Veronika Tutins (1911–2006), who disappeared?

Updated 4 August 2024

Veronika Tutins was a great friend of two other Latvian women from the First Transport, sisters Irina and Galins Vasins. Evidence of the friendship still exists in the form of 6 photos of Veronika, mostly with Irina and Galina. Suddenly, she vanished. What happened to her?

Veronika Tutins, 1947, from her Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A257, TUTINS, VERONIKA

All of them were employed initially in Australia at the Bonegilla camp. Irina was employed until February 1951, when the Department of Immigration offered her a transfer to another Reception and Training Centre for new arrivals, at Greta in NSW. Galina had left one year earlier, in February 1950. They certainly could be viewed as long-term Bonegilla employees, having worked there beyond the end of their initial contract  on 30 September 1949.

(L-R) Galina Vasins, Veronika Tutins and Irina Vasins
in the grounds of the Bonegilla camp, 1948

Source:  Private collection

Veronika, however, had ceased duty at Bonegilla on 22 August 1948 and was supposed to commence at the Bedford Park TB Sanitorium in South Australia on 24 August. We know that she wasn’t sent to South Australia as a patient, since any TB cases from Bonegilla were treated in the local Albury Hospital. 

(L-R) Galina Vasins, Irina Tutins and Irina Vasins
in the remains of a tank in the Bonegilla camp grounds, 1948

Source:  Private collection

Perhaps the answer lies in the story of Eduards Brokans, who arrived in Australia on 12 February 1948, on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart. Due to the West Australian Government’s mistaken idea that all the passengers from the First Transport were to work in its State, the men from the Second Transport were held there pending a work allocation. So Eduards does not have a Bonegilla card. (The women were sent by train across the south of Australia, from Perth to Bonegilla, and do have Bonegilla cards.)

Eduards Brokans, from his 1947 selection papers

Source:  NAA: A11938, 494

Eduards were sent to Bedford Park in South Australia to labour for that State’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS). We don’t know exactly when this happened, as we do with anyone whose Bonegilla card is extant. We can guess that this happened between February and August 1948, so Veronika had arranged to be near him.

It’s unfortunate that she did not tell Irina and Galina about her plans. Irina, for one, was still wondering what had happened more than 50 years later. If Veronika wrote to the Vasins sisters after moving to South Australia, they did not get the letters.

While Veronika's plan was to be near Eduards, both working in the suburb of Bedford Park, the South Australian Government had other plans.  Instead of Bedford Park, that Government sent Veronika to the Belair Sanitorium, 9 kilometres by road from Bedford Park.  That must have made seeing each other at weekends harder than it needed to be.

After Veronika stopped working there, the name was changed to Birralee, a named used previously when the property was a private home.  Belair was the name of the suburb in which the Birralee Sanitorium was located.  Birralee is  the name used by Veronika to describe her workplace when she applied for Australian citizenship.

Her application for citizenship shows that Veronika worked at Belair until December 1949.  My guess is that she left before her marriage.  Extant records in the National Archives of Australia show that Eduards and Veronika Tutins were married in Norwood, South Australia, on Christmas Eve, 1949. He was more than two years younger than his bride, being born on 29 June 1914. Her birthday was 15 November 1911.

Veronika had stayed at her Belair workplace for at least two months longer than required under the conditions of the voyage which brought her to Australia.  As reported here earlier, the first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, decided that the obligation to work as directed should end early, on 30 September 1949.  This was due to “the outstanding contribution they have made to Australia’s labour starved economy”.

Veronika had 6 years of primary education, followed by 4 years of commercial schooling. Eduards had 6 years at primary school only. She had been born in Zvirgzdene, a rural parish in Latvia’s Latgale province. Latgale is the one predominantly Catholic of Latvia’s four provinces: the others are predominantly Lutheran. Veronika advised the Australian selection team that she was a Roman Catholic.

Her registration as a Displaced Person with the American Expeditionary Forces now with the Arolsen Archives recorded that, in late 1945, she knew the Latvian, Russian and German languages. Two years later, when appearing before the Australian selection team, she undoubtedly could add English to the list. She had been selected as a waitress, back in the days when the Australian Government was setting up hostels for its younger, unmarried staff, although whether she waited on tables at Bonegilla is not known. He had been selected as a labourer.

Another Arolsen Archive card records that she had been living in Latvia’s capital, Riga, before fleeing to Germany. While in Latvia, she had worked as a typist, according to her application for Australian citizenship.

In Germany, from 7 December 1944 to 2 March 1945, she had been employed as a metal worker in a Chemnitz factory. Since Chemnitz became part of the zone occupied by Soviet forces, then became part of East Germany, undoubted Veronika was on the move westwards from early March 1945. By October 1947, she was living in a Displaced Persons camp in Esslingen, in south-western Germany.

She told the Australian selection team that she was single, but had one dependent, a sister. The sister was recorded on her Bonegilla card as Olga Zakis, still resident in Esslingen.

By the time of her application for citizenship in September 1958, Veronika had just obtained work as a comptometrist with a long-established Adelaide hardware manufacturer.  Since comptometers have not been used in offices since the 1990s, I suspect that the majority of readers will not know what they were.  

They were mechanical adding machines, which could be used for subtraction as well.  Trained comptometer operators could enter all the digits in a number at once, using up to ten fingers, unlike on modern calculators, where one digit at a time is entered.  This made them exceptionally fast.  Their decline was not due to the invention of modern calculators but to advances in electronic computing.

A comptometer manufactured in the 1950s

Source: John Wolff's Web Museum

Eduards had been born in the Rezekne area, also in Latgale. Like Veronika, he was a Roman Catholic. At the time of interview by the Australian selection team, he gave a street address in Esslingen. It does look like Esslingen could have been where these two met.

His previous occupations were recorded by the Australian team as farmer from 1927 (at the age of 13) to 1937, then ‘worker’ (perhaps labourer) for 1937-40, then office worker for 1940-44 and ‘worker’ again for 1944-47.

Veronika had recently had her 38th birthday at the time of her marriage. Despite this relatively advanced age for childbearing, they had three children together: two girls and a boy, born between 1950 and 1954.

Eduards became an Australian citizen in the Adelaide suburb of Mitcham on 17 October 1955. Very often, a couple make the commitment to Australia by applying at the same time and taking the oath of allegiance in the same ceremony. Veronika waited. She applied in September 1958, she was approved with her certificate sent to South Australia in February 1959, but she did not take the oath to become an Australian citizen until 27 October 1959, also at Mitcham.

Maybe even before this commitment to Australia, the United States became more attractive to them. It might have been economic opportunities, as with some of the other First Transporters who left (like Vytautas Stasiukynas) or it could have been personal reasons, including reunion with family members (see Viktoras Kuciauskas).

The attraction may well have been Eduards’ younger brother, Aleksandrs, born on 19 July 1917. Unlike the older sibling who started working on a farm at the age of 13, Aleksandrs had attended university in Latvia and graduated with a PhD in agronomy from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. He initially resettled in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which also became the home of his brother’s family.

Ancestry.com has a digitised passenger list showing Veronika reaching San Francisco from Sydney on the SS Oronsay on 13 June 1960. With Veronika was her husband, a son and two daughters. The daughters were named as Mary and Rita, while the son was Edmunds. ‘Mary’ is likely to be the daughter identified on Geni.com as ‘Mērija Ilze Brokāne’. The names of the other two in their original, non-Anglicised versions, are not spelt out on this Website. 

It is possible that Veronika finally applied for Australian citizenship in order to have a passport for the journey to the United States. The Australian-born children would have been on one of their parents’ passports.

Dr Aleksandrs Brokans died at the age of 100 in 2017 in a Maryland nursing home. The children of Veronika and Eduards are listed among surviving members of his family.

Eduards did not have quite the long life of his younger brother, dying at the age of 86 in December 2000.

Eduards and Veronika Brokans in later life

Source:  Geni.com

Veronika lived on to the respectable age of 94, dying on 10 April 2006. Irina Vasins was still alive then, dying in 2008, while her sister Galina is still alive as far as I am aware. Mind you, it was not as easy 18 years ago to use the Web to solve disappearance mysteries, so I wasn’t able to find the answers in this blog entry while Irina was still with us.

Veronika is buried in the Resurrection Cemetery, West Hanover Township, near her final home of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com ‘California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959 for Veronica Brokans, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/10094931:7949 accessed 12 July 2024.

Arolsen Archives ‘DocID: 69544463 (Veronika TUTINS)’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69544463 accessed 10 July 2024.

Arolsen Archives ‘DocID: 75443572 (VERONIKA TUTINS)’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/75443572 accessed 10 July 2024.

Geni.com ‘Veronika Brokāne’ https://www.geni.com/people/Veronika-Brok%C4%81ne/6000000011861721721 accessed 12 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Australian Customs Service, State Administration, South Australia; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1937-65; BROKANS Eduards - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General M B Stewart 12 February 1948, 1948-1955; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4072903 accessed 10 July 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, 1947-1947; 819, TUTINS Veronika DOB 15 November 1911, 1947-1947; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118138 accessed 10 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration Central Office; A11938, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stewart departing Bremerhaven 13 January 1948, 1948-1948; 484, BROKANS Eduards born 29 June 1914, 1948-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4664555 accessed 18 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D400, Correspondence files, annual single number series with 'SA' and 'S' prefix, 1945-1969; BROKANS VERONICA - Application for Naturalisation - [Box 92], 1950-1959; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=202814862 accessed 29 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; TUTINS Veronika - Nationality: Latvian Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 also known as BROKANS, 1947-1949; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7171511 accessed 10 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; BROKANS Eduards - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General M B Stewart 12 February 1948 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7205717 accessed 18 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; BROKANS Veronica - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Also known as NEE TUTINS, 1947- 1959; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7205718 accessed 13 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria] ; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; TUTINS, Veronika : Year of Birth - 1911 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1187, 1947-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203711044 accessed 10 July 2024.

Star-Democrat (2017) ‘Obituaries: Dr Alexander Brokans’ Easton, Maryland, USA, 28 November, p A6 https://www.newspapers.com/image/353165191/?match=1&terms=edmunds%20brokans accessed 12 July 2024.

Vasins, Irina (2000-2007) Personal communications.

Vintage Calculators Web Museum,  Calculator Companies (2024) 'Comptometer' http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/comptometer1.html accessed 31 July 2024.

Wikipedia 'Comptometer' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptometer accessed 31 July 2024.

Vytautas Stasiukynas (1920 –?): The Vet Who Found Happiness in South America by Daina Pocius with Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024.

One of the Lithuanians in the First Transport group sent to Goliath Cement at Railton, Tasmania, was a Doctor of Veterinary Science.  Vytautas Stasiukynas had given his intended occupation in Australia as farmer, possibly to fit in with the known occupational shortages in Australia.  He was 27 years old on arrival, having been born in Peršėkininkai village, in the south of Lithuania, on 14 February 1920.

He had found himself on a farm two months after arrival in Australia, but it was to pick fruit in the Ardmona area for nearly 6 weeks.  Returning to the Bonegilla camp, he was employed there for one week as a casual labourer.  Probably it was more labouring with Goliath – until he left early, after less than 10 months, in February 1949.

A youthful Vytautas Stasiukynas, photographed for his Bonegilla card in 1947

Source:  NAA: A2571, STASIUKYNAS VYTAUTAS

A list probably compiled by Ramunas Tarvydas, the author of From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, shows that another 6 of the men left during February or March, well before their 2 years of employment in Australia was up.  The work must have been extremely hard indeed.

This does not include Endrius Jankus who, we know from his own account, stayed for maybe another month but he too decided that he could do better working in Melbourne instead.  We know that Endrius was contacted by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to be told that it was not up to him to decide where he could work: he had to be willing to go where the CES said that workers were needed.  Perhaps, one way or another, the CES located the other 6 and found them different work still in an area of national need.  Or perhaps they had gone directly to the CES, asking for a change of employment.  These individual employment records are unlikely to have survived for us to check them.

As for Vytautas Stasiukynas, his friend, Juozas Peciulis, also on the First Transport, wrote his story for the 14 June 1950 edition of Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), the new Australian-Lithuanian newspaper.  He based his account on the time they had spent together during the first two years, and a letter received from Colombia.  Yes, Vytautas had found a happier life in South America.

Juozas Peciulis reported that Vytautas had tried every possible way to get a job in his profession. His efforts were in vain.  He enrolled in a veterinary course at Sydney University, in case Australian qualifications would help him, but had to stop when his finances ran out. 

While living as a refugee in Germany, Peciulus wrote, Stasiukynas had received from Lithuanian Salesian priest, Father Mykolas Tamošiūnas, a visa for emigration to Columbia.   Father Tamošiūnas worked with a Lithuanian diplomat and journalist, Stasys Sirutis, to form the Lithuanian Catholic Committee for the Collection of War Victims.  Sirutis would contact Lithuanians in refugee camps in postwar Europe, taking care of their visas and permits so they could freely migrate to Columbia. The new arrivals would be assisted in finding work and housing, contributing to the Lithuanian colony in Columbia. 

By 1948, Colombia had become one of the main places of migration for Lithuanians.  The first Lithuanians settled in the city of Bogotá, but eventually spread to other cities: Medellín, Barranquilla, Cali, Bucaramanga, Villavicencio.  They were mainly farmers or hired workers. It is believed that around 850 Lithuanians came to Colombia after the Second World War. 

Frozen out of his preferred career in Australia, Vytautas turned again Father Mykolas and received another Colombian migration visa.  On 17 March 1950, he boarded a ship from the United States, the American Leader, to cross the Pacific.  The Brisbane Courier-Mail says that ship was bound for Boston, leaving Brisbane at 6 am on 18 March.  Juozas Peciulis reports that Vytautas paid £200 for the trip to Panama, while a flight from Panama to Medellin cost an additional $60 (US dollars, presumably).

This is a rare, if not unique, instance where we have the name of the ship of departure from Australia because it was recorded as a Change of Abode on his Aliens Registration Certificate.  This was retained by the Department of Immigration and subsequently by the National Archives of Australia.  We therefore have the date of departure also.

On arrival in Colombia, Vytautas immediately received a job as a vet on a farm owned by the brother of the nations’s President.  The farm was about 130 km from Medellin, 100 square kilometers in size with 1200 cows.  The area was very mountainous, with no roads, only riding tracks.  Vytautas lived on the farm, travelling around it by horse to inspect the animals.

He did not regret leaving Australia.  He wrote back to Juozas Peciulis that Columbia “is truly the land of opportunity and freedom exists in the full sense of the word.”

Vytautas remained in Colombia, where he married another Lithuanian and had 4 children. Evidence comes from V. Rociūnas in the August 1971 issue of Draugas (Friend), who reports that “Veterinarian Vytautas Stasiukynas has a wonderful family of four children and his excellent wife Nijole, a sincere supporter of Lithuanian activities. Stasiukynas has a large practice and a good reputation in the area.”*

Vytautas' wife, Nijole, is first on the left in this photo of the
board members of the Bogotá Lithuanian women's club

Source:  Moteris Lithuanian Women’s Magazine. 1966. No. 6 (54)   

(double-click to see a larger version of this photo)

An August 1972 issue of Musu Lietuva (Our Lithuania), published in São Paolo, Brazil, advises that Vytautas Stasiukynas from Bogotá was one the judges of an Inter-American Philatelic Exhibition which had opened in Rio de Janeiro.  He had won all sorts of medals at these exhibitions and was visiting Rio with his wife, Nijole.  They had promised to visit São Paolo as well.

In February 1981, Vienybė, (Unity, from Brooklyn, NY) had the larger part of a page devoted to Vytautas’ philately.   It featured an article he wrote about the Buenos Aires '80 International Stamp Exhibition, a ten-day long activity to celebrate 400 years since the permanent settlement of Buenos Aires.  He brought back a second prize, a gold-plated silver medal, from this Exhibition. Below that article, another records his own philatelic interests.

In a December 1982 issue of Mūsų Lietuva, on a page headed Greetings from Venezuela and Colombia, Vytautas and Nijole Stasiukynas “from Bogota remembered and congratulated their compatriots in Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo”.

In June 1983, Vienybė ran a full page article about the Lithuanian community in Colombia.  One of the illustrations shows Vytautas and his wife, Nijole, with another Lithuanian couple in a cacao plantation.

The photograph from Vienybė showing, from left to right in a cacao plantation, 
a Colombian, Laima and Algis Didžiulis, Dr Vytautas Stasiukynas, 
the Colombian plantation manager and Nijolė Stasiukynas.  The caption further adds that,
"The Didžiulises are big industrialists, with one company in Bogotá, another in Caracas, Venezuela,
a representative office in Fort Lauderdale, warehouses in Woodside, NY.
They also have a nice dairy farm near Bogotá."

Someone has started a family tree for Vytautas on Ancestry.com, but only got as far as noting that he died in Bogotá on an unknown date and adding one son. This son, José Vytenis Stasiukynas Hosie, is said to have been born in 1960 and to have died in 2006, at the early age of 46. This early death raises the possibility of an interaction with FARC, the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group which has operated in Colombia since 1966, or with other armed left-wing and right-wing groups.

Nijole (front row, third from left with a red handbag)
attending a church service in Lithuania in 2012
as a representative of Bogotá's Lithuanian community

Source: XXI amžius (21st Century), 13 February 2015

While Vytautas saw Colombia as, “truly a land of opportunity (where) freedom exists in the full sense of the word”, a civil war was being fought there even as he arrived. The violence has waxed and waned, mainly in the countryside, in the more than 70 years since.

We believe that another member of the family is now activity in the field of caring for animals. Diana Stasiukynas is very likely to be a granddaughter of Vytautas.  Panthera.org, a New York based charity, says that Diana is “a biologist with a master's degree in biodiversity management and conservation.  She works with camera traps, in-situ genetic sampling, statistical analysis and other survey techniques in various wildlife conservation and management projects involving local communities, farmers and governmental and non-governmental organizations throughout Colombia.  In addition to conservation science, her professional interests include wildlife photography and community participation.”

It looks like not just Vytautas, but his whole subsequent family, was a loss to Australia.  Two other vets who arrived here on the General Stuart Heintzelman in 1947 were lost to Australia also. Lithuanian Anicetas Grigaliunas left for the United States in the 1950s.  An as yet unnamed Estonian left for Venezuela, where he supposedly became veterinarian to the country’s then President.  Ann remembers adding Venezuelan stamps to the collection she was given when aged 6.

SOURCES 

Courier Mail (1950) ‘Weather’ (including ‘Shipping’), Brisbane, Qld, 18 March, p 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49697105, accessed 9 November 2023. 

Gavenas, P (1982) ‘Sveikinimai iš Venezuelos ir Kolumbijos’ (‘Greetings from Venezuela and Colombia’) Mūsu Lietuva (Our Lithuania), São Paulo, Brazil, 2 December, p 6, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_lietuva/archive/1982/1982-nr47-MUSU-LIETUVA.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Matuzas, K (1983) ‘Kaip Gyvena ir Dirba Lietuviai Kolumbijoje’ ('How Lithuanians Live and Work in Colombia'), Vienybe (Unity), Brooklyn, New York, 15 June, p 7, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1983/1983-06-15-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Moteris (Woman), Lithuanian Women's Magazine (1966) 'Bogotas, Kolumbijoje, LMF Klubo Valdybos Narės' (Bogotá, Colombia, LMF Club Board Members), Toronto, Canada, 6 (54) p 18, https://www.spauda.org/moteris/archive/1966/1966-nr06-MOTERIS.pdf, accessed 18 December 2023.

Mūsu Lietuva (Our Lithuania) (1972) ‘Svečiai iš Kolumbijos’ (‘Guests from Colombia’), São Paolo, Brazil, 31 August, p 10, https://spauda2.org/musu_lietuva/archive/1972/1972-nr35-MUSU-LIETUVA.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; STASIUKYNAS, Vytautas : Year of Birth - 1920 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 684, 1947 – 1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203905639, accessed 10 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Department of Immigration, Central Office; 37/541, STASIUKYNAS Vytautas born 14 February 1920; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272994, accessed 10 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents; LITHUANIAN/STASIUKYNAS VYTAUTAS, STASIUKYNAS Vytautas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Departed Commonwealth on 19 March 1950, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5926058, accessed 10 November 2023. 

Papers held in the Lithuanian Archives in Australia, https://www.australianlithuanians.org/uncategorized/adel-arkhives/ accessed 25 May 2024.

Peciulis, J (1950) ‘Iš Viktorijos — Laimēs pēdomis Kolumbijon…’ (From Victoria — Finding Happiness in Colombia) Mūsu Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, NSW, 14 June, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259362958, accessed 9 November 2023. 

Rociūnas, V (1971) ‘Čiurlioniečiai P. Amerikoje’ (‘Ciurlionis in S America’ — Ciurlionis was a music ensemble formed in Vilnius in 1940 but based in Cleveland, Ohio, in exile until it disbanded in 1992) Draugas (Friend), the Lithuanian World-Wide Daily, Chicago, Illinois, 23 August, p 2, https://www.draugas.org/archive/1971_reg/1971-08-23-DRAU GAS-i7-8.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Stasiukynas, V (1981) ‘Vienybėje Pagamintas Leidinys Argentinoje Susilaukė Medalio’ (‘A Publication Produced by Unity Received a Medal in Argentina’), Vienybe (Unity), Brooklyn, New York, 13 February, p 5, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1981/1981-02-13-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Šeškevičius, Arvydas (2015) 'Paminėjo daug metų Kolumbijoje gyvenusį kunigą Vaclovą Vaičiūną' (Commemorating Priest Vaclovas Vaičiūnas, who lived in Colombia for many years), XXI amžius, 13 February, https://www.xxiamzius.lt/numeriai/2015/02/13/atmi_01.html accessed 19 December 2023.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, Hobart, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee. 

Tarvydas, Ramunas, (nd) unpublished papers in the possession of the Goliath Cement, Railton, Tasmania. 

Vienybe (Unity), (1981) ‘Dr. Vytautas Stasiukynas’, Brooklyn, New York, 13 February, p 5, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1981/1981-02-13-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Wikipedia (2023) ‘La Violencia’, last edited 17 September, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia, accessed 24 November 2023. 

Wikipedia (2023) ‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’, last edited 15 November, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia, accessed 19 November 2023. 

Žukauskienė, Deimantė (2020) ‘Kolumbijos lietuviai tiki, kad lietuviškumas bendruomenėje atgims’ (‘Lithuanians in Colombia believe that Lithuanianness will be revived in the community’), 8 August, Pasaulio Lietuvis (World Lithuanian), https://pasauliolietuvis.lt/kolumbijos-lietuviai-tiki-kad-lietuviskumas-bendruomeneje-atgims/, viewed 9 November 2023.

Viktoras Kuciauskas (1929-2008): Not All Stayed, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 5 December 2023.

A small number of the First Transporters moved to third countries after their initial settlement in Australia.  Broadly, their reasons for leaving were reunion with family who had settled successfully elsewhere or being able to practise their professions when this was denied to them without "retraining" in Australia.

One who left was Viktoras Kuciauskas.  He stayed in Australia long enough to obtain citizenship here in 1953.  He was the only recipient of citizenship at his ceremony in Burnie, Tasmania, on 17 July, but the event was seen as so important that he had to listen politely to at least 6 speeches.  He was surrounded by around 20 very important people, according to the local newspaper.

In 1954, the Burnie Advocate newspaper carried a photograph of him as the radiographer in charge of a mobile X-ray unit (part of the then national campaign against tuberculosis).  A short article in the local Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė, reports that he was deputy chairman of the Lithuanian community in Hobart in early 1956 as well as the rapporteur for its audit committee.  

Victor Kuciauskas as radiographer in charge of a mobile Xray unit
in Burnie, Tasmania, October 1954

Source: Burnie Advocate, 20 October 1954

Yet only one year later, he was entering the United States via Canada, to reside there for the rest of his life.  

Born in Marijampolė County on 8 April 1929, he was only 18 when he arrived in Australia.  This age makes it unlikely that he had qualified as a radiographer already, but perhaps he had undertaken some relevant studies which made qualifying here easier.  His Bonegilla card records his English as 'fair':  it must have quickly become good enough for him to complete technical studies successfully maybe less than 5 years later.

Bonegilla card for Viktoras Kuciauskas

Source:  NAA

The Bonegilla card shows that he stayed in the camp until 28 January 1948, so he had nearly 2 months there to attend English classes and improve his language skills.  On 28 January, he and others were sent to HE Pickworth in Ardmona in Victoria to pick fruit.  He spent more than 2 months there, returning to the camp at the end of the fruit-picking on 1 March.  Only 4 days later, on 5 March, he was part of a group sent as labourers to the Electrolytic Zinc Company in Rosebery, Tasmania.

Viktoras Kuciauskas is third from the left in the front row in this photograph
taken at the burial of Aleksandras Vasilauskas in Albury's Pioneer Cemetery, 5 January 1948

Source: Collection of Endrius Jankus

Rosebery was the site of the Electrolytic Zinc Company's mine.  Mining is skilled work, so it is unlikely that the group of recent arrivals sent from Bonegilla were employed to do that.  The general labouring that they probably did still would have been very hard work, especially for young men who had been not particularly well fed during their 3 years in Germany.  Viktoras and the others would have been very relieved when notified in September 1949 that they were no longer required to work in Australia.  They had been free to leave their employers at any time so long as they sought the assistance of the Commonwealth Employment Service to find 'other work as directed', but the 2 years of employment in Australia often got interpreted as 2 years with only one employer.

Records digitised by Ancestry.com show that Viktoras travelled to the United States in 1955. He was on the RMS Orion, an Orient Line ship which berthed in San Francisco on 18 April 1955. By this time, his father was living in the US, in New York, while his mother was somewhat closer to San Francisco, in Omaha, Nebraska. His daughter, Victoria Siliunas, has advised that while visiting his mother, he went on a blind date with the woman who was to become his wife. 

His application for US citizenship shows that he arrived in the US again on 7 February 1957. This time, he had travelled from Sydney to Vancouver on another Orient Line ship, the SS Oronsay. His date of arrival in Vancouver is not yet public, but he reached Honolulu en route on 30 July 1956. 

Modern cruise ships take 9 to 13 days to travel from Honolulu to Vancouver, so Viktoras probably arrived in Vancouver before the end of August 1956. Between September and January 1957, did he stay in Vancouver with his sister, Stase, or did he drop into the US on visits to the special new woman in his life? If those records have been kept, they are not yet public. 

Less than one year after his second arrival, on 25 January 1958, he married Regina Parulis (Parulyte in Lithuanian), who had been born in Tauragė, Lithuania. By the time of the citizenship application they had a son, born in December 1959, and were to have another child, their daughter Victoria.

Based on decades of prior experience as a country of mass immigration, the US naturalization application form provided for applicants to change their name at this point in their lives.  Viktoras made use of this opportunity:  henceforward, he wished to be known as Victor Kucas.  

Victor's occupation is recorded as 'X-ray' on the application form.  An obituary written by a friend since school days, Edvardas Šulaitis, says that Victor obtained an additional nuclear medicine technician's qualification in the US.  Victor became the head radiographer in the Frank Cuneo Memorial Hospital, Chicago, for the more than 30 years that this hospital operated from 1957.

Ancestry.com has collected some information about Victor Kucas' life in the United States, mainly in the form of addresses from 1996 onwards.  They reveal that he was living in Lockport, Illinois, a city some 50 Km southwest of Chicago.

More is revealed in the Šulaitis obituary, published in Draugas, a Chicago-based newspaper which has been the only Lithuanian-language daily published outside Lithuania.  Having been a scout in childhood, Victor led the Lithuanian scout troop Lituanicas in Chicago and, during 1960-1963, was a member of the Council of the Lithuanian Scouts Union.  He edited the children's magazine, Eglutė, during 1994-2003, and for six years edited the Pasaulio lietuvio magazine.  He was active in a number of other organisations.

Edvardas Šulaitis described his friend as 'hard-working, calm-mannered' and added that 'Viktor remained in my memory as a quiet but accomplished person who paid tribute not only to his family, but also to the entire Lithuanian community.'

A portrait of Victor in later life on display at his funeral

Source:  Draugas

Sadly, Victor's life had ended in 7 months of pain after an accident in his home in December 2007.  He died on 17 July 2008, aged 79 years old, but he did live long enough to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary earlier that year.  His ashes were buried in a Chicago cemetery under the names of both Kuciauskas and Kucas.

Victor Kucas is buried with his father and wife in the St Casimir Catholic Cemetery,
Chicago, Illinois

Source:  FindaGrave

His wife, Regina, born on 24 January 1929, died 7 years later on 9 December 2015, aged 86.  She is buried with Victor.

The original burial in this plot would have been that of Pranas Kuciauskas, Victor's father.  His name appears on a nominal roll of Displaced Persons Departing From Resettlement Repatriation and US Migration Center Butzbach on 6 May 1949, held by the Arolsen Archives.  The Archives also have digitised a record which shows that Pranas was in Hanau, Germany, with his two children.  Why then did the three of them settle in three different countries?  Was the absence of any next of kin on Victor's Bonegilla card an oversight, or was it deliberate?

Others who asked the selection team for the First Transport if their relatives could come too were assured that they could follow.  In at least one instance that I am aware of, the relative came on the Second Transport.  Why was Victor not declaring that he had family and arranging for them to join him in Australia?

Pranas at the time of his migration to the US was aged 52, his occupation was given as Caretaker and his marital status was signified with a D, presumably for Divorced.  Somehow he was travelling independently when everyone else on his page of the nominal roll had a sponsoring organisation.  He was headed for Henry Street in Kings Park, Suffolk County, on New York State's Long Island.  Who did he know there?

Born on 4 June 1897, Pranas died on 1 October 1962 aged 65.  He died in Cook County, Illinois, so he was living with or near his son in Lockport.

The simple answer to many of the questions raised above might be that the young Victor was as adventurous as any other 18-year-old, maybe even more so given his scouting background.  When he heard about the possibility of moving to Australia, it may have seemed also like a quick way out of the previous 7 years of war and deprivation. 

Viktoras Kuciauskas is third from the left in the front row of this 1944 photo
of the fifth form students of the Kybartai Gymnasium in Lithuania

Source:  Collection of Edvardas Šulaitis via Draugas

If there were other young people from the same refugee camp answering Australia's call, that would have added to the pull factor.

Victor clearly did well in Australia.  It's likely, however, that he realised that he needed Australian citizenship for the passport to travel to reconnect with family members who had resettled in North America.  He must have been earning enough money through his responsible job in Australia to make not one, but two trips to North America. 

Returning to the US was a wise personal decision for Victor, not only for marriage and children but he was able to achieve more qualifications and a job which probably gave give security and satisfaction for the rest of his working life.  His move was Australia's loss, though.

I thank Jonas Mockunas for drawing attention to Edvardas Šulaitis' Draugas obituary, which has filled in gaps in Victor's life in the US.

Sources

'Documents from AIDUKAS, ADOLFAS, born on May 20th, 1895, born in LAUCIUNISKE and from other persons', Arolsen Archives, DocID 78869128, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/78869128.

'Draugas' (1 February 2023), in Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugas, accessed 8 April 2023.

'Hobartas, Nauja apylinkės valdyba' (Hobart, New community board), Musu Pastogė, (Sydney, NSW), 8 February 1956, p 4, via Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259359765, accessed 31 March 2023.

Jankus, Endrius, personal communication, 25 September 2009.

'Migrant Culture Praised at Naturalisation Ceremony', Advocate (Burnie, Tas),  18 July 1953, p 6, via Trove,  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69481268, accessed 25 March 2023.   

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration; Kuciauskas, Viktoras: Year of Birth - 1929: Nationality - LITHUANIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number – 941; accessed 27 March 2023. 

'Naturalisation ceremony at Burnie on Friday ... ',  Advocate (Burnie, Tas), 20 July 1953, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69481365, accessed 25 March 2023.   

[Pranas Kuciauskas], Arolsen Archives, Document ID: 81711918, Correspondence and nominal roles [sic], done at Butzbach: means of transport train, plane; Transit countries and emigration destinations: Australia, Italy, Canada, USA, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/81711918.

Pranas Kuciauskas, in Cook County, Illinois, Death Index, 1908-1988, Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Pranas Kuciauskas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782705/pranas-kuciauskas, accessed 25 March 2023.

'Regina T. Parulis Kucas', Petkus & Son Funeral Homes (Lemont, Illinois), [December 2015], https://www.petkusfuneralhomes.com/obituaries/Regina-T-Parulis-Kucas?obId=2585224, accessed 25 March 2023.  

'Regina Kucas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782753/regina-kucas, accessed 25 March 2023.

Siliunas, Victoria, 2023, personal communication, 17 April.

Šulaitis, Edvardas, 'Dar Viena Skaudi Netektis, Atsisveikinta Su A. A. Viktoru Kuču' (Another Painful Loss, Goodbye Said to Viktoras Kučas RIP), Draugas (Chicago, IL), 20 August 2008, p 8, https://www.draugas.org/key/2008_reg/2008-08-20-DRAUGASo.pdf.

'Viktoras Kucas', Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/239782738/viktoras-kucas, accessed 25 March 2023. 

'Victor Kuciauskas, in the California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959', Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Victor Kuciauskas, in the Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S., Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists, 1900-1959', Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'Viktoras Kuciauskas, in the Illinois, U.S., Federal Naturalization Records, 1856-1991' Ancestry.com, accessed 31 March 2023.

'X-ray unit', Advocate (Burnie, Tas), 20 October 1954, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article69880102, accessed 25 March 2023.