as 'Miss Ruth Pabrant', 20 June 1955

True happiness at last? The Canberra Times’ social pages of 15 October 1958 reported the marriage of Biruta, using the name ‘Ruth Pabrant’, and Edward Finlay on the previous Monday, 13 October. A Monday wedding suggests that it was not celebrated in a church.

'Social Diary' record of Biruta's bridal shower and wedding

Canberra Times, 15 October 1958

The next public record for Biruta Pabrants is about her death, on or about 18th September 1965. 

The Canberra newspaper's death notice used Biruta's married name,
not the one she had assumed later,
and recorded her as still married to Edward Finlay
Canberra Times, 28 September 1965

It occurred in Sydney, only seven years later. By this time she was using the name ‘Ruth Veenendaal’ but was still known also as ‘Ruth Finlay’. The only marriage noted on her death certificate was that to Edward Finlay and there were no children, but this marriage cannot have lasted given the change of family name.

We know that this certificate is for our Biruta or Ruth because the father’s name is given as Karl Pabrant. While there is no date of birth, the place of birth is Riga and the length of residence in Australia, 18 years, tallies roughly with Biruta’s November 1947 arrival (‘Ruth Welta Veenendaal’, 1965). 

Some of those who knew her back in Canberra thought she had married a Dutchman and that the death was a suicide. They were wrong, but their ideas indicate that she was known to be unhappy. 

Women and men had suffered a great deal during those seven years of war and its aftermath. Today, we have counsellors at the ready after major disasters. We acknowledge that the Australian military, and civilians too, can suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. 

During and after World War I, “shell shock” was an acknowledged medical condition. In reality, it was a form of PTSD under another name. It seems that the mental health lessons of World War I were forgotten through World War II and subsequent conflicts, like the Korean War and the Malayan Emergency. 

It took the Vietnam War and its mental toll on those who survived fighting in it for psychiatry to recognise PTSD. This was twenty and more years too late for survivors of World War II. 

Biruta’s death certificate says that she died from ‘myocardial degeneration'. Wait a moment! These days, mainstream medicine acknowledges the existence of ‘broken heart syndrome’. According to America’s Mayo Clinic (n.d.), it’s ‘often brought on by stressful situations and extreme emotions’. 

Biruta’s myocardial degeneration occurred in the days when much less was known about treating heart disease. A relationship between extreme unhappiness and cause of death cannot be ruled out in Biruta’s case. 

She must have died alone, since the death certificate notes that she died ‘on or about 18 September’. No-one else was present to give an exact time or even date of her passing. Despite this lonely death, the cause was so evident to the examining doctor that an inquest was declared unnecessary by the Coroner at Sydney on 1 November 1965, as noted on the death certificate. 

Biruta died intestate, without a will. The New South Wales Public Trustee included her name and description (married woman, late of Point Piper, NSW) in a Government Gazette of 1 July 1966. 

The informant recorded on Biruta’s death certificate was Zenta Liepa, another Latvian woman who had come to Australia on the First Transport. Zenta lived in Canberra from the time she was sent there to work in December 1947. Since the date of presumed death is a Saturday, she may have gone to Sydney to visit Biruta/Ruth, but found no-one answering the door. The date of registration for Biruta’s death is a Sunday, so Zenta must have had an awful weekend dealing with her friend’s death. 

Biruta’s early death is one of four I can think of immediately, where the woman passenger from the First Transport passed away aged 50 or less — despite all the medical tests they had in Germany, on board the Heintzelman on Fremantle Roads, and in the Bonegilla camp. 

Zenta herself died at the early age of 60, from lung cancer caused by smoking in her case. I have recorded Zenta’s notable career in entomology elsewhere (Tündern-Smith, 2013b). 

Of the 37 women whose dates of death are known to me, the median age of death is a much healthier 81. Biruta, only 25 days past her 43rd birthday is the youngest, while another Latvian woman died at 43 years, 5 months and 16 days of age from then untreatable kidney failure. 

On the other hand, the oldest age at death of a woman was a hearty 98 for Regina Meinhold and I am aware of at least three women still alive aged 87 or in their 90s. One of the men lived past his 101st birthday. Many of the General Heintzelman passengers have proven to be at least as sturdy as their selectors hoped, if not more so.

REFERENCES 

ArchivesACT (February 2019) Mulwala House: 'Our house in the middle of the street', https://www.archives.act.gov.au/find_of_the_month/2019/february/previous-find-of-the-month-22019, accessed 29 June 2021.

Australian Broadcasting Commission Radio National (15 September 2014) ‘The history of forgetting, from shell shock to PTSD’, https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/hindsight/the-history-of-forgetting/5744242, accessed 10 July 2021.

Canberra Times (7 March 1955) Advertising, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91194372, accessed 30 March 2021.

Canberra Times (15 October 1958) ‘Canberra Diary’, p 5, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/103123869, accessed 30 March 2021.

Daily News (28 November 1947) ‘Pretty Girl Migrants’, Perth, p 1 (CITY FINAL), accessed 29 Jun 2021, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article79814870, accessed 16 July 2021. 

Estonian Archives in Australia, Reinhold-Valter Põder collection.

Mayo Clinic (n.d.) Broken heart syndrome, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/broken-heart-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20354617, accessed 29 June 2021. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A437/1, Correspondence files, class 6 (aliens registration), 01 Jan 1946 - 31 Dec 1950; 1948/6/469, Record of issues of Registration Certificates in the ACT. 

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; 784, PABRANTS Biruta DOB 22 August 1922. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42), 01 Jan 1937 - 31 Dec 1948; 35/358, PABRANTS Biruta born 22 August 1922; nationality Latvian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947 - 1956; 201, Paabo, Albert to Palczewskyj, Borys. 

New South Wales Government 24 Jun 1966 'In the matter of the estates of the undermentioned deceased' (Ruth Welta Veenendaal), Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales, p 2593, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220019032, accessed 14 Jul 2021. 

‘Ruth Welta Veenendaal’ (1965) Death certificate of Ruth Welta Veenendaal (also known as Ruth Finlay), 18 September 1965, (Registration no. 5092/1965) (certified copy), NSW Births, Deaths and Marriages, https://familyhistory.bdm.nsw.gov.au/lifelink/familyhistory/search?30. 

Sun News-Pictorial (9 December 1947) ‘Smiles Welcome Them To New Homeland’, Melbourne, in the Reinhold-Valter Põder collection, Estonian Archives in Australia, Sydney. 

Tündern-Smith, A (2013a) Koobakene, Salme (1919 - 1998), The Australian Women’s Register, http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE4860b.htm, accessed 16 July 2021. 

Tündern-Smith, A (2013b) Liepa, Zenta (1927 - 1987), The Australian Women’s Register, http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE4910b.htm, accessed 15 July 2021. 

Tündern-Smith, A (2020) First Baltic migrants for Canberra, 1947, Canberra Historical Journal, pp 34-43.

Edvins Baulis (1916-95): Builder of houses and communities

Updated 1 March 2024.

Migrants can contribute to their new nations in many ways.  Edvins Baulis' speciality was the welfare of his fellow migrants and the community in general.  This made for a better Australia for all where he lived. 

Edvins in his early 60s

Photograph courtesy Erik Baulis

The Good Neighbour Councils (GNCs) started in 1949 and emerged as an Australian-wide movement in 1950, from a Citizenship Convention sponsored by the Commonwealth Government.  They united community groups and individual volunteers in assisting new arrivals to assimilate, to become like other Australians, the goal of settlement policy in those days.

As the work the GNCs was doing was valued by the Commonwealth Government, it supported them with funding.

In the 1960s, Australians and their governments started to think in terms of 'integration' rather than 'assimilation'.  This 'melting pot' approach aimed for an amalgam of the old and new, a new society rather than an expectation that only the migrants would change to fit into the old society (Lewins 2001).  It was in this environment that the Fraser Government decided to establish a Review of Post-arrival Programs and Services for Migrants in August 1977.

Known as the Galbally Review, its 1978 report acknowledged the good work the GNCs had done but found that their funding was now being used primarily for internal operations, such as liaison with other organisations and running conferences and seminars.  The money was not going towards direct services to migrants.

The Galbally Review advised that the money supporting the GNCs should be spent instead with ethnic organisations which were able to provide direct services to their own communities.  A two-year phase out of GNC funding was recommended (Galbally et al. 1978).  Around Australia, the GNCs folded, with only two exceptions:  one in Glenorchy and that in Launceston, led by Edvins Baulis.  As of 2021, only the Launceston Branch still operates (Winter 2006; Multicultural Council of Tasmania [2020]; E Baulis 2021) .

Known in Australia as Ted, Edvins led the Launceston GNC from that fateful year of 1978 until 1995, two months before he died.  As well, he was State President of the GNC during the periods 1982-85, 1987-90 and 1992-95.  In 1990, the GNC awarded him life membership (Anon n.d.; Winter 1993).

In a eulogy for Ted before Tasmania's Legislative Council, Independent Member for Launceston, Don Wing, said, 'Withdrawal of Federal funding ... following the Galbally Report caused him great anxiety and concern.  Good Neighbour Councils were abolished throughout Australia but survived in Tasmania and not only survived but actually flourished in the State mainly due to the commitment, leadership and persistence of Mr Baulis' (Wing 1995).

Ted's wife, Jean, was a Launceston local working in a bank, with several months experience of a refugee camp in Germany as a Girl Guide volunteer.  She kept up her interest in the refugees on her return to Launceston, enabling her to meet her husband-to-be at one of the Thursday evening meetings of the Launceston GNC he attended.

They married in October 1953 and had three sons.  After his death, she had the strength to finish up the remaining two months of his GNC presidency term (Examiner 1953; J. Baulis 2009).

Ted found the goodwill and energy to help start the Launceston Migrant Resource Centre while GNC president.  In general, Migrant Resource Centres around Australia now fulfil the roles previously carried out by the GNCs, but are led and resourced by post-WWII migrants from non-English-speaking nations and their descendents rather than by the Australian-born with generations of ancestry here.

Eulogies from Don Wing and the then Tasmanian Minister for Multicultural and Ethnic Affaris, Frank Madill, an undated curriculum vitae, and the recollections of his sons, particularly Erik, list Ted's many other community activities.

He was President of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia in northern Tasmania and President of the Latvian Community of Tasmania for ten years.

He organised an exhibition of Latvian arts and crafts to mark the 25th anniversary of the GNC in Tasmania.  It ran for two weeks in the Northern Regional Library, Launceston, in 1975.  He organised a similar exhibition for the State Library, Hobart, in September 1975.  During 1979, he was Vice-President of the Latvian Federation of Australia and New Zealand.

The Launceston branch of the GNC, under Ted's leadership, staged an International Concert at Launceston's Albert Hall on 4 October 1980.  It featured 70 dancers and singers from around the world, including the Wielangta Aboriginal Dance Group.  It attracted an attendance of four hundred.  Weeks later, on 21 November, he co-ordinated the mass choirs for Albert Hall's official opening by the State Governor.

Ted Baulis at the Latvian Arts Festival, Launceston, 1984

Courtesy Erik Baulis

He chaired the organising committee for the 34th Australian Latvian Arts Festival in Launceston in 1984, bringing many visitors to the region.  The week-long festival included singing and dancing performances as well as exhibitions of paintings by Latvian artists and traditional arts and crafts.  In 1990, the Latvian Community of Tasmania awarded him life membership.

Latvians parade in Launceston during the 1984 Latvian Cultural Festival:

Ted Baulis is on the right of the front row

Photograph courtesy Ervins Miezitis, from Latvians on Line Website

Part of a Hobart exhibition on multiculturalism in Hobart, early 1980s

Ted is the 'prominent migrant settler' from Latvia, second from left

Photograph courtesy of Jean Baulis

In 1987, he helped establish a weekly drop-in centre for migrants in Launceston.  It is still operated by the GNC in the Greek Community Hall and continues to bring together around 40 migrants every Friday morning.  The sessions conclude with a rousing rendition of We are Friends, which Ted composed for the Branch many years previously.

He was a member of the Launceston Male Choir for over twenty years and its President for 1975-78.  In 1988, Launceston's celebrations for Australia's Bicentennial included a performance by the Choir in the city's packed Albert Hall.  That year, it also sang in front of 10,000 at a Colonial Concert in the Royal Park, and at the Launceston Velodrome as part of the Anzac Day commemorations.

A quartet of singers from the Choir, the Tassietones, consisted of Ted, Robin Gregory, Alan Broughton and Merv Barnes, with Aileen Smith on piano.

Ted is on the far right of the back row

Courtesy Erik Baulis

He was on the executive committee of the St Giles Society, providing disability support for Tasmanians, during 1974-77 and worked for the Society for many more years.

He was a member of the State Government's Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs and the Commonwealth's State Council of the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) after being a member of the ABC's Program Advisory Committee for Northern Tasmania in the early 1980s.  He was a member of the Royal Commonwealth Society for many years and a councillor for 1976-78.  He was State President of St Paul's Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tasmania for 15 years, between 1974 and 1988.

In the second half of 1992, the Australian Government concluded a major cross-portfolio Evaluation of its Access and Equity Strategy's impact on all of its departments and agencies (OMA 1992).  Ted's contribution to this was acknowledged by a letter of thanks from the Government (E Baulis 2021).

After testing by the National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters, he was found fit to be an interpreter for the Latvian language.

He became the co-ordinator of a Multicultural Insight class at the Adult Education Institute's School for Seniors in Launceston.  He was a member of Launceston's Tasmania Day Committee.

Ted was President of the Master Builders' Association of Northern Tasmania for more than seven years and, in 1990, won the Master Builders' Ern Davey Award in recognition of his outstanding service and contribution to the building industry in Tasmania.

Ted (with two friends) building his first house in Bridgewater, 20 Km north of Hobart

Courtesy Erik Baulis

He instigated and organised the Multicultural Fountain in Launceston's Civic Square, to commemorate the contributions of migrants to Tasmania (Madill 1995).  It opened on 21 March 1992, preceded by many hurdles and some prolonged delays.  As such, it was a labour of love for Ted.  The fountain was created by a local Czech-born artist, Mirek Marik.  It has been relocated to parkland on the southeast side of the confluence of the Tamar and North Esk rivers (R Baulis 2021).

Launceston's Multicultural Fountain, relocated

Courtesy Ralph Baulis

Multicultural Fountain plaque

Photographer:  Ann Tündern-Smith

In addition to all of this community service, Ted and Jean also volunteered to help the Red Cross Meals on Wheels program.

Jean and Ted

It is not surprising that Queen Elizabeth made Ted a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in June 1979 (Wing 1995).

Jean and Ted

Courtesy Erik Baulis

According to the papers which record his selection for migration to Australia, Edvins was born in Piltene, in Kurzeme, Latvia, on 1 September 1916 (NAA: A11772, 33).  The province is known as Courland in English.  At the time of his birth, the area was caught up in widespread turmoil due to World War I.  His family lived on a smal farm and endured meagre supplies, poor medical care and bitterly cold winters.  His eldest brother died of tuberculosis in the year he was born.  His father died of meningitis about 1919 (E Baulis 2021).

The Baulis family home in Piltene, Kurzeme, Latvia

Courtesy Erik Baulis

The selection papers for Australia say that Edvins had completed six years of primary school and two years of secondary school.  In 1938-39, he completed 15 months of compulsory military service in Latvia.  He had done four years of farming work also and worked for three years as an car mechanic.  Jean advised, when we talked in 2009, that he also had studied forestry for two years in Latvia.

After fleeing to Gotenhafen in German-occupied Poland in October 1944, he travelled overland by foot through what is now northern Poland and Germany before meeting up with British and American troops.  The trek was accompanied by extreme hunger, injury, exhaustion and danger, as it was for all Baltic refugees fleeing by land ahead of the Soviet military's advance westward.

Eventually he reached Oldenburg, between Hamburg and the Dutch border, staying at the Ohmstede Displaced Persons Camp.  This catered for around 5000 refugees.  Conditions were far from ideal, with significant food and clothing restrictions in place for much of his time there.  He recalled for his children that tailors in the Camp's workshops would make shirts and coats from old sheets and blankets.  The selection papers say that he had been a 'magazine chief' for two years, presumably in the Ohmstede Camp.

When the General Stuart Heintzelman reached Australia in late November 1947, Edvins had only a small suitcase and an English-Latvian dictionary.  His suitcase was built from the wreckage of a plane that had crashed on the outskirts of Oldenburg, while his shoes had cardboard soles.  He used to say, 'whenever it rained, I would grow half an inch taller because the cardboard soles would absorb all the water' (E Baulis 2021).

Perhaps it was Edvins' forestry studies which led to his first job in Australia.  The newly established Commonwealth Employment Service, operating at the Bonegilla camp, sent him to work at Veneer & Plywood Pty Ltd, a company headquartered in Balmain, Sydney, but operating in the rural NSW town of Wauchope (NAA: A2571/1, 14).  He moved to Tasmania, working first in paper mills in the southern town of Boyer.  Then he relocated to the States's north, working initially for Comalco at Bell Bay.  He moved to the construction site of a Hydro-Electric Commission power station in the Launceston suburb of Trevallyn in May 1953, staying there until his marriage to Jean in October 1954 (Wing 1995; Madill 1995).

In 1954 to 1955, he worked on his own home for his his new family in Trevallyn.  He and Jean were helped by family and friends, while he took six months of work to concentrate on the home.  Then he started out on his own as a builder,  building more than 70 houses in northern Tasmania.  He sold the last one in March 1978 (E Baulis 2021).

He loved the outdoors, especially along the coast of his island home.  He built holiday cabins for the family at Bridport and Bicheno.  He also loved Tasmania's highlands, favouring the Great Lake in its Central Plateau and, closer to Launceston, Cradle Mountain National Park.

It was while building that he would have sawn sheets of asbestos.  Jean believed that this always was outdoors, but Ted still developed the mesothelioma which killed this energetic and community-minded man at age 78 in 1995 (J Baulis 2009).

The Launceston City Council approved the street name, Baulis Court, in 1998 in memory of Ted Baulis and his service to the city.  It's in the suburb of Youngtown, to the southeast of South Launceston.

Courtesy Erik Baulis

Ted and Jean's three sons have made their mark on Australia too, as an architect, a senior Telstra technician and a doctor in general practice.  Their grandchildren continue the contribution.

This life-story could not have been put together without help from Ted's widow, Jean (d. 2014) and, more recently, their sons, especially Erik and Ralph, with support from Harald.  I thank them all for sharing.

References

Baulis E (21 April 2021) Personal communication.

Baulis J (2009) Personal communication.

Baulis R (4 April 2021) Personal communication.

Examiner (Launceston, Tas) (2 November 1953) 'Bride Chose White Gown And Roses', p 10, http://nla.news-article61108298, accessed on 04 April 2021.

Galbally, F, Nick Polites, Carlo Stransky and Francesca Merenda 1978 Migrant Services and Programs: Report of the Review of Post-arrival Programs and Services for Migrants, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, pp 73-79.

Lewins F 'Assimilation and Integration', in Jupp J 2001 The Australian People: an encyclopaedia of the nation, its people and their origins, 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 752-753.

Madill F (19 June 1995) Tasmanian Government Media Release from Minister for Multicultural and Ethnic Affairs.

Multicultural Council of Tasmania [2020] Our Members, 2020-2021: Member Organisations, https://www.mcot.org.au/our_members, accessed 4 April 2021.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration; A2571/1, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; 14, BATALEC-BAUZON.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 33, BAULIS Edvins DOB 1 September 1916.  

OMA (Office of Multicultural Affairs), Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet 1992 Access and Equity: Evaluation Summary, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au, accessed on 4 June 2021.

Wing D (21 June 1995) 'Death of Edvins Baulis', Hansard, Legislative Council of Tasmania.

Winter G 2006 'Good Neighbour Council' in The Companion to Tasmanian History, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/G/Good%20Neighbour%20Council.htm, accessed 4 April 2021.

Winter G 1993 A History of the Good Neighbour Council of Tasmania, 1949-1992, Good Neighbour Council of Tasmania, Hobart.