"General Stuart Heintzelman" Passengers Reach Australia: the Official Report with Comments by Ann Tündern-Smith

In my very first blog entry more than 4 years ago now,  I advised that Australia's first refugees from World War II in Europe had reached Australia on 28 November 1947.  Even some of the passengers had forgotten the date and used to contacted me for confirmation.

The report below on the arrival at Fremantle, the passengers' stay at two former Army camps in Perth and their departure from Fremantle on 2 December, after a stay of less than 4 full days (4 nights and 3 days as the tourism industry now has to tell us) comes for a file held by the Western Australian office of the National Archives of Australia (NAA).

The file, series PP482/1 item 82, is called General Heintzelman – Nominal Roll – Arrived Fremantle 28 Nov 1947.  I bought a photocopy of its contents around 20 years ago, before digitising NAA files became a possibility.  Some good person has paid now to have it digitised, so you too can read through the whole file here.

Meanwhile, below is one of the highlights, on pages 88-89 of the digitised version.

s.s."General Stuart Heintzelman".

Fremantle - 28.11.47.

The Commonwealth Migration Officer,*

The Commonwealth Migration Officer is informed that the U.S. Transport "General Stuart Heintzelman" arrived at Fremantle on 23.11.'47 [sic] from Bremerhaven and had on board 843 persons travelling to Australia under the agreement signed between the Commonwealth Government and C.I.R.0.** 

2. On arrival the ship was boarded by the Quarantine Medical Officer and Officers of this Department, and after the Quarantine inspection it was found that two passengers - Mr. Stephanus Markelis and Miss Salma Pochla were considered by the Medical Officer to be suffering from Mental Instability, and one passenger, Mr. Karl Tarik, was suffering from Interstital Keratitis of the left eye. The Medical Officers considered that in these cases the people were unlikely to recover and they were prohibited from landing in Australia. They subsequently returned to Europe in the ship, leaving Australia on 30.11.'47. 

3. Another passenger ... was suffering from V.D. but the Medical Officer stated that in this case the man would respond to treatment in one week. He was subsequently landed into the Fremantle Public Hospital for treatment, detained there until 2.12.'47, and taken on board H.M.S."Kanimbla" on 2.12.'47 and placed in the ship's hospital for further treatment pending his arrival in Victoria. 

4. Immediately the ship was boarded, I was informed that a cable had been received by the Master from Germany relating to Miss Irina Traubers. The message read - “Irina TRAUBERS nominal roll No.829 ineligible on grounds of Security. Must not be allowed to land. Should be brought back on return journey. De Witt Chief of Transportation for Higham." This woman was prohibited from landing and returned to Germany on the ship, leaving Fremantle for Overseas on 30.11.1947. 

5. After the medical inspection, all male passengers who were landing were issued with a red or green ticket to wear in the lapel of their coats to indicate to which camp they had been allocated. The women who were all to be lodged at Grayland were not issued with these tickets. 

6. We also issued them with a typewritten slip of paper on which the men were asked to indicate the size of their shoes and the women, several body measurements. This was done to enable the Department of Supply & Shipping to inform Melbourne of the necessary sizes of clothing to be prepared and issued on the arrival of the Displaced Persons at Bonegilla Camp. A Representative of a clothing factory estimated the size of the men's clothing by watching them debark. 

7. On the completion of the debarkation, officers of the Supply & Shipping Department expressed their appreciation of our co-operation in this matter, and appeared very pleased 

8. The ship, having been granted pratique***, berthed at 0930 hrs. but owing to some trouble being experienced with the gangway (it fell down once and had to be moved once to allow a wharf crane to pass) debarkation did not commence until 1030 hrs. 

9. On debarkation, passengers were directed by our officers through wharf shed doors into the shed where a Customs examination of their hand baggage was carried out, and when completed they embussed for the Camps. This operation was entirely successful and completed at 1230 hrs, the last bus load arriving at the camp in time for lunch at 1300 hrs. 

The Heintzelman passengers finally get to 'debark' 
into a former fruit export shed which still stands 
next to Western Australia's Maritime Museum in Fremantle
Source:  Collections of Irina Vasins Kakis and Galina Vasins Karciauskas

10. On arrival at the camps the people were conducted to their living quarters. 398 persons were accommodated at Graylands Camp and 441 persons at Swanbourne Camp. 

11. During the night the heavy baggage was sorted in the shed by representatives of Gills' Transport Coy, and transported to the respective camps where it was ready for Customs examination at 0900 hrs on 29.11.'47. 

12, The Customs examination was carried out on the day of 29.11.'47 and officers of this Department completed Forms A.42 for all passenger on the same day. Certificates of Identity were left with the passengers to enable identification to be easily established on arrival at Bonegilla and so expedite the work of Alien Registration Officers at that Camp. 

13. On Sunday night, 30.11.'47, all those migrants who wished attended a free picture show at Claremont, and a dance organised by 6 K.Y. Broadcasters, was given on Monday night. 

14, On Monday morning all heavy baggage was loaded and transported to the wharf for loading into "Kanimbla", 

15. The onward movement for embarking in "Kanimbla" commenced at 0900 hrs. on 2.12.'47 and all passengers were checked on board the ship by 1130 hrs, when passenger lists and Forms A42 completed, were handed to Mr. Weale from the Melbourne office who was to travel East in the ship. S.S."Kanimbla" sailed from Fremantle at 1800 hrs. on 2.12.'47 with 839 migrant passengers on board. 

16. The migrants seemed happy and pleased at the reception they had been accorded in the camps, and expressed their appreciation of the efforts that had been made on their behalf***.  

FOOTNOTES

* 'The Commonwealth Migration Officer', to whom this report is addressed, would have been the most senior official in the Perth Office of the Department of Immigration.

** C.I.R.O. stands for 'Commission for the International Refugee Organization', usually called the PCIRO or Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization at this time.  See https://www.un-ilibrary.org/content/books/9789210602198s004-c010 for a brief explanation.

*** Pratique?  Oxford Languages, as it calls itself now, says that the word is 'historical' (indeed!) and means 'permission granted to a ship to have dealings with a port, given after quarantine or on showing a clean bill of health.'

**** Our author does not detail the 'reception they had been accorded in the camps' nor 'efforts made on their behalf'.  Elmar Saarepere remembered, however, that locals had arranged that their first meal, a lunch, be served using starched linen and cutlery from the best hotel in Perth. There was an orange waiting at every place. All were seated at the same time, and waited upon by hotel staff with a white napkin over one arm.

     Someone who witnessed the Heintzelman arriving and who later became a senior Immigration official, Ian Mckenzie, told me that the Western Australia (WA) Government thought that all of the passengers would be staying to work in WA.  This might explain the special arrangements for the first meal.

    I have yet to find any correspondence between the WA Premier of the time, Ross McLarty, and the Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, but we can be sure that it would be interesting reading.

Bonegilla 1947-1948: Two More Weeks, from January 14 to Australia Day by Endrius "Andrew" Jankus

This is the sixth part of the recollections of Endrius Jankus, a Lithuanian refugee who arrived in Australia on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman. Endrius became known as Andrew in Australia. He was born in Draverna in the south of Lithuania on 7 July 1929 and died in Hobart, Tasmania, on 23 July 2014. He sent the full memoir to me in 2012.

14th January 1948 

Apparently, yesterday afternoon a group of our fellows went to Albury and were greeted with the word, Fascists. Obviously from some "Red Ragger” Communist. 

Then they went to a dance and returned at 3 am, drunk and loud-mouthing everyone — until it came to fisticuffs in the bus. The driver stopped the bus and called the police. With that calm was restored and everyone returned home happy. I wasn't there and only recorded what I was told by one of the participants. 

Today three groups of workers left the camp for their assigned places. They have scattered us all over Australia. Why? We have a fair idea why that was done. 

It was a cold day and in the evening was a film shown in the Great Hall. 

15 January 1948 

Today 128 people left the camp for work. My friend Peter and 15 others, who had been found to have various health problems and sent to Heidelberg Hospital for treatment, were all assigned to their workplaces and left the Camp. 

It was my turn for duty in the mess hall. The weather returned to its warmer self. 

Apparently, one of our fellows was photographed having a punch-up in Albury and his picture was plastered over the local paper. But they didn't know that he was a trained boxer. 

In the evening we were shown a film about Canberra and Perth.

16 January 1948 

Twelve more people left the camp today. There weren’t many of us left in the hut and we spent an uneventful day trying to work out a system to keep in touch with one another. 

17 January 1948 

It was Saturday. In the morning I read my book. Then I went to collect my five shillings pocket money. With it I bought two airmail letters and had a haircut. 

We were informed that today there would not be any dances as was usual on a Saturday. The reason given was that one of the girls was supposed to have been raped last Saturday. This was never confirmed. 

The other story making the Camp rounds was that one of the newspapers was offering 100 pounds to the first local girl to marry a foreigner. How true this was, we never found out. 

18 January 1948 

A non-eventful day. 

19th January 1948 

More of our fellows left the camp this morning for their work assignments. The Camp is slowly being emptied. 

At 8.30 am all males were asked to assemble in the Big Hall. We were told to go and clean the rooms where our classes had been held. We did that, (then) most went for a swim as it was beginning to get very hot. 

In the afternoon, I was called to the Office to fill in and sign some papers. 

After the evening meal, most of us went for a swim again and return to the barracks late at night to sleep. Unfortunately, that was denied to us at first, as the mosquitoes were very active. I appeared to be the main target and for some time could not sleep. 

20 January 1948 

This morning I was called to work and once again sent to the kitchen to wash the big steel pans. The kitchen staff had improved since my last experience of work there. This time they gave me a steel putty knife and a ball of steel wool. 

I was fairly certain that those pans had never been properly cleaned right from the beginning. I suggested to the cooks that they sandblast the pans. Naturally, they probably did not know what I meant. 

I told them that I was to going to see the Commandant. I did that and explained the situation with the cooks. He finally listened to me about the problem. I promised to go and do any work as long as it wasn’t in the kitchen. 

Therefore, after lunch I was assigned to transferring blankets from one store to another. This took all the afternoon until our evening meal. But it made me happy and no doubt the Commandant too. We never saw eye to eye. 

Some 50 years later after my arrival in this country, a friend of ours who was heavily involved in archival research told me that she found my immigration file and another ASIO file on me. This aroused my curiosity. 

I got on the Internet and found my immigration file but the other file was missing. I contacted the Archives and asked to see my two files. The answer came back that there was only one file. Do they even lie in high places?* 

Since one of my best friends was leaving for a work assignment in Tasmania in the morning, we went to the canteen and each bought a portion of ice-cream. We drank some lemonade as a farewell gesture to the end of our friendship. My assignment was still in the lap of the gods. 

21 January 1948

This morning I bade my friend goodbye as he and several others were being sent to Tasmania for forestry work at Maydena. The day turned out to be one of the very hottest. After breakfast, I went swimming in the Lake. Some of our boys had found some 44-gallon steel drums and had built a raft. They christened it Kanimbla after the dirty, filthy, rusty, old bucket that took us from Fremantle to Melbourne. We used that to float about in the Lake. 

We were happily paddling this raft this morning some hundred yards from the shore, when a sudden strong wind kept driving us further out onto the Lake. Four of us kept paddling this unresponsive raft towards the shore, but the wind was just too strong and kept driving us further onto the Lake. Finally, we decided to abandon our Kanimbla by tying her to a tree poking out of the water and all swam back to the shore. 

 On our return, we were going to have our lunch when I accidentally ran into our Commandant, Major Kershaw. My diary doesn’t mention the subject of our conversation and after almost 65 years my memory has failed me. 

After lunch we returned to the Lake for a swim as the heat stifled us and the wind was as fierce as a fire. I got sunburned that day and was in agony for a number of days afterwards. 

23 January 1948 

This morning I was called to the clothing store and given two pairs of pyjamas, a hat and a pair of braces. As I was still suffering from the sunburn, I didn’t do anything but read my book. Only after tea I ventured for a swim.

On my return to the hut, we found one of our friends had returned for a visit. He was one of the fellows who were sent early to work, in the Kiewa valley. He was happy to dig trenches at the project and earning good money. 

He took me and a few others to the canteen to sample the non-alcoholic drinks. He bought us oranges to celebrate our "reunion". It was midnight before we stopped quizzing him about his work, living conditions and pay. 

24th January 1948 

Found my friend P had returned from Heidelberg Hospital. He was one of those people that were found at the Bonegilla x-rays to have damaged lungs. 

The authorities wondered how he got here without being detected in Germany. Well, it was pretty simple. We knew that he had damaged lungs and would not pass the test. In actual fact, he had been shot in the back from an aircraft and the bullet had scarred his lungs. He arrived here with somebody else’s lungs. 

We worried that all those 12-20 people were going to be deported back to the refugee camps in Germany. Instead, they were assigned to jobs like everyone else. Our praise went to Mr Calwell and Mr Chifley. P praised the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital for terrific kindness, variety of foods and the staff’s expertise. 

25 January 1948 

Today it was my turn to work in the various jobs at the camp but I was still suffering from my sunburn. The chap from our Transport who was in charge of the work group today was a kind fellow and sent me back to the hut to rest. 

He himself ended up being assigned to work in Victoria, in the Kiewa Valley. He married a girl from Albury-Wodonga area. They had two sons who became the local soccer stars. 

26 January 1948 

Today I spent the morning organising my wardrobe and packing it up, not that I had much to pack. 

At lunchtime, our Commandant came to the mess hall and singled out our table as being dirty. He and his offsider wrote down everyone’s names in a little notebook. Our table did not appear as dirty as some of the others. Nevertheless, nothing happened. We expected to be called to his office for a pep talk about hygiene.**

To be continued.

Footnote

* The National Archives of Australia (NAA) online Record Search facility shows that the public now has asked to access 2 files on Endrius, plus 2 other items which are only one page, front and back.  One of the smaller items is his 'Bonegilla card', which I have included in previous blog entries.  The confusion over the one or two files likely arose because his selection papers are held in the NAA's Canberra repository while his citizenship application (which included security vetting by ASIO) is held in the Sydney repository.  Presumably, his enquiry was thought to apply to any Canberra holdings only.

** Note the lack of any mention of Australia Day celebrations, compared with the modern focus on this national day.

USAT General Stuart Heintzelman: The Route to Australia

As the Heintzelman neared the Australian coast, a Souvenir Edition of the 1st Sailing to Australia was published on board.  It appeared on 26 November, edited by a team of Reinhold Valter Põder (Estonian), Emils Dēlinš (Latvian) and Romuldas Mazillauskas (Lithuanian).  They must have had typists and artists among the passengers to help them.  

They had the use of the ships roneoing equipment and supplies.  A roneod newsletter was issued for each day of the voyage, but only a few individual copies survive.  Clearly, those who ran the ship had learned already what was necessary to keep their previous US Army passengers occupied and entertained.  Below is the front cover of the Souvenir Edition.

For those of you not old enough to remember, roneoing involved typing or drawing first on a stencil with a wax-coated surface.  The typing was not clear unless the typeface had been cleaned first.  It was hard for the artist to see if their artwork was creating clean lines.  No wonder photocopying took over from roneo stencils in the 1970s!

Fortunately for our interpretation of some places on the map above, there is a list of dates and places elsewhere in the Souvenir Edition.  It advises that:

The Colombo stop was needed to allow the ship to refuel while taking on fresh water and provisions.  It also provided the passengers a few hours ashore in an exotic location.

The 11 pm crossing of the Equator explains why there are no photos in albums of the usual visit of King Neptune and associated rituals.

The Souvenir Edition contains summaries in English of the histories of the three Baltic States, which a foreword confirms are for the benefit of the Heintzelman's crew.  There's other information of continuing interest to descendants of the passengers on this 'First Sailing', such as lists of the senior crew and profiles of their leaders.  An anonymous contributor has written an essay about shipboard life.  These will be added to this blog.

My copy of the Souvenir Edition comes from the archive of its Estonian editor, Reinhold Valter Põder.  This is held by the Estonian Archives in Australia and I thank the Archives for granting access.

Ernst Kesa (1910-94): From Farming to Skyscrapers by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 22 December 2024.

Nauru House was once the tallest building in Melbourne, if not in Australia, with a height of 600 feet or 183 metres. Its architect was a man recruited to Australia as a builder’s labourer. Ernst Kesa was one of the refugees on the FirstTransport. 

Nauru House maquette

(Photograph courtesy Perrot, Lyon, Mathieson)

Ernst was the lead architect for other Melbourne landmarks. They include 50 Queen Street, the Southern Cross and Travelodge hotels and the Hotel Hilton, the YMCA Building in Elizabeth Street, the Trades Hall Council Chambers and the Gas and Fuel Corporation headquarters. He also designed Fiji’s Customs House.

 

By the time he was doing this, he had become a partner in the firm of Perrott, Lyon, Timlock and Kesa.  The firm specialised in hotels and office buildings and, at its peak, had over 100 employees and offices in all States of Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

 

Portrait of Ernst Kesa by DW Hughes

 (Courtesy Erika Kesa)

Ernst’s road from builder’s labourer and, before that, Estonian art student, to senior Australian architect was not all smoothness, however. 

 

When Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, obtained the approval of his Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, to bring refugees from Eastern Europe to Australia, the country had an critical need for people who could help it back to its feet again quickly after the impact of World War II. 

 

A total of nearly one million Australians had enlisted in the military during the War, out of a total population between six and seven million. In construction, those who remained in Australia had focussed on building military camps rather than new houses for families.  

 

With the return to civilian life and the delayed marriage of sweethearts, anyone who could help construct new homes for new families was needed urgently. The need was so pressing that anyone presenting to the interviewers who had even helped put up a shed on the family farm was pulled to one side.  They sent immediately for a medical to check that they were fit enough to become a builder’s labourer in Australia.

 

Though born on 15 January 1910 to a farming family in central Estonia, Ernst was more than a builder of farm sheds.  After high school he undertook compulsory military training, which he left with a rank equivalent to second lieutenant.   

 

Next, in 1931, he started as a student at the esteemed and still active Pallas Higher School of Art in Tartu for less than one year.  The experience made him realised that, although he was a fine artist, he lacked the creativity of the best.  He would be better off studying some form of applied art.

 

 

Bust of his brother, Elmar, by Ernst Kesa

(Photograph courtesy Erika Kesa)

Later in 1931, he moved to Brno, now in the Czech Republic, where he studied architecture in German at the Technical University.  He completed his degree in 1936 with excellent results.

 

He joined the Estonian Ministry of Roads and Building where he worked under Alar Kotli, one of the most esteemed Estonian architects from the 1930s to the 1960s. Together with Kotli and independently, he was successful in many architectural competitions.  

 

No other Estonian at that time had been awarded as many prizes as Ernst.  Due to this success, he was able to join the Estonian Institute of Architects without the customary two-year probationary period.  He was receiving many private commissions so he left the Ministry to establish his own practice.

 

He continued his interest in the arts, which led to an invitation in 1939 to become the Director of the Jaan Koort School of Applied Art in Tallinn.  He started to re-organise existing programs and establish new courses.

 

The Soviet Union invaded Estonia in August 1940. Ernst lost his job at the School of Applied Art. German forces replaced the Soviet ones in June 1941 and occupied Estonia for the next three years. During this time, Ernst enrolled for doctoral studies in the Brno Technical University, in 1943, but the War did not allow him to continue.  

 

The War and its aftermath also meant that those prize-winning plans never became realised buildings.

 

With news of the Soviet advance towards the west arrived in the later summer of 1944, Ernst would have reasoned that he had no future in Czechoslovakia or Estonia, having been fired once already by Communists. He left for Germany, where he reached the port of Lubeck. There he was able to help the Royal Engineers in the rebuilding of the historic city.

 

He heard that the Australians were taking migrants. He decided to go because he was told that he would be under contract to the Government for only one year. The Government decided to lengthen the contract period to two years while his ship was sailing to Australia.

 

It wasn’t until after they had arrived in the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, in early December, that Ernst and his fellow refugees learnt to their dismay about the extension of the contract period.

 

One of the English language teachers at Bonegilla remembered Ernst as “a charming, well educated man”. It was in Bonegilla that Kesa met his first wife, another English language teacher, Zoë Ritchie.

 

He was sent to pick fruit in Ardmona in January 1948. He returned to Bonegilla in early April, leaving at the end of the month for Iron Knob in South Australia to labour for BHP. He also had a job with a building firm in Sydney. In February 1949, when still under contract, he described himself as being employed by the Commonwealth Department of Labour and National Service in Melbourne, his work “being associated with the planning and supervision of hostels”.

 

The description was contained in a letter he sent to the Architects’ Registration Board of Victoria, asking if he could be registered to work as an architect in that State based on his previous experience. Ernst’s hope of quick registration must have been based on experience of this in Estonia.

 

 

Another Kesa achievement, the Travelodge Hotel, St Kilda Road, Melbourne

(Photograph courtesy Perrot, Lyon, Mathieson)

 

The senior partner in a Melbourne architectural firm, Lesley Perrott, had heard that one of the Displaced Persons was an Estonian architect with a Czech degree. In his letter of support for Kesa’s application, Perrott wrote that he had been “in fairly close touch with Mr Kesa” and that he had “also seen something of his work”. Perrott pointed out that, “The university at (Brno) was one of the well-recognized seats of learning in Europe”.

 

The Registrar told Ernst that the Board had exempted him from five of its examination subjects. He was still required to sit examinations for the remaining four subjects. 

 

What followed was a classic example of many European refugees’ struggle to obtain recognition of their previous qualifications.  Most gave up the struggle. Kesa might have too if he was not working with Lesley Perrott.

 

In 1955, Kesa wrote to the former Registration Board, by now the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, to inform them that he had been transferred interstate and had not sat for the examinations for this reason plus “certain circumstances of a private nature”.

 

Due to his work experience since 1949, Kesa sought exemption from two of the four subjects for which the Board had required examinations when it replied previously.

 

Perrott wrote to the Institute about this time to admit he had sought a meeting with the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, one year after Kesa arrived, to discuss his obligation to work for two years.  Some of the first Baltic refugees had been released already from their two-year obligations to work in Australia after just one year. Perrott had asked Calwell to release Kesa.

 

He told the Institute that, “the release was not granted when the Government realized his service was being sought by an outside architect. They quickly drafted him to their own Department of Labour. In a very short time Mr Kesa experienced a series of promotions until he was in charge of all migrant hostels.”

 

While the Institute exempted Kesa from eight of its current subjects, it still required him to sit for examinations in three subjects. The results were a pass in Professional Practice with a mark of 69 per cent, but failures in both Specifications and Services and Equipment.  One year later, he was told that he had again failed the Specifications examination.

 

Kesa’s reply to this latest knockback was it was not a true reflection of his abilities and knowledge. His current duties did not involve him in “a great deal of this specific type of work (but he had) so far been able to do this work to the satisfaction of everybody concerned”. 

 

He offered the time limit as the main reason for his failure, given that he was sitting for the examination in a foreign language.  He did not remark that this language was at least his third, after his native Estonian and German—and maybe Czech too.

 

He thought that he would not be able to complete the examination in a timely manner at his third attempt without first attending a course on the subject.  This would be difficult for him for domestic reasons. One of the domestic reasons would have been his son, Peter, then just two years old. He asked the Board to either reconsider exempting him or allow him to attend for an oral examination.

 

This time, the Board’s response was to regret its inability to grant either of his requsts. However, it did offer an alternative: a meeting with one of the examiners.

 

The meeting seems to have been what Ernst Kesa needed. Early in 1957, the Board certified that he finally had passed that Specifications examination. Midway during the following year, the Board confirmed that it had admitted him to registration as an architect under the provisions of Victoria’s Architects Act.

 

Admission had taken only eight years and a half years after Ernst first applied. 

 

He had able to continue working professionally with Lesley M Perrott & Partners because his Brno degree actually was in engineering and engineers did not require registration to work in Victoria at the time.  

 

When Lesley Perrott retired in 1966, his son, also Lesley, took over as the senior partner.  Ernst Kesa was offered the vacant partnership.  The name of the firm changed to Perrott, Lyon, Timlock and Kesa (PLTK).

 

 

Ernst Kesa at work in Melbourne

(Photograph courtesy Perrot, Lyon, Mathieson)

 

Ernst remained a partner until he retired on his sixty-fifth birthday, in January 1975.  For all this time at PLTK, he had been known as “Crusher”, apparently a tribute to the time in 1948 he had spent with BHP.  After retirement, he continued as a consultant to the firm.

 

Like the “flaxen-headed ploughboy” of the traditional English song, Ernst came a long way from his beginnings in rural Estonian province of the Tsar Nicholas II's Russia.  His Nauru House, now called 80 Collins Street, is still number 24 on a list of the highest buildings in Melbourne, which now has more skyscrapers than any other city in Australia.

 

The 1940s, with World War II, flight to Germany and re-establishment in Australia, were the toughest decade in Ernst’s long life.  They coincided with his thirties, when he was still young enough to show the resilience which enabled him to climb back from the edge of disaster.

 

Many former refugees have contributed greatly to Australia but the life and work of Ernst Kesa provide an outstanding example.

 

Sources

Anonymous, Eulogy, Ernst Kesa, 15.1.1910–15.1.1994.  

Beaumont, Joan,  Australian Defence: Sources and statistics, 2001,Oxford University Press, Melbourne, as cited in Enlistment statistics, Second World War, Australian War Memorial. viewed 5 January 2020, https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/enlistment/ww2. 

Carrington, Lois, A Real Situation: the story of adult migrant education in Australia, 1947 to 1970, 1997, Canberra, Lois Carrington.  

Carrington, Lois Griffiths, personal communication, 2000.  

Eesti Arhitektuurimuuseum, Eestirahvuskulturi Fond, 1994, Ernst Kesa, 15.1.10-15.1.93 (sic), Sirji, (in Estonian). 

Eesti Sõjamuuseum/Kindral Laidoneri Muuseum (Estonian War Museum/General Laidoner Museum) n.d., Ohvitseride andmekogu, Eesti ohvitserid 1918-1940 (Officer database, Estonian officers 1918-1940, in Estonian), viewed 5 January 2020, http://prosopos.esm.ee/index.aspx?type=1&id=20092.   

Freymuth, Lydia, personal communication, 2003.  

Kesa, Erica, personal communications, 2005 and later. 

Kesa, Ernst, Letter to Secretary, Architects' Registration Board of Victoria, Re State Registration, 2 February 1949, in SLV MS 9454, Box 32. 

Lillemets, Enn, Gunnar Neeme ja Ernst Kesa, email to A. Tündern-Smith, 1 July 2018.

National Archives of Australia (NAA): Department of Immigration; A434, Correspondence files, Class 3 (Non British European Migrants), 1939-50; 1949/3/7658 Attachment, SS General Heintzelman [Nominal Roll], 1947-1947. 

NAA: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla (Victoria); A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; 126, Kepes, Jeno Matyas to Kilberger, Jindrich. 

Oja, Urmas, Ernst Kesa – meie mees Austraalias (Our man in Australia) (in Estonian), 2008, Eesti Ekspress, viewed 1 November 2020, https://ekspress.delfi.ee/areen/ernst-kesa-meie-me es-austraalias?id=27681171

Oliver, Helen and Peter Hilyer, Perrott Lyon Mathieson, personal communications, 2005. 

Perrott, Lesley, Letter to Secretary, Architects' Registration Board of Victoria, Re Application of Mr Ernst Kesa, 9 February 1949, in SLV MS 9454, Box 32.

Pihlak, Vella, personal communication, 2001. 

Records of the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, MS 9454, Box 32, State Library of Victoria (SLV), Manuscript Collection.  

Salasoo, Tiiu Jalak, personal communication, 2000. 

Tallinna Ülikooli Akadeemiline Raamatukogu, TLÜAR väliseesti isikud (Estonians abroad), 2003, TLÜAR (Tallinn University Academic Library), viewed 4 January 2020, http://isik.tlulib.ee/index.php?id=1301.

Tündern-Smith, Ann, USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, 2008, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, viewed 5 January 2020, https://www.immigrantships.net/v10/1900v10/generalstuartheintzelman19471128_01.html, based on National Archives of Australia (NAA): Department of Immigration; A434, Correspondence files, Class 3 (Non British European Migrants), 1939-50; 1949/3/7658 ATTACHMENT, SS General Heintzelman [Nominal Roll], 1947-1947

Vilder, Valdemar, personal communication, 2001. 

Wikipedia, 2020, Nauru House, viewed 6 January 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_House.

Zeugnis über die zweite Staatsprüfung aus dem Hochbau- und Architekturfache, Brünn, 22 Juni 1936 (Certificate of the second state examination in building and architecture, Brno, 22 June 1936, in German), in State Library of Victoria (SLV) Manuscripts collection, Records of the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, MS 9454, Box 32, Membership subscription and general: 1946-1963.

Please contact Ann at tundern@yahoo.com.au if you would like the full-length version of Ernst Kesa’s life story.