Antanas Martisius (1923-?) Another Who Left, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinksienė

Few public records

Antanas Martisius is one of the 31 Heintzelman passengers whose selection papers have gone missing. In addition, there were 3 Displaced Persons with the same name in Germany after World War II.

At least we know from his Bonegilla card that our Antanas had a birthdate of 1 December 1923, so we can focus on a man with that name and birthdate. The Bonegilla card also says that he was one of the 7 sent to the Pyramid Hill Quarries in northwest Victoria.

Antanas' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Antanas' Lithuanian past

The DP Registration Record form completed in Germany in November 1946 says he was born in Šakai in Marijampolė County, now close to the eastern border of the Kaliningrad exclave. His parents were Juozas Martisius and the former Prančiska Butkiūte.

His usual trade or occupation was stated to be smith, which presumably was a blacksmith as opposed to workers in metals other than iron.

A 1942 census in Lithuania, conducted despite the War, gives more information about Antanas and his family.

They actually lived in the Daugėliškiai village in the Šakiai district.  The parents married in 1921.  The census shows that they had had 9 children 21 years later, of whom 8 had survived (4 daughters and 4 sons). 

Antanas was born in Daugėliškiai village and had finished elementary school.  He was working as a metal turner at the Malcanas agricultural machinery factory in Šakiai.  Being what Australians call a "fitter and turner" would explain the "smith" description on his DP registration form.

Alien Registration Details

His Alien Registration Application form says that he was 6 feet (1.8 m) tall, so he towered almost as much as the 6 feet 3 inch (1.9 m) tall Lembit Koplus, his fellow Pyramid Hill worker.

The file which contains his Alien Registration Application form also has his original Certificate of Registration under the Aliens Act, a passport-like document. It was issued in September 1952 to replace an earlier Certificate which was mutilated. This means that there is no record of his movements after leaving the Bonegilla Camp for Pyramid Hill until a Rae Street, Fitzroy, address at the start of the new Certificate.

Later changes of address were to a hostel in Eildon, Victoria, in September 1953 and to semi-rural Clarinda, then on the outskirts of Melbourne but now definitely a southeastern suburb, in July 1956.

Antanas Leaves

Then the final record states that Antanas left the Commonwealth (of Australia) on 11 July 1958 on a passenger ship, the Oronsay. It sailed a trans-Pacific route, stopping at both Vancouver, Canada, and San Francisco in the United States.

The Oransay was favoured by several others who left Australia for the Americas. The first was Viktoras Kuciauskas in 1956, bound for the love of his life in the United States. The peripatetic Vladas Navickas left Australia on this ship in early in 1959. Veronika Tutins, now Brokans, travelled on the Oronsay with her family in 1960, probably with the aim of joining her successful brother-in-law.

After Antanas left Sydney on the Oronsay, the trail has gone cold. There appear to be no further public records of the life of our Antanas Martisius.

SOURCES

‘Folder DP2579, names from MARTINSONS, MARIA to MARTON, IBOLYA (2)’ 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 68195911 (Antanas MARTISIUS), ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/68195911, accessed 2 March 2026.

National Archive of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents, 1948-1965; 1958/MARTISIUS A, MARTISIUS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1958 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6036235, accessed 3 March 2026.

National Archive of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MARTISIUS ANTANAS, MARTISIUS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 964 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203615119, accessed 3 March 2026.

VšĮ Genealoginiai surašymai (Public Institution Genealogical Censuses) 'Šeimos surašymas 1942 metais' ('Family Census in 1942', in Lithuanian) https://eu3.ragic.com/genealogija/census/3/19406.xhtml, accessed 4 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Clarinda, Victoria’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinda,_Victoria, accessed 3 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Marijampolė County’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijampolė_County, accessed 2 March 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Šakai’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0akiai, accessed 2 March 2026.

Wikipedia ‘SS Oronsay (1950)’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Oronsay_(1950), accessed 2 March 2026.

Jonas Zaremba (1912-2006): Another who left — for New Zealand, by Rasa Ščevinksienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Leaving Australia for a Third Country

We have a good idea why others who left Australia for third countries moved on.  Viktoras Kuciauskas, for example, knew that he had met the love of his life while visiting family in the United States, and moved there to be with her.

Vytautas Stasiukynas could not find employment in his field of veterinary science, so left for Colombia, South America.  There he was employed immediately as a vet by the brother of the nation’s president.

Povilas Laurinavičius left Australia for Chicago, United States, around 1964, aged about 56, to spend the rest of his life with family there who he had been unable to sponsor to live in Australia in 1948.

Jonas Motiejūnas had been able to work as an engineer in Australia but perhaps had better prospects when he moved with his wife and young family to the United States in 1959.

Vladas Navickas seemed unable to settle down in any one place until he found San Francisco in 1959.

Veronika Tutins left in 1960 with her husband, Eduards Brokans, who had a younger, much better educated brother who probably was doing better in Pennsylvania than these two were in Australia.

We do not know why Jonas Zaremba left for New Zealand in in the early 1950s. We can see that he settled in well there.

Jonas Zaremba in 1950-51, when corresponding with the NSW Branch 
of the Department of Immigration

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Jonas' life in New Zealand

New Zealand already had a Lithuanian Society, founded in 1949, but reorganised into the Lithuanian Community of New Zealand in March 1951.  From 1950 to 1958, the newspaper Naujosios Zelandijos Lietuvis (The New Zealand Lithuanian) was published, and from 1952 to 1960, a Lithuanian Sunday school was in operation.

In 1956 Jonas Zaremba was elected to the board of the New Zealand Lithuanian Community.

Later that decade, he moved from Wellington to Auckland, where he married a New Zealander named Loris Ailene Grinter.  They had no children, and his wife passed away on 11 July 1997, aged 80.

As long as his health allowed, he lived alone in his home.  He died on 30 April 2006, aged 94, at the Mercy Parklands Hospital and was buried next to his wife in the Waikaraka Park Cemetery in Auckland.

Jonas Zaremba had been an active member of the Lithuanian community and a devoted Catholic.

The Zaremba's gravestone in the Waikaraka Cemetery
in Ōnehunga, Auckland, New Zealand

Source:  Patricia Hargreaves for Find A Grave

Jonas' life in Lithuania

He was born on the first day of 1912, in the village of Baskai, near Giedraičiai, in the Moletai district of Lithuania.  His parents were Petras Zaremba and the former Ona Šimenaitė.  They had been married in the Giedraičiai church on 30 August 1909, and already had one child, Petras, when Jonas was born.

Jonas’ father owned a farm, probably explaining why he was exiled to Igarka in the Krasnoyarsk territory of Siberia on 22 May 1948.  He died in exile in 1953. World War II and its aftermath broke up the Zaremba family.

Jonas attended school in Švenčionėliai.  He volunteered for the Lithuanian Army in 1933, so at the age of 21.  Although his father had a farm, Jonas did not want to be a farmer.  He had a passion for horses though, so was assigned to a cavalry regiment.  He participated in recruit training and won prizes in equestrian competitions.

He served with General Plechavičius.* Due to the to and fro of World War II, he ended up serving in the armies of four different nations.

Jonas in Germany

The Arolsen Archive has not digitised any records of Jonas Zaremba yet.  We meet him in Germany first in the Australian selection team’s interview record from September 1947 in the Buchholz DP camp.  At this time he was living in a DP camp in Gross Hesepe, with the Geeste municipality in Lower Saxony.  Geeste is less than 5 kilometres from the border with the Netherlands, so Jonas has gotten almost as far west, away from the Soviets, as it was possible to be in Germany.

The interview record noted that he had arrived in Germany in May 1944, having been “deported by the Germans”.  The May date was months earlier than the September-October dates of people who had fled Lithuania when they heard that the Soviet forces were returning.  He possibly travelled in retreat with the Germany Army units into which his Lithuanian Army unit had been absorbed.

More about life in Lithuania

He had attended Lithuanian schools not only for the basic 4 years of primary education, but also for another 4 years of secondary education.  The selection panel noted that he spoke Lithuanian, Russian, Polish and ‘fair’ German.

Despite his disinclination to be a farmer, he admitted to 10 years’ experience as a farm worker in Lithuania.  He may have been acknowledging assistance with the family farm before he joined the Lithuanian Army.

His experience in training horses was noted, no doubt with interest.

He had not been working for the previous 2 years, presumably since World War II ceased wherever he was then in Germany.

Jonas Zaremba in 1947

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Jonas' work in Australia

After arrival in Australia and time in the Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre in northeast Victoria, probably attending English classes and practising this new language with his fellow refugees, he was sent to his first job.

Like one-quarter of the men on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, he was sent to pick fruit. His first Australian employer was Messrs Dundas Simson of Ardmona.

He put up with this outdoor labour for 3 weeks, returning to the Bonegilla camp on 22 March. As he was already 35 years old, more than 10 years older than the average age of the group, this first work in over 2 years may well have been more than his body liked.

One week later, on 29 March, he was sent to Tasmania. At this stage, we do not know what manual labour was expected of him there. All we can say is that he was not working at Railton’s Goliath Portland Cement factory, he was not logging timber from Maydena, cutting tracks through the bush for the EZ Company near Rosebery nor shovelling coal for the Electrona Carbide works.

Whatever he was doing in Tasmania, he put up with it for 9 months, then decided it was time to ask to do something else. He arrived back at Bonegilla on 4 January 1949, stayed another 5 weeks, then found himself travelling to Sydney on 14 February. The third employer was the Metropolitan Water Sewage and Drainage Board.

Why did Jonas leave Australia?

It is highly likely that the third job involved digging ditches. No wonder he wanted to leave for New Zealand, especially if he heard from Lithuanians there already about less arduous work. Another possible attraction was that New Zealand was about as far in the world as one could get away from the Soviet Union, even further away than Australia.

As he undoubtedly stayed loyal to his commanders in the Lithuanian Army during the turmoil of World War II, perhaps 10 months of his service had been under Soviet command. This might well explain his trek to the far west of Germany at the end of the War, as well as his move to New Zealand.

FOOTNOTE *General Plechavičius' role in the lives of some First Transporters, Henrikas Juodvalkis, Juozas Nakas, Elena Kalvyte's husband Jonas Augutis, and Stasys Šeduikis, has been mentioned already.  Wikipedia has his English-language biography.   

CITE THIS AS Ščevinksienė, Rasa and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Jonas Zaremba (1912-2006):  Another who left — for New Zealand' 

SOURCES

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Jonas Zaremba’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203912105, accessed 17 February 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Jonas Zaremba’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/166231013/jonas-zaremba, accessed 17 February 2026.

Lithuanian State Historical Archives ‘Giedraičių RKB gimimo metrikų knyga, 1908-1913’ (‘Giedraiciu Roman Catholic Church birth registry book, 1908-1913’, in Lithuanian) p 140, record 9 https://www.epaveldas.lt/preview?id=1450/1/20, accessed 17 February 2026.

Lithuanian State Historical Archives ‘Giedraičių RKB santuokos metrikų knyga, 1900-1918’ (‘Giedraičiai Roman Catholic Church Marriage Registry Book, 1900-1918’, in Lithuanian) page 127, record 27 https://www.epaveldas.lt/preview?id=1450/1/30, accessed 17 February 2026.

Lietuvos Nacionalinė Martyno Mažvydo Biblioteka, Visuotine Lietuvių Enciklopedija (Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia) ‘Naujósios Zelándijos lietùviai‘ (‘Lithuanians in New Zealand’, in Lithuanian) https://www.vle.lt/straipsnis/naujosios-zelandijos-lietuviai/, accessed 17 February 2026.

Memorial Krasnoyarsk ‘Список депортированных из Литвы в Красноярский край (по данным Центра исследования геноцида и резистенции жителей Литвы)’ ('List of deportees from Lithuania to the Krasnoyarsk Territory (According to the Center for the Study of Genocide and Resistance of Lithuanians)', in Russian and Lithuanian) https://memorial.krsk.ru/DOKUMENT/People/_Lists/Litva/Z.htm, accessed 17 February 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Lietuviai pasaulyje’ (Lithuanians in the World, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 25 April, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259366103, accessed 17 February 2026.

My Heritage ‘Discover People Named Rita Grinter’ https://www.myheritage.com/names/rita_grinter, accessed 17 February 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 339, ZAREMBA Jonas DOB 1 January 1912, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118044, accessed 18 February 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, New South Wales Branch; SP244/2,  Correspondence of the Chief Migration Officer relating to restricted [general] migration [class 2], 1950-1950; N1950/2/15078, Jonas Zaremba [photograph attached] [Box 153], 1951-1951 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7299113, accessed 18 February 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; ZAREMBA JONAS, AREMBA, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.HEINTZELMAN : Number - 735, 1947-1949, recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203912105,  accessed 18 February 2026.

Office of the Chief Archivist of Lithuania, Electronic Archive Information System ‘Giedraičių RKB lietuvių ir lenkų tautybių parapijiečių sąrašas’ (‘List of Lithuanian and Polish parishioners of Giedraičiai Roman Catholic Church’, in Lithuanian) p 13 https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267685000/268145021/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=13, accessed 17 February 2026.

Palubinskas, Minvydas (2006) ‘In Memoriam, A†A Jonas Zaremba’ (‘In Memoriam, RIP Jonas Zaremba’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 2 August, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/2006/2006-08-02-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 17 February 2026.

Wikipedia, ‘Geeste, Emsland’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geeste,_Emsland, accessed 17 February 2026.

Vladas Navickas (1924-2012): Chartered Accountant in North America, by Rasa Ščevinksienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 17 January 2026 and 10 February 2026.

Vladas Navickas liked the Bonegilla camp even less than Endrius Jankus. In a 2007 issue of Mūsų Pastogė, so nearly 60 years later, he summarised his experience of Australia – and admitted his regret in leaving. Rasa’s translation from the original Lithuanian reads like this.

“I don't remember if I wrote to you that I was once an Australian. I had come on the very first transport from Germany, with General Heintzelman. I remember that we were placed in the Bonegilla camp like exhibits in a zoo, which people from all over Australia would come to see.

“Even the Immigration Minister Calwell himself met us on the ship and came to the camp to congratulate us on coming to Australia to help develop it and protect it from the ‘yellow peril’ from the north. We were his first ‘children’ of his ‘White Australia’ policy.

“How times have changed since then ... Despite the fact that I left it in 1959, one might say out of boredom, I have so many connections with it. I spent the best years of my youth there (about 15), graduated from university in Hobart, acquired the Chartered Accountant profession, which was useful to me until the end of my working career in this country.

“Today, looking at our current political and economic situation, I regret leaving Australia. Of course, 50 years ago I did not think so. For some time after my arrival, we had a rather pleasant and free life, until about 1980-1985.

“After that, our not too smart, but extremely greedy (of wealth and honour) presidents gradually took too much rights and power into their own hands and began to implement their personal long-cherished programs, despite the fact that for the remaining 300 million inhabitants, most of them were even very disastrous, leading many of them even to their graves.

“Although your leader is quite aggressive, he seems to have more sense than our quixotic leaders. It would be interesting to hear what you think about all this (Australia and this country), if you would like to share your views with me.

"Best wishes, Vladas Navickas, USA”

Where in the USA was Vladas?

We do not know from where in the United States Vladas wrote this letter, but know that his ashes were placed behind a plaque in Las Vegas, Nevada, after his 2012 death at the grand age of 88. Earlier, he worked as a chartered accountant in San Francisco, California, and first reached North America through Vancouver, Canada.

Vladas Navickas in 1947, from his Bonegilla card

Source:  Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup

Concord Repatriation Hospital

He was one of the first group of 6 Lithuanians and Latvians sent to work at the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, New South Wales, in April 1948. Before that, he had spent more than two months picking fruit in Victoria, for VR McNab of Ardmona. At some time in 1948, according to Ramunas Tarvydas, he moved to Tasmania. By March 1954, he was back in Victoria, receiving his Australian citizenship.

Vladas' family

He was born in Žagarė, a city in northern Lithuania, close to the border with Latvia, on 18 January 1924. His father was also Vladas, while his mother is named on a document recorded in Germany as “Anna”. This means that it is likely that her name actually was Ona.

They had another son, Vytautas, some 3 years later. He arrived in Australia 5 months after his brother, on the Third Transport, the USAT General WM Black, on 27 April 1948. He also stayed in the Bonegilla camp, working as a camp policeman, according to one of his papers held by the National Archives of Australia.

The parents were in Bavaria after the War, looking for both their sons in October 1945. The younger Vytautas had fled Lithuania with his parents but had become separated from them during an air raid in Memel, then in East Prussia, Germany, but now back in Lithuania and known as Klaipėda. They told an UNRRA team that they understood that Vladas had headed out of Skuodas, another northern Lithuanian city, with the intention of reaching Germany.

Vladas in Germany

The only other information we have about Vladas’ flight to Germany comes for his interview for possible selection to move to Australia on the First Transport. There, the flight is summarised, as it was for so many other interviewees, as “Forcibly evacuated by the Germans”.

At the time he applied for Australia, he was in a Displaced Persons Camp in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in the centre of western Germany.  He is recorded as completing the 4 years of primary school which all young Lithuanians attended, plus 7 years of secondary education. The languages he spoke were the obvious ones: Lithuanian, German, English.

Father Continues to Search for Sons

In 1952, their father was in America but still looking for his sons, according to the advertisement below in Australijos lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian).

Source:  Australijos lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) 11 February 1952

We no nothing about further contact between members of this family. We do know from Vladas’ Aliens Registration Certificate that he had 3 addresses in Hobart before he moved to Melbourne in early 1954, and that his occupation changed from labourer to clerk.

Vladas in Tasmania Applies for Citizenship

In 1953, when Vladas was still in Tasmania, he was studying bookkeeping and auditing, as his passes were published in both the Burnie Advocate and the Launceston Examiner.

He started applying for Australian citizenship in Hobart in 1952, with advertisements in the two main Tasmanian newspapers, the Hobart Mercury and the Launceston Examiner, from 16 October, attached to his application. The application ran into trouble when, at a 9 December 1952 interview, having been told that there were penalties under the Citizenship Act for false information, he admitted that he planned to move to Canada indefinitely.

In a letter dated 20 January 1953, Vladas stated that he would not go to Canada if not granted Australian citizenship. This would not have helped his case, since the double negative also can be read as an intention to depart if he did receive the grant.

On 14 April, Vladas replied to a Departmental letter, missing from the file, to state that he had abandoned his plans to go to Canada. Two letters then were sent to the High Commission but, after no reply in six months, someone telephoned instead.

That produced the Canadian reply that Vladas indeed had sought a visa, after a “close relative” had encouraged him. The fact that he would not get Australian citizenship if he really intended to depart indefinitely for Canada, leaving no ties behind in Australia, had led to the withdrawal of his application.

We have to wonder which relative could be closer than the brother also living near Hobart in Tasmania. Possibly the wife and child who he admitted later to having had in Hobart, and more about them soon.

Vladas leaves Tasmania

Vladas was resident in Yarraville, Melbourne, by March 1954, when he was a recipient of Australian citizenship at the first ceremony to be held by the Mayor of Williamstown, an inner western suburb.

In August 1956, an American Lithuanian newspaper, Naujienos (News), reported that Vladas had settled in Vancouver, Canada. The translation continues, “He is an experienced accountant and hopes to find work in his specialty.” This despite the commitment not to leave, in order to receive Australian citizenship.

As it happens, he did not qualify fully for an accountancy career until 1959, when he received a Bachelor of Commerce (BComm) degree from the University of Tasmania. We know this from a list of Graduates of that University with Lithuanian Names, which appeared in the 1997 issue of Lithuanian Papers. This was an annual journal published by people associated with the University of Tasmania.

Also, he wrote in 2007 above that he did not leave Australia until 1959. Perhaps the Naujienos reporter thought that he was settling down immediately instead of checking out North America. Perhaps that is what he told the reporter.

At the same time, Vladas contradicted himself by writing that he stayed in Australia “about 15” years, since his February 1959 arrival in the United States, as stated on his petition for US citizenship, means a little over 11 years of residence here.

Vladas Settles in San Francisco

In fact, he left Australia again, early in 1959, from Sydney on the Oronsay, arriving in San Francisco on 7 February 1959. This information comes from his petition for US naturalisation. In the 1964 petition, he was claiming that he had not left the US since arrival. He must have graduated in absentia from his Tasmanian BComm course.

No, he did not leave Australia for Canada but, yes, he did leave Australia permanently as an Australian citizen with no intention of returning.

When he received his US citizenship on 30 March 1964, he had been an Australian citizen for only 10 years.  At least Australian citizenship helped him move on from Australia freely, or so he must have thought.

From advertisements published in the Lietuviai Amerikos vakaruose (Lithuanians in Western America) newspaper between 1966 and 1977, we can see that he continued to offer his services as a chartered accountant from 2838 Clement Street, San Francisco. This was in a mostly residential neighbour with a scattering of businesses, to judge from the modern Google Street View images.

One of Vladas' advertisements, offering professional advice on income tax

Source:  Lietuviai Amerikos vakaruose (Lithuanians in Western America) March 1977

Vladas' marriages

During this time, on 20 October 1975, Vladas married Setsuko Kato in Monterey, a city south of San Francisco. He was 51 years old, while she was 27.

This marriage lasted until Vladas‘ death and Setsuko is buried with him. Ancestry records suggested the possibility of an earlier marriage, since they note a divorce beween a Vladas Navickas, born in 1924, and Dietlind I Klopschinsk in San Francisco in 1973. However, various records on the Web indicate that Vladas Navickas had a lot of namefellows, not just his father, including another Vladas Navickas born later in 1924. Further, the only other record for Dietlind Klopschinsk (or perhaps, Klopschinski*) on the Web appears to be a later marriage, so it is not possible to check further the birthdate of her former husband.

And definitely there was an early marriage and divorce in Australia, declared on Vladas’ 1964 petition for naturalisation in San Francisco. He advised that he had married Ona Taparauskas in Hobart on 13 February 1950. They now were divorced and she had remained in Australia. His Australian citizenship application shows that the marriage had produced one child, who stayed with the mother.

Vladas and Setsuko Move Around

In retirement, Vladas, with Setsuko, appears to have returned to the peripatetic lifestyle of his early adulthood. The Tampa Bay Times in Florida records the sale of a home by Vladas and Setsuko in that area in December 1997. Between July 2008 and April 2012, they owned a property in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Amazon.com‘s transcription of the US Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volumes 1 and 2, also have Setsuko Navickas (far less likely to have namefellows than her husband) living in Grand Canyon, Arizona, St Petersburg, Florida (across Tampa Bay from the city of Tampa) and Gresham, Oregon (more than 4 hours’ drive away from the other Oregon address of Grants Pass).

They moved to Henderson, Nevada, a city adjacent to the southeast of Las Vegas. Vladas died there on 4 July 2012.

Ancestry’s transcription of the US Index to Public Records, 1994-2019, has Setsuko living at the Henderson address between 1998 and 2020. There were two more addresses in Las Vegas for 1997 and 1998, presumably until the couple found the home they wanted to buy in 1998.

The St Petersburg FL address was good for 1991-2004, according to the US Index to Public Records, 1994-2019. The 2004 end date does conflict with the 1997 sale and the dates given for Setsuko’s addresses in other records.

If they were living in Henderson NV between 1998 and 2012 (longer for Setsuko), then either the Grants Pass OR property owned at the same time was an investment property, or perhaps they commuted between the two (summer in Oregon, winter in the warmer Nevada sun).

Vladas' Death

Vladas died on an important date for Americans, 4 July, in 2012. We do not know Setsuko’s date of death because it is too recent for public records and because her birthdate only is visible in the photograph below of the plaque in Palm Memorial Park, Las Vegas, behind which their ashes presumably rest.

Plaque for Vladas and Setsuko, in Palm Memorial Park, Las Vegas

Source:  Find A Grave

Vladas' Brother, Vytautas

Even before his older brother became an Australian citizen – for 10 years only – Vytautas was advertising his intention to apply. First his advertisement appeared in the Hobart Mercury of 22 October 1952, a little too early as he admitted that he had been in Australia for only 4½ years. This was followed by the required second advertisement in the Launceston Examiner of 27 May 1954. He was living in Hobart area then too, at Myrtle Gully, Cascades.

Vytautas Navickas from an Alien Registration record

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Unlike his brother, he stayed in Hobart, known as Jack, and died there on 20 February 2015. At this time, he had been married to Mary for 61 years, meaning that he must have married back in 1953-54, and had become the father of Heather, Wayne and Gary. They had given him 7 grandchildren.

Of the two brothers, it was the younger Vytautas who stayed to contribute to Australia.

FOOTNOTE

* In fact, Dietlinde Irmhild Klopschinski, born 1935, according to another Ancestry user, Maren Martini, whom I thank for the detail.

SOURCES

Advocate (1953) ‘Accountancy Exams’ Burnie, Tas, 15 December, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/69502506, accessed 9 January 2026.

Ancestry ‘Setsuko Navickas, in the US Index to Public Records, 1994-2019’ https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/62209/records/50328171?tid=&pid=&queryId=5459a9cd-9db0-4c89-a2ac-45479e67ce04&_phsrc=lkA33&_phstart=successSource, accessed 10 January 2026.

Ancestry ‘Setsuko Navickas, in the US Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1’ https://www.ancestry.com.au/search/collections/1788/records/25509683, accessed 11 January 2026.

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Jonas Motiejūnas (1921–2004): The Lithuanian Leader Who Left, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

The Photographs

Two photographs of two Lithuanians with Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, are used frequently to illustrate early post–World War II migration to Australia. Arthur Calwell is clearly identifiable on the right, we are told that the woman is Konstancia Brundzaitė, but who is the man with her?

This presentation captured by a photographer clearly is an important moment, but what is that moment? A memoir written by a fellow Lithuanian migrant, Kazys Mieldazys, tells us (in Lithuanian), that the Kanimbla ship carrying the First Transport refugees from Fremantle in Western Australia to Port Melbourne in Victoria “reached Melbourne on 7 December. 

"There we were greeted by the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, together with other government representatives. The leaders of the Lithuanian group, Jonas Motiejunas and Konstancija Brundzaite, handed the Minister a gift – a picture book of Lithuanian views and a sash. Later this gift was deposited by Mr Calwell in the Australian Cultural Museum (sic) in Canberra …”.

From left to right, Jonas Motiejūnas, Konstancija Brundzaitė, Arthur Calwell, unknown Australian onlookers, when Calwell received the gift of a sash and book from the Lithuanians
Source:  Australian Maritime Museum digitising of print donated by Konstancija Brundzaitė Jurskis 

This presentation occurred later, apparently, when the 
two Lithuanian leaders met Calwell again, as Jonas is in national costume this time:
judging from the background, it may have been at the 1951
travelling exhibition of New Australians' Arts and Crafts

Source:  SLIC

How did Jonas become a leader of the Lithuanian group, along with Konstancija? Kazys has written further, “We first organised ourselves at the Diepholz camp in Germany. A week before the ship’s departure a Lithuanian representative committee was established. It comprised Jonas Motiejunas, president, Povilas Baltutis, vice president, Napoleonas Butkunas, interpreter …”

Kazys added, “On All Souls Day, we honoured the dead and all those who had perished for Lithuanian freedom. J. Motiejunas was the keynote speaker. After that a prayer was recited for our homeland and a few hymns were sung …”

Young Jonas

Who was this leader among 417 Lithuanian men? He was born on 5 July 1921, in Janenai village, Sventezeris district, Seinai county, so he was 26 years old when selected. He had graduated from Lazdijai high school and completed his military service with graduation from the officer training school, in the last program before the school closed, ironically because of the War.

In 1941–1944, he studied electrical engineering in the Faculty of Technology at Vytautas the Great University, in Kaunas. He completed his studies after leaving Lithuania, in Germany’s Technical University of Braunschweig, receiving an electrical engineering degree.

He was an active athlete and exhibiting artist during his student days. He participated in the June 1941 uprising against the Soviet occupiers of his country, shortly before the Germans turn as occupiers. He was active in community organisations during this time.

Work and Marriage

After nearly two months in the Bonegilla camp, Jonas was among 28 men sent to pick fruit on the Dundas Simson Pty Ltd property at Ardmona, Victoria, on 28 January 1948. He returned to Bonegilla on 10 April. On 22 April, he was sent to work in the Australian Carbide Company’s factory at Electrona, 40 km south from Hobart, capital of Tasmania.

During his 10 days back in the Bonegilla camp in April, Jonas had met Ona Prižgintaitė by Lake Hume. She was one of the Lithuanian women on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart, which had reached Fremantle on 12 February 1948.

Their casual acquaintance quickly grew into love and respect for each other. They married on 11 July 1948 in the Catholic Church in the town of Snug, near Electrona.  Jonas later told Ramunas Tarvydas, author of the 1997 book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, that the couple were surprised and delighted by the number of locals who attended to wish them well. 

Ona and Jonas Motiejūnas on their wedding day
Source:  Mikuliciene, Irena (2023) 
Lietuviai perkeltųjų asmenų (DP) stovyklose 1945–1951 m.

Meanwhile, Jonas was engaged in hard work, unloading large limestone rocks, smashing them with sledgehammers and loading them onto wagons.  He and his fellow workers shovelled coal onto the limestone, added both to furnaces, poured the resultant molten material into shallow basins to cool, then smashed the cold product and loaded it into barrels for export.  

The main product of the Electrona factory in 1948 was calcium carbide, a solid which reacts with water to produce acetylene gas. Using acetylene for lighting was common still in mid–20th century Australia. Another major use of acetylene is in welding.

As you can imagine from this summary, the work was dangerous also, as Jonas described to Ramunas Tarvydas, quoted in the next entry on the carbide factory.

Jonas was able to get a transfer to Hobart after talking with a CES official.  There he was employed more suitably as an electrical draftsman with EZ Risdon.  In his spare time, he drew house plans for other Lithuanians in Hobart. 

Accommodation

Jonas also told Ramunas that, "Electrona is a very lovely area.  We lived in houses especially built by the company.  One of the three bedrooms in the house was for us, the married couple, the other two were for four single men.  There was also a dining room, a kitchen and a bathroom.

"Our meals were excellent, first cooked by Mrs Stasytis, then by my wife, who also looked after the Lithuanians' house."

(Mr and Mrs Stasytis were Adomas and Veronika, who had arrived in February 1948 on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart.  They had been sent together to Electrona on 28 April 1948, that is, 6 days after the 8 from the First Transport.  Apart from the cooking, doubtless expected by the men, Veronika Stasytienė was destined for "factory w", whatever that meant in this dangerous environment.)

Jonas’ New Family

Ona Prižgintaitė had graduated from midwifery school and studied history at Vytautas the Great University for two years. After reaching Germany, she studied history and art at the University of Heidelberg before leaving for Australia in January 1948.

Jonas and Ona had four daughters:

• Ramunė (born 1949) – studied art in Paris, and worked as a formal wear specialist at Bloomingdale's, Beverly Hills, California.
• Eglė (born 1950) – worked as an administrator at Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia.
• Ruta (born 1952) – lived in Portland, Oregon, raising two sons.
• Birutė (born 1958) – lived in Prescott, Arizona, working as a landscape designer until she had a son and daughter; sadly, she died in 2020 from breast cancer, aged only 61.

Ona and Jonas with their three oldest daughters:
(left to right) Ramunė, Eglė and Ruta
Source:  Source:  Mikuliciene, Irena (2023) ,
Lietuviai perkeltųjų asmenų (DP) stovyklose 1945–1951 m.

The Family Moves

In 1954, the family moved from Tasmania to Melbourne, where Jonas got a job as an engineer on the railway. Later, he worked at the Ford Motor Company, which used to assemble cars in the Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows, and southwest of Melbourne in Geelong.

On 21 April 1959, the family left Australia for Los Angeles in the United States. There Jonas worked as an engineer for various companies. His last job was at Hughes Aircraft company, where he worked 29 years until he retired in 1988. Meanwhile, Ona took care of the family.

Retirement in America

After Jonas retired, he and Ona moved to Prescott, Arizona, in order to be closer to Birute and her family. Ramune also was living in Prescott in 2020.

Jonas and Ona Motiejunas established two charitable funds in USA. Jonas said that he could only pursue his education with the help of scholarships, so he wanted to compensate for a small part of assistance he had received. The Jonas and Ona Motiejunas Scholarship Fund was started in 1990 with the Lithuanian Foundation with $10,000. The Lithuanian Foundation is a not–for–profit organisation in Lemont, Illinois, started in 1962, which still offers scholarships.

Jonas and Ona started their second fund in 1995 in order to help Lithuanian orphans with the interest earned. Their first $10,000, in the name of the Ona and Jonas Motiejūnas, was donated to Lithuanian Orphanage Committee in July 1995. The second cheque for $10,000 was written in October 1997, the third in February 1999 and a fourth in 2000. In October 1998, a cheque for $100 was acknowledged in the Draugas (Friend) newspaper. The $40,100 and possibly more of capital was admired as a beautiful sacrifice.

Jonas and Ona Motiejūnas were active Lithuanians, always participating in Lithuanian community activities. The family was seen as an exemplary, future–oriented family, harmoniously operating for the maintenance of Lithuania abroad and aid to Lithuania, and supporting that activity financially.

The family on the occasion of Ona and Jonas' 50th wedding anniversary
(left to right) Eglė, Ramunė, Ona, Jonas, Ruta and Birutė at front left

Source:  Draugas, 31 October 1998

Jonas Motiejunas died on 28 February 2004, at the age of 83, in Prescott, Arizona, having been married to Ona for 55 years. At his request, his ashes were buried in his home village of Janenai. Ona Motiejuniene died more than 7 years later, at home on 22 September 2011 at the age of 90.

Of the two Lithuanians in the 1947 photos with the Minister for Immigration, Konstancija has been the easier to identify because she remained in Australia. She donated her prints of the photos to the Australian National Maritime Museum, where the donations are recorded in her maiden name as well as her married name of Jurskis.

We don’t know why the Motiejunas family left Australia in 1959. The common reason among other cases of departure … was other family members settled successfully in the United States. Vytautas Stasiukynas, the vet who left for Colombia, is the only case so far of someone leaving Australia because of better employment opportunities elsewhere.

Perhaps either or both of Jonas and Ona had relatives in Los Angeles. Their departure was Australia’s loss.

CITE THIS AS: Ščevinskiene, Rasa and Tündern–Smith (2025) ‘Jonas Motiejūnas, the Lithuanian Leader Who Left’

Sources

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