Bronius Bukevičius (1915-1990): builder of furniture and community, by Daina Pocius, Ann-Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinksienė

Updated 23 May 2026.

This is the story of a First Transport passenger who became well known around his adopted home town of Hobart and further afield for his singing and his willingness to support his community.

Bronius in Lithuania

Bronius was born in 20 October 1915 in the village of Kumečiai, near Kalvarija in Suvalkija, the southwestern region of Lithuania. His parents were Tomas Bukevičius and Petronėlė nee Pečiulytė. He grew up in a family of five brothers and a sister. 

He finished secondary school, although this is stated to be ‘8 years of elementary school’ on the record of his interview with the selection team for migration to Australia. He then worked in a government office.

In 1944, as the Russians approached, he left with his older brother Juozas for Germany. His Mūsų Pastogė obituarist wrote that he had reside in various DP camps. Arolsen Archives has not been able to digitise any documents for him, so we have no further evidence from that normally useful source. Juozas appears on one list only, which tells us nothing more than the date he embarked on the ship which brought him to Australia.

Bronius embarked on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, on 30 October 1947, or we would not be researching him.

Bronius Bukevičius in his 1947 photograph for his application to migrate

Source:  National Archives of Australia

The Particulars of Displaced Person Wishing to Migrate to Australia form typed up on his behalf in Germany says that he had 10 years of farming experience in Lithuania and 7 months more recent months. Presumably, the Lithuanian farm experience was before, during and after his work in the state office, when he was needed on the family farm or elsewhere in the district.

Bronius' early life in Australia

In March 1949, Bronius lodged an application to sponsor his brother for migration to Australia. Bronius then was working for HV Locke of Premaydena as an Orchard Hand, earning £5/17/6. This was less than the then basic wage of around £6/8/-, so we have to hope that the difference was due to Bronius also received a place to live and meals.

When he applied for Australian citizenship in 1957, he stated that his occupation before coming to Australia was clerk. That fits better with the obituarist’s recollection that he had worked in a government office. His current occupation was joiner, that is, a builder of furniture rather than houses.

Forming a choir on the way to Australia

When he applied for Australia, his German was ‘fair’ but he had no English. The selection team gave him a B+ score, enough to get him out of Germany on the Heintzelman.

On the voyage to Australia, Bronius joined with Kazys Mieldažys and Petras Morkunas to start a 40-man choir. Bronius had been managing a choir called Aušrinė in Germany.

In addition to singing on the ship, the choir performed for an audience of 9 local Lithuanians while the Heintzelman passengers had their 4-day Perth stopover. It continued to perform in the Bonegilla camp until the last of its members were dispersed to their first jobs in Australia. While in this camp, its singing was recorded by Albury’s radio station, which continued to broadcast the songs after the choir had disbanded.

The choir’s history and Petras Morkunas’ later achievements were recounted by fellow First Transport passenger, Kazys Mieldažys, in a celebration of Petras’ 70th birthday published in Mūsų Pastogė in December 1982.

More on his early life in Australia

Bronius’ first job in Australia was Goulburn Valley fruit-picking in Victoria, employed by W Young of Kelvin Orchards. He stayed there for more than 9 weeks, unlike some who came back to the Bonegilla camp after a few days. Then it was off to Tasmania after one day back at the Bonegilla camp. There he was sent to the New Norfolk, upriver from the State’s capital city of Hobart. His Bonegilla card adds nothing to this but Ramunas Tarvydas has him working with the Tasmanian Government’s Housing Department, perhaps a later destination.

A later 1947 photograph of Bronius for his Bonegilla card:
same man, same outfit (his best? but the tie is different)

Source:  National Archives of Australia

However, we know from his sponsorship of his brother, Juozas, that he was working as an Orchard Hand or assistant at Premaydena in March 1949. This still is nearly 2 hours’ drive from New Norfolk, so Bronius must have been able to move from one workplace to another in Tasmania while still under contract to the Australian Government.

When his contract period was up, probably on 30 September 1949, he moved to Hobart. The obituarist said that he worked as a Carpenter in house construction for a Derwent Park company.

From the start, Bronius involved himself in the Hobart Lithuanian community. He was the secretary of the founding meeting for a community organisation. In 1954, by which time the organisation had become the Hobart District of ALB (the Australian Lithuanian Community), he was elected to the board alongside Jonas Motienjūs and Aleksas Jakštas, both of whom we have met already in this blog.

Bronius and the Hobart Lithuanian Quartet

His choral interests were expressed in Hobart’s male quartet. When first making the news in Hobart’s Mercury newspaper on 25 November, 8 and 9 December 1950, he was the first tenor while the other members were Vaclovas Kalytis (second tenor), Karolis Maslauskas (baritone) and Juozas llciukas (bass).

According to a report in Mūsų Pastogė on 23 September 1953, the quartet now had 5 members: Bukevičius, Maslauskas, Kalytis, J. Šlyteris and Aleksas Jakštas. On that occasion, a celebration of what Lithuanians called National Day, on September 8, the author remarked that the singers would be of a high standard if they had a conductor. Unfortunately, he wrote, the Hobart Lithuanian community lacked a musician knowledgeable in choral conducting.

Bronius, his brother and their sister

Bronius’ sponsorship of Juozas was successful. Juozas, also a Joiner, was accepted as a labourer and joined Bronius in Hobart. He left Marseille on a ship called the Sagittaire with his passage paid by the International Refugee Organization (IRO, one of UNRRA’s successors), landing in Sydney on 29 July 1949.

Their sister also had fled Lithuania, with her husband and daughter, ending up with Juozas in France. Juozas applied to the Australian Government for them to be accepted as migrants. Questions then arose, including whether they were still eligible for IRO assistance, because otherwise they would have to pay their own fares to Australia. Eventually the sister, brother-in-law and niece emigrated to the USA.

Juozas starred on the lead story on page 1 of Hobart's Mercury newspaper on 12 January 1954.  The occasion was his airport reunion with his wife and two children, whom he had not seen for 11 years.

Bronius 10 years on

In June 1958, Tėviškės Aidai told its readers that Bronius had been seriously injured in a car accident two months previously. Although his health had improved, he had not been able to return to work.

On 5 March 1959, Bronius became an Australian citizen.

The quartet plus one was still performing in 1960, again at a Lithuanian National Day celebration which was reported in the 30 September issue of Mūsų Pastogė. This time, the quartet was again a quintet, with the core of Bukevičius, Maslauskas and Kalytis joined by Stasys Domkus and a later arrival, Bonifacas Šikšnius.

Bronius in later years

In 1963, he along with many others was thanked publicly for contributing a donation to the Australian Lithuanian Community (ALB) for its activities. In his case, he donated £1, the equivalent of around $120 in today’s buying power.

To support the travel of a North American Lithuanian basketball team to Australia in 1964, his donation was £5, not calculated by the Reserve Bank to be worth 5 times as much as his previous donation but still a helpful $180.

Another unhealthy episode occurred in 1971, when he fell and broke a leg. On that occasion, the Tėviškės Aidai correspondent had to report again that he was still in hospital but hoping to go home soon.

Bronius was a member of the Audit Commission of the Australian Lithuanian Community Hobart District in 1973. The thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the Hobart District was marked by a gathering in the suburb of Glenorchy in September 1980. Bronius’ name was one of a number singled out for special mention for having served on the board at times over the previous years.

Bronius died on the 10 April 1990, and was thought worth of two slightly different obituaries, one in Mūsų Pastogė for 7 May 1990 and one in Tėviškės aidai for 15 May.  He was cremated in the Cornelian Bay crematorium.  Juozas had died already, on 27 June 1988.

Bronius Bukevicius' plaque in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery:
The Lithuanian Ilsekis ramybeja means 'Rest in peace'

Source:  JMcL on Find A Grave

The Cornelian Bay Cemetery wall which contains Bronius' ashes and plaque

Source:  JMcL on Find A Grave

Baltic people and singing

Hobart’s Lithuanian Quartet, anchored by 3 men from the General Stuart Heintzelman, was not the only musical expertise and enjoyment brought to Australia by the First Transport. We know of a Lithuanian quartet or double quartet in Adelaide and Lithuanian choirs in Melbourne.

Sydney-based EMA (Eesti Meeskoor Austraalias, Estonian Men’s Choir in Australia, while ema is the Estonian word for ‘mother’) performed for 65 years after its start on the voyage to Australia. At least 2 Latvians on the voyage were trained singers, so it is not a surprise that their Melbourne community founded the Rota choir in 1949, followed by other Latvian communities.

This blog will have more about them as soon as we can put their stories together but, meanwhile, it can be said that, wherever there are Baltic people, there is singing.

FOOTNOTE:  Lithuania's National Day was commemorated after WWI until the chaos of WWII, to promote Lithuanian statehood.  Of course it became but a memory once a Communist government took over.  

The date itself is that on which Vytautas the Great was to be crowned King of Lithuania in 1430.  His crown was seized by Polish nobles opposed to his elevation while on its way from the court of the Emperor Sigismund, so the coronation did not take place.  Lithuania remained a Grand Duchy.

Continued celebration of National Day in Australia was a strong way of opposing Lithuania's WWII fate.

It is still a day of commemoration in modern Lithuania, but not a public holiday. It is most often commemorated today at monuments to Vytautas the Great (for instance in Kaunas, Jurbarkas, Veliuona), in schools, especially those named in honor of Vytautas, and briefly in cultural centres.  Some municipalities conduct short ceremonies, perhaps with flower-laying.

CITE THIS AS: Pocius, Daina , Tündern-Smith, Ann and Rasa Ščevinskienė (2026) 'Bronius Bukevičius (1915-90): builder of furniture and community' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2026/05/bronius-bukevicius-1915-90-builder-of.html

SOURCES

Augustavičius, S (1990) ‘Mūsų mirusieji, A † A Bronius Bukevičius’ (‘Our Deceased, In Memoriam Bronius Bukeviius’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), 5 July, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1990/1990-05-07-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 April 2026.

Augustavičius, S (1990) ‘Hobartas’ (‘Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland), Melbourne, Vic, 15 May, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1990/1990-05-15-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 22 April 2026.

Find A Grave, 'Bronius Bukevicius' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/212980499/bronius-bukevicius, accessed 23 May 2026.

Mercury (1950) ‘Lithuanian Quartet’ Hobart, Tas, 9 December, p 6 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26744818, accessed 30 April 2026.

Mercury (1954) 'For 11 Years They Dream of This' Hobart, Tas, 12 January, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27208269, accessed 1 May 2026.

Mieldažys, Kazys (1982) ‘Petrui Morkūnui 70’ (Petras Morkunas 70’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, NSW, 13 December, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1982/1982-12-13-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1953) ‘Pavykęs minėjimas’ (‘A Successful Commemoration’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 23 September, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1953/1953-09-23-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1954) ‘Nauja Apylinkės Valdyba Hobarte’ (‘New District Council Hobart’ in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 3 February, p 4, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1954/1954-02-03-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 29 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1960) ‘Hobartas, Tautos šventės minėjimas’ (Hobart, National Holiday Celebration, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 30 September, p 6, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1960/1960-09-30-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 29 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1963) ‘Aukos al bendruomenei, Hobarto apylinkėje aukojo’ (‘Donations to the community, donated in the Hobart area’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 4 December, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1963/1963-12-04-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 30 April 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1964) ‘Aukos, Šisurės Amerikos Lietuvių krepšininkų rinktines kelionės Į Australiją išlaidoms Padengti’ (‘Donations, to Cover Expenses of Lithuanian-American Basketball Team's Trip To Australia’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 23 November, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1964/1964-11-23-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 April 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 52, BUKEVICIUS Bronius DOB 20 October 1915, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005488, accessed 8 May 1948.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P3, Personal case files, annual single number series with 'T' (Tasmania) prefix, 1951 - ; T1959/1842, Bukevicius, Juozas, 1949-1951; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4095877, accessed 8 May 1948.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P3, Personal case files, annual single number series with 'T' (Tasmania) prefix, 1951 - ; T1969/2261, Bukevicius, Bronius, 1957-1958; recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9592497, accessed 8 May 1948.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1185, Incoming passenger cards, lexicographical series, 1948-1968; BUKEVICIUS, BUKEVICIUS, Juozas (Lithuanian), arrived Sydney per SAGITTAIRE, 29 July 1949, 1949-1949 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1613685, accessed 8 May 1948.

National Archives of Australia:  Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; BUKEVICIUS BRONIUS, BUKEVICIUS, Bronius : Year of Birth - 1915 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.HEINTZELMAN : Number - 452 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203669658, accessed 8 May 1948.

Paškevičius, (Juozas?) (1980) ‘Hobartas, Tautos Šventė’ (‘Hobart, National Holiday’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) Sydney NSW, 20 September, p 3 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1980/1980-09-20-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 1 May 2026.

Reserve Bank of Australia ‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 25 April 2026.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, Tasmania, pp 66, 161.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1958) ‘Iš Tasmanijos padangės’ (‘From Under the Tasmanian Sky, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 4 June, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1958/1958-06-04-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 21 April 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1971) ‘Hobartas’ (‘Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 18 May, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr18-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 21 April 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1973) ‘Hobartas’ (‘Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 23 January, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1973/1973-nr03-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 21 April 2026

Wikipedia ‘Suvalkija’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvalkija accessed 21 April 2026.

Bernardas Matkevičius (1922-1992) A Labourer's Life, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Bernardas first job in Australia

We’ve met Bernadas Matkevičius already. He was a workmate of Juozas Nakas, when both were employed by CJ Webb, Row & Anderson at Thornton, in northeast Victoria’s timber country. He was the truck driver in the June 1948 photograph below.

Aged 24 when selected for Australia and 5 feet 11 inches tall, that’s 180 centimetres, he would have had the physique for which the selection team were looking. We can’t tell you anything more about his selection at this time, as his papers are yet to be digitised.

While they were still working at Thornton, Bernardas, Juozas Nakas and a third Lithuanian in the photograph below, Edvardas Lapinskas, subscribed to the fledgling Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Lithuanian-Australian newspaper by sending £3 each. That may well have been a large slice of their savings. It was appreciated by the newspaper, which thanked them publicly in its 16 February 1949 edition.

Bernardas is in the cab with fellow workers Lithuanian Edvardas Lapinskas on the left, an Estonian, probably Helmut Nurmsalu in the middle and Lithuanian Juozas Nakas on the right:
the message on the back of this photo printed on postcard paper was dated 19 June 1948
and sent from Thornton, Victoria, where the group worked

Source:  Private collection

Later employment and residence

There is no citizenship file on the National Archives of Australia’s RecordSearch Web service and no digitised announcement in the Commonwealth Gazette of Bernardas becoming an Australian citizen. He clearly did, though, as he is on electoral rolls from 1963 to 1980. (Later rolls have yet to be digitised.)

The digitised rolls enable us to see where Bernardas lived and his stated occupation. In 1963, he was a rubber worker who lived on Bayswater Road, Wantirna, in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs. By 1968, he was living on nearby Orchard Road in Bayswater and had become a labourer.

Bernardas' photo from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In 1977, he had moved again, to the suburb of Heathmont but was still a labourer. In 1980, he was still at the Heathmont address and a labourer.

We can see that Bernardas was already a rubber worker in 1957 and, probably, 1956 from a Victoria Government Gazette. The issue for 9 January 1957 contains a notice from Dunlop Rubber which includes Bernardas in a list of people for whom the company held unclaimed money. This may have been because of a pay rise where the retrospective amount was not included in his pay packet, or some other problem with his pay. The amount was only 7 shillings and 11 pence, but probably could have bought him several beers after work.

At the time, he was recorded as living in the inner, then industrial suburb of Port Melbourne, likely to have been close to his place of work.

Bernardas' early life

Also in 1957, in October, Mūsų Pastogė published a notice for him, saying that it had news for him from S. Daugėliškis. Senasis Daugėliškis was his birthplace, a village in the Ignalina district, Utena County in Lithuania.

Bernardas was a Christmas present to his parents, Anupras Matkevičius and the former Izabelė Peciulevičiūtė, as he arrived on 24 December 1922. This happiness was followed by sadness though, as Izabelė died only 19 months after his birth, on 24 July 1924. She was aged 39.

She had already born two older sons, Edmundas around 1913 and Jonas around 1917. He also had 3 half-sisters. We have this information because someone has been interested enough in him and his family to include their details on a family history Website, geni.com.

Bernardas' death

Bernardas was only 69 when he died at Heathmont on 15 October 1992. Unfortunately, whoever gave his name to officialdom misspelled it as Beranardas Markevicius. That also is how is burial in the Yan Yean Cemetery on 22 October is recorded.

At least the Melbourne Lithuanian-language newspaper, Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland), knew the correct spelling of his name when it carried a report of his death and burial in its 27 October 1992 issue.

Bernardas’ death certificate shows that he died from heart disease, and that he also was known as Ben Markevicius. Maybe he had noted that Australians found Markevicius easier to say than Matkevicius. But the death certificate also contains the incorrect Beranardas spelling of his forename.

Not surprisingly, given the low income occupations since his arrival in Australia, Bernardas’ final occupation was given as pensioner.

His grave is unmarked still. Presumably his estate was not large enough to cover the costs of a grave marker. Also, he may have died intestate, that is, without a will. We think this was the case since an online search for a possible will held by the Public Records Office of Victoria did not produce any results under either the proper spelling of his name or the misspelling.

Bernardas' burial site is in the middle of this photograph

Source:  Geoff F on Find A Grave

His grave might be a pauper’s grave.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com, ‘All Census & Voter Lists results for Bernardas Matkevicius’ https://www.ancestry.com/search/categories/35/?name=Bernardas_Matkevicius&location=5027&priority=australian, accessed 26 March 2026.

Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria [search for Beranardas Markevicius’ (sic) death] https://my.rio.bdm.vic.gov.au/efamily-history/69a880855cdccbdd88c2952f/results?q=efamily, accessed 26 March 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Bernardas Matkevicius’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203611495, accessed 26 March 2026.

Electronic Archive Information System, ‘Švenčionių dekanato gimimo metrikų knyga’ (Svencionys Deanery Birth Register, in Lithuanian) [Bernardas’ birth is recorded in the Senasis Daugėliškis church 1922 register, on page 66 as number 187] https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext/view/267143226, accessed 26 March 2026.

Find a grave, ‘Beranardas Markevicius, Yan Yean Cemetery’) https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231620463/beranardas-markevicius?_gl=1*w6jern*_gcl_au*ODk2ODA1MDgxLjE3Njg0MTYwMDM.*_ga*MTU0MjMxMjQ3Mi4xNzM3Mzk2NDY1*_ga_4QT8FMEX30*czAzMTNiOWM0LTA0NjEtNGFhZi05NzkxLTU1MDM1ZGRjMzY0NSRvMjYkZzEkdDE3NzI2NTA0NjQkajU5JGwwJGgw*_ga_LMK6K2LSJH*czAzMTNiOWM0LTA0NjEtNGFhZi05NzkxLTU1MDM1ZGRjMzY0NSRvMjYkZzEkdDE3NzI2NTA0NjQkajU5JGwwJGgw, accessed 26 March 2026.

Geni.com ‘Bernardas Matkevičius’ https://www.geni.com/people/Bernardas-Matkevi%C4%8Dius/6000000070489407928?through=6000000070492006821, accessed 26 March 2026

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1949) ‘Aukos Mūsų Pastogei’ (‘Donations to Musu Pastoge’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 16 February, p 6 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1949/1949-02-16-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1957) ( ‘Pajieškojimai‘ (‘Searches‘, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 14 October, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1957/1957-10-14-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 482, MATKEVICIUS Bernardas DOB 24 December 1922, 1947-1947.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MATKEVICIUS BERNARDAS, MATKEVICIUS, Bernardas : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 857, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203611495, accessed 26 March 2026.

Tėviškės Aidai (The Echoes of Homeland) (1992) ‘Iš mūsų parapijų, Melbournas‘ (‘From Our Parishes, Melbourne’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, Vic, 27 October, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1992/1992-nr42-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Victoria Government Gazette (1957) ‘Dunlop Rubber Australia Limited, Register of unclaimed money held by Dulop (sic) Rubber Australia Limited, 108 Flinders-street, Melbourne’ Melbourne, Vic, 9 January, p 117 https://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/vic_gazette/1957/22.pdf, accessed 26 March 2026.

Vikipedija, ‘Senasis Daugėliškis’ in Lithuanian, https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senasis_Daug%C4%97li%C5%A1kis, accessed 24 March 2026.

Karolis Varkūnas (1912-1971): Sad end, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Some words, even though fifty-five years have passed, are still relevant. Writing about the death of Karolis Varkūnas, V Milčius said something that will never get old and will always be to the point.

Karolis Varkūnas was 58 years old when he died on 26 January 1971. A group of Hobart Lithuanians buried him on 29 January in Malbina General Cemetery, New Norfolk, Tasmania.

Karolis arrived in Australia on the First Transport in 1947. He had no relatives in Australia, he was single.

Karolis Varkunas' photograph on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Words of wisdom

Milčius wrote of Karolis Varkūnas that quite a few single people have a “philosophy of pessimism”, hammered into their heads. Why work when you have no-one to whom to leave your property?

However, single people do not have to live in blind darkness when there is somewhere to leave their estate. Lithuanian national institutions are asking for legacies for the existence of the nation. Anyone can create a legacy, immortalise their name, remain alive while Lithuanian history exists.

Those who believe in leaving their earnings only in bars have shortened, unhealthy lives, become a burden to themselves and others. Their life history is left empty, maybe without even a mark in a cemetery, without memories among the living.

Karolis' last years

Varkūnas was a bricklayer by profession, he said, but without a permanent job. For the last couple of years of his life, he had avoided any work, so he left no property, only what he carried on his body. He had lived under the care of the charitable Mrs. Teresa Kairienė.

The Commonwealth Employment Office terminated his unemployment benefit and sent him to a power plant construction site. There he collapsed and died after only one day of work.

Karolis in Lithuania

He had been born near Ukmergė, a city 78 Km northwest of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, on 5 December 1912. His parents were Karolis and Veronika Varkūnas. Veronika had been born in Warsaw, Poland, around 1887, but may well have been of Lithuanian ethnicity given that both Poland and Lithuania were part of one empire at the time, that of the Russian Tsar.

Karolis completed his elementary schooling, served in the Lithuanian army from 1933 to 1935, then worked as a bricklayer – or was he a stone mason? -- before leaving for Germany.

The start of his life was no different from other young people. His chosen trade was good, so it shouldn't have been difficult to get a job.

His life experiences, however, his separation from his homeland, family, and lack of friends led Karolis, as well as other emigrants, to despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.

Karolis in Germany

Karolis is another of the 31 whose selection papers have been misplaced. However, it turns out that the misplacement was onto the file about his application to become an Australian citizen (NAA: A446, 1955/52715), so we can see still what he told the selection team in Germany in 1947. Here, he was recorded as a stone mason, although bricklayer is mentioned as well, with 12 years’ experience in this trade in Lithuania. He also had worked for one year in farming in Germany.

The Arolsen Archives so far has not found and digitised any papers for Karolis in Germany, so it is not possible to find more detail on his life there.

Karolis is selected for Australia

On a Statutory Declaration given in relation to his application for citizenship, Karolis stated that he had left Lithuania for Germany in November 1943. This would mean that he was in Nazi Germany for 18 months before its defeat. The Australian selection team’s report has the usual “forcibly evacuated by Germans” explanation.

The team had been tasked to look in particular for men who could help with building construction, so masonry would have fitted the bill. The team also was looking for people with agricultural experience, to feed the returning service people and the families they now were forming. Karolis was 34 at the time though, which may no longer have been considered young in 1947. Nonetheless, he was given an A recommendation, which was more than the A- given to some others recruited for the First Transport.

Karolis in Australia

Despite that highly desirable construction experience, he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit as their first job in Australia. His employer was Messrs Dundas Simson of Ardmona. He undertook that work for nearly two months, returning to Bonegilla on 22 March 1948. His card says that his destination one week later was Tasmania.

An Application for Release from Period of Exemption, his request for permission to stay in Australia after the initial contract period finished, has survived on a Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch, file.

On it, we can see that the next job for this skilled bricklayer was picking more fruit, for DK Calvert for another 3 months. He finally got to lay bricks again from 20 September 1948, first for the Australian Newsprint Mills company (presumably at Maydena) for one month, and then with a private employer, S Haunstrap.

When he completed the Application, he was living at New Norfolk, where presumably he was living also when he died. New Norfolk is some 36 kilometres from the centre of Tasmania’s capital city, Hobart, by a winding road which follows the River Derwent.

Another document records that he stayed in New Norfolk until December 1949, when he moved to across Bass Strait to Melbourne. He returned to Hobart in June 1955.

Karolis Varkunas in 1955

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In August 1954, in Melbourne, he applied for a new Alien Registration Certificate as the old one had become worn, perhaps because Karolis kept it with him wherever he was. At that time he said he was self-employed as a bricklayer.

In May 1955, Karolis was one of the more generous donors to an appeal for Lithuanians still in Germany, giving £1/10/-.

His Australian citizenship was granted 9 April 1956.

After that, Karolis lived such a quiet life that he does not appear in either the English or Lithuanian-language press, nor on official files, until his death.

Was he clinically depressed or otherwise ill?

Fifty-five years later, it is possible to ask whether the “philosophy of pessimism” and the lack of a desire to work were, in fact, deep and untreated depression: a medical condition rather than a deliberate choice?

His depression perhaps was not have been recognised as a medical condition by those around him but it does fit V Milčius’ description of “despair, lack of purpose, and unwillingness to cling to life.”

The collapse at work after two years of unemployment may well have been due to another undiagnosed condition, such as heart disease. The heart disease and other illnesses may have been intertwined with the possible depression.

Such illnesses would have had nothing to do with the issue of not having family to whom to leave one’s property. Milčius’ point about leaving it to a Lithuanian institution is well made, regardless, and applies equally to charities also, both in Lithuania and Australia

FOOTNOTE:  The National Archives RecordSearch service does not contain any files for someone with a Milčius family name.  As Tėviškės Aidai actually printed it as Mil-čius, this may not be a typographic error but the shortening of someone's name.  With this in mind, we looked again in RecordSearch to find Vincas Milinkevičius arriving in September 1948.  He looks like the only candidate for the V Mil-čius nom de plume.

SOURCES

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup ‘Karolis VARKUNAS’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203724312, accessed 7 March 2026.

Find A Grave ‘Karlos Varkunas, Malbina General Cemetery, Derwent Valley Council, Tasmania’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/215236428/karlos-varkunas, accessed 7 March 2026

Mil-čius, V (1971) ‘Hobartas, Palaidojom A A Karolį‘ (‘Hobart, We buried the late Karolis’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, Vic, 9 February, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1971/1971-nr05-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations [Main correspondence files series of the agency], 1926-2001; 1955/52715, Application for Naturalisation - VARKUNAS Karolis born 5 December 1912, 1947-1956 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8821097, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1949-1966; VARKUNAS K, VARKUNAS Karolis [Lithuanian], 1947-1955 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1914257, accessed 7 March 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; VARKUNAS KAROLIS, VARKUNAS, Karolis : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 718, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203724312, accessed 7 March 2026.

Wikipedia, Ukmergė https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukmerg%C4%97, accessed 7 March 2026.