Viknius brothers: Cyclone Tracy victim and his long-lived brother, Petras and Antanas, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Petras Viknius (1925-1974)

Cyclone Tracy is remembered still as one of the most devastating weather events to impact Australia. Sixty-six people were killed by it, including a First Transport arrival, Petras Viknius. Petras was been injured badly during the cyclone on Christmas Day 1974, and died 6 days later, the last day of the year. He was aged only 49.

Damage caused by Cyclone Tracy in the Darwin suburb of Wagaman:
in the foreground, whole houses have been wiped off their elevated foundations

Source:  National Museum of Australia

He had been born in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 2 October 1925 and recorded as having “fled from (the) Russian regime” to Germany when being interviewed for resettlement in Australia 22 years later. The interview record shows that he had completed 6 years of elementary schooling, plus 4 years of an apprenticeship to become a motor mechanic.

Petras Viknius from his 1947 selection papers for resettlement in Australia

Source:  National Archives of Australia

From the Bonegilla camp, he was one of the 64 or 65 men sent to Adelaide to work for South Australia’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) in early January 1948. He seems to have escaped from the group’s Bedford Park camp before his “two-year” work contract was over. In June 1949, he was admitted to hospital after his motorcycle collided with a car in the Adelaide suburb of Thebarton. His address in 2 newspaper reports of the accident was given as Cowandilla Road, Cowandilla, another Adelaide suburb.

Cowandilla Road, Cowandilla, also was the address from which he advertised his urgent need for a flat, rooms or a caravan for a young couple with one child in September 1949. The advertisement appeared in the Southern Cross, a newspaper published by the Catholic Church in South Australia. Presumably Petras was the male of the young couple.

If his contract with the Federal Government to work where sent had ended normally, it would have finished on 30 September 1949. We note that the newspaper reports of his accident describe his occupation as motor mechanic. 

It would be nice to think that he had returned to his preferred occupation but, instead, a record card kept by the Adelaide Office of the Department of Immigration suggests that he was employed as a labourer.  His employers, with the date of notification of each omitted, were the Highways Department at Murray Bridge, on the border with Victoria, HW & LG Kiswick of the former Adelaide suburb of Grassmere (now part of Kurralta Park), and Hume Steel of neighbouring Keswick.

By July 1950, Petras had moved to Milner Street, Richmond, and was working for R Mitchell and Company.  Google Maps suggests that the home address should have been recorded as Milner Road, Richmond.

In August 1951, Petras and his motorcycle had another meeting with the authorities. This time he was arrested for riding it “while so much under the influence of intoxicating liquor as to be incapable of exercising effective control”. In November that year, he was fined £30 with £7/16/- costs and suspended from holding a driver’s licence for nine months for the offence. Another charge, of having driven without due care, was dropped.

Just before the court appearance, in October 1951, Petras had reported that he still was living on Milner Street or Road but his new employer was the Wiles Manufacturing Company of Manchester Street, Mile End.  He lived maybe than half a mile (0.8 km) from his workplace.

Since Petras’ occupation at this time was given as Driver, the loss of his licence for 9 months must have had a major effect on his income. It could explain his change of occupation to Tradesman Assistant during January 1952 to November 1954 at Radium Hill, as recorded by Daina Pocius in her Australian Lithuanian History blog.

The Department of Immigration's record card confirms Petras' move to Radium Hill at that time, with a starting date of 29 January 1952.  

Radium Hill was Australia’s first uranium mine, worked between 1926 and 1931 on top of some older activity. After the SA Department of Mines commenced further exploration there in 1946, with a town developed, with a population of 1100 to 1200 peaking in the late 1950s. The mine was closed in 1961 and the town was deserted.

Petras' next move was reported as of 13 January 1955. It was to Hume Steel again — but in Hobart.  The residential address was reported as being on Orchard Grove, Springfield.  The street name and suburb no longer exist, but a Web search tells us that the Hobart suburb was incorporated into West Moonah.  The Hume Steel works were not in suburban Hobart, but 30 minutes drive along the Derwent River in New Norfolk.

The commuting time might have been one reason why this interstate transfer did not work.  There may well have been personal reasons as well.  Petras was back in South Australia only 3 months later or less.  This time his workplace was that of W Brown & Sons in Hindmarsh, where his occupation was noted as furnaceman.  He was living about 10 km away, on South Terrace, Plympton Park, still involving commuting but perhaps only 18 minutes' drive.

In October 1955, it was back to the courts again, this time to be found guilty of being drunk while driving.  This offence was added to the Department of Immigration's record card.

Since this was Australia, the drink driving could be overlooked for a citizenship application.  Petras became an Australian citizen on 5 April 1956, so 8 years after he had arrived.

That’s all we know of Petras’ life in Australia until it was ended by Cyclone Tracy striking Darwin, the Northern Territory’s capital city. In addition to killing 66, it injured hundreds and destroyed about 80 per cent of the city. Those who could left the city in its aftermath. In February 1975, the Australian Government established the Darwin Reconstruction Commission, which rebuilt the city in three years. The near-complete destruction of Darwin led to the introduction of improved building codes across Australia.

The plaque on Petras' burial place in Darwin:
the last line is Lithuanian for Rest in Peace

Source:  nataliegoes on Find A Grave

Presumably Petras’ relationship with the mother of one child had ended some time earlier, since it is only his brother in Hobart who gets a mention of the plaque marking his Darwin burial place.

The brother in Hobart, Antanas Viknius, in a photo supplied for 
his selection to migrate to Australia

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Antanas Viknius (1918-1997)

The brother in Hobart was Antanas, 7 years older, who also came to Australia on the 1947 voyage of the General Stuart Heintzelman. Born in 1918, he was above the average passenger age of 24, which may be why had had to wait until late January 1948 for his first work assignment in Australia. 

We note that Australian documents on Antanas, plus his grave plaque, give his birth year as 1917 or a date of 30 July 1917.  The definitive document is a church record in Lithuania, which clearly shows Antanas being born to Antanas Viknius and his wife, Barbora, on 30 July 1918.

Antanas was one of the fruit-picking team sent to Messrs Dundas Simson of Ardmona.  He lasted there for more than 2 months, returning to the Bonegilla camp on 10 April.  Twelve days later, he was one of the 18 men sent to Railton, Tasmania, to work for the Goliath Portland Cement Company.

Antanas looks much more worn and older than his years
in this photo taken during October-December 1947 for his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, Ramūnas Tarvydas reports that their initial accommodation was shared huts in Goliath's single men's camp. The company soon built more huts from timber frames clad in “fibro cement” sheets made by Goliath. A folding iron bed, a mattress and a couple of blankets were provided to each man. Goliath then gave the men wood for making more furniture, but no tools. It eventually gave in on the question of tools, after which Antanas Viknius made the first set of furniture, to be copied by the others.

Thanks to Stephen Niaura, son of Povilas, Ann has a set of what are believed to be notes on the men compiled by Goliath for Ramūnas’ use. They show Antanas as one of 12 men who either “absconded” on a known date or “left of own accord”. Antanas and an Estonian, Endel Uduste, “absconded” on 28 February 1949, perhaps leaving Railton together.

In an earlier entry for this blog on the life of Endrius Jankus, we noted that Ramūnas’ book discusses 5 Lithuanians who decided that they had signed a contract with the Australian Government to work where sent for one year only and were not party to the decision, made while they were sailing to Australia, to change this to 2 years. Ramūnas reports on the 5 Lithuanians who had left Railton early in 1949, to whom presumably Endel Uduste should be added. The Lithuanians are known to have found various new jobs in Melbourne, where they were tracked down by the CES and sent letters directing them to return to Tasmania.

Failure to follow the direction would lead to deportation, the letters said.

Until the National Archives of Australia grants access to the file of papers relating to Antanas’ application to become an Australian citizen, we won’t know the likely details of what happened next.   From another file we do know that the date of grant was 3 October 1955, that is nearly 8 years after Antanas' 28 November 1947 arrival.

At the time of the grant, Anatanas was living in Springfield, presumably the Hobart suburb (there now being another Springfield closer to Launceston), but not at the Orchard Grove address given by his brother earlier in 1955.  Still, Petras might have boarded with his brother and family during his brief stay in Tasmania.

Antanas gave a sanitised account of his life in Australia to a Lithuanian-American newspaper in 1975, so more than 25 years after the events.  At the time, he and a daughter, Barbara, were visiting another brother who had settled in Chicago.  

Bronius Aušrotas in Dirva (Field) reported that “after completing a one-year employment contract”, Antanas got a job with a car company in Melbourne. He had to leave that job and return to Hobart, supposedly due to strikes. He remembered his first difficult years of work, including in a paint factory, until he finally learned a little English and got acquainted with the local business and living conditions.

Being talented and knowing those conditions, Antanas dared to start a risky job as a self-employed house builder. Although he had one setback, he did not lose courage and continued in the same line of work. Finally, he had managed to sell one house after another and earned enough not only managed to provide for his future but also saved enough to "throw away" about 8,000 Australian dollars for this trip.

Since Antanas was travelling with his daughter, that future presumably included a family as well.

We saw above the Antanas’ brother in Australia, Petras, had died at the end of the previous year from the injuries he received during Darwin’s Cyclone Tracy.  Although Antanas gave his reasons for travelling to America as wishing to visit his brother and friends from Lithuanian days, as well as show another country and way of life to Barbara, perhaps there was an element of doing something about his grief in the timing.  He certainly discussed his brother’s accidental death with Bronius.

Another event which doubtless caused some grief but which was omitted for the talk with Bronius was a housefire which Antanas and family experienced in May 1954.  During that fire, he lost his previous identity papers, which explains how we know about it on a Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Office, file.

We already have come across the 1933 visit to Lithuania of the founder of the Scouting movement, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, with his wife and a contingent of 650 British Scouts and Guides, when we learned about the life of Viktoras Žeimys.  Antanas and a friend he missed from those days, V Bacevičius, now a photographer, were members together of the Darius and Girėnas scout troop in Kaunas.  If you do not remember the story of airmen Darius and Girėnas, we have more in the life of Nikodemas Skidzevičius.

During the Baden-Powell visit, Viknius and Bacevičius had been selected to help with the catering.  They had so much work to do that they could not escape the field kitchen to mingle with the British visitors.  Decades later though, meeting together in the United States, they could reminisce about the day.  They could reminisce about how the President of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, and the founder of Scouting had drunk together at the Palanga airfield the coffee that Viknius and Bacevičius had brewed.

Scouts reunite 42 years later: 
Antanas Viknius (centre) with V Bacevičius from Cleveland OH
and S Ilgūnas from Rochester, NY

Source:  Skautu Aidas

Photographer Bacevičius recorded another meeting which Antanas had with a friend from 1933, V Kizlaitis.  The emotions at this meeting must have been very mixed, since it took place outside the Cleveland, Ohio, premises of the Dirva (Field) newspaper which had been devastated by fire on 30 July 1975.  The printing press, other equipment, and extensive historical archives of a periodical founded 60 years earlier, in August 1915, had been completely destroyed.

V Kizlaitis with Antanas Viknius in front of the burnt Dirva building, mid-1975

Photographer:  V Bacevičius for Darbininkas (Worker)

Kizlaitis was an employee of the newspaper who lived on the premises, so he too had lost almost everything in the fire. At the time of the fire, Dirva was being published twice a week; we understand that it is still being published on the reduced schedule of twice a month. It did recover from the fire, and we have to hope the V Kizlaitis did also.

Antanas’ Mūsų Pastogė obituary by Steponas Augustavičius, in 1997, discussed his personal life. He had been married already in Lithuania, to Genovaitė Varaneckaitė in April 1939, but his wife and young daughter remained there when he found himself in Germany at the end of WWII.

According to the Dirva interview, Antanas had witnessed the surrender of the German forces to the Allies near Hamburg and found sanctuary in the Hanseatic German town of Buxtehude from 1945 to 1947.  This is contrary to what Steponas wrote, but the account from the man himself should be preferred.

Steponas' obituary noted that Antanas had joined the Lithuanian army when he was aged 20.   After his period of service, he moved to the army reserve as a non-commissioned officer. During the German occupation of Lithuania, he had worked in the Legion Speer as a truck driver.  His employment by the Legion Speer is confirmed by a card now in the Arolsen Archives, which also gives his wife’s address in February 1944.

The Legion Speer was a paramilitary motor transportation corps founded in 1942 and disbanded in September 1944.  The drivers and mechanics who were its members were non-German citizens, recruited in occupied Europe.  They provided motor vehicle transportation and logistical support for Organisation Todt, a civil and military engineering organisation.  While the German word for “death” is “Tod”, in this case, the Organisation Todt was named after its founder, Fritz Todt.

In Germany after the War, he had continued to work as a driver.  This time it was for the relief organisation, UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

As Buxtehude was in the British zone of occupied Germany, and Britain had suffered greatly during the War, so that the zone residents were much worse off than those in the American zone, it was no surprise that Antanas grabbed the first opportunity to move on to resettlement during the northern autumn of 1947.

While in Railton, Antanas fell in love with a 19-year-old local, Beverley Best. He knew that his wife and daughter were alive still in Lithuania, so he could not marry her. Instead, Beverley married another Lithuanian from the First Transport sent to Railton, Henrikas Surkevičius.

Meanwhile, Kazys Alseika asked his shipmate, Antanas, to be groomsman when he married Marcia Ina Paul in Hobart on 5 January 1950.  The wedding made the social pages of the Hobart Mercury newspaper, on 28 February 1950, under the heading of Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings.

After he found out that Genovaitė had died, Antanas married a Scottish migrant to Australia, with whom he had 2 daughters, Barbara and Katrina.

In the Eiguliai cemetery in Kaunas, Lithuania, the 1957 grave of Barbora Viknienė (born in 1873) bears a handwritten plaque which says that her son, Antanas, is grieving for her. It is clear that Barbara is named after her grandmother.

The grave of Barbora Viknienė in Kaunas

The handwriten plaque which informs visitors that 
Antanas Viknius in Australia grieves for his mother

Source for both photographs:  Cemety.lt

Henrikas Surkevičius died quite early, in 1964, after only 16 years in Australia.  We hope to have more about him soon.   Antanas’ second wife died also, after which he and Beverley got together again.  During this time, he was able to visit Lithuania and his daughter there, Regina, after at least 47 years of separation.

As his health deteriorated, Beverly took care of him.  Death came on 9 December 1997. A funeral mass for Antanas in St. Teresa's Church in the Hobart suburb of Moonah was celebrated by Father Terry Bowman.  About 40 of Antanas' friends and acquaintances gathered in the church, near the tricolor-draped coffin.

The farewell words were spoken by Ramūnas Tarvydas, the chairman of the Australian Lithuanian Community, Hobart District, whom we have come across already as the author of From Amber Coast to Apple Isle.  The mass readings were by Judy Tarvydienė.

After the mass, everyone sang the Lithuanian National Anthem.  Antanas was buried in the Hobart Regional Cemetery in Kingston, near several other Lithuanians.  Eleven gathered at the grave.  Father Terry read the funeral prayers, then all poured a handful of earth onto the coffin.  Beverly poured a handful of earth that Antanas had brought back from Lithuania.

Whoever was responsible for the plaque on Antanas’ gravestone seems to have been carried away by his brothers, naming one of them also as Antanas and 2 as Petras.   His mother’s name is not spelled in the Lithuanian fashion but instead as Barbara, while the plaque confirms other sources, such as his birth record, that give his father’s name as Antanas.  The brother Joseph probably is Juozapas or Juozas for short, the one he visited in Chicago in 1975.

Another inaccuracy on Antanas' elaborate grave plaque
is the wrong year of birth
Source:  Julie Henderson & Lacey Milier on Find A Grave

By late 1997, Antanas’ family included not only the 2 daughters and a grandson, Darius, mentioned in his obituary, but also at least one member of the next generation, a great great grandchild.

Omitted was a sister, who got a mention without being named in a March 1989 issue of Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), when she was visiting from Lithuania.

SOURCES

Advertiser (1951) ‘Law Courts, Country, Mallala, Fined £30’ Adelaide, SA, 20 November, p 11 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article45778864, accessed 27 September 2026.

Augustavičius, Steponas (1998) ‘A.a. Antanas Viknius‘ (‘In memoriam Antanas Viknius’) Mūsų Pastogė Sydney, NSW, 19 January, p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1998/1998-01-19-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Aušrotas, Bronius (1975) ‘Nuo Tasmanijos iki Juno Beach Floridoje ...’ (‘From Tasmania to Juno Beach, Florida …’, in Lithuanian) Dirva (Field), Cleveland, OH, 23 July, p 2 https://spauda.org/dirva/archive/n1975/1975-07-23-DIRVA.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Australian Cemetery Index 'Inscription 7789283 - Petras Viknius' https://www.austcemindex.com/inscription?id=7789283, accessed 29 September 2026.

Australian Lithuanian History, Radium Hill 1951 to 1956, ‘Adults of Radium Hill 1951 – 1961’ https://salithohistory.blogspot.com/2008/07/, accessed 27 September 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Antanas Viknius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203719798, accessed 27 September 2026. [Note that this and other Australian documents give the wrong birth year, which should be 1918.]

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Petras Viknius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203719799, accessed 27 September 2026.

Cemety ‘Barbora Viknienė’ https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/1667393?type=deceased, accessed 27 September 2026.

Darbininkas (Worker) (1975) [No title] Brooklyn, NY, 22 August, p 4 https://spauda.org/darbininkas/archive/1975/1975-08-22-DARBININKAS.pdf, accessed 28 September 2026.

Draugas (Friend) (1975) ‘Iš Arti ir Toli, Australijoje‘ (‘From Near and Far, In Australia’, in Lithuanian) Chicago, IL, 22 July 1975, p 6 https://draugas.org/archive/1975_reg/1975-07-22-DRAUGAS-i7-8.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Electronic Archives Information System, ‘VIKNIENĖ JURGEVIČIŪTĖ Barbora’ https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext/view/424417841, accessed 27 September 2026.

Elektroninis Archyvų Informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archives Information System), 'Kauno dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Register of Birth Records of the Churches of the Kaunas Deanery’, in Lithuanian), Record 140, 1918.07.30, p 163 https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267358658/280456150/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=163, accessed 27 September 2026.

ePaveldas, (1939) ‘Kauno Švč. Trejybės RKB santuokos metrikų knyga’ (‘Kaunas Trinity Church Roman Catholic Marriage Register’, in Lithuanian) Record 55, 10 April, p 8 https://www.epaveldas.lt/preview?id=1428%2F1%2F74&wr=76, accessed 27 September 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Antanas Viknius’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212745761/antanas-viknius, accessed 27 September 2026.

Kantvilas, Aleksandras (1975) ‘Tasmanijos Padangėje‘ (‘Under the Tasmanian Sky’) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, NSW, 30 June, p 8 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1975/1975-06-30-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Mail, (1949) ‘Motor cyclist hurt’ Adelaide, SA, 25 June, p 48 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55922859?searchTerm=viknius, accessed 26 September 2026.

Mercury (1950) 'Some Recent Tasmanian Weddings’ Hobart, Tas, 28 February, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26686218, accessed 27 September 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1975) ‘Kronika’ (‘Chronicle’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 3 February, p 8 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1975/1975-02-03-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1988) ‘Hobarte‘ (‘In Hobart‘, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 15 August, p 6 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1988/1988-08-15-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 27 September 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; 330, VIKNIUS Petras DOB 2 April 1925, recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118036, accessed 29 September 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; 849, VIKNIUS Antanas born 30 July 1917, 1947 - 1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4695244, accessed 29 September 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; VIKNIUS PETRAS, VIKNIUS Petras - Nationality: Lithuanian Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7182085, accessed 2 October 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1949-1966; VIKNIUS A, VIKNIUS Antanas [Antonas] [Lithuanian], 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1915253, accessed 2 October 2026.

‘Part 44’, 2.2.3.1 Card file of the "Organisation Todt" / File cards of foreigners who were deployed by the OT/Speer, 12.7.1934, 16.1.1941, DocID 77189402, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/77189402, accessed 27 September 2026.

Skautu Aidas (Scout Echo) (1975) ‘Po 40 M. Susitiko Buv. Dariaus Ir Girėno Draugovės Skautai‘ (‘Former Scouts of the Darius and Girėnas Troop Reunited After 40 Years’, in Lithuanian) Chicago, IL, September, p 19 https://spauda2.org/skautu_aidas/archive/1975/1975-Nr07-SKAUTU-AIDAS.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Southern Cross (1949) ‘Flats & Rooms Wanted’ Adelaide, SA, 16 September, p 14 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/167726608?searchTerm=%22viknius%22, accessed 27 September 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) (1989) ‘Vasario 16-tosios minėjimas Hobarte‘ (’16 February Commemoration in Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 21 March, p 6 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1989/1989-03-21-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 27 September 2026.

Wikipedia 'Dirva' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirva, accessed 28 September 2026.

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Edmundas Obolevičius (1906-1996), Doctor of Economics and Slave Labourer, by Ann Tündern-Smith, Daina Pocius and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Updated 21 and 26 April 2026.

Edmundas' background

Edmundas was one of the older refugees on the First Transport, having turned 41 in the middle of the selection process.  He had been born in Lithuania on 17 October 1906.

An entry on the Geni.com genealogy Website records his parents as Kiprijonas and Elžbieta.  He had a brother and 2 younger sisters.

Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius in his selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Australian documents give his birthplace in Lithuania as either Pasekine, Pocejkien or Pacejkinie but Web searches could not find these places with these spellings.  Rasa has found that, in 1909, Edmundas' family was recorded as attending their church from a place called Paceikiniai, which no longer exists.  

The nearest place now is the village of Ceikiniai.  Over time, small villages were often annexed to larger villages or simply disappeared due to population decline.   It looks like Paceikiniai may have become part of Ceikiniai.

Edmundas' selection documents reveal someone single at 40, who had spent 25 years as a farmer in Lithuania but was well educated.  In addition to 4 years of primary school, he had 5 years at a teachers' college and 4 years in a faculty of economics.  

The economics presumably had been studied at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania's only university during the inter-War period.  It offered economics, but did not have a separate faculty in this area.  He was enrolled in doctoral studies in economics at the time of applying to move to Australia.

Edmundas the Displaced Person

Edmundas was living in '46 DPAC Brauweiler' at the time of the application.  DPAC stands for Displaced Persons Assembly Centre.  While there are 2 places called Brauweiler in Germany, the one in which a DPAC was known was just west of Cologne.  The British occupation administration repurposed the Brauweiler Abbey to accommodate the Displaced Persons, while the Wikipedia summary of its history indicates that it has accommodated a wide variety of other people during its now 1000-year history.

Brauweiler Abbey, the former Assembly Centre (hardly a 'camp')
for Obolevičius and other WWII Displaced Persons

Source:  A Savin in Wikipedia

Edmundas scored a D Recommendation after his interview, possibly because of his age, lack of English, and academic interests.  His 25 years of farming and his recent employment as a mechanic should have stood in his favour.  Despite the D, he was a passenger on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, leaving Bremerhaven and Germany on 30 October 1947.

Edmundas in Australia

His Bonegilla card tells us that he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley in late January 1948.  His employer there was TE Young of Ardmona.  He picked the fruit for more than 2 months (unlike some who gave up much earlier) returning to Bonegilla on 10 April.  He was then employed as a casual labourer in the camp for one week, between 13 and 20 April.

Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was one of a group of 20 sent to the Goliath Portland Cement company in Tasmania on 22 April 1948.  Ramunas Tarvydas, in his 1997 book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, has been able to compile a detailed picture of life there for the 20, and another 3 who joined them later.  It’s worth noting here that Edmundas gets a special (misspelt) mention, as a teetotaler who was saving his money to return to Europe.

More on Life in Germany

Where in Europe is the question, with Lithuania occupied and the only available Arolsen Archives document suggesting that Edmundas had a nasty time in Germany while the War was still on.

The Arolsen Archives document is stamped Organisation Todt Speer, indicating that Edmundas was likely to have been employed as a slave labourer.  Apart from Edmundas’ birthdate, the only date on it is 6 December 1944.  A second page notes, in German, that it has been recorded, and was received from the Federal Archives in Aachen.  This is a city in the west of Germany, near its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.

If there was any more detail, it has gone.  The Organisation Todt Speer name, however, is enough to tell us that Edmundas survived probable hard labour in difficult conditions.

Despite this, his Australian interview form reports that he 'fled from Russian regime'.  Most likely he had, but into the worst that Germany had to offer, it seems.

After what must have been equally hard labour but under much better employment conditions, Edmundas is said to have moved on from Goliath Cement to the Electrolytic Zinc company’s Risdon operation in Hobart.  Zinc from Tasmania’s west coast was smelted there.  This information was recorded by Ramundas Tarvydas during his research.

Edmundas Leaves Australia Early

Records maintained by the Goliath Company (now part of Cement Australia) show a different picture.  Papers which appear to be working documents created by Ramunas Tarvydas were acquired from the Company’s office through Stephen Niaura, son of Povilas (Paul or Cocky).

Obolevičius is one of 11 with Absconded, or Left of Own Accord, written against their names.  In his case, the approximate date recorded is 16 March 1949.  In Edmundas’ favour, the date is more than two weeks after the date recorded for most of those absconding, and more than one month after the first 2 disappeared.  He had plenty of examples to follow.

Underneath the record of absconding, someone has written, possibly in pencil ‘Back to Germany; why?’

An item in the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper in August 1951 suggests that Edmundas was still in Australia and perhaps in Melbourne.  This is because he had donated 7 books to a library which the Lithuanian community had started in Melbourne.  Could he have donated them from Germany?

A 1956 Mūsų Pastogė item reports that enough candidates had been found to have an election for a committee to oversee the Sydney community’s affairs.  Obolevičius (no given name) was one of them.  The National Archives of Australia has only one Obolevicius in its RecordSearch: Edmundas.

This conflicts with a 1952 comment in a Canadian newspaper, Tėviškės Žiburiai, reporting on Lithuanian students still in Germany.  The report includes the Doctor of Economics Obelevičius, who went to Australia but who has returned to Hangelar, a district of the city of Sankt Augustin located between the centre of Sankt Augustin and Bonn.  If that Dr Obelevičius is indeed Edmundas, the question asked by the Goliath Cement management is answered easily.

Despite the absence of a second Obolevicius from the National Archives’ records, a report in the Mūsų Pastogė sports section of the 8 May 1959 includes a B Obelevičius living in a Snowy Mountains settlement named River Camp.  This is some distance from Sydney in 1956, but it is possible that B Obelevičius was volunteering then for the Sydney community committee, rather than Edmundas.

We’ve tried to find more information about the PhD in Economics, but available evidence on the Web has not yielded more information.  The University of Cologne, near Brauweiler and with an excellent reputation in the field of economics, replied to a query that its 1947 enrolment records could be examined in person only.

The best that Artificial Intelligence can do is suggest a number of reasons why further information is missing, such as, the successful candidate was not required to lodge his thesis back then, or, it was completed at the University of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, whose records might be buried in Russian Archives.

Edmundas Returned to Lithuania

What we can find is the return of Edmundas Obelevičius to a liberated Lithuania, where he died in 1996. He may not have married, or remarried, as he is buried by himself in the Ignalina City Cemetery.  

Remember that we told you earlier that Edmundas' birthplace of Paceikiniai seems to have been replaced by Ceikiniai?  This village is 12 Km southeast of Ignalina, so Edmundas now lies as close as is possible to his birthplace.

He had lived what must have been a varied life to a considerable age of around 90.

Edmundas' headstone in the Ingalina Cemetery, Lithuania

Source:  Cemety.lt

Ignalina Cemetery from the air

Source:  Cemety.lt

SOURCES

Cement Australia ‘Railton community’ https://www.cementaustralia.com.au/railton-community, accessed 18 April 2026.

Cemety.lt ‘Edmunas Obolevičius’ https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/2287576?type=deceased, accessed 18 April 2026.

(Edmunas Obolevicius) DocID: 77182225, 2.2.3.1 Card file of the "Organisation Todt" / File cards of foreigners who were deployed by the OT/Speer, 12.7.1934, 16.1.1941, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/77182225, accessed 16 January 2026.

Elektroninis Archyvų Informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archives Information System) 'Ceikinių RKB atlikusių išpažintį ir priėmusių komuniją parapijiečių sąrašas' ('List of parishioners who have made confession and received communion at Ceikiniai Roman Catholic Church', in Lithuanian, p 106) https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-viewer/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267953384/269907871/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=106, accessed 25 April 2026.

Geni ‘Edmundas Obolevičius’ https://www.geni.com/people/Edmundas-Obolevi%C4%8Dius/6000000181316756829?through=6000000026482812166, accessed 16 January 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1951) Iš mūsų buities’ (‘From our Life’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 30 August, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259365682, accessed 167April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Sydnejus, Nauja LN taryba’ (Sydney, New Lithuanian Council’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 5 September, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1956/1956-09-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1959) ‘Sportas, Sportiškumo pavyzdys’ (‘Sport, An Example of Sportsmanship’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 8 May, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1959/1959-05-08-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 18 April 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; 858, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas DOB 17 October 1906, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005963, accessed 20 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42), 1937-1948; 37/395, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas born 17 November 1906; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272948, accessed 20 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia:  Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; OBOLEVICIUS EDMUNDAS, OBOLEVICIUS, Edmundas : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 1231 1947-48 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203728249, accessed 20 April 2026.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, Tasmania, pp 48, 174.

Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (1952) ‘Iš lietuviškojo pasaulio’ (From the Lithuanian world’, in Lithuanian) Toronto, Ont, 3 July, p 4 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/1952/1952-07-03-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026

Wikipedia 'Brauweiler Abbey' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brauweiler_Abbey, accessed 19 April 2026.

Wikipedia 'Ceikiniai' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceikiniai, accessed 21 April 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Hangelar’ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangelar, (in German) accessed 18 April 2026.

Wikipedia ‘Organisation Todt’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_Todt, accessed 16 January 2026.

Napoleonas Butkūnas (1907-1983), Patriot, Photographer, Philanthropist, by Daina Pocius and Rasa Ščevinskienė with Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 22 September 2025, 15 January and 20 June 2026.

Napoleonas Butkūnas certainly and rightly believed in the future of Lithuania.

Early Life

He was born on 22 January 1907, a native of Telšiai, from a family of wealthy farmers. It was large family, as My Heritage genealogists list 5 brothers and 3 sisters.

He had only one year of primary school, but this was followed by three years of private tutoring. He graduated from Plungė Gymnasium (senior high school) in 1928, so at the age of 21.

He entered Lithuania's military school and graduated with the rank of Lieutenant, before being promoted to Senior Lieutenant. The graduation probably was in 1930. After the 1934 coup d'état, he left the Army and work briefly as a civil servant.

The coup was an attempt by supporters of the former Prime Minister Augustinas Voldemaras to overthrow the government of President Antanas Smetona.

A different version of the 1934 events was recorded by colleague Stasys Kuzmickas in 1985 in a Lithuanian language magazine, Karys, which is Lithuanian for Soldier.  Kuzmickas wrote that, "Lieutenant Napoleon Butkunas of the 1st Infantry Regiment was at that time in aviation reconnaissance courses and for that reason was dismissed from the army."

Napoleonas Butkūnas in military uniform:
The Columns of Gediminas in the collar triangles of the uniform suggest
that it is that of the 1st Gediminas infantry regiment

Source:  MyHeritage

Napoleonas in the uniform of another military uniform,
distinguished from the previous one by different collar triangles

Source:  Lietuvos Kariuomenės Karininkai 1918-1953

Napoleonas was not happy working as a civil servant, so he enrolled to study at the Klaipėda Trade Institute, from which he graduated in 1938. He would have been a contemporary of Algirdas Undzenas at the Institute, although 6 years older.

An older Napoleonas Butkūnas

Source:  Australian Lithuanian Archive

With a World War Coming

Those 3 years of tertiary education mean that, like Algirdas, he was one of the most educated Lithuanians to later find themselves in Australia. Unlike Algirdas, he had not leapt directly into management but instead took on the role of bookkeeper in a textile factory.

He again served in the Lithuanian Army from 1938 to 1941, meaning that he maintained his role during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940-41.

We mentioned Stasys Kuzmickas' account of Napoleonas' military career above.  It continued, "When the commander of the 1st Infantry Regiment was appointed commander of the 3rd Division, Lieutenant N. Butkunas turned to him and in 1937 (or maybe 1938) he was again accepted into the army and assigned to the 8th Infantry Regiment."

Probably the most accurate description of Napoleonas' military career is that published in 2002 in the Lithuanian language book, Lietuvos Kariuomenės Karininkai 1918-1953 (Lithuanian Army Officers 1918-1953).  Since it was edited for the institution then known as the Library of the National Museum of Lithuania, it is more likely than the previous 2 accounts to be based on documents rather than memories.

Lietuvos Kariuomenės Karininkai  says  that "Napoleonas began his service in the Lithuanian Armed Forces on 12 September 1928. On 25 October 1930, after graduating in the 12th class of Military School students, he was appointed to the 1st Infantry Regiment with the rank of Lieutenant. On 25 October 1933, he graduated from the Air Reconnaissance Courses for Types of Weapons (1st class). On 23 November 1933, he was promoted again to Lieutenant. On 10 July 1934, due to his participation in the Voldemarin Putsch (see above), he was released to the reserve at his own request. 

"On 23 November 1938, he was drafted into the Military Service and appointed to the 8th Infantry Regiment as a senior officer of the 6th Rifle Company. During the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union, he served in the 8th Infantry Regiment as a commander of a farm platoon. Upon the liquidation of the Lithuanian Army on 16 September 1940, he was assigned to the 234th Rifle Regiment of the 179th Rifle Division of the 29th Infantry Regiment of the Red Army." (Rasa's translation.) 

His selection papers for Australia have an interesting variation on the usual "forcibly evacuated by the Germans’" They say that he was "shanghaied in the street by the Germans".  Did he in fact travel to Germany as a prisoner-of war, if the Germans who "shanghaied" him knew that he was with the Soviet Army?

His selection papers also say that he had worked in farming and as a labourer, possibly with the German forces or once he parted from them in Germany.

Napoleonas's date of arrival in Germany is noted as a very precise 25 July 1944 on his application for Australian citizenship.  This was around 3 months before the last Lithuanians could flee their homeland as the Soviet forces invaded it a second time.

After the War

When the War ended, he lived in a DP camp in Memingen. Later, finding his brother Vaclovas Butkevičius and his family in Oldenburg in the British Zone, he stayed with them and taught for 2 years in that camp’s Lithuanian school. (The family name of Butkūnas which Napoleonas was using at the time and later is a shortening of their name, Butkevičius. He had changed his name in 1939.)

War separated Napoleonas from his wife, Marija, and daughter, Liucija, both of whom remained in Lithuania. Despite this great loss, Napoleonas remained outgoing and involved himself in many cultural pursuits in Australia.

Marija Butkūniene, Napoleonas' wife

Source: MyHeritage

and their daughter, Liucija Butkūnaitė, later Pečkienė 

Source:  My Heritage

He described himself as a widower during the selection process for resettlement in Australia. He arrived on the First Transport, on 28 November 1947. At the age of 40, he was among the oldest passengers.

Later, when he applied for Australian citizenship in 1954, he changed his marital status from separated, which he then crossed out, to married.  Here was a loyal husband.

Life in Australia

His level of English at the time of the selection interview, probably in September or early October 1947, was described as ‘slight – learning’.  However, when the Lithuanians assembled in the Diepholz camp one week prior to departure from Bremerhaven on the Heintzelman, in late October, he was elected the interpreter for their committee headed by Jonas Motiejūnas and Povilas Baltutis.  

Moreover, Genovaitė Kazokas, in her 2003 book, Lithuanian Artists in Australia, having interviewed Napoleonas, reported that one of the subjects he taught in the Oldenburg camp was English.  It seems that the Australian interviewers got the strength of his English wrong.  If they asked him directly about it, perhaps he was being modest.

As he stayed in the Bonegilla camp until 29 January 1948, more than 7 weeks, he had the opportunity to improve his fluency by attending classes every weekday, and chatting with the Australian staff.

With one-quarter of the men, he was sent initially to pick fruit in northern Victoria. In his case, his employers were AW and JF Fairley of Shepparton. After more than two months of this, he returned to the Bonegilla camp on 7 April. He stayed for another two weeks, with the possibility of more English language classes.

Next, he was sent to work at Goliath Portland Cement company in Railton, Tasmania, on 22 April.

His cancelled Alien Registration Certificate, held by the National Archives of Australia in Melbourne, shows his first address as being in Melbourne as of 19 August 1949. That was more than one month before the date, 30 September 1949, on which he would have been released from his ‘two-year’ work contract. It has been recorded without further comment.

Active Lithuanian in Melbourne

In Melbourne, he worked initially as a storeman and became an active member of the diaspora community. By the time he applied for citizenship in May 1954, he was a self-employed professional photographer.

For a long time, he was the only photographer of Lithuanian events. He advertised in the Lithuanian press that, ‘Those important occasions such as weddings, name days, christenings, house warmings, need to be imortalised in photographs, so when you return to Lithuania you have something to show your relatives’.

Napoleonas Butkūnas, photographer, advertisement 

Source:  Australijos Lietuvis

He became a long-time contributor to and distributor of the Melbourne press. He worked for some time for the printing house of Teviskės Aidai, the Melbourne-based Lithuanian Catholic newspaper.

For more than 20 years, Napoleonas ran a bookshop in the hall adjacent to the church adopted by the Lithuanians, that of St John the Evangelist on Victoria Parade, East Melbourne. He distributed thousands of Lithuanian publications, hundreds of plaques and Lithuanian signs.  He supported Lithuanian activities and the parish with the profits from these sales.

When Lithuanian organisations were being established, Napoleonas was active everywhere. He was a founding member of the Melbourne Lithuanian Club, held various positions in the board of Kariau Ramové (the Lithuanian branch of Australia’s Returned Services League) and was briefly its chairman. He was also a frequent member of the Australian Lithuanian Community National Council, as well as the founder of the Blaivininkų Draugia (Temperance Society) and an active member of the Christian Democrats club.

In her book on Australian Lithuanians, Luda Popenhagen pinned down one of his many committees as that which founded Melbourne’s Lithuanian Club, registered with the Government in 1957. Another committee has been pinned down in the photograph below.

We think that Napoleonas is seated at the right of the front row in this photograph
of a Melbourne Lithuanian community committee

Source:  Australian Lithuanian Archive

As a journalist, he wrote articles on various topics. As an artist, he used to paint in oils and donate his paintings to raffles organised by Lithuanian groups.

Genovaitė Kazokas wrote that art was Napoleonas' favourite subject in high school. She added that, “His oil paintings show a sense of composition and competent brushwork. His themes are Australian landscapes rendered realistically and with conventional perspective …”

A landscape in oils by Butkūnas

Source: Kazokas' thesis Vol II

What of Lithuania’s future?  This was the type of question that Napoleon raised in conversations. ‘It is important that the Lithuanian consciousness of the diaspora lasts as long as possible, so that there are close and sincere relations between the homeland and the diaspora’, he wrote.

Napoleonas' Legacy

On 13 March 1983 at the age of 76, Napoleonas died in a Melbourne hospital. The funeral service was held at St. John's Catholic Church in East Melbourne, which had become the Lithuanian parish church. The Lithuanian choir, men's choir and a soloist, his nephew, Jurgis Rubas, sang. From the Church, a long convoy of cars escorted the casket to the Fawkner Cemetery, and from there a crowd of about 80 returned to the Melbourne Lithuanian Club for the wake.

Napoleonas bequeathed $30,000 to the Australian Lithuanian Fund. It was about half of his estate and, at that time, the biggest contribution to the Fund. It had been created through donations to develop and nurture Lithuanian cultural activities institutions around Australia. Napoleonas had said in his will, ‘Use my savings for the Lithuanian cause according to your wisdom’.

The Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that the $30,000 in 1983 would have had a buying power equivalent to nearly $118,000 in 2024. The interest it would have earned since 1983 could be taken into account too, although clearly some of the money has been spent on worthwhile projects – from the interest earned, rather than Napoleonas’ capital.

Also, in the immediate aftermath of his death, 16 people and organisations had donated a total of $125 to the Fund in his memory. The Reserve Bank estimation of the modern buying power of this amount is $490.

Discovering Australia

We know that he also cared about his new homeland, Australia, as he became a naturalised Australian citizen on 26 September 1955.

His niece, Dana Baltutienė wrote about him in the Mūsų Pastogė issue of 12 March 1984.

“My memories of my uncle Napoleon from the time in Lithuania are rather vague. I was still too young. I got to know my uncle more closely in the German camp in Oldenburg, where he then taught at a school for Lithuanian fugitives and deportees. Our family lived in a neighbouring camp, and Napoleonas visited us often.

“My uncle and I came to Australia in 1947.* He was sent to Tasmania for contract work, leaving my parents in northern Victoria. In 1951, uncle bought a house in Melbourne, in the suburb of St Kilda. At first, my parents also took shelter under that roof.

“At that time, the Lithuanians of Melbourne had already started organising community life, and our family actively got involved. Uncle, of course, had become a member of the family. We went everywhere together to dances, plays, to church on Sundays.

“When he bought a car, a new period of traveling around Victoria began in my life. Whenever my uncle was able to get away from work and I from school, we would travel together. During five years of living together in St Kilda we drove across Victoria. We travelled very simply, without any amenities. When the evening came, uncle would park the car away from the road, tie his own a hammock between two eucalyptus trees and sleep. I, meanwhile, made my bed in the bushes. As soon as the sun came up, we continued our journey. Uncle was never looking for conveniences.

“Later, after I got married, he bought a tent and a spirit stove. He extended his travels even to northern Australia. After returning, he shared his impressions with us, showing photos and slides from the trip.

“Uncle was a friendly person, a bright face in Melbourne's Lithuanian community. He lived a modest and simple life. He neither smoked nor drank nor ate meat. He had loved books since he was young, and as he got older, he became even more attached to them.

“He often wrote about various topics in our press. He nurtured the Esperanto language, submitted essays to their publications.

“After falling ill with arthritis in his legs, he returned to his youthful hobby of painting. His drawings, dominated by nature, Australian eucalyptus trees and the sun, decorate the rooms of his wife, daughter and grandson in Lithuania.”

In Conclusion

To be buying his own house in 1951, maybe less than 4 years after arrival in Australia, is amazing. Someone who did not drink alcohol, smoke or eat meat, however, would have had much lower living expenses than someone who did.

The photograph of Napoleonas used with his Teviškės Aidai obituary

Source:  Teviškės Aidai

Thanks to that large donation from his estate, Napoleonas’ legacy lives on in literature as well as his art. For instance, one of the first steps after Lithuanian freedom from Soviet control in 1991 was the publication of an anthology called Po Pietų Kryžium or Under the Southern Cross.

Money from the Australian Lithuanian Fund, including from Napoleonas’ estate, was used to print this anthology in Lithuania, at a price much less than the cost of preparing and printing a book in Australia. This was organised through the efforts of Napoleonas’ niece, Dana Baltutienė, now chairing the Lithuanian Cultural Council. When the anthology became available to Australian purchasers in 1991, it was possible to offer it for sale at only $10 a copy, a price of about $23 in 2024. Of course, it also had offered business to a newly independent Lithuanian printing house and its employees.

Footnote

* Her uncle certainly came to Australia in 1947, but Dana was hazy about her own date of arrival. A Bonegilla camp identity card has Danuta Butkevicius arriving on the Svalbard, which reached Australia on 28 June 1949. Although Dana was already 11 years old, the signature on the card is V. Butkevicius or her father, Vaclovas, who came with his wife and Danuta on the same voyage. Also on that voyage was another Butkevicius, Jonas. If he was related, there were now 3 brothers in Australia. And, for there to be a nephew with a different family name, at least one of his sisters probably reached Australia too.

CITE THIS AS:  Pocius, D, Ščevinskienė, R and Tündern-Smith, A (2025) 'Napoleonas Butkunas (1907-1983), Patriot, Photographer, Philanthropist'

Sources

Australijos Lietuvis [The Australian Lithuanian] (1951) ['Advertising'] Melbourne, 29 October, page 14 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280320837, accessed 8 September 2025.

Baltrukonienė, Alisa (1983) ‘Mirusieji, Anapilin Iškeliavo Napoleonas Butkūas’, ‘The Dead, Napoleonas Butkūnas has set off for Anapilis’ Mūsų Pastogė [Our Haven] Sydney, 4 April, p 2 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1983/1983-04-04-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 13 March 2025.

Baltrukonienė, Alisa (1991) ‘”Po Pietų Kryžium”’ [‘”Under the Southern Cross”’] Mūsų Pastogė [Our Haven] Sydney, 15 April, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1991/1991-04-15-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 11 March 2025.

Butkevičiūtė-Baltutienė, Dana (1984) ‘Dėdė Napoleoną Prisimenant’ [‘Remembering Uncle Napoleonas’] Mūsų Pastogė [Our Haven] Sydney, 12 March, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1984/1984-03-12-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 12 March 2025.

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My Heritage, 'Napoleonas Butkūnas(Butkevičius)' https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-1-OYYV6P5EABRTJ4FB3EB2WUN4XXQXZKY-1-16/napoleonas-butk%C5%ABnasbutkevi%C4%8Dius-in-myheritage-family-trees, accessed 11 September 2025.

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