Antanas Staugaitis (1927-2003): Lithuanian DP Taxi Driver by Daina Pocius with Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Like the ill-fated Ksaveras Antanaitis, Antanas Staugaitis was one of the Lithuanian Displaced Persons or DPs selected in Germany to travel to Australia on the first voyage after World War II, on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. Like Ksaveras, he then was chosen to be in the first group of men sent by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to work outside the Bonegilla camp.

Their destination was Bedford Park, South Australia, where they lived in a tent city while building a 20-kilometre pipeline from Happy Valley Reservoir, to their south, into Adelaide to their north. Their employer was the South Australian Government’s Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) Department. Antanas later worked for the E&WS at Port Lincoln also.

Antanas Staugaitis, ID photo 
from his migration application

Source:  NAA

Everyone on the First Transport had been told in Bonegilla that the Australian Government had changed their agreement to work, where required, for one year to a two-year agreement. Maybe E&WS hadn’t got that message, because the Adelaide Mail of 29 January 1949 reported that the DPs or Balts, as they were known also, were being permitted to transfer to other employers. If that was with the assistance of the CES to another task where there was a shortage of workers, however, it was all above board.

We know from his application for Australian citizenship that Antanas left 6 weeks after the Mail report to work with the South Australian Railways. This was initially with other Balts and Aussies at Peterborough for 6 months, then in Adelaide.

From an alien registration index card held by the National Archives in Adelaide, we find that Antanas was released officially from his “two years” contract with the Australian Government on 3 October 1949. That’s about two months short, if the contract is regarded as terminating on the anniversary of arrival in Australia, 28 November 1949.

The Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, announced the early release in Canberra on 5 September 1949, according to Australian newspapers of the following date. The contracts were supposed to end on 30 September, not 3 October. The early release was due to “the outstanding contribution they have made to Australia’s labour starved economy”.

Antanas completed an Adelaide mechanic’s course in 1953. He continued to work on the railways until 1956, rising to the rank of fireman. Then he purchased a taxi license and worked as a taxi driver until retirement in 1992.

He renounced any previous allegiances and became an Australian citizen on 12 October 1956. His address at the time was on South Terrace, the edge of Adelaide’s Central Business District. Those who certified in November 1955 for his citizenship application that he was of ‘good repute’ were Railways trainers and a station master equivalent.

He loved nature and would travel to the outback, to the Northern Territory with his good friends. He was known as a smart man with a conscience. For instance, in January 1950, the infant Mūsų Pastogė Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, about to celebrate its first birthday, reported that he had donated two shillings to support it. (The Reserve Bank’s pre-decimal currency inflation calculator advises that this is now the equivalent of a bit more than $6.)

Antanas was born 27 August 1927, in Šliziai, Šakiai region, into a farming family. The Germans took him from his family and friends to work in Germany, in 1942 when he was still only 14 years old. They sentenced him to two years hard labour, claiming that they had found him carrying arms. At least the hard labour was in agriculture, so probably he got fed enough to continue working.

After the war he was in a DP camp in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, and later in the nearby Gross Hessepe municipality, where he attended the technical school to study the motor mechanic’s trade. He did not get to finish this course as his selection to resettle in Australia on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, intervened.

He did not marry and had no family in Australia. He died at his home in Mile End, also inner Adelaide, on 20 March 2003, aged 75.

SOURCES

Encyclopaedia of Australian Science and Innovation, ‘Corporate Body South Australian Engineering and Water Supply Department’ https://www.eoas.info/biogs/A001434b.htm accessed 23 May 2024.

Hammerton, Marianne (1986) Water South Australia: a History of the Engineering and Water Supply Department (Netley, SA: Wakefield Press) 331 pp.

Mail (1949) 'Balts Leave Govt. Jobs' (Adelaide, SA) 29 January,  p 29 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55924132 accessed 23 May 2024.

Mercury (1949) 'Migrants' Contract Time Cut', (Hobart, Tas) 6 September, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26661508 accessed 24 May 2024.

Morning Bulletin (1949) 'Contract Terms of Migrants Cut', (Rockhampton, Qld), 6 September, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56918854 accessed 24 May 2024.

Mūsų Pastogė (1950) ‘Mūsų Pastogės Rėmėjai’ 25 January, p 4, in https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1950/1950-01-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 23 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1956/45135, Application for Naturalisation - STAUGAITIS Antanas born 27 August 1927, 1955-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8374445 accessed 24 May 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; 292, STAUGAITIS Antanas DOB 27 August 1927, 1947-1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118002 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-1971; STAUGAITIS Antanas born 1927 Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 Nov 1947, 1947-1956; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30038183 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; STAUGAITIS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived: Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9222371 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; STAUGAITIS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 688, 1947-48, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203905745 accessed 24 May 2024.

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

Places in Germany, City Oldenburg in Oldenburg, https://www.places-in-germany.com/22143-city-oldenburg-in-oldenburg.html accessed 23 May 2024.

Places in Germany, Municipality Groß Hesepe https://www.places-in-germany.com/111536-municipality-gross-hesepe.html accessed 23 May 2024 accessed 23 May 2024.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 23 May 2024.

Ksaveras Antanaitis (1911-1948), An Earlier Work-related Death, by Rasa Ščevinskienė

Even before Miervaldis Indriksons was killed by a workplace accident in South Australia (see previous entry) another First Transport man had died there when being driven home from his work.

Ksaveras Antanaitis was born in 4 February 1911, in the village of Dabitai, in the Sakiai district of Lithuania. Like many Lithuanians, he left his homeland during the Second World War.  Ksaveras is the equivalent of Xavier in English or Spanish.

From an Arolsen Archives document, we know that Ksaveras lived in Rotenburg in the British zone of Occupied Germany. He was married in Lithuania but his wife stayed there.

He left Bremerhaven for Australia with 842 other Baltic refugees on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman on 30 October 1947 and 28 November he arrived to Australia.

Ksaveras Antanaitis' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup

Ksaveras Antanaitis’ first job in Australia was with Engineering & Water Supply, Adelaide, SA. He was one of a group of 65 who left the Bonegilla camp on 7 January 1948 for Adelaide. The average age of the men was 24 and the wage they were offered was £5.12.6 per week. This was the first group of men sent by the Commonwealth Employment Service to work outside the camp.

A 2006 brochure, "SA water – celebrating 150 years", recorded their arrival as the major event of 1948. ‘An influx of migrant labour (particularly from Baltic states) brings a partial solution to chronic labour shortages’, it said.

‘“At last — freedom!” That was the first reaction of 65 Balts when they reached their new home in Bedford Park, Adelaide, yesterday’, the Mail newspaper wrote on 10 January 1948. Their first job was to be a new water main from the Happy Valley Reservoir into Adelaide, about 20 Km north.

The Mail of 14 February wrote, ‘Sixty-five eager young Baltic migrants camped in a paddock at Bedford Park are waiting for responsible authorities to teach them’.

The Mail of 21 February reported that, ‘While nothing was done officially this week to help the Balts, private citizens called on the strangers in their Bedford Park camp, invited them to their homes, offered to help teach them English’.

Ksaveras Antanaitis had started a new life in Australia, but an accident happened. In the Advertiser newspaper of 30 June 1948, we can read the sad notice: “A Balt labourer, K. S. Antanaitis, employed at the Engineering and Water Supply Department's Camp at Bedford Park, was fatally injured when he fell from a truck on Marion Road, Marion, yesterday afternoon. He was taken to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in a civil ambulance and was dead on arrival.”

The report to the City Coroner by a police sergeant adds the detail that the rear wheel of the truck had passed over Ksaveras after he fell. The accident happened at about 4.40 pm so, quite likely, he was travelling back to the Bedford Park camp after a day’s tiring work.  It's like that there were other passengers so, all involved, down to the police and ambulance men, would have had another trauma added to their Second World War experiences.

There was an obituary in the Lithuanian-language newspaper Mintis, published in the US Zone of Occupied Germany on 2 August 1948. Translated, it reads, “In Adelaide (Australia) on June 29, Ksaveras Antanaitis, who came from the Rotenberg camp on the First Transport and was from Sakiai district, was killed in an accident in the workplace. He was buried on 1 July in Adelaide Cemetery with all the Balts in Adelaide and a large number of Australians. 

"The belongings left by the deceased were taken by the police for protection. Relatives are asked to contact the Australian Lithuanian Society, 5 Hampden Street, Hurlstone Park, Sidney (sic), NSW, Australia, for inheritance and compensation matters, which is informed about the event and will be able to help with the inheritance issue.”

Ksaveras Antanaitis was buried in West Terrace Cemetery, Adelaide. His exact burial place in cemetery is Road 3, Path 21, Aspect W, Site Number 22.

Sources:

Adelaide Cemeteries, Record Search https://aca.sa.gov.au/aca-records/accessed 24 April 2024.

Advertiser (1948) ‘Balt Killed In Fall From Truck’ Adelaide, SA, 30 June https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/43772724 accessed 22 April 2024.

Ancestry ‘Ksaveras Antanaitis in the South Australia, Australia, Supreme Court Criminal Records, 1837-1918; Reports to the Police Coroner, 1842-1961’ https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62316/images/62316_b1111323-00096?treeid=&personid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=oIs490&_phstart=successSource&pId=16360 accessed 23 April 2024. [May require free Ancestry guest account to access.]

Arolsen Archives, Doc ID: 2735688 https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/66434156?s=ksaveras%20antanaitis&t=2735688&p=0 accessed 22 April 2024.

Australian Cemeteries Index  https://austcemindex.com/?family_name=Antanaitis accessed 24 April 2024.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, 'Ksaveras Antanaitis', https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203674046 accessed 24 April 2024.

Government of South Australia, SA Water (2006) 'SA water – celebrating 150 years' https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/34412631/150-years-commemorative-book-sa-water accessed 22 April 2024.

Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, 'USAT General Stuart Heintzelman', https://immigrantships.net/v10/1900v10/generalstuartheintzelman19471128_01.html accessed 29 April 2024.

Mail (1948) ‘Balts feel free after prison camp horrors’ Adelaide, SA, 10 January https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55903813 accessed 22 April 2024.

Mail (1948) ‘English Classes For Balts Arranged’ Adelaide, SA, 21 February, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55905295 accessed 22 April 2024.

Mail (1948) (1948) ‘No English Lessons For Eager Young Balts’ Adelaide, SA, 14 February https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55909057 accessed 22 April 2024.

Mintis [The Thought] (1948) ‘Tragiskai zuvo K. Antanaitis [K. Antanaitis died tragically, in Lithuanian]’, Memmingen, US Zone Germany, 2 August, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/dp/dpspaudinys_mintis_memmingen_vasaitis/archive/1948-08-02-MINTIS-MEMMINGEN-VASAITIS.pdf accessed 22 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules (1947-1950); Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31] [page 106] (1948-1950) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 24 April 2024.

Povilas Deimantas (1917-2009): A Peterborough Balt, by John Mannion

Born in Lithuania, Povilas Deimantas was already 30 years old when he boarded the General Stuart Heintzelman for the longest trip of his lifetime, from Germany to Australia. 

Povilas (Paul) Deimantas in 1947,
ID photo from his Bonegilla card
Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was a subject of the newspaper reports I told you about in my first blog entry.

He recalls that after several weeks at the Bangham camp, 18 were selected to transfer in the South Australian Railways (SAR) system to Peterborough, midway between Adelaide and Broken Hill. He had no bloody idea where Peterborough was! 

Those selected had a good grasp of the English language and were largely self-motivated with the prospect of becoming engine drivers in 'loco' or as station staff in 'traffic'. Paul explained to me that these were the fortunate ones and that he planned to become ‘a big man’ in the railways! 

Back to the Balts: when Deimantas disembarked from the Heintzelman at Fremantle in November 1947, his first impression of Australia was one of disappointment — it was so ugly! The first things he noticed were the dry yellow grass and the dead trees — nothing like Lithuania (which was green and densely forested) — the public drinking and the Italian migrants. 

He didn't find Bonegilla in north-east Victoria much better — he disliked the intense summer heat as well as peeling potatoes, which he had to do in the camp for two weeks. 

At Bangham on the Wolseley to Mount Gambier railway line, the 62 workers slept in tents and water was in short supply.  At Peterborough, the men first lived in tents and later Nissen huts and other 'prefab' buildings which were relocated from Loveday Internment [WWII] Camp in the Riverland. 

Then a migrant hostel was built on Telford Avenue adjacent the railway workshops and ‘loco’.  Initially designed to house only single men, in the 1950s with the influx of German and Polish migrants, families were admitted.  Up to 200 people at as time lived at there.  The hostel operated on and off  from 1948 until 1972. 

Peterborough migrant hostel in 1952, in its quiet location next to the railway yards;
the still-standing Nissen hut is on the left of the buildings

Source:  John Mannion collection

In 1975 the hostel was demolished and removed by tender. Very little is known of who bought it and where the buildings went. Now the only remaining building left on the site is a Nissen hut that served as a recreation room. 

Despite only staying at Peterborough for four years, Povilas and his colleagues are still remembered by many in Peterborough for their manners, behaviour and appearance, particularly by the young girls of the 1950s. By now, Povilas would have been using the English form of his name, Paul. 

Paul Deimantas (centre) and friends
at the Peterborough Town Hall about 1949

Source:  John Mannion Collection

Although there was general acceptance, life was often difficult for these and other new Australians at Peterborough or other locations within the Peterborough Division of the SAR. At times they had to put up with some racial discrimination, the most common being called a 'Bloody Balt' or told to 'Speak English you bastard'. 

However, it is surprising that despite the influx of over 300 European migrants into a country town where Australians had heard virtually no foreign languages on their streets, there was little prejudice. This is attributed to the fact that Peterborough was a working class town with a very transient population. 

There was some fear of these 'strangers’ however, particularly among the youngsters. A 15-year-old girl who moved from Marree to Peterborough for schooling and lived with her grandparents in 1950 recalls that although she had been exposed to Afghans and Aborigines, she did not know what to make of the 'Balts' with their long pushed-back hair. She would not go near them, convinced they ‘would take me away’. 

Another girl who grew up at Peterborough during the ‘Balt’ era relates how they would not even leave the pegs on the line in case the ‘Balts’ stole them. 

It has been said that friendships were difficult to establish at Peterborough, as ‘you didn't know where your mate might be next week’. This did not detract from some firm friendships however, with quite a few long-term railway families staying in the town. 

Paul relates a story about the time at Bangham when the ganger phoned the railway storeman at Mt Gambier for a bag of fish-plate bolts to be sent up, only to be told ‘You've already got 60 bloody Balts up there, isn't that enough?’ 

Learning English was not always easy: from whom were they supposed to learn English? Was it the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, the English or Australians? The other difficulty in learning English was that they were often put to work in track maintenance gangs with a number of their own countrymen, thus making it easier to communicate with each other, but not the ganger in charge. 

However, those who wanted to ‘get on' watched, listened, asked questions, carried notebooks and learned. Paul was curious as to what a ‘water bag’ was — he had heard of a water tank and water bottle, but could not picture a ‘bag of water’. 

A canvas water bag from about 1950,
Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society

Source:  Victorian Collections

A young migrant railway worker heads for the Peterborough hostel with
 a) a tucker box at the left and b) a water bag on the right

Source:  Harry Piers/John Mannion collection

The other thing was the dust. Paul felt that it took him five years to get used to the heat, dust and flies. 

After shifting to Mile End in 1952, Paul met and married his Australian-born wife June. He clearly was more than acceptable to at least one Australian now.

Paul died on 13 November 2009, at the respectable age of 92, having been born on 6 October 1917.  June, having been born in Adelaide on 25 November 1931, died on 29 July 2018, also at a respectable age, 86.  They have been buried together in the Dudley Park Cemetery, Adelaide.

SOURCES

Dudley Park Cemetery Search Records, https://search.dudleyparkcemetery.com.au/ accessed 17 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia,National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; DREIMANTAS [sic], Povilas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 911, 1947–1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203662951

Victorian Collections, From the Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society, Bag Canvas Water Circa 1950, https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/507df2be2162ef014495f50f 

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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

Jonas Švitra (1925-1980): The will of the people, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024

A policeman and four State accommodation officials evicted an unemployed family from a hut in the Camp Pell housing area in October 1952.  The family was Jonas Švitra, his Australian wife Mabel, who had four children aged from seven years to four months (Herald, 1952a).

Jonas was born in Lastijei, Lithuania, on 21 August 1925.  After leaving his homeland in 1944, probably under compulsion from the German Army, he eventually lived in the Mattenberg Displaced Persons camp, in Oberzwehren, a suburb of the city of Kassel (Arolsen Archives nd).

'Jonas Mekas Overlooking Kassel/Mattenberg DP Camp in 1948',
a photograph by his brother, Adolfas Mekas.
The photograph was part of an exhibition of current art trends, documenta 14, in 2017,
held every 5 years in the city of Kassel.

Source:  'I had nowhere to go' by Jonas Mekas

Jonas Švitra was 22 when he arrived in Australia on the First Transport ship, General Stuart Heintzelman, in November 1947 (NAA: PP482/1, 82).  He made the perfect migrant, single, healthy, with blue eyes and fair hair.  He was 6 foot tall, or maybe only 5 foot 8 inches, depending on who was noting down the details (1.72 to 1.83 cm) (NAA: A2571, SVITRA JONAS; NAA: A11772, 663; NAA: A12508, 37/571; NAA: B78, LITHUANIAN/SVITRA JONAS).

The records in Australia’s National Archives show that Jonas was selected as a “heavy farmer”.  He had only 4 years of primary education, which was obvious when he tried to fill out one of the German forms now in the Arolsen Archives (1946).  That was no problem when it came to farming, so his first assignment in Australia was to the Commonwealth Government’s Flax Production Committee in Melbourne.

Jonas Švitra's ID photograph,
as used on at least two of his migration documents

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Despite his farming experience, it looks like Jonas was put to work as a labourer in a mill processing flax at Lake Bolac, near Ballarat.  That certainly was where he and his Australian partner were working until a couple of months before their Melbourne eviction hit the news.

Worried by the health of Mabel’s seven-year-old daughter, who has been in a Brighton convalescent home, they moved to Melbourne.  At first, they stayed with Mabel’s relatives while they searched for accommodation.  The shortage of places to live in Melbourne was then so severe that they finished up in an empty hut in the Camp Pell housing area (Herald 1952a).

Camp Pell had started in early 1942 as a US Army transit camp called Camp Royal Park after its location just north of the Melbourne Central Business District.  Its name was changed to Camp Pell after Major Floyd Pell, a member of General Douglas Macarthur’s staff.  He had been the first US Army Air Corps member to come to Australia, checking out the suitability of the Darwin area for B-17 bombers.  He had been killed during a Japanese air raid on Darwin in February 1942 (Dunn 2020).

By 1946, Camp Pell had become home to around 3,000 people experiencing the post-war housing shortage.  Many of these families needed temporary accommodation, having been directly affected by 'slum’ reclamation policies.  It was one of at least 4 similar camps in inner Melbourne but the most notorious, with some newspapers nicknaming it 'Camp Hell' (Commonwealth of Australia 2019).

Jonas and Mabel moved into an empty hut, empty because it was condemned, with two of their children.  Mabel was working with a dressmaking firm but Jonas had been unable to get work for some time.  He was registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service but could not keep in close contact because he had to stay home and mind the baby he had fathered with Mabel.

They moved into the hut on a Friday.  On the following Monday, a police constable arrived with four men from the State Accommodation Office, wanting Jonas to open the door.  Jonas said he would wait until his wife returned.  The door was then broken down and their belongings put out on the ground between the rows of huts.

Mabel said their relatives could not take them back and she did not know where the children would sleep that night.  The State Accommodation officer said they were trespassing.  Mabel said she had asked him earlier for help but he had refused.  The Accommodation official said that he could not remember this (Herald 1952a).

The evicted Svitra family

Source:  The Herald, 13 October 1952

That night they took shelter in another empty hut, staying for two days.  Then the authorised tenant arrived, and caretakers supervised removal of the family’s belongings to the ground between huts again.

The couple made their home next in a communal laundry at the Camp for several nights before friends found a space for them.  Other friends cared for the children (Herald 1952b).

Thanks to the intervention of a Member of the State Parliament, who read about the family in the Melbourne Herald, they were found a home in Ararat.  Their savings were down to £10 only, not enough money to get there.  Then Jonas gratefully accepted 10 shillings which had been sent to the Herald for him by an anonymous sympathiser.  The Herald was the newspaper which had run with the story from its start.

A third reader, a City businessman, paid the fares for the whole family to travel to Ararat.  He then took up a collection in the office building where he had his business, to pay for transporting the family's luggage.  “I just thought I would like to help them”, Mr K Glynn told the Herald.  The newspaper assured its readers that Jonas Svitra would be able to get a job in Ararat, despite his doubts on this score (Herald 1952c).

During this time, the Herald published two letters from readers shocked by the family’s story.   “It’s a scandalous way to treat a family with a sick child”, said Mona B Robinson from Deepdene (Robinson 1952).  “Whatever Government is elected, citizens have a right to demand that it solve the housing problem”, wrote Mrs Dorothy Irwin from Parkville (Irwin 1952).

On 4 November, the Herald printed a “Thank You” statement from Jonas and Mabel.  We want to thank the people of Camp Pell who stood by us in our need; The Herald for its reports about us; Mr Barry, MLA, for finding an emergency hut for us in Ararat: the people who broadcast our story, and the people who read about us, offered to carry our furniture to our new hut, and gave us money to reach our destination.  Our experience has shown us that the unkindness of governments is not the will of the people (Švitra 1952).

Jonas and Mabel probably were the type of people who would have been able to make ends meet easily in a fair society, judging from advertisements in the Dandenong Journal (July 1952).  This presumably was while they were living with Mabel’s relatives.  Jonas was advertising his shoe repair skills while Mabel offered to take orders for hand knitting to any pattern.  Both of them gave their address as care of Mr A Hill of Noble Park, a Melbourne suburb within the Dandenong area.  It also probably was closer to the convalescent daughter than Camp Pell in Royal Park.

Hill was Mabel’s maiden name, as shown on the certification of her marriage to Jonas on 4 October 1955.  Maybe Mr A Hill of Noble Park was a brother.

Their marriage took place after the divorce from her previous husband had come through in August 1953.  It was a civil marriage in the Melbourne city office of the Government Statist.  Their address was 5 Neylan Street, Ararat, so they had moved from their initial McGibbney Street residence.

Of interest is the occupations ascribed to both on the marriage certificate.  Mabel had become a Mental Nurse, while Jonas was described as a Mental Attendant (Victoria, 1955).

Jonas acquired Australian citizenship on 23 September 1957, when he was still at 5 Neylan Street, Ararat (Commonwealth of Australia 1957).

What happened to the family over the next 23 years is not on the public record.  The next available record is a death certificate for Jonas, who died on 31 August 1980, in Drummond Street, Carlton, an inner Melbourne suburb with lots of low-cost housing for students of the nearby Melbourne University.

It is clear that Jonas had become an almost anonymous individual, as his name is the only known detail of his life on the death certificate.  It records no birth details, no period of residence in Australia, no marriage, no children, no parents.  Even the stab at his age, 62 years, was an underestimate by 3 years (Victoria 1980).

What is at least as sad is the manner of his death: “Asphyxia due to aspiration of stomach contents”.  We are no doctors, but Ann has come across this previously in another First Transporter who lived and worked in a hotel and who had spent all of his final Sunday morning drinking.  Various articles on the Web, for instance, Novomeský et al (2018) and Vadysinghe et al (2022), confirm that this is a rare form of death in a previously healthy individual. It is more common in those who have been consuming alcohol or sedatives.  An autopsy found coronary sclerosis also: plaque on the inner walls of the heart arteries.  The coroner ordered the burial of Jonas’ body without an inquest, a legal inquiry into the cause of death (Victoria 1980).

More than 3 weeks later, he was buried in a public grave in the Springvale Botanical Cemetery.  He was back to his temporary 1952 refuge of Dandenong City.

From the age of 15 years onward, Jonas’ life was one of war and turmoil with temporary moments of calm.  May he now rest in eternal peace.

References

Arolsen Archives (nd) 3 Registrations and Files of Displaced Persons, Children and Missing Persons / 3.1 Evidence of Abode and Emigration / 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps / Folder 170:  Kassel-Oberzwehren, DocID 81997634, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/81997634, accessed 27 August 2023. 

Arolsen Archives (1946) 3 Registrations and Files of Displaced Persons, Children and Missing Persons / 3.2 Relief Programs of Various Organizations / 3.2.1 IRO “Care and Maintenance” Program, Personal file of SVITRA, JONAS, born on 21-Aug-1925, born in LIETUVA, DocID 79803711 – 79803712 https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79803711 and https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79803712 accessed 10 September 2023.

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Dunn P (2020) 'Camp Pell, Melbourne, Formerly Camp Royal Park, During WW2' https://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/camppell.htm accessed 10 September 2023.

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The Herald (1952b)  ‘Evicted Family Split-Up: Parents in Laundry' Melbourne, 21 October p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245284573 accessed 10 September 2023.

The Herald (1952c)  ‘Got help for evicted family' Melbourne, 28 October p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245279084 accessed 10 September 2023.

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Choking together with aspiration of gastric contents: rare form of maternal death' Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences 12 Article number 58 https://ejfs.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41935-022-00318-x accessed 10 September 2023.

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