Artur Klaar (1919-1970): Economics student, accountant, Estonian

Updated 18 July 2024

We've met Artur Klaar already as the fellow Estonian who befriended Flaavi Hodunov in Peterborough.  It's possible that they had become friends at Bangham, at Bonegilla, on the First Transport or even earlier, when they discovered that they had both attended the same public primary school in Narva, Estonia.

Artur was also the best man at Flaavi's wedding on 26 December 1949 and the godfather to Flaavi's first-born daughter in 1951.

Artur Klaar (left) with Flaavi Hodunov on Flaavi's wedding day;
the blue eyes are authentic, according to their Bonegilla cards, but whoever hand-coloured the photo used their imagination for the auburn hair as people of Estonian descent are much more likely to have dark brown or blond hair or sometimes Viking red if they have Swedish blood

The best man and the bridesmaid before the wedding of Flaavi and Walya:
Artur Klaar with G Linke, probably Gladys

Source for both:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Born on 1 June 1919, Artur was nearly 8 years older than Flaavi so probably would have been in high school already as Flaavi started primary school. It was not just the same school premises and maybe teachers that they had in common, though.

They both would have remembered many other parts of the small but significant town of Narva. Perhaps the older Artur would have been able to explain things about it that the younger Flaavi had not understood.

Artur Klaar (left) with Walya and Flaavi Hodunov, probably in Peterborough

Source:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Their paths had separated after the primary school. Flaavi probably did not start school until the late summer of 1935, as Estonian children still don’t start until after they have turned 7. If he finished primary school at the start of the 1941 summer, this would have been the time when the Soviets retreated ahead of a German advance into Estonia.

We know from Flaavi’s daughter, Tatyana, that Flaavi’s parents sent him to Germany as the Soviet forces invaded again in September 1944, since he had been working with German mechanics.

After finishing primary school around 1932, Artur finished high school around 1938 before becoming a bookkeeper in a bank while enrolled in an economics course at the University of Tartu.

All young Estonian men during the first period of independence (1918-40) were required to do many months of military training after they finished their schooling. Artur had not only completed this but completed an officer’s training course at the military academy. At the end of this, he was promoted to the most junior officer rank, of ensign.

Artur had completed only 1½ years of his economics course when WWII disrupted it. At this point in his story, it is relevant to consider what preceded WWII and the first independence period in Estonian history.

The first known foreign occupiers of Estonia were the Danes, who maybe arrived during the 12th century. The King of Denmark sold the Duchy of Estonia to German crusaders, the Teutonic Order, 1346. While these German occupied themselves with christianising the Estonians, they probably were amongst those who took the opportunity to settle on land which seemed theirs for the taking.

The Swedes came next, ruling over Estonia from 1561 until forced out by a Russian invasion in the early 18th century. During the Swedish period, some Swedes also bought land in Estonia, giving the country a mixture of German and Swedish nobility. The Russian occupation of Estonian was formalised in 1721. In order to keep the nobility on side, the Russians initially gave them more power over the Estonian peasants, who were living on the less salubrious parts of the noble estates.

The Russians had occupied Estonia for more than 200 years when the October Revolution gave the locals a longed-for opportunity to claim their freedom. This became official with a proclamation of independence on 24 February 1918. The Russians, now the Soviet Union, invaded again in August 1940, claiming all the Baltic States as theirs under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Hitler broke this Pact, having decided that Germans needed Lebensraum in the Soviet Union too. German rule returned to Estonia in June 1941, but was under threat again in the summer of 1944.

This history indicates that the Estonians’ lived experience of the German nobility and the Nazis, and Tsarist and Communist Russia meant that, of the two evils, they certainly preferred the Germans. Thus joining the German Army to fight the return of the Russians was not supporting the Nazi regime but opposing the Russians. Many of the Baltic men who came to Australia on what I have called the Fifth Fleet were among those who fought against the Russians, and Artur Klaar was one.

He fought in two major battles, those of Narva and Vaivara, the latter known as the Sinimäed (or Blue Hills) and remembered by Estonians today as a battle in which the Soviet forces were defeated. He was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant and awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. I know that he was not the only First Transport passenger who had an Iron Cross in his luggage.

The Allies in occupied Germany decided to overlook this form of co-operation with the former Nazi regime. It often happened in circumstances where the young Baltic men had no other option, and sorting out volunteers from conscripts was not worth the effort. As time as proven, the Allies were more interested in removing Communists from the ranks of those migrating to third countries than looking into the details of apparent co-operation with the Nazis.

The report for his September 1947 interview by the Australian selection team in Buchholz refugee camp records that Artur’s knowledge of English then was slight. However, I happen to know from my own mother’s life and a good friend who was studying economics at Tartu University at the same time as her, that a knowledge of English was something of a prerequisite. I imagine that many texts were available in English only, plus English was available as a high school subject.

The report also said that Artur had 6 years experience as an accountant in a bank.  I think this is a bit of an exaggeration.  Six years from the end of high school in the summer of 1938 takes us to the summer of 1944, when the Russians/Soviets were invading again and Artur was fighting the battles of Narva and Vaivara, possibly from February.  There was also the greater part of a year spent around 1939 in compulsory military training.

Only four months later after his arrival in Australia, Artur was sent from Bangham to Peterborough because of his good language skills. That tends to support the idea that he knew some English before starting at Tartu University. His studies there, Edna Davis’ shipboard classes and classes at the Bonegilla camp all would have helped Artur hone his skills.

From Peterborough, Artur was sent to Adelaide to work in the South Australian Railways (SAR) offices. He remained with the SAR for the rest of his life.

In Adelaide, he met and married another Estonian, Silvia Tulina, on 21 June 1951. Silvia had studied medicine for 6 years at the University of Tartu between 1936 and 1942. In Germany from September-October 1944, she had made her way to Göttingen to complete her medical qualifications before travelling to Australia in 1950.

In Australia, Silvia found along with other doctors with European qualifications, that she could not practice medicine here, not without doing the whole course again.

There were so many such instances of this that Egon Kunz, himself with a doctorate from Hungary in Hungarian language, literature and social history plus an Australian doctorate in demography, wrote a book about it. Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia was published in 1975.

The situation for those with medical degrees from outside English-speaking nations has changed little since. It can be compared with the struggle which Vytautas Stasiukynas had to obtain employment related to his veterinary science qualifications.

Silvia Klaar was more fortunate than most. At the time she reported her change of name by marriage to the Department of Immigration, Adelaide, for its Aliens Registration records in July 1951, she advised that she was now employed as an assistant pathologist at the University of Adelaide. She was employed in similar non-clinical fields for the rest of her working life.

Artur died way too early, on 6 November 1970, of a heart attack when aged only 51. He would have been employed still by the SAR when this happened.

Silvia told me that Artur was a smoker who could not give up the habit. He also had developed high cholesterol in the days before heart by-pass operations were performed in Australia.

He merited an obituary in the Australian-Estonian newspaper, Meie Kodu, on 3 December 1970. It’s in the Estonian language, of course, but Google Translate now can be a useful starting point for any of us.

The obituary’s author, Richard Ollino, noted that Artur had enrolled again in Economics at the University of Göttigen in Germany, but abandoned this course due to his selection for resettlement in Australia.

Artur then matriculated to the University of Adelaide, but again abandoned the course when bad health interceded. Silvia said that he had passed two Adelaide University subjects at this point. Richard also wrote mysteriously of “a duty, and obligation”, which blocked Artur’s return to study.  Maybe it was his marriage, into which Silvia brought a young daughter.  In any case, three times interrupted might have left him feeling that it was not meant to be.

Richard Ollino’s obituary describes how Artur was able to contribute greatly to the Estonian community in Adelaide. In translation, it reads in part, “The problems of preserving the Estonian spirit abroad were close to his heart. He devoted his strength and energy to Estonian social activities in Adelaide in various fields.

“He was a board member of the Adelaide Estonian Society for a long time, a board member of the Adelaide branch of the Fighters' Association, and a member of the Adelaide Congregation Council of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was always ready to help where a helping hand was needed.

“However, the Estonian community in Adelaide remembers Arthur Klaar most of all for the fact that he, as a founding member of the Estonian House, laid the foundation for our Adelaide Estonian home, in which our national activities now take place.”

This sort of community activity is at least as important volunteering to support the wider community through organisations which might benefit more of those in need, whether it's the Good Neighbour Council and Red Cross like Edvins Baulis, the local hospital or the lost dogs home.  It stabilises a new community in its unfamiliar surrounds and is likely to stop those on the periphery from drifting further away into problems in a foreign language, a foreign society. 

Artur Klaar is at the rear left of this 25 January 1953 photograph
of the elected members of the committee of the Estonian community in Adelaide

Source:  Siska

Despite not completing a degree, Artur continued his membership of Fraternitas Estica, a Latin name meaning 'the Estonian fraternity'. Fraternities for men and sororities for women were a serious, lifelong commitment in Estonia’s one pre-War university and for Estonians in exile.

The fraternity certainly honoured Artur’s life, with its death notices appearing in what might have been all the Estonian community newspapers in the English-speaking world: Vaba Eesti Sõna (Free Estonian Word, America), Vaba Eestlane (Free Estonian, Canada) and Meie Kodu (Our Home, Australia) advised their readers of Artur’s passing.

Sources

Klaar, Silvia (2011) Personal communication.

Korp! Fraternitas Estica (nd) ‘Coetus 1957/1958 [1957/1958 Group]’ https://www.cfe.ee/album-esticum?show=1957#A778 accessed 23 March 2024.

Kunz, Egon (1975). Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia. Canberra, Australian National University Press, digital copy now available from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114807, accessed 16 May 2024.

Ollino, Richard (1970) 'Artur Klaar, In Memoriam' Meie Kodu, Sydney 30 December, p2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1970/12/03/ accessed 17 May 2024.

Persian, Jayne (1918) ‘Egon Frank Kunz: Displaced Person’ https://australia-explained.com.au/history-shorts/egon-frank-kunz-displaced-person/ accessed 23 March 2024.

Pocius, Daina et al (2023) 'Vytautas Stasiukynas (1920 –?): The Vet Who Found Happiness in South America' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/01/vytautas-stasiukynas-veterinarian-Colombia.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Siska. Voldemar (nd) ‘Eesti ühiskond Lõuna-Austraalias’ [‘The Estonian community in South Australia’] https://www.folklore.ee/rl/fo/austraalia/rmt/EAI/siska.htm accessed 23 March 2024.

Tündern-Smith, Ann (2022) 'The only Australian aboard our Heintzelman voyage, Edna Davis (1906-1985)' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2022/12/edna-davis-only-australian.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Urmenyhazi, Attila (2008) 'Kunz, Egon Francis (Frank) (1922–1997)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/kunz-egon-francis-frank-14133/text25143, accessed 16 May 2024.

Miervaldis Indriksons (1918-1948): Fatal Workplace Accident by Ann Tündern-Smith

We have learned already that Miervaldis Indriksons was killed by a workplace accident at Naracoorte, South Australia, while working as directed for the South Australian Railways (SAR).

Miervaldis Indriksons, ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source: NAA: A2571, INDRIKSONS, MIERVALDIS

He was using a front end loader to fill in a dam at the railway station. The machine toppled over the edge of the dam and rolled several times. As the Border Chronicle put it, “capsized and somersaulted”. Miervaldis tried to jump clear, but caught his foot in the steering wheel. He was dragged into the dam and his back was broken.

Another newspaper report (in the Adelaide Advertiser) of the accident says that he was thrown clear, but then the machine rolled onto him.

He was taken to the local hospital but died less two hours after the accident, half an hour after reaching the hospital, from his internal injuries, on 15 September 1948. The report of the Australian interviewing panel in Germany has added to it, ‘Deceased, 11.30 am, 15/9/48’ – although the person who added the exact time did so more than 8 years later.

The coroner had decided that an inquest was unnecessary, perhaps because the cause of death was so obvious, no matter what the discrepancies in the details. These days, one is much more likely to be held in order to work out ways of such a horrible accident happening again. How about installing roll cages on all SAR earthmoving equipment or, better still, enclosed drivers’ cabins?

Miervaldis might have been driving a machine like this 1956 Ford tractor
with front-end loader attachment and no protection for the driver

Source:  Tays Auctions

Lutheran Pastor K Hartmann of Bordertown conducted the funeral the next day. The SAR arranged transport to allow his fellow countrymen to attend. The funeral also was attended by the Engineer in Charge of the broadening, EL Walpole, the man who was to speak to the Mount Gambier Rotary Club eight days later on what the broadening project involved (see previous entry).

His fellow countrymen must have been the ones who told the Border Chronicle reporter that Miervaldis had been the only surviving member of a family of eight, his parents, brothers, sisters and wife all having been killed during the War. There was believed to be a small son still alive in Europe.

Miervaldis had been born in Helsinki, Finland, on 16 January 1918. Finland had been part of Tsarist Russia, along with his family’s Latvian homeland, until declaring independence on 6 December 1917. Russia’s new Bolshevik Government recognised that independence on 31 December, only 16 days before Miervaldis was born into a time of great change.

His parents were the former Lavize Balodis and Mikelis Indreksons.

By the time he found himself in the American Zone of Germany after World War II, he was admitting to being married, with two dependents. At the time of being interviewed for possible resettlement in Australia, he was in a camp for Latvians in Lübeck, northern Germany.

His usual occupation was šoferis or chauffeur/driver and mehāniķis or mechanic. His level of education, according to the report of the Australian interviewing panel, was 6 years of elementary school. That interviewing panel recorded that he had 3 years of experience as a mechanic in Latvia.

His Bonegilla card has ‘None’ typed into the Next of Kin space: presumably the marriage had broken down since declared on 3 April 1946.

Sources

Naming the 62 Balts to Bangham (1948-49) by Ann Tündern-Smith

The 62 Baltic refugees sent to Bangham via Wolseley in South Australia from the First Transport via Bonegilla were named on a 'Schedule' prepared by the Commonweatlth Employment Service and placed on their file 21 in the series MT29/1. You can click here to see the original forms.

I thank Jonas Mockunas for digging deeply into his pocket to pay to have this large file digitised.

I've added links to the names of those men who have been mentioned or discussed in previous blog entries and will update the links as more biographies get written.

THE DISPLACED PERSONS OR BALTS PICTURED

Most of the original 62 men from the Heintzelman to Bangham are likely to be in this photo

Collection of Tatyana Tamm

THE DISPLACED PERSONS NAMED

Lithuanians

• Bataitis, Viktoras
• Bielkis, Vladas
• Bimba, Jonas
• Blasevicius, Juozas
• Bliukys, Tadas
• Brazauskas, Antanas
• Budrionis, Antanas
• Bukucinskas, Kazys
• Bulke, Petras
• Caplikas, Jonas
• Dailyde or Dailide, Vladas
• Daulenskis, Kleopoas
• Deimantas, Povilas
• Donela, Juozas
• Draugelis, Jonas
• Duoba, Pranas
• Dziaugys, Jonas
• Fedaravicius, Jonas
• Grabauskas, Jurgis
• Guoba, Jurgis
• Guscia, Stepos
• Gustainis, Vytautas
• Jakaitis, Jonas
• Jakstas, Fridrikas
• Jakubauskas, Jonas
• Janonis, Zenonas
• Jarusevicius, Jonas
• Jasinskas, Vaclovas
• Jasulevicius, Justinas
• Juzulenas, Raimondas/Raimundas
• Kalikas, Domas
• Kaminskas, Benediktas
• Kanisauskas, Antanas
• Knystaustas, Antanas
• Paisiunas, Leonas
• Sinkunas, Vladas

Latvians

• Berzkalns, Zanis
• Broders, Girts
• Brunavs, Gunars
• Dukalskis, Nikolajs
• Enkuzis, Roberts
• Gilucs, Francis
• Burdikovs or Budrikovs, Ojars
• Graudins, Modris
• Iljicevs, Alfreds
• Indriksons, Miervaldis
• Irbe, Gordijs-Edgars
• Janitens, Alfons
• Jakobsons, Gunars
• Jurgensons, Voldemars
• Kaulins, Egons
• Kibilds, Nikoljs
• Kirpiconoks, Aleksandrs
• Kiselis, Janis
• Kocins, Richards
• Kolesnikovs, Janis

Estonians

• Hodunov, Flaavi
• Jakobsen, Hugo
• Kang, Eduard
• Klaar, Artur

SOURCE

National Archives of Australia, Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1947 - 1950; 21, Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948 - 1950; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 9 July 2024.

Balts at Bangham (1948-49) Part 2, by Ann Tündern-Smith

We previously have looked at the work which the 62 men sent to Bangham, South Australia, for the State’s Railways (SAR) Commission were expected to do. We’ve noted also that, maybe one month arrival their arrival, 17 or 18 were sent via Adelaide to Peterborough, to train as porters and cleaners.

BANGHAM CAMP CONDITIONS

How the men had been living was described in a May 1948 report from the Commissioner for Railways, who wrote, “In the camp at Bangham, the men are living under AWU [Australian Workers Union] conditions, and the camps have to be reasonably mobile, while at the same time conforming to the conditions under the award or agreement covering AWU workers.

The Bangham tent camp is at the rear of the shelter shed;
in the foreground, it appears that the broad gauge line has been laid while the narrow gauge remains in place, with some spare rails to the left of the line;
Question:  how did the photographer get this perspective in 1948-49 without a drone?

Photograph courtesy of Tatyana Tamm

“It is not, therefore, practicable to establish more buildings at Bangham, even if we could get the material.

"The camp, consists of tents, mess rooms, ablution, and sanitary facilities, but there is no recreation hall.

“Whatever additional amenities are provided will have to be general to all AWU camps, if demanded, or we shall be accused of giving amenities to Balts which we could not give to Australians. The men in this camp work a five-day week and are at liberty to be away from the camp from 4.30 p.m. Friday until 7.30 a.m. Monday.

"It is the intention, as soon as possible, to provide a large camp at Narracoorte [sic] where men from Bangham and other isolated camps in the South-East can spend the week-end."

The Commissioner for Railways was replying to representations from the Hon LH Densley, Member of the Legislative Council, who also was a member of the Tatiata District Council.  The Commissioner’s reply was published in the Narracoorte Herald of 17 May and the Border Watch of 20 May.

While Mr Densley’s letter has not been published, the nature of the commissioner’s reply and Mr Densley’s dual memberships suggest that he certainly was a civic-minded individual.

Sanitary facilities at the camp could be condemned by the local medical officer as inadequate, the Tatiata Council’s Health Officer, Dr KD Krantz, commented on the reply.

In moving that Cr Densley be thanked for his representations in the matter, another Councillor said that an inspection of the camp could be made by the Health Inspector, and if sanitary conditions were found to be inadequate, a report could be submitted to Council.

The local Health Inspector carried out this instruction and reported back to the Council that, “Sanitary arrangements consist of a series of movable cubicles over pits on a sandy rise. Cubicles are moved on to fresh pits and old ones filled in at frequent intervals. However, washup water and some kitchen refuse was being deposited in a shallow hole near the kitchen. I instructed the camp attendant to provide refuse buckets and have the material buried each day.

“I do not consider that these men are being subjected to any undue hardships in regard to camping conditions as the amenities provided for them are equal to those provided for local men under similar conditions." This report appeared in Bordertown’s Border Chronicle of 17 June 1948.

Did the men feel that the conditions were only a slight improvement on those endured when drafted into the German Army, as many of them had been? At least there were not bombs and bullets flying around, but see below.

It wasn’t only moving the rails from the train which had brought them to the Wolseley railway yards (as discussed in the previous blog entry) which was dangerous. Even travelling to work might have more than normal dangers.

On 2 September 1948, a ganger probably had had his life saved by former medical students after a motor trolley carrying the men had stopped suddenly. The ganger was thrown heavily to the ground when a bar came lose, creating an obstruction which led to the sudden stop. After being treated on the scene, the ganger was admitted to hospital with several head injuries as well as a broken leg and ribs, according to Border Chronicle.

At this time, we do not know if this incident involved anyone from the First Transport. Tragically, a workplace accident did lead to the death of one of the First Transporters later that month.

Miervaldis Indriksons' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA

Miervaldis Indriksons, then aged only 30, was driving a front end loader to fill in a railway dam at Narracoorte. The machine toppled and Indriksons tried to jump clear, but caught his foot in the steering wheel. He was taken to the local hospital but died two hours later from his internal injuries, on 15 September 1948.

Lutheran Pastor K Hartman of Bordertown conducted the funeral the next day. The railways arranged transport to allow his fellow countrymen to attend. The funeral also was attended by the Engineer in Charge of the broadening, EL Walpole, the man who was to speak to the Mount Gambier Rotary Club eight days later on what the broadening project involved (see previous entry).

His fellow countrymen must have been the ones who told the Border Chronicle reporter that Miervaldis had been the only surviving member of a family of eight killed during the War. There was believed to be a small son still alive in Europe.

Pastor Hartman had been keeping an eye on the Bangham men since he first visited on 14 January. He discovered that none of the 20 Protestants had a copy of the Bible in English. The next day, the Border Chronicle published his letter appealing for financial help to purchase bibles for the men, with a parallel version in their mother tongue if possible.

There were other incidents among the Bangham men involving the First Transporters. One was Petras Bulke, a Lithuanian who had to be admitted to hospital in March 1948 after accidentally swallowing some kerosene. As the Border Chronicle reported at the time, “Mr Bulke was performing a trick which involved its use”.

It looks like problems getting Petras Bulke to medical assistance had been included in Mr Densley’s letter, since the Railway Commissioner’s reply included, "The Engineer-in-Charge of the work has the responsibility for seeing that sick or injured men are conveyed to the nearest doctor, and, so far as I am aware, his duties in this respect are not neglected even when the injuries are the result of brawls after working hours.

"The particular case referred to by Dr. Krantz was of an unusual character, and the delay in conveying the men (sic) to Bordertown was due to prompt advice not being given to the Engineer at Wolseley. We do not of course, keep ambulance vehicles at each camp, but first aid out fits, and employees qualified in first aid are available at all camps."

Dr Krantz further commented to the Tatiata Council that the delay in the case of kerosene poisoning was due to lack of telephone communication. Sometimes vehicles were not available and bad roads were also an obstacle. The lack of telephones in the Bangham area made the news also in August, when a public meeting in Bordertown agreed to petition the Post-Master General to provide telephone services from Bordertown to the area.

The Railway Commissioner had mentioned brawls after hours. This was not the only public mention of violent behaviour among young men traumatised by being caught up in World War II, mostly most unwillingly.

The Border Chronicle of 29 April 1948 reported that Aleksandrs Kirpiconoks, along with a later Latvian arrival, both probably without legal representation, had pleaded guilty to charges of disorderly behaviour and resisting arrest at Wolseley one Saturday earlier in that month. They were each fined £1 with 7/6 costs on the first charge and £2 plus 10/6 interpreter’s fee on the second charge.

A schedule from the Commonwealth Employment Service tells us that the men had been promised a weekly income of £5/19/6. This was a bit more than the basic wage at the time, reported in the Mount Gambier Border Watch as being £5/8/- in Adelaide from the beginning of the first pay period in February. This probably was a gross salary, with Pay As You Go tax yet to be deducted. As well, Railways might have been deducting more to cover the cost of the food for the men, and maybe even the cost of employing the “camp attendant”. The total of £3/17/6 to be paid by Kirpiconoks and his friend may well have swallowed up one week’s wages for both.

Also during April 1948, police were called to sort out a “disturbance” among some of the Baltic men on a freight train on which they were travelling back to the Bangham camp. Several windows were broken. The railway authorities would not allow the train to depart until the melee was sorted out. The result was two of the First Transporters, Antanas Brazauskas and Antanas Budrionis appearing before two Justices of the Peace on charges of wilful damage, for breaking the railway windows, and offensive behaviour. Again prrobably without legal representation, both pleaded guilty and were each fined £1 with 17/6 costs on the first count and £1 with 10/6 interpreter’s fee on the second. The total this time was £3/8/-, still a sobering amount of their weekly income.

In all fairness, I must point out that 9 other miscreants appeared before the Wolseley Court during the month covered by this report. Most cases involved drinking, fighting or “disorderly behaviour”. I have not found more reports of the Bangham camp residents appearing before the courts.

Another untoward incident in January 1949 involved one of the men already mentioned, Antanas Brazauskas. He was attacked in his tent by a fellow Lithuanian who he had regarded as a friend. The attacker found a rifle in Brazauskas’ tent and fired it about twenty times, it was alleged, piercing holes in the tent fabric.

Despite injuries, Brazauskas was able to stagger to the tent of two others who took him to a third tent, where he was “carefully guarded”. One of the men in the third tent, Feliksas Subacius, also was from the First Transport. The men tried to get police help, but had to wait for a day until a policeman from Wolseley arrived.

The men prepared a report to the Regional Director of Employment, Adelaide, claiming that this was not the first time that the attacker had moved against other men. “In the meantime”, they reported, “we approached our superiors and told them that our lives were endangered through the presence of the offender, and that either he or we would have to leave the camp”. The railway authorities had not removed the attacker or informed the men of their intentions by the time they had stipulated, so they had gone to Adelaide to lodge their complaint.

They had asked the Chief Engineer’s Department to give them employment somewhere else in the SAR. The men had been transferred to Terowie, more than 500 Km from Bangham and less than 25 Km from Peterborough.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

“These Baltic immigrants are, generally, reasonably well educated, and a proportion of them have a smattering of English. The latter are selected for transfer to other centres where English is taught, and they are trained for railway traffic duties. The others gradually acquire a knowledge of English from daily contact with Australian workmen.

“It is not practicable for the Railways Commissioner to supply transport to enable a Bordertown school teacher to visit the Bangham camp at nights (as) suggested nor is it practicable to provide additional amenities in these camps for the reasons given. It is considered, however, that the camp at Narracoorte, when constructed will provide relaxation at weekends.”

Relaxation at weekends probably was not what the Hon LH Densley MLC was seeking for the men in his letter referenced above, but it was the conclusion reached by the Railways Commissioner in the reply presented to the Tatiana District Council in May 1948.

Elsewhere I have read that the SAR was employing English-speaking migrants from a variety of places in the United Kingdom, leading the Baltic employees to wonder which English they were supposed to be acquiring by daily contact.

Three months later, another letter, this time to the Adelaide Advertiser from a church minister based in Bordertown, appealed for English language classes for the group at Bangham. He wrote that “constant association with these men has revealed that they have definite potentialities of becoming some of our finest Australian citizens. But, how can these potentialities develop into realities if they are debarred reasonable opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of the language of the country?

“Most of these men began their work with the railways with a knowledge of English which barely exceeded ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Repeated representations have been made to responsible authorities about the camp at Bangham, with the reply that it is ‘impracticable’ to make arrangements for an English teacher to visit it.”

As noted already, the 17 or 18 men speakers of good or excellent English had left in February, while Girts Broders, the original leader appointed by the Employment authorities in Bonegilla, probably had gone too. We have to hope that there were good English speakers among the later groups or the men were somehow picking up enough English to survive from their Australian colleagues.

English lessons finally arrived at the camp in December 1948, after a petition from the SAR at Bangham. The 40 students were supplied with free notebooks and a textbook called, “English for Newcomers to Australia” when they attended their first Friday night class on 10 December. But then their lessons came to an abrupt end, as their new teacher was leaving the district. The plan, thank goodness, was to obtain the services of another teacher in the new year.

It would be good to report that this plan was actioned, but I can find no further mention of English classes for the Bangham men in the South Australian newspapers digitised by Trove, at least until the men probably had left by the end of October 1949.

Indeed, the only 1949 report is the shoot up of Antanas Brazauskas’ tent in January and its consequences. Either the Bangham camp had settled down, or the local press reporters and their editors had lost interest.

Sources

Border Chronicle (1948) 'Balt Swallows Kerosene' Bordertown, SA 25 March p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918840 accessed 29 December 2023.

Border Chronicle (1948) 'English Classes for Balts' Bordertown, SA 16 December p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212921875 accessed 29 December 2023

Border Chronicle (1948) 'Petition for Telephonic Service to Bangham Area' Bordertown, SA 19 August p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212920470 accessed 20 April 2024.

Border Chronicle (1948) 'Sanitary conditions at Wolseley Railway Station "A Menace"' Bordertown, SA 17 June p 1

Border Chronicle (1949) 'Balts Leave Bangham Camp After Disturbance' Bordertown, SA 10 February p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212922409 accessed 15 April 2024.

Border Watch (1948) 'Basic Wage Increase' Mount Gambier, SA 20 January p 12 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article78592298 accessed 20 Apr 2024.

Chronicle (1948) 'Labour Shortage Delays New Gauge' Adelaide, SA 21 October p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article93211360 accessed 15 April 2024.

Hartman, K (1948) ‘Bibles for Immigrants’, Border Chronicle, Bordertown, SA, 15 January, p 7, https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918131, accessed 16 April 2024.

Hartman, KE (1948) 'Tuition for Balts' Advertiser Adelaide 28 August 1948 p 2 194808  https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43780741 accessed 29 December 2023.

Narracoorte Herald (1949) ‘Balts Leave Bangham Camp After Disturbance: Lithuanian attacked and injured’ Narracoorte, SA 14  February p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/nla.news-article147143280 accessed 15 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules; 21 (1947 – 1950), Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia – [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948 – 1950, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 7 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947–1956; INDRIKSONS, Miervaldis : Year of Birth - 1918 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 761, 1947–1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203644069 accessed 15 May 2024.

Wikipedia, 'Les Densley' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Densley accessed 15 April 2024.

Balts at Bangham (1948-49), Part 1 by Ann Tündern-Smith

John Mannion has told us already that 17 or 18 men from the First Transport were selected to train in Peterborough, South Australia, as railway cleaners and porters. They were chosen from a group of 62 men sent from Bonegilla to Wolseley, in South Australia, to work for South Australian Railways. The men selected for training in Peterborough had been picked because of their good English language skills.

Led by Girts Broders, the whole group of 62 had been moved rapidly on from the town of Wolseley, on the Adelaide-Melbourne line, to their own camp by the railway line at a rural locality called Bangham. They had left Bonegilla on 13 January 1948, probably reached Bangham on 14 January and were to start work on 15 January (according to the Border Chronicle of that date).

It's likely that Google's suggested bike path from Wolseley to Bangham
follows the railway line, closed to passenger traffic in 1990

Source:  Google Maps

The chosen 17 or 18 reached Peterborough on 23 February.  At a guess, they had left Bangham either early on 23 February or on the previous Friday, 20 February.  Either way, it means that they had experienced more than a month of work and rest in the Bangham camp.

Why were they in Bangham and what life like for these men?

As in other parts of Australia, different interests had built railway lines with different gauges for different purposes. Broader gauges are more expensive to build but provide better running properties of the train, higher load capacities even on poor ground, and higher speeds.

Broad gauge, 5 feet 3 inches or 1600 mm wide, and also known as Irish gauge, was used in Adelaide. Standard gauge, 4 feet 8½ inches or 1435 mm, had been legislated in South Australia in 1847, but the company building the first railway in New South Wales in the early 1850s had decided to use broad gauge. That led to South Australia (and Victoria) also ordering broad gauge trains and rolling stock.

Meanwhile, the original NSW engineer resigned and the new one persuaded all around him to use standard gauge instead. The NSW Parliament passed an Act declaring that standard gauge was the go. It was too late to cancel the South Australian and Victorian orders. Thus began what is now known as Australia’s “gauge muddle”.

Of more importance to us, narrow gauge in Australia is 3 ft 6 in or 1,067 mm. This was the gauge employed when railways were built through the agricultural areas of south-east South Australia. In the long run, this had led to problems, not the least of which was connectivity with the broad gauge chosen for rail in the Adelaide area.

The South Australian Parliament's Broadening of Gauge (South-Eastern Railways) Act , which received the Governor’s assent on 30th November 1944, permitted that “the South Australian Railways Commissioner … alter from three feet six inches to five feet three inches the gauge of the lines of railway between Wolseley and Mount Gambier and between Mount Gambier and Millicent … ”

Portion of a 1910 map showing South Australian railway lines
from Wolseley to Mt Gambier; although not shown on the map,
the line from Wolseley to Melbourne had been opened in 1887;
Bangham is midway between Custon and Frances in the north (top)

Source:  National Library nla.obj-234151847

The massive size of the task was illustrated in a talk given to members of the Mount Gambier Rotary Club by the Engineer in Charge of the project and reported in the Border Watch of 25 September 1948.  The Engineer in Charge was EL Walpole.

His explanation of the use of narrow gauge in Australia was that most narrow gauge lines went a short distance inland from the ports, and it was never conceived that they would eventually link with the broad gauges.  However, that did happen, and many broadening projects had to be carried out.

Rails for the new south-east South Australian line weighed 82 pounds to the yard (37 Kilos to 0.9 metre), twice with the previous weight, he said.  The new track would consist of six lengths of 40 feet welded together, that is 240 feet or 80 yards, each weighing 6560 pounds or 2976 Kg, nearly 3 tonnes.

The rails were made in Newcastle, New South Wales, and shipped to Mile End, in Adelaide, where they were placed on special trains and taken to the re-laying site.  Each train carried 48 of those 6 by 40 feet rail lengths, together weighing more than 140 tons (130 tonnes).  The 130 tonnes was good for two rails on each side of one mile of new track.

Trains were loaded in such a way that after the trans-shipping at Wolseley, the first rail to be laid was on top of the train.  The trans-shipping was quite a simple matter, according to Mr Walpole. Sixteen men with bars slid them across the skid platform.  However, every care had to be taken, as the job could be dangerous.

No wonder Mr Walpole said that the job could be dangerous!  Sixteen men handling a rail weighing nearly 3 tonnes means each man being responsible for 188 kg.  That would be more than twice their own body weight for the Baltic men, who had been starving or near-starving for most of the previous 7 years.

Steel cables, 70 feet or 21 metres in long, were used to unload the rails where they were to be laid, and the system worked so that each rail fell in exactly the right position.

So apparently this was the work to which the 62 men selected at the Bonegilla camp were to be sent. I expect that the nature of the work was not explained in detail beforehand, nor were they given the opportunity to opt out.

However, and as we have heard and read many times before, they were selected because of their physiques and labouring potential, not because of their intelligence or education.

Mr Walpole stressed the need for great care in laying ballast, which we have to hope was the job our 62 were more likely to be doing as it was less dangerous and required less skill. Mr Walpole also stressed correct drainage under the rails as, on the existing line, where there was no drainage, they had found some ballast pushed 14 feet or 4 metres under the track.

Ballast was one of the greatest problems for the track. Each mile needed 2,530 imperial tons or 2,300 tonnes of stone. Obtained from Tantanoola, near Mt Gambier, an extinct volcano, the stone was of first-class quality, and was being taken to the new line in train loads of more than 250 tons or 227 tonnes.

Working six days a week, and 24 hours a day, nine of these train loads were required for one mile of track. Consisting of crushed rock of 2½ inches (6 cm) and under, the ballast was run out in 40-ton (36-tonne) hoppers, and spread with a broad gauge plough, which had been converted to narrow gauge work, and did the work of 1,000 men. Each sleeper was packed with 9 inches (23 cm) of ballast, and at the edge of the drainage shoulder, it was increased to 10 or 10½ inches (25.5-26.7 cm).

(Why the project was using a plough converted from broad to narrow gauge work to build a broad gauge line is beyond modern understanding, but that’s what the reporter for the Border Watch wrote.)

Finalising the spreading the ballast was a job for fettlers, who had to ensure that the track was in “fine fettle” before the sleepers and rails were laid. We have to hope that the men from Bonegilla were employed in this less skilled and less dangerous work.

When relaying the gauge, the existing track was jacked up, the sleepers were knocked off, and the broad gauge sleepers slipped in. The broad gauge rails were then lowered. It took anything up to an hour to place a length of 80-pound (36-Kg) rail.

During cool weather, long lengths could be run out and left until the ballast packing could be done. In warm weather, the rails would tighten up, so they could not be left exposed for very long. It was found on one new line being laid in another area that rails left over the weekend without the ballast pack had moved 10 feet (300 cm) out of alignment.

Sleepers came from Western Australia and were mainly jarrah. They weighed 200 tons (181 tonnes) to the mile, which was heavier than the rails. It took 2130 sleepers to lay a mile, and they went roughly 11 to the ton (or roughly 12 to the metric tonne).

The authorities hoped that the line would reach Naracoorte sometime in 1949, and Mount Gambier possibly two years beyond that.

As an example of the time it took to plan and carry out the work, Mr Walpole said that on the Adelaide-Perth line, planning commenced in September 1923 and the work was completed on 1 August 1927. "There were 960 men on that job, but we are working with 180, including staff. Of these 70 are Balts, and they are very fine men," concluded Mr Walpole.

Seventy men clearly is more than the original 62. While 17 or 18 had been moved on to Peterborough, and Girts Broders probably had left for Canberra, more would have been sent from Bonegilla.

One month after Mr Walpole addressed the Rotarians, the Minister for Railways was telling the Parliament in October 1948 that 30 miles (48 Km) of earthworks, 25 miles (40 Km) of bridges and culverts and a further 20 miles (32 Km) of track were ready on the 48 miles (77 Km) between Wolseley and Naracoorte. Three station yards had been completed and another two were progressing well. The Wolseley to Naracoorte section could be completed in only another 10 months, if only the Minister could get an extra 250 men.

CR Cameron was at the other extreme of the industrial relations curve from the Engineer in Charge, but he too argued that the “men appeared to be fine types and are in good physical condition”. You may remember Clyde Cameron’s name from his time as a Minister in the Whitlam Government, including as Minister for Labor and Immigration in 1974-75.

Clyde Cameron in 1960

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When he wrote this comment in the national newspaper of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), the Australian Worker, he was the Union’s South Australian State President/Secretary and a federal Vice-President. The AWU also is regarded as having been Australia’s most powerful union at the time, perhaps for all time. His views should have carried some weight.

To further assuage the concerns of unionists, Clyde added that “the Balts who have settled in Australia during past years proved themselves to be good unionists, and it can, therefore, be assumed that the new arrivals can be relied upon to uphold the traditions of Australian Trade Unionism.”

Indeed, on both 7 April and 5 May 1948, the Australian Worker reported that G. Broders had paid cash to the South Australian Branch of the AWU: the large sum of £39/15/- ($79.50) in the first instance. Both payments would have been Union membership fees collected from the other First Transporters.

Next: What were conditions like for these unionised refugees at the Bangham camp?

Sources

Advertiser (1948) 'Broadening S.-E. Rail Gauge, Labour shortage delays work' Adelaide, SA, 14 October, p1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43786966 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Baltic Workers for S.A. Employed on A.W.U. Jobs' Sydney, 21 January p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146246762 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Cash Received', Sydney, 7 April, p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146243770 accessed 19 April 2024.

Australian Worker (1948) 'Cash Received', Sydney, 5 May, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146245052 accessed 19 April 2024.

Border Chronicle (1948), '62 Balts at Bangham, to help broaden rail gauge', Bordertown, SA, 15 January, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212918125 accessed 19 April 2024.

Border Watch (1948) ‘Broad Gauge Engineer Gives Amazing Facts Of Huge Undertaking’ Mount Gambier, SA, 25 September, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78591298 accessed 19 April 2024.

Broadening of Gauge (South-Eastern Railways) Act (No 15 of 1944), https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/sa/num_act/bogra15o1944454/ accessed 15 April 2024.

Guy, Bill (2008) ‘Clyde Robert Cameron (1913–2008)’, Labour Australia, https://labouraustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/cameron-clyde-robert-32947 accessed 17 April 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Australian News and Information Bureau, Canberra; A1200, Black and white photographic negatives and prints, single number series with 'L' [Library] prefix, 1911-1971;  L36210, TITLE: Personalities - Clyde R Cameron MP (WA) CATEGORY: photograph FORMAT: b&w negative TYPE: cellulose acetate STATUS: preservation material, 1960-1960; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/DetailsReports/PhotoDetail.aspx?Barcode=11223331 accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia, ‘Clyde Cameron' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Cameron, accessed 17 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne%E2%80%93Adelaide_rail_corridor, accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Narrow Gauge Railways in Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-gauge_railways_in_Australia accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Rail Transport in New South Wales' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_New_South_Wales accessed 19 April 2024.

Wikipedia 'Rail Transport in South Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_South_Australia accessed 19 April 2024.

Girts Broders (1923-2006): Industrialist’s Son to Company Manager by Ann Tündern-Smith

Girts Broders was chosen in the Bonegilla camp to lead a band of men sent to the South Australian Railways at Wolseley because of his excellent English. 

Further evidence is on his Displaced Persons Registration Card from Germany in September 1945, where he stated that his usual profession was “tulks”, Latvian for “translator”, and his languages spoken in order of fluency were Latvian, of course, and English ahead of German. Elsewhere he has stated his previous occupation as “student”. 

Evidence of Girts’ high standard of English is a letter he wrote, published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 15 March 1948. His English was flawless, unlike that of the journalist who headlined his letter or perhaps the printer who set the headline type. 

Source: Brisbane Courier-Mail, 26 December 1947

His first name, Girts, is the Latvian equivalent of the Germanic and Nordic “Gert”, which in turn is the equivalent of the English “Gerard”. While Gerard would have been the direct translation for Australians, it’s diminutive, “Gerry”, sounds the same as the World War II derogatory term for a German soldier, “Jerry”. It’s no surprise then, that he became known as George in Australia.

Girts Broders' ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A2571 BRODERS, G

As the head of the party of 62 moved on from Wolseley to another camp for the new arrivals at Bangham, he was the spokesman, although he wasn’t the only one in the party with fine English. Hugo Jakobsen from Estonia and Nikolajs Kibilds from Latvia were two others. More about them soon. 

The 62 had been selected by the Commonwealth Employment Service at the Bonegilla Migrant Centre for the South Australian Railways (SAR), which had an overdue need to widen its tracks from narrow gauge. The one thing holding them back, their Minister announced, was lack of manpower. 

When the press came calling, Girts told Bordertown’s Border Chronicle that “the men had been busy preparing camp and were maintaining excellent spirits. Their average age was 24 and all were single and ‘anxious to meet the local ladies’. They would miss the excellent swimming facilities which had been provided at Bonegilla camp. 

"The brilliantly-lighted Australian cities and their peace-time spirit had created a deep impression on (him) after seven years of war conditions in Europe. His own country had suffered alternatively from German and Russian occupation, and after three years among German ruins, the sight of a normal city was ‘pleasing’. 

“Questioned as to their political views, (Girts) said he represented every member of the party when he answered, ‘Everything, but not communistic’.” 

Imagine his feelings then, and that of the other men in the Bangham camp, when they learned of the words of an Adelaide City Councillor at a Municipal Association meeting.  The Mayor of Glenelg had suggested that the councils investigate the possibility of obtaining refugee labour for their projects. 

Adelaide City Councillor FC Lloyd, Liberal Municipal League, as quoted in the Adelaide Advertiser of 11 March 1948 said, “I do not agree with Mr. Calwell's policy. I think we should show him that we don't want this type of labour and that we don't want these people among us. They are only going to divide us and do not forget that there are plenty of Communists among them. It is time we turned the whole thing down with a thud." 

Girts’ letter in reply, as published in the Advertiser of 15 March is worth quoting in full. 

He wrote, “Sir—Apparently Councillor FC Lloyd is either badly informed about the political happenings in Europe since 1940 or he hates Baltic migrants for some reason, but most likely he just uses the word ‘Communists’ as a swear word, not knowing its meaning and not knowing the aims of Communists. 

“Councillor Lloyd admits that we are refugees, but there is nothing else at present in Europe to do but to take refuge from Communism, so we cannot possibly be Communists. If we were, we would, after liberation in 1945 from Nazi slave labour camps, have returned to our home countries and not come to Australia to displease Councillor Lloyd. 

“I can say, on behalf of many of us, that as soon as our home countries become independent again, we will return. The Baltic countries, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, were the first victims of the aggression by the Soviet Union in 1940. Our countries were promptly incorporated into the Soviet Union as ‘fraternal republics’. After one year's Communistic domination, 120,000 were deported from those countries to Siberian slave labour camps and 25,000 were shot as ‘enemies of the people’. 

“When, in 1941, war broke out between Russia and Germany, what the Russians started was continued by the Nazis, who looted what the Communists had left. The remaining people were taken as forced laborers to Germany. In this group were most of the Balt laborers now coming to Australia. Almost every one of them has a close relative deported by the Communists and killed by the NKVD or by the Gestapo. We have been accused of being plutocrats, capitalists, Nazis and Fascists, but never before of being Communists. Hence our disgust.” 

[To clarify, for those who think of World War II starting on 1 September 1939, the Soviet Union (Russia) remained neutral, but enjoyed the benefits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed with Germany’s Foreign Minister 23 August 1939. Then Germany broke the Pact on 22 June 1941 with a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. In the meantime, the Soviet Union had scooped up spoils allocated to it in the Pact by invading and occupying the Baltic States in mid-June 1940. 

[During the year after June 1940, it perpetrated many acts of violence in the Baltic States against individuals known or thought to be opposed to it. One of the worst acts of all, still commemorated wherever there are people of Baltic descent, was the mass deportation to Siberia of tens of thousands from each of the three countries in train cars meant for carrying animals, starting from the early hours of 14 June 1941. This act in particular, and the knowledge that they might be destined for the next mass deportation, is the reason why more tens of thousands fled their homelands ahead of the Soviet return in the late summer of 1944.] 

We know that Nikolajs Kibilds and Hugo Jakobsen left the Bangham camp and the task of relaying rail tracks to a wider gauge quite early. That’s because the Adelaide Mail of 8 May 1948 reported that they were among 17 from the First Transport selected to train in Peterborough as cleaners and porters for SAR. The Mail was reporting that all had passed their exams so well that their instructors were delighted. 

Girts Broders stayed at Bangham until May, at least. We know that because the Bordertown Border Chronicle reported, on 6 May 1948, that he had been the interpreter for an evening social and dance organised by the Tatiara Youth Club on the previous Monday night. 

In thanking the organisers, Girts had said that they “appreciated the change after the ‘tedious, everyday life at Bangham, which is not one of the most fashionable and entertaining places’.” 

Girts had become engaged to be married to Maimu Naar in Germany. They met because they were both working for the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the international agency tasked with providing assistance to the victims of World War II.

Maimu, an Estonian, was tracing lost children while Girts was working in transport. As luck – or maybe skills and ability – would have it, Maimu had been able to relocate to Australia on the First Transport with Girts, and with her older sister and younger brother. I hope to write more about the Naar siblings soon. 

By the time Girts filled out the application form for migration to Australia on 2 October 1947, his employer had become the International Refugee Organization (IRO). He gave his address as “DP Camp Wildflecken IRO Team”. The functions of UNRRA, which existed for only 4 years, were being handed over to the newer IRO gradually. 

Maimu’s first job was in Canberra, where she was a typist in the Department of Immigration. She lived in the Mulwala Hostel, where the strike involving Margarita Vrubliauskienė occurred. 

Through her work colleagues, she was able to arrange a transfer for Girts to Canberra. He worked there for 18 months as a clerk in a hostel at the Fairbairn Royal Australian Air Force Base. He was there when advised that the Minister for Immigration had shortened the length of most contracts, so he was free to find his own employment if he wished after 30 September 1949. 

Source:  The New Australian, October 1949

The certificate in the photograph above would have been numbered 1 as, seven years later, Girts was sharing this with a suburban Adelaide newspaper, Coromandel. He was the “first certificated non-British migrant under the post-war scheme”. Perhaps this occurred because he was first in the alphabetical surname list of those eligible in Canberra, where the Central Office of the Department of Immigration was located. 

Girts and Maimu married in Sydney in 1949. Their only child, Linda, was born in Sydney. Later they moved to Adelaide, where they spent the rest of their lives. They changed officially from migrants to citizens there on 17 October 1955, although they would have had to wait longer to take the oath of allegiance and receive their citizenship certificates in the sort of public ceremony which continues today. 

Girts’ working life led to a position of Supply Manager, in charge of purchasing for the South Australian branch of the Gilbert & Barker Manufacturing Co, which traded as Gilbarco. The company now is a supplier of fuel dispensers, point of sales systems, payment systems, forecourt merchandising and support services. You’ve almost certainly seen its name on petrol pumps at Australian service stations. 

Girts had been born in Koknese parish, Latvia, on 9 November 1923. His father, Alberts, was arrested by the KGB on 25 October 1940 and imprisoned before being shot with 99 other Latvian men. Their execution occurred on 21 June 1941, the day before the German started their return to Latvia. The dead Latvians were buried in a mass grave at Baltezer, a lake near Riga. 

Alberts owned a textile factory employing about 500, so clearly was exploiting the working class. His record as a fighter for Latvian freedom in 1919-20 may have gone against him too. 

Later, the corpses were exhumed and the bodies identified and reburied. Now the site of the former mass grave has a memorial bearing the names of the 100 men shot there. 

Girt’s mother, sister and an older, married brother with his family had been able to escape to Germany in 1944. His mother and sister had been able to join their son and brother in Australia via the Wooster Victory in March 1949. Falks-Andrievs, his wife Skaidrite, and their two young children arrived on the Castel Bianco in May 1950. 

Maimu had studied one year of medicine in Germany after her flight from Estonia. Co-incidentally, Girt’s mother, Marianna, had started to study medicine too before marrying his father in 1918. 

Girts died on 6 October 2006, in Riga, aged 82, while visiting his homeland. He was brought back to South Australia, to be buried with Maimu, who had died in 1995. He remains in his second homeland where his family members live now. Indeed, he became so Australianised that he is buried under the name of George Martin Broders. 

His older brother, Falks or Jack in Australia, is 102 years old now and has only recently moved into an aged care residence. His sister, Ilze, is still in Adelaide at 89 years old. 

Girts and Maimu have one grandchild, screenwriter, film director and composer Dario Russo. Dario has directed and acted in a couple of cult classics, Italian Spiderman and Danger 5, the latter having been commissioned by SBS Television. 

He described himself to Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul Kalina in 2015 as a “textbook only child”. Paul Kalina added that “Russo credits his ‘highly artistic and theatrical’ parents for supporting his passion. "They never encouraged me to get a real job and as far as I know I don't have one. I was never encouraged to get the fall-back career and for that I have to be eternally grateful. Mum was an art teacher, dad a guitar teacher, both into creativity. They're incredible, model parents. I feel guilty.” 

Below: The Age Green Guide, 1 January 2015, featured Dario Russo’s Danger 5.

Image used by kind permission of Fairfax Media

SOURCES 

Advertiser (1948) ‘Councillor’s Attack On Balt Labor’, (Adelaide) 11 March, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759190 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Arolsen Archives, ‘Broders, Girts’, AEF DP Registration Record, DocID: 66705455, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66705455, accessed 7 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham, To Help Broaden Rail Gauge’, Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125, accessed 8 January 2024. 

Border Chronicle (1948) ‘Balts Welcomed by Council Chairman (Cr Hunt)’, (Bordertown, SA) 6 May p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/212919306 accessed 8 January 2024. 

‘Broders, Alberts’, L.k.o.k. biogrāfija, LKOK nr.3/414, http://lkok.com/detail1.asp?ID=246 (in Latvian) accessed 10 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (1948) ‘Attack of Balt Labor Resented’, The Advertiser (Adelaide), 15 March, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article43759705 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Broders, Girts (2004) Personal communication, 4 January. 

Coromandel (1956) ‘Migrant With Card No. 1’, (Blackwood, SA), 27 July, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article261058228 accessed 8 January 2024. 

Courier-Mail (1947) ‘Wasn’t White But’, (Brisbane) 26 December, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49664209 accessed 9 January 2024.  

Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=broders&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&location=South+Australia%2C+Australia&locationId=state_577&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=r&plot=, accessed 31 December 2023. 

Geni, https://www.geni.com/people/George-Martin-Broders/6000000008871342239, accessed 30 December 2023. 

Gilbarco Veeder-Root, ‘Company History’, https://www.gilbarco.com/us/company-history, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Kalina, Paul (2015) ‘Lunch with TV Writer and Actor Dario Russo’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 January, https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/lunch-with-tv-writer-and-actor-dario-russo-20150101-12ahoz.html, accessed 16 April 2024. 

Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railway Men’, (Adelaide) 8 May p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55905773 accessed 8 January 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947–1956; BRODERS, Girts : Year of Birth - 1923 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1085, 1947–1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203687219, accessed 7 January 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947 (1947–47); 712, BRODERS Girts [Girto] DOB 9 November 1923 (1947–47); https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118086, accessed 8 January 2024 

New Australian (1949) ‘New Australians Released From Contracts; More Follow Soon’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

New Australian (1949) ‘Proud of Their Certificates’, (Canberra), October 1949, p 1. 

Russo, Linda (2004-2024) Personal communications. 

Wikipedia, ‘Gilbarco Veeder-Root’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbarco_Veeder-Root#History accessed 16 April 2024.