An early death
Some words, even though fifty-five years have passed, are still relevant. Writing about the death of Karolis Varkūnas, V Milčius said something that will never get old and will always be to the point.
Karolis Varkūnas was 58 years old when he died on 26 January 1971. A group of Hobart Lithuanians buried him on 29 January in Malbina General Cemetery, New Norfolk, Tasmania.
Karolis had arrived in Australia on the First Transport in 1947. He had no relatives in Australia and he was single.
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| Karolis Varkunas' ID photograph on his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
Milčius wrote of Karolis Varkūnas that quite a few single people have a “philosophy of pessimism”, hammered into their heads. Why work when you have no-one to whom to leave your property?
Leaving behind an estate?
However, single people do not have to live in blind darkness when there is somewhere to leave their estate. Lithuanian national institutions are asking for legacies for the existence of the nation. Anyone can create a legacy, immortalise their name, remain alive while Lithuanian history exists.
Those who believe in leaving their earnings only in bars have shortened, unhealthy lives, become a burden to themselves and others. Their life history is left empty, maybe without even a mark in a cemetery, without memories among the living.
Bricklaying
Varkūnas was a bricklayer by profession, he said, but without a permanent job. For the last couple of years of his life, he had avoided any work, so he left no property, only what he carried on his body. He had lived under the care of the charitable Mrs. Teresa Kairienė.
The Commonwealth Employment Office terminated his unemployment benefit and sent him to a power plant construction site. There he collapsed and died after only one day of work.
Lithuanian life
He had been born near Ukmergė, a city 78 Km northwest of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, on 5 December 1912. His parents were Karolis and Veronika Varkūnas. Veronika had been born in Warsaw, Poland, around 1887, but well have been of Lithuanian ethnicity given that both Poland and Lithuania were part of the one empire at the time, that of the Russian Tsar.
Karolis completed his elementary schooling, served in the Lithuanian army from 1933 to 1935, then worked as a bricklayer — or was he a stone mason? — before leaving for Germany.
The start of his life was no different from other young people. His chosen trade was good, so it shouldn't have been difficult to get a job.
His life experiences, however, his separation from his homeland, family, and lack of friends led Karolis, as well as other emigrants, to despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.
From Lithunia to Germany
Karolis is another of the 31 whose selection papers have been misplaced. However, it turns out that the misplacement was onto the file about his application to become an Australian citizen (NAA: A446, 1955/52715), so we can see still what he told the selection team in Germany in 1947. Here, he was recorded as a stone mason, although bricklayer is mentioned as well, with 12 years’ experience in this trade in Lithuania. He also had worked for one year in farming in Germany.
The Arolsen Archives so far has not found and digitised any papers for Karolis in Germany, so it is not possible to find more detail on his life there.
On a Statutory Declaration given in relation to his application for citizenship, Karolis stated that he had left Lithuania for Germany in November 1943. This would mean that he was in Nazi Germany for 18 months before its defeat. The Australian selection team’s report has the usual “forcibly evacuated by Germans” explanation.
Selection for Australia
The team had been tasked to look in particular for men who could help with building construction, so masonry would have fitted the bill. The team also was looking for people with agricultural experience, to feed the returning service people and the families they now were forming. Karolis was 34 at the time though, which may no longer have been considered young in 1947. Nonetheless, he was given an A recommendation, which was more than the A- given to some others recruited for the First Transport.
Work in Australia
Despite that highly desirable construction experience, he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit as their first job in Australia. His employer was Messrs Dundas Simson of Ardmona. He undertook that work for nearly two months, returning to Bonegilla on 22 March 1948. His card says that his destination one week later was Tasmania.
An Application for Release from Period of Exemption, his request for permission to stay in Australia after the initial contract period finished, has survived on a Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch, file.
On it, we can see that the next job for this skilled bricklayer was picking more fruit, for DK Calvert for another 3 months. He finally got to lay bricks again from 20 September 1948, first for the Australian Newsprint Mills company (presumably at Maydena) for one month, and then with a private employer, S Haunstrap.
When he completed the Application, he was living at New Norfolk, where presumably he was living also when he died. New Norfolk is some 36 kilometres from the centre of Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart, by a winding road which follows the River Derwent.
Another document records that he stayed in New Norfolk until December 1949, when he moved to across Bass Strait to Melbourne. He returned to Hobart in June 1955.
In August 1954, in Melbourne, he applied for a new Alien Registration Certificate as the old one had become worn, perhaps because Karolis kept it with him wherever he was. At that time he said he was self-employed as a bricklayer.
Life in Australia
In May 1955, Karolis was one of the more generous donors to an appeal for Lithuanians still in Germany, giving £1/10/-.
His Australian citizenship was granted 9 April 1956.
After that, Karolis lived such a quiet life that he does not appear in either the English or Lithuanian-language press, nor on official files, until his death.
Fifty-five years later, it is possible to ask whether the “philosophy of pessimism” and the lack of a desire to work were, in fact, deep and untreated depression: a medical condition rather than a deliberate choice?
His depression perhaps was not have been recognised as a medical condition by those around him but it does fit V Milcius’ description of “despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.”
The collapse at work after two years of unemployment may well have been due to another undiagnosed condition, such as heart disease. The heart disease and other illnesses may have been intertwined with the possible depression.
Such illnesses have nothing to do with the issue of not having family to whom to leave one’s property. Milcius’ point about leaving it to a Lithuanian institution is well made, regardless, and applies equally to charities also, both in Lithuania and Australia.
SOURCES
Milčius, V (1971) ‘Hobartas, Palaidojom A A Karolį‘ (‘Hobart, We buried the late Karolis’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, Vic, 9 February, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr05-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 7 March 2026.
Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Karolis VARKUNAS’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203724312, accessed 7 March 2026
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations [Main correspondence files series of the agency], 1926-2001; 1955/52715, Application for Naturalisation - VARKUNAS Karolis born 5 December 1912, 1947-1956 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8821097, accessed 7 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1949-1966; VARKUNAS K, VARKUNAS Karolis [Lithuanian], 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1914257, accessed 7 March 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; VARKUNAS KAROLIS, VARKUNAS, Karolis : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 718, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203724312, accessed 7 March 2026.
Find A Grave ‘Karlos Varkunas, Malbina General Cemetery, Derwent Valley Council, Tasmania’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215236428/karlos-varkunas, accessed 7 March 2026.
Wikipedia, Ukmergė https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukmerg%C4%97, accessed 7 March 2026.
