Algirdas Undzenas (1913 -1979): Lithuanian factory director by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Algirdas Undzenas had been a factory director in his Lithuanian homeland.

He graduated from the Birzai gymnasium (senior high school), then studied at the Klaipeda Trading Institute.  With 8 years of secondary education and 3 years of tertiary in addition to the usual 4 years of primary, Algirdas was among the most educated of the Lithuanians to resettle in Australia via the 1947 USAT General Stuart Heintzelman voyage.

He finished his studies in 1938, when he was 24. He then worked in Šiauliai as a deputy director of a factory called Maistas, which is Lithuanian for Food. He continued as a director of this factory until he forced to leave for Germany in 1944.

The Maistas factory had been built in Šiauliai in the 1932. Pigs were slaughtered and processed here, mainly for export.

Maistas factory in Šiauliai, Algirdas' workplace,1940

Source:  Facebook, Lietuva sensose fotografijose

He had been born on 4 October 1913, in Klausuciai village, Biržai county. His parents were wealthy farmers, Jonas and Zenė Undzenas. (Zenė‘s maiden name was Kregzdaitė.)

The Australian selection panel's record of interview with Algirdas says that he was "forcibly evacuated by the Germans".  A manager of a factory processing animals into food definitely would have been an asset for the Germans.  

There's a discrepancy, however, between "forcibly evacuated by the Germans" and Algirdas' arrival date in Germany, from a record preserved in the Arolsen Archives, of 1 October 1944.

Since the Soviet forces captured Lithuania's capital city, Kaunas, on 1 August 1944, we should expect Algirdas to have been on his way out of what would become part of the Soviet Union by then.  All who had experienced the Soviet occupation between June 1940 and July 1941 knew what to expect.  In particular, factory managers would have expected nationalisation and their replacement by operatives loyal to the new regime.

We could have expected the German military to retreat more quickly than the two months between 1 August and 1 October.  It is possible that "forcibly evacuated by the Germans" was a standard term used by those typing out the interview schedules, at the request of the Australian interviewers, to cover a range of events.  It certainly appears on a number of the interview reports if not most of them.

Two of five Arolsen Archives records for Algirdas in Germany after World War II shows him in the coastal town of Norden.  This is around 50 kilometres west of Bremerhaven, the port from which he left Germany with 842 others on 28 October 1947.  He had arrived in Norden from a larger German town, Oldenburg, on an unknown date.  The main document is itself dated 1949.

Both Norden and Oldenburg were in the British Zone of occupied Germany at the end of World War II.  As British production of food and other essentials had been damaged by German bombing or reduced due to the workers' absence in the British armed forces, conditions in the British zone were worse than those in the American zone.

Three other records in Algirdas' name have a different birthdate, 19 October 1904 rather than 4 October 1913.  It's possible that this date is a type of faulty anagram, with the 13 having been lost in the process.  If it is our Algirdas and not a relative with the same name, he was in the Bavarian town of Kitzingen from 8 February 1945 to an unknown date.  Two documents recording this have January and August 1948 dates.

The third item is from a card index was initially compiled at the beginning of the 1980s from a large number of smaller card files. These were originals of index cards from various registration offices, employment offices, private companies and from the health sector.  His card in this index also has him in Kitzingen from 8 February 1945, but says that he reached Germany on 1 October 1944.  

From this card too, it seems that he earned survival money in Kitzingen by working as a gardener.  It is not apparent that there was a Displaced Persons camp in Kitzingen, but perhaps Algirdas wanted to join a friend who had managed to settle temporarily in this town.

Depending on how far away from Lithuania Algirdas got together with the Germans, he may have taken a lengthy land route like that of Valentinas Dagys. Alternatively, he may have managed to reach the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, about 160 kilometres west of Šiauliai and still more than 2 hours travel by road.  From a landing in coastal Germany, he may have worked his way west by rail or walking to Norden, through Oldenburg, to move away from what became the Soviet zone of occupied Germany.

According to this theory, he then worked his way south to Kitzingen, again through Oldenburg. If trains were running again from Norden to Oldenburg when he left, the journey would have taken at least 90 minutes. To travel by train from Oldenburg to Kitzenen now takes more than 4  hours.

At the time of his interview for Australia in September 1947, Algirdas was living in the Buchholz camp in Hannover.  Fortunately for him, this was one of several interviewing points for the Australian selection team.  Kitzingen was in the American Zone, so why Algirdas returned to the harsher conditions of the British Zone by moving to the Buchholz camp is another unknown.

At the age of 34, he was ten years older than the average age of the Heintzelman group. He also differed from nearly all the Lithuanians through having been brought up in an Evangelical Reformed family, rather than a Roman Catholic one.

Algirdas' Undzenas identity photograph

Source:  NAA:  A2571, UNDZENAS ALGIRDAS

On his Bonegilla migrant camp card, Algirdas had an official add the name and address of his fianceé in the Address of Next of Kin area. She was Else Frerich from Oldenburg.  Algirdas must have spent enough time there after September 1944 to form a relationship with Else which he hoped would lead to marriage.  His plans to create a family did not materialise, however.

Algirdas Undzenas spent his first week outside the Bonegilla camp in the Albury District Hospital, from 30 January to 6 February 1948, as did several others from the First Transport. It is likely that they were here for medical checks rather than work. Tuberculosis still was dreaded then, explaining why our Displaced Persons had a chest X-ray as part of the selection process in Germany and another one when they got to the Bonegilla camp.  Other illnesses may have displayed themselves.

Blackie House, Albury Hospital

Source:  Facebook, AlburyCity

Perhaps the Bonegilla X-rays had detected calcification in the lungs which had been missed by the German X-rays. Calcification might be a sign that the patient had had TB previously and might still be at risk to themselves or others.

The most modern building on the Albury District Hospital campus had been open for only one year. Blackie House, opened in February 1947, was a maternity unit was funded by money from the will of John Blackie, a local pharmacist. [Golly, thinks Ann Tündern-Smith, it probably was where my mother gave birth to me and where other Bonegilla babies were born in 1948 and maybe later!]

Back at Bonegilla, Algirdas was sent to work with the State Electricity Commission (SEC) at Yallourn, Victoria, on 12 February 1948.  He probably worked in Yallourn Power Station. His friend, Karolis Prasmutas, worked there too.

The first group of 48 for Yallourn from the First Transport, led by English-speaking Arnold Siinmaa, had left the Bonegilla camp on 15 January, so Algirdas was nearly one month late. Josef Šeštokas’ Welcome to Little Europe book focuses on the first 48, so Algirdas gets only a passing mention. He was included on a list of those attending English-language classes organised by the SEC at Arnold’s suggestion, a list which Arnold still had when he moved house during 2007.

Algirdas appears not to have sought Australian citizenship, so we do not have a public record of his movements from 1948. The Melbourne Office of the Department of Immigration kept a card recording his changes of residence and employment, insofar as he reported them, but this is yet to be digitised.

This means that the next public record we have for Algirdas is from 29 June 1978. On that day, he was seriously injured in a traffic accident in Melbourne. He walking from a public library with books and was hit by a car while crossing the street.

Left unconscious, he was taken by ambulance to the Austin Hospital. During more than nine months, however, he rarely regained consciousness despite the great efforts made by doctors. During all the time he was in the hospital and in a convalescent home, friends Aleksandra and Vytautas Bieliauskas did what they could to look after him.

Algirdas died 9 months later, on 9 April 1979. At the Tobin Brothers Chapel on 12 April, he was farewelled in prayer by Fr P Vasaris.  Karolis Prašmutas, who had come to Australia with him on the First Transport, provided an eulogy. He was buried that day in the Fawkner Cemetery, accompanied by a large number of Lithuanian people.

By a twist of fate, this Protestant is buried in the Roman Catholic section of the Cemetery.  That is likely to be so that he can lie with his fellow Lithuanians in exile.

Algirdas was unmarried and had no relatives in Australia. In occupied Lithuania, he still had two living brothers: Petras, born in 1904, with his family, and Jonas with his. Another brother, Konstantinas, born in 1905, and a sister, Ona, born in 1911, both had died in 1916, suggesting some sort of epidemic in wartime conditions.

Algirdas’ parents, Jonas and Zene, his sister, Onutė (or Ona), and brother, Kostas (or Konstantinas), are buried in Klausuciai village cemetery in the Birzai district of Lithuania. His father died in 1959 and his mother in 1962. This means that after Algirdas left Lithuania, his parents did not see their son again.

In Australia, Algirdas kept aloof, with his truest friend being a book, according to Karolis Prašmutas. He did care for Lithuanian community life though, so when the Melbourne Lithuanians bought their own building, he donated £100 to the cause.

Sources

Albury City, 'Nurse on Call' https://www.alburycity.nsw.gov.au/leisure/museum-and-libraries/exhibitions/nurse-on-call accessed 7 March 2025.

'IRO (BZ) Form 102, Family Name, Undzenas' 2.1.2.1./ 69554139 / ITS Digital Archives, Arolsen Archives  https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69554139 accessed 10 March 2025. 

'Kategorie III, Form 7, Gemeinde Kitzingen [Category III, Form 7, Kitzingen Community] List of all allied Nationals and all other Foreigner, German Jews, and stateless etc. who were temporarily or permanently stationed in the community, but are no longer in residence, Nationalität, Litauen [Nationality, Lithuanians]' 2.1.1.1. / 69975936 / ITS Digital Archives, Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/69975936?s=undzenas&t=548522&p=0 accessed 10 March 2025. 

'Kategorie III, Form 7, Landstadt Kreis Kitzingen, Gemeinde verachiedene [Category III, Form 7, Country Town District, Different Communities] List of all allied Nationals and all other Foreigner, German Jews, and stateless etc. who were temporarily or permanently stationed in the community, but are no longer in residence, Nationalität, Litauen [Nationality, Lithuanians]' 2.1.1.1. / 69975941 https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69975941?s=undzenas&t=548522&p=0 accessed 10 March 2025. 

'Liste der in der Kreigszeit in Norden wohnhaf gewesen Ausländer [List of foreigners residing in Norden during the war]' 2.1.2.1./ 70708684 and 70708685/ ITS Digital Archives, Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70708684 and https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70708685 accessed 6 March 2025.

Arolsen Archives (1980s) 2 Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees by Public Institutions, Social Securities and Companies (1939 - 1947) / 2.2 Documents on the Registration of Foreigners and the Employment of Forced Laborers, 1939 - 1945 / 2.2.2 Various Public Administrations and Companies (Documents related to individuals)

Cemety, Jonas Undzėnas, born: 1875, died, 1959 https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/1442572?type=deceased accessed 6 March 2025.

Evangeliku_reformatu_abecelinis_sarasas_XIX_a_pab-XX_a_II_puses [Alphabetical list of Evangelical Reformed people from the 19th century to the 2nd half of the 20th century] http://88.119.255.35:8888/metrikai/Evangeliku_reformatu_abecelinis_sarasas_XIX_a_pab-XX_a_II_puses.pdf accessed 6 March 2025 [p341].

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-56; UNDZENAS ALGIRDAS, UNDZENAS, Algirdas : Year of Birth - 1913 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.HEINTZELMAN : Number – 706, 1947-48 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203721886 accessed 6 March 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; PP482/1, Correspondence files [nominal rolls], single number series, 1926-52; 82, GENERAL HEINTZELMAN - arrived Fremantle 28 November 1947 - nominal rolls of passengers, 1947-52; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=439196 accessed 6 March 2025 (page 10).

Find A Grave, Algirdas Undenas,https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/140678679/algirdas-undzenas accessed 6 March 2025.

JP (1979) Algirdas Undzėnas Musu sparnai [Our Wings] Chicago, Illinois, June, p 76 https://spauda.org/musu_sparnai/archive/1979/1979-nr46-MUSU-SPARNAI.pdf accessed 4 March 2025.

Prašmutas, K (1979) ‘AA Algirdas Undzėnas’ [‘RIP Algirdas Undzėnas’] Tėviškės Aidai [Echoes of the Homeland] Melbourne, 5 May, p12 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1979/1979-nr17-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf accessed 4 March 2025.

Prašmutas, K (1979) ‘Mirusieji, Mirtis Eismo Nelaimėje’ [‘The Dead, Death in a Traffic Accident’] Mūsų Pastogė Sydney, 7 May 1979, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1979/1979-05-07-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 4 March 2025.

Šeštokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe Sale, Victoria, Little Chicken Publishing, pp 118-9, also available in part from Google Books, eg, https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Welcome_to_Little_Europe/PqDgc5KKfvIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=karolis+prasmutas&pg=PT231&printsec=frontcover, accessed 16 April 2023.

Wikipedia, Lithuanian Evangelical Reformed Church https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Evangelical_Reformed_Church accessed 7 March 2025.

Alfonsas Ragauskas (1914–1988): First Transporter Who Overcame Obstacles by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 9 February and 6 April 2025

Alfonsas, known as Alf, was born on 19 January 1914 in Šiauliai, in the Lithuanian district of Joniskis, where he spent his youth. Life was not easy for him, so he emigrated to Germany in 1935.

Alfonasas Ragauskas' identity photo on his migration application form, 1947

Source:  Sestokas, Welcome to Little Europe

There he lived in even more difficult conditions, working hard until 1947, when he immigrated to Australia on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

At least that is what his anonymous obituarist in the Teviskes Aidai edition of 17 May 1988 had been led to believe.  Teviskes Aidai was a national Australian Lithuanian Catholic newspaper published weekly in Melbourne; it now is published fortnightly.

What the obituarist wrote contrasts with the more usual story that Ragauskas gave to the Australian three-man panel selecting Displaced Persons for the first voyage to Australia.  The paper record from his interview says that he arrived in Germany in December 1943, having been "forcibly removed by the Germans".

The two versions are not incompatible, if Alf in 1935 was the equivalent of a modern backpacker.  Aged only 21 in 1935, Alf would have missed his family and friends.  He possibly stayed in Germany long enough to make good money, then returned home.  We have to hope that he did this before September 1939, when the German military invaded Poland,  the nation between his temporary residence and his homeland.

Alternatively, Alf may have learnt the back story expected of the DPs being interviewed for Australia before his turn came.  In this case, he had to remember the story -- or forget the previous German residence -- in future dealings with Australian officials.

None of this prevented Alf from becoming an ideal settler in Australia and contributor to his new home.  And there is no mention of time in Germany before 10 December 1943 in Alf's application for Australian citizenship, lodged on the first available date, 1 December 1952.  Any time in Germany in 1935 must have been too brief to mention (or forgotten).

In addition, Alf had been so keen to become an Australian citizen that he was one of those who first enquired in September 1949, as soon as he was freed from his contract to work here.

Alfonasas Ragauskas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card, 1947

Source:  NAA, A2571, RAGAUSKAS, Alfonsas

His first job was in the State Electricity Commission of Victoria’s Yallourn open-cut brown coal mine. Later he became an electrician in the power plant, then a pump operator until retirement.  

Alf was a resident of Yallourn North when he applied for Australian citizenship.  He renounced previous allegiances and was granted Australian citizenship there on 23 July 1953.

In Josef Šestokas’ book, Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp , Josef’s father, Juozas, writes about the Yallourn camp where both he and Alf lived initially, “All were single men. They were accommodated in tents under pine trees behind the school. Local people were friendly and welcoming.”

Alf wrote in Juozas’ autograph book, presumably in Lithuanian, in 1955, “Really we are happier here, but you could only appreciate that if, having lost your country and your people, you were so hospitably welcomed as victims of war.”

While working at Yallourn, Alf met his wife, Agota and they married in 1962. They later moved to Kew, Melbourne. Josef Šestokas reports that they were thought not to have had children.

Alf led a quiet life, keeping dairy goats and chickens in his large backyard. He was remembered in his obituary as a fun, friendly and helpful. Although his life he was full of difficulties and surprises, he was able to overcome all these obstacles.

Alf died at Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne on 28 April 1988, aged 64, and is buried in Kew Cemetery, now known as Boroondara General Cemetery. Agota was buried with him when she died 4 years later.

Headstone on the grave of Alfonsas and Agota Ragauskas, 
Boroondara General Cemetery, Melbourne

Source:  Boroondara General Cemetery

References

Anon (1988) ‘AA Alfonsas Ragauskas (in Lithuanian)’ Tėviškės Aidai [The Echoes of Homeland] Melbourne, 17 May, p 7.

Boroondara General Cemetery, Grave Locator, <Ragauskas>, https://boroondaracemetery.discovereverafter.com/ accessed 23 January 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A435, Class 4 correspondence files relating to naturalisation, 1939-50; 1949/4/4224, RAGAUSKAS Alfonsas - born 19 January 1914 - Lithuanian, 1949-53 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=6944679 accessed 9 February 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, 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; 245, RAGAUSKAS Alfonsas DOB 19 January 1914 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005655 accessed 6 April 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947-1956; RAGAUSKAS, Alfonsas : Year of Birth - 1914 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 641, 1947-1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203913539 accessed 24 January 2025.

Sestokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe, Displaced Persons and the North Camp, Little Chicken Publishing, Sale, Victoria, pp 1, 87, 261. [This now is out of print but a digitised version can be read at https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Welcome_to_Little_Europe/PqDgc5KKfvIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Welcome+to+Little+Europe&pg=PT58&printsec=frontcover accessed 24 January 2025.

Hugo Jakobsen (1919-2010): Leader and Teacher by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 16 December 2024

Hugo Jakobsen obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma of Education soon after coming to Australia as a refugee on the First Transport in 1947. First, he had to serve out two years of labouring with the South Australian Railways.

He also had married an Australian, Denise Gum, within three years of arrival. What a quick start to a new life!

Wait, there’s more! He also is credited with being the person who suggested to the Department of Immigration that it should publish a newsletter for new arrivals. He offered to produce it himself. The first issue of the New Australian, produced instead by the Federal Department of Information (of which Arthur Calwell was also Minister) appeared in January 1949. It continued until December 1953, when it was merged with a similar publication with a broader audience, the Good Neighbour.

Hugo as the source of the New Australian idea is acknowledge in a memorandum
to the Minister for Information, Arthur Calwell (also Minister for Immigration)

Source:  NAA, CP815/1, 021.148

He had been born in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn on 3 October 1919, and his sister Anu was born five years later. They were the only children of the Prefect of Police for the Virumaa and Järvemaa provinces of Estonia, who was based in the Virumaa town of Rakvere. They moved upon their father’s retirement in 1934 to the town of Keila, much closer to the capital city of Estonia.

The family started both of the children at school when they were only six years old, although normally Estonian children in the 1920s and 1930s did not start until they were eight. In Rakvere, Hugo attended the Ühis Gümnaasium (the Co-educational High School). After the family moved to Keila, Hugo completed his secondary education at Estonia’s most prestigious school, the Gustav Adolf Gümnaasium in Tallinn.

He was always top of his class, except for one term in which a new arrival, a girl what is more, obtained better scores. He used to create crosswords for the school newspaper. He regarded crossword creation and solving as “mental gymnastics”.

Due to the early start at school, he was too young to undertake the compulsory national service with the military when he completed high school. He attended Tartu University first, completing two and a half years of an arts degree.

The Tartu University’s Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis has him enrolled as a student of filos (Philosophy, but maybe the same as an Australian Arts degree) for the years 1937 to 1939. Keeping in mind that the Estonian educational year is from September to June, with summer holidays in July and August, these were the two years and more of his three-year degree.

He was doing his national service when the Soviets invaded Estonia in June 1940. He found that he was now in the Soviet Army. The German military drove the Soviets out at the end of June 1941. Under the Malenkov-Ribbentrop pact, the Germans had evacuated persons in Estonia with German family connections already in 1939. They organised an additional evacuation to the fatherland in 1941. After his experience of the Soviet Army, Hugo was glad to make use of the opportunity to get further away.

The only digitised Arolsen Archives document relating to Hugo’s time in Germany shows that he was living in Schloss Werneck, the Werneck Castle in 1941. Werneck is a market town in Bavaria, in the south of Germany. His occupation is again given as 'Stud.phil.' or student of philosophy (maybe Arts in Australia).

Hugo’s father escaped deportation to Siberia in June 1941, when many thousands of others on Communist hit-lists were herded into cattle trucks in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Having previously held such a high position with the Estonian Government, it was very likely that he would have been on the next train out if the Germans had not arrived first. He died before the Soviets returned in September 1944.

His family realised that they also would have been targeted, so mother and daughter left when warned.

In western Germany, they got word that Hugo was being held in a prisoner of war camp for Latvian generals. Knowing that a big mistake must have occurred, twenty-year-old Anu travelled by herself to this camp, and begged for her brother’s release. He was being held because a Jewish person in the French Zone had claimed that a person with a very similar name had been involved in the torture of Jews.

Anu’s story must have corroborated the one which Hugo was trying to offer, as she was told that he would be released the next day without being asked for further evidence or papers. He was released as promised, from cramped confinement in a space resembling a cage, and spent a short time with his mother and sister in the Augsberg camp for Estonians. Then he found work with an American army unit.

It must have been through this unit that he found out about the Australian team which was in western Germany, recruiting workers.

He was one of the English speakers among the 62 sent from Bonegilla to work for the South Australian Railways (SAR), initially at Wolseley, but then moved to a camp of their own at Bangham.

Hugo Jakobsen’s 1947 ID photo from his Bonegilla card

Source: NAA: A2572, JAKOBSEN HUGO

When a journalist from the Border Chronicle reported on them on 15 January 1948, he said of Hugo, “University student for two years in Estonia, and for a further period in Munich, 28-year-old Hugo Jakobsen anticipated with enthusiasm the time when he could resume his broken studies. He had trained as a teacher of German and English in his country, and had studied German, English, philosophy and pedagogics (art of teaching) to fit him for his profession.

“He, too, hoped their period of prescribed labour would not be increased beyond the promised period of one year. In 1944 he had been forced to work in Germany as a farm labourer and waiter. His first impression of the Bangham camp was that they had been ‘buried alive with little opportunity to increase their knowledge of Australia and its language.’”

Hugo and Latvian Nick Kibilds were 2 of 17 men transferred from Bangham to Peterborough, selected because the SAR thought that they had the capacity to be trained as cleaners and porters rather than utilised as unskilled labour. Since these two were fluent in English already, they acted as interpreters for the first two weeks of the course. After that, the other wrote their notes as the words sounded, in phonetic English. They also had teachers from Peterborough running English language classes three times a week.

Flaavi Hodunov (L) with Hugo Jakobsen (R)
possibly at Peterborough, South Australia

Source:  Tatyana Tamm

They also did practical work, with the Adelaide Mail reporting on 8 May 1948 that, “Everyone co-operated, because the Balts were so keen to learn”. They did their exams in English and all obtained good passes, to the delight of their instructors.

While there, Hugo organised a concert for the local residents which featured other Displaced Persons working there. The concert, held on 24 June 1948, was reported the next day by the local Times and Northern Advertiser newspaper.

The local Secretary of the concert’s beneficiary, the Railway Institute, introduced Hugo to the audience. He was described by the newspaper as “an (arts) student from (Estonia) who speaks six languages and acted as announcer”. By June, refugees from later ships had reached Peterborough, so none of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian performers were from the First Transport.

After the concert, a Baltic Boys’ Jazz Dance Band, consisting of Hugo on piano with an accordionist and a trumpeter, played music to which all present could dance.

Hugo met Denise at a dance in Adelaide, after the SAR realised that his proficiency in three languages (or was it six?) could be put to better use there than in Peterborough. Denise may well have been an intellectual equal in addition to being a good dance partner. While the public knows nothing about her as an individual after their engagement announcement in the Adelaide Advertiser on 3 October 1949 and marriage on 4 March 1950, pieces of her earlier life made the newspapers.

Before World War II, young Denise was having her creative writing published in the Adelaide Mail. Her poems and a couple of stories appear 6 times between February 1938 and January 1940. She sent in drawings too but was not successful in having them published. In January 1940, having completed seventh grade, she was the top student of the 3 completing their primary education at the Gumville School in the Karte district on the border with Victoria. In a bigger field at the Adelaide High School next year, she won an Adelaide Circulating Library Prize – perhaps for her writing again.

Even before his engagement and marriage, Hugo had returned to study, this time at the University of Adelaide. What he told a fellow student of life at his previous university, in Munich, was so interesting that it was reported to all in the student newspaper, On Dit.

Source: On Dit 4 July 1949

To fund his studies and married life, Hugo moved from the SAR to commerce, selling membership of Adelaide’s Mutual Hospital Association to new arrivals. Mutual Hospital provided both health and life insurance.

He took the oath of allegiance and became an Australian citizen on 15 April 1953.

'Thrilled to become Australians' read the headline, while the caption started, 'Mr Hugo Jakobsen (left), 34, of Warradale Park and Mr Jonas Jakaitis, 33, of Woodville, examining their naturalisation papers at a reception given by the Good Neighbour Council yesterday to mark the naturalisation of 13 New Australians.  Mr Jakobsen is from Estonia and Mr Jakaitis is from Lithuania.' 
Jakaitis has arrived also on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 April 1953

His graduation with a degree in German and history plus a Diploma of Education was reported in the Adelaide Advertiser of 16 March 1954. He had been fortunate enough to have 3 of his previous subjects recognised as equivalent by the University of Adelaide, shortening his course significantly.

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide, 16 March 1954

By then, Hugo and Denise had two daughters, born in April 1951 and October 1952. Their only son was born in February 1963.

The Advertiser article noted also that he recently had been appointed the manager of retail books at Rigby Ltd. Rigby’s was a part of Adelaide’s and Australia’s history, having once being the largest publisher in Australia. The company was started with a bookshop on Hindley Street, Adelaide, in 1859 by William Charles Rigby. Being appointed to managed the bookshop 95 years later would have indicated Hugo’s prominence in Adelaide’s commercial world.

Hugo had a letter published in the Adelaide Advertiser on 1 January 1954. The Advertiser headed it, “Speech Rights of Migrants, Right to own language”. Hugo wrote, “'Unity' (30/12/53) need not be unduly alarmed about so much 'foreign gabble' in Australia, as it is only a temporary inconvenience he has to put up with.

“When the children of the migrants now attending Australian schools have grown up and start to dominate the scene, they will push the older generation still clinging to their mother tongue into the background.

“His concern, therefore, revealing a spirit more Nazi like than even Hitler's, is entirely uncalled for. It smells of ignorance, immaturity, and intolerance.

“He does not realise that this is a free country where everybody is entitled to live his own private life in pursuit of his individual happiness within the limit of the law without any nosey interference from outsiders.

“Migrants learn, and have learned, English with much better results without legal compulsion because they realise the tremendous advantages which the knowledge of English gives them.”

Being told in public to speak to each other in English was a harassment with which many post-War migrants were greeted. Hugo provided a most sensible answer, perhaps too logical for the “talk Australian” locals.

Hugo did not forged a career with Rigby’s, returning instead to his love of teaching. A daughter remembers that his first appointment was to Elizabeth High School.

Elizabeth was established in 1955 in Adelaide’s north as a home for the workers which South Australia needed for its industrialisation under the Playford Government. Teaching here was a challenge for Hugo, not only because few students were academic achievers but also because of the distance to travel each way when his home was in Warradale, some 40 Km away in Adelaide’s south.

He also taught at LeFevre High, Croydon High and Mitchell Park Boys Technical High School. Towards the end of his career he trained as a teacher librarian and worked at Seacombe High School. He was much happier doing that.

I was taken by Denise to meet Hugo some 50 years later, on 2 January 2004. He was too ill to be interviewed, she had said and, indeed, his dementia made him barely aware of his nursing home surroundings. He seemed not aware that he had visitors, not even his own wife.

But Hugo was tough, lasting more than another 6 years until 8 October 2010. He was 91 years old.

I was shocked to find that Denise had died even as I started to prepare this tribute. She died on 10 January 2024, aged 96, after a short illness.

Footnote

While sorting through his mother's papers after her death, Hugo and Denise's son came across an article in English by his father on how Estonians celebrate Christmas.  No it's posted online at https://www.thevarnishedculture.com/christmas-in-estonia/.

Sources

Advertiser (1953) 'Thrilled to become Australians' Adelaide p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/48284822 accessed 26 October 2024.

Advertiser (1954) ‘Letters to The Editor’ Adelaide 1 January p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article47581070 accessed 28 December 2023.

Arolsen Archives (1941) ‘Name list of resettlers from Estonia and Latvia, who lived in Schloß Werneck in the year 1941’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70553643 accessed 24 October 2024.

Australia, Department of Immigration (1949-53) The New Australian.

Border Chronicle (1948) ’62 Balts at Bangham’ Bordertown, South Australia, 15 January p 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212918125 accessed 28 December 2023.

Frey, Anne (2024) Personal communication, 26 September.

Jakobsen, Denise and Anu (2004) Personal communications, Adelaide, 2 January.

Jakobsen, Peter (2024) Personal communications, 22 February, 25 September and 25 October.

Mail (1948) ’17 Balts Learn English to be Railwaymen’ Adelaide, South Australia, 8 May p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55905773 accessed 29 December 2023.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Information, Central Office; CP815/1 General correspondence files, two number series, 1944 –1950; 021.148, Immigration - From Minister [correspondence with Immigration Publicity Officer], 1947 – 1948, p20-21 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=263676 accessed 26 October 2024.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; Jakobsen, Hugo : Year of Birth – 1919 : Nationality – ESTONIAN : Travelled per – GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 931, 1947 – 1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620853, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per Genera; JAKOBSEN Hugo DOB 3 October 1919, 1947 – 1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005793, accessed 22 February 2024. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series 1923 – 1971; JAKOBSEN Hugo - Nationality: Estonian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947 – 1953, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4077744, accessed 22 February 2024. 

On Dit (1949) ‘Student Body With No Apathy’, Adelaide, Adelaide University Students’ Representative Council, 4 July, p 3, https://connect.adelaide.edu.au/nodes/view/2087?type=all&lsk=13deab63089f66f25769c519cb7d1780, accessed 23 October 2024.

Rahvusarhiiv Album Academicum Universitatis Tartuensis  https://www.ra.ee/apps/andmed/index.php/matrikkel/view?id=16119&_xr=eNpLtDK0qs60MrBOtDKGMIqtDI2slIpSC0tTi0v0ExNLS5SAYhZWSgWpRal5mbmZUG5WYnZ%252BUnFqHohraKVUCKUNlaxrawGJmhp5 accessed 26 October 2024.

Šeštokas, Josef (2010) Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp Sale, Victoria, Little Chicken Publishing, pp 141-142.

Times and Northern Advertiser (1948) ‘A Musical Treat’ Peterborough, South Australia, 25 June p 3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article110548699 accessed 9 January 2024.

Wikipedia, ‘Education in South Australia’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Australia#Early_childhood_education accessed 17 January 2024. 

Wikipedia, 'Elizabeth, South Australia' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth,_South_Australia accessed 26 October 2024.

 Wikipedia, ‘Rigby Ltd’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigby_Ltd#Rigby_Ltd accessed 21 January 2004.

Karolis Prašmutas (1914–1985): Ingenious and Compassionate, by Ann Tündern-Smith with Birute Prasmutaite

Karolis Prašmutas had moments of fame among English-language readers only two years after arriving in Australia. He had built a photographic enlarger out of bits and pieces and sent an enlarged print of himself standing with it to the Department of Immigration. The print was used in a Departmental publication, Tomorrow’s Australians, in December 1949. You can read the text below the photograph.

With the headline changed to, He Made This Gadget Himself, and slightly altered text, the photograph also appeared in the January 1950 edition of another Departmental publication, The New Australian.

The Melbourne Age newspaper decided that the story was too good to pass, so ran its own version on 11 January 1950 in a column called News of the Day. The Age wrote, without including a photograph, ‘A flair for improvisation has enable Mr. K. Prasmutas, a Lithuanian migrant now employed by the State Electricity Commission at Yallourn, to overcome an obstacle which was hampering his hobby of amateur photography.

‘Mr. Prasmutas needed a photographic enlarger but could not obtain one anywhere. He decided to build one himself, and after fossicking around the scrap heaps near his quarters he found enough material for the job.

‘The amazing variety of bits and pieces he collected included a piece from the tailshaft and the headlight from an old car, two piston oil rings, a piece of water pipe, two powdered milk tins, one jam tin, two pieces of glass and a 100-watt globe.

‘To prove that it worked successfully, Mr. Prasmutas enlarged a photograph of himself on his homemade machine and sent it to the Department of Immigration, which published the photograph in the recent issue of its bulletin, the New Australian.’

The fourth publication to carry the story of the homemade enlarger was house magazine of Karolis Prasmutas’ employer, the State Electricity Commission (SEC). It headed its April-May 1950 report, Ingenuity, and started, ‘Making a photographic enlarger “off the land”, as it were, presented no obstacles to Mr. K. Prasmutas, a Commission employee at Yallourn and formerly from Lithuania. From the various scrap heaps nearby he obtained a miscellaneous collection of items and, exercising his ingenuity, built the enlarger pictured (below)’.

The next two paragraphs are more or less the same as those in the Age, but the magazine used a different photograph. Perhaps it was even taken by its own photographer given that Prašmutas has suited up for the occasion.

The enlarger with Karolis Prasmutas from the SEC's magazine

I have been told that plans for building a photographic enlarger from scrap were circulating in Displaced Persons camps in Germany after World War II. Regardless of whether or not Karolis kept one of these plans or even was influenced by one, the important point is that he actioned the idea. He built an enlarger from Australian scrap and proved that it could work.

The same issue of the New Australian which carried the report of Karolis’ homemade enlarger published a paragraph from a letter he had written to it. The sheer volume of letters being received prevented the publication of anything more than this: ‘I think that all newcomers who will not think about the new country differences, but will do more to overcome difficulties, will be happy in Australia’.

That appears to have been the extent of his coverage in the English-language press, but Karolis Prašmutas has much more to say in his native Lithuanian. The Australian Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven, Our Refuge) has been digitised in the National Library’s Trove collection until the end of 1956 only, but Prašmutas had at least one entry each year.

Sometimes it was just the inclusion of his name in a list of donors to a worthy cause. On other occasions, he wrote his thoughts at some length. It is clear from these that he was a major supporter of the idea of a Lithuanian House in Melbourne, with appeals for its funding.

The Lithuanian House still operates in North Melbourne. I remember well lunching there more than 10, maybe 15 years ago, with Karolis’ widow and their 2 daughters — without realising how instrumental Karolis had been in the creation of these spacious premises. I also have attended a conference there, the Lithuanian House being roomy enough to accommodate such activities.

The entrance to Lithuanian House in North Melbourne

Source:  https://www.lithuanianclub.com/

Karolis also appealed for funds for compatriots still in Germany. In both of these types of articles, he would raise some of the objections put to him by other Lithuanians, and dismiss them. In one he wrote, in Lithuanian of course, ‘ … maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now, you will be in need of comfort and support. The saying is correct: "You give to your neighbour — you give to yourself."’

On the occasion of his 50th birthday in early 1964, Mūsų Pastogė published a glowing tribute.

Karolis married a fellow Lithuanian, Morta Stakaityte, on 20 September 1952.  They had 2 daughters, Zita and Birute, and one son, Linas. 

Morta and Karolis on their wedding day ...

Source:  Prašmutas family collection

... and in later life, 1984

Source:  Prašmutas family collection

Karolis died from heart disease on 14 September 1985, at the age of 71, having been born on 19 January 1914 in the Lithuanian village of Bernotai. Morta died in May 2014, surviving her husband’s death by more than 28 years. Morta was 10 years younger than her husband and a respectable 89 years old at the time of her death. They are buried together with Morta’s mother in Fawkner Memorial Park, Melbourne. They had been granted Australian citizenship together in 1964.

Karolis’ selection papers for migration to Australia indicate that he had spent all of World War II in Germany as a prisoner of war, having joined the Poles in fighting against the German invasion of September 1939. His Personal Statement and Declaration, given at the Graylands military camp in Perth, Western Australia, the day after he arrived at the end of November 1947, indicates that he had trained in the Polish Army. 

His life in Germany as a prisoner of war must have been a hard one indeed.  No wonder he was declared only borderline fit by the Australian medical officer who examined him after his interview.

He had been working as a car mechanic in Germany for 13 months before presenting to the Australian selection team in September 1947.  He had also worked as a car mechanic in Lithuania for 2 years, presumably before World War II erupted in neighbouring Poland.

Josef Šeštokas in his Welcome to Little Europe book on the Displaced Persons sent to work in Yallourn in the Latrobe Valley, records that fellow refugees living in the same camp as Prašmutas regarded him as more dignified than the average and gave him the Lithuanian nickname, Baronas, meaning Baron. The photograph on his Bonegilla card supports that assessment.

Karolis Prašmutas' Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

His death certificate gives his occupation as a ‘fitter’, a person who puts together, adjusts, or installs machinery or equipment. No wonder he was able to put those disparate metal parts together into a photographic enlarger!

His skills, reinforced by that publicity, must have impressed his employer, the SEC, even before it sent its photographer to record them for the house magazine.  No doubt to their mutual satisfaction, the SEC ensured that Karolis had work which used those skills, so he stayed with that one employer for the rest of his working life.

Prašmutas family headstone, Fawkner Memorial Park, Melbourne

Source:  Ron M on FindaGrave.com

His two daughters have gone on to make significant contributions to Australia’s Lithuanian and broader communities too. The older daughter, Zita, is a musician who was the organist for the choir of Melbourne’s Lithuanian parish between 1970 and 1995. The parish uses the church of St Mary Star of the Sea in West Melbourne, not far from Lithuanian House. Since 1995 she has been the artistic director and conductor of this choir.

In 1975 she became the concertmaster of Melbourne’s Dainos Sambūris (Song Collection) choir. She was the concertmaster of the United Australian Lithuanian Choir at the First World Lithuanian Song Festival in Vilnius and Kaunas in 1994, and main accompanist at the Australian Lithuanian Song Festivals in 1984, 1990 and 1996.

During the period 1984 to 1987, Zita was concertmaster and a singer in a vocal-instrumental ensemble called Svajonės or Dreams. They performed in many Australian cities, and in the US and Canada in 1986 In the USA and Canada. They released a record in 1985.

She was the concertmaster and a singer in another vocal-instrumental ensemble called Svajonių Aidai or Echoes of Dreams in 1988-1989. They performed in Melbourne, Geelong and Sydney, as well as in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and São Paulo in Argentina and Brazil, many cities in the USA and Canada, in France, Germany, Poland and in Vilnius and Kaunas in Lithuania. in 1988 they released a self-titled record album.

Next in age, Birute starting learning the piano at age 7 and has studied at the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music. She started conducting the Melbourne Choir, Dainos Sambūrio or Song Collection in 1978, having joined in 1974. She has been the organiser, musical director and a conductor in 10 Australian Lithuanian song festivals. Her choral activities have taken her to Lithuania. She has been a member of the board of the Australian Lithuanian Community Association Ltd, its president, and a leader of youth and scouting activities.

In 1975 the Prašmutas sisters organized a female octet, later a sextet, Dainava or Singing, which performed contemporary Lithuanian compositions as well as traditional folk songs. They gave concerts around Victoria as well as in Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart.

Zita has a Bachelor of Science degree, plus a postgraduate diploma in computer science. Birute too has a Bachelor of Science degree, specialising in mathematics and psychology.

Their younger brother, Linas, spent his working life with computers too, as an operator for a bank. He also has had a lifetime in scouting. He is the former head of the Vyciai, a unit for Lithuanian Scouts from 18 years old, and is the current Melbourne president of the Skautininkai senior scouts. His sister Zita is the current head of supply for the Lithuanian scouts in Australia.

The Prašmutas family, Zita, Karolis, Morta, Linas and Birute
in front of their East Malvern home in 1976

The Prašmutas siblings in 1975 as part of a team which organised the Third World Congress of Lithuanian Youth in Melbourne.  Birutė is on the far left, Linas is third from the left
and Zita is to the right of her brother.

Source:  Appendix to the Drauga international Lithuanian newspaper, 19 July 1975

Karolis Prasmutas would have been proud of what his children were achieving, and what they have achieved since he left us. Australia should be proud of them too.

Sources

Australia, Department of Immigration, ‘He Made This Gadget Himself’, The New Australian (Canberra, ACT), December 1949, p 2.

Australia, Department of Immigration, 'He Made This Gadget From Scrap, Tomorrow’s Australians, January 1950, p 3.

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Prasmutas, K, ‘Duodi-Artimųi — Duodi Sau’ (‘Give To Your Neighbour — You Give To Yourself’), Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 25 January 1956, page 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259360888, accessed 18 April 2023.

Prasmutas, K, ‘Vilnius Karo Audroj’ (‘Vilnius War Storm’), Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 1 September 1954, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259359290, accessed 18 April 2023.

Simankevičienė, D, ‘Sukaktuvininkas Karolis Prašmutas’, Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 5 February 1964, p 2, downloaded from Spauda.org on 21 April 2023.

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