Three Jakstas refugees on the First Transport, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Having noted the names Žilinskas and Smilgevičius three times each on the First Transport passenger list, Daina also wanted to know if the 3 Jakštas men were related.

Aleksas Jakštas (1921-1977)

Aleksas Jakštas started his working life in Australia by picking fruit for W Young of the Kelvin Orchards, Ardmona. He stayed more than one month at this assignment before returning to the Bonegilla camp on 3 April. He would not have needed to unpack because, on 5 April, he was off to Tasmania.

Aleksas in Tasmania

His Bonegilla card provides no more details but Ramunas Tarvydas, in From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, says that he was sent to Premaydena locality in rural southeast Tasmania. Ramunas confirms that Premaydena involved more fruit picking. Both Ramunas and Aleksas’ obituarist, Aleksas Kantvilas, write that his next destination was Ida Bay. If you look back at our entry on the Electrona Carbide Factory, you’ll find that Ida Bay was the source of the limestone needed for the Factory to manufacture its calcium carbide.  The Factory was located near Ida Bay in a place that became Electrona.

Aleksas Jakstas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National archives of Australia

Ramunas quotes from Adomas Stasytis, who he says arrived at Electrona in mid-1948 with his wife, Veronika, both Second Transport (General MB Stewart) refugees, to find that there were 3 Lithuanians there already. From Bonegilla cards, we know that they were Kazys Alseika, Anicetas Grigaliunas and Algirdas Jonas Smelstorius. Either Jakštas arrived later still, or he really was moving limestone at Ida Bay into its transport to Electrona than moving it into the factory.

Aleksas' Personal Life

In Tasmania, he met and married another refugee, Klavdia. His obituarist wrote, in Lithuanian, "They had a daughter but she died early".  From the family's grave (see photograph below), it looks more like Klavdia brought Nina into the marriage from a previous marriage -- perhaps to someone who did not migrate to Australia as there is no public record of him.*

The Klavdia spelling of Aleksas' wife's name and Cyrillic script plus an orthodox cross on the family's grave are among hints that she and Nina were refugees from Russia.  Also, Utkina on the grave is the feminine form of a Russian surname, Utkin, meaning Duck.

Aleksas originated from Kaišiadorys, a village near Kaunas on the road to Vilnius. He was born on 5 October 1921. He spent his childhood and started his education in Kaišiadorys. His AEF (American Expeditionary Force) DP (Displaced Person) Registration form says that he was born in Trakai, a town 50 Km from Kaišiadorys and closer to Vilnius. The form says also that this was his last place of residence.

His parents were Jonas Jakštas and Marijona, maiden name Jurskaitė. His occupation was still student and he hoped to go to Canada. Australia must have come up first.

Aleksas' Education

From Trakai, he moved to Vilnius and studied architecture at the Vilnius Technical University. After the War, according to his obituarist, he continued his studies in Darmstadt, but it was not at the Technical University. That University’s Archives has written to us to say that he is not on its list of past students.

His education is downgraded in the papers which survive from the selection process for his migration to Australia. The tertiary education becomes instead “2 years building technical school” and “2 years secondary in Germany”. Given that Aleksas was already 24 at the start of the 1946 academic year, tertiary study is much more likely than attending a secondary school. Indeed, the selection papers later say that he did not work at all but was a full-time student, making secondary study all the more unlikely.

Aleksas in the Community

Aleksas was part of the Lithuanian community in southeast Tasmania from the start. In 1953, he was first elected to the committee of Hobart Lithuanian Community as its secretary, as reported in the Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) of 21 February that year. Soon he became its treasurer instead.

In 1956, Aleksas represented Tasmania at a Lithuanian sports festival in Sydney. Back home, his goal was to put together a team of Lithuanian basketballers for the 1957 festival in Geelong. The Hobart sports club he founded, Perkūnas (Thunder) was the result of that effort. He managed for it for a long time.

The Perkūnas Sports Club organises its 50th anniversary celebration

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė, 31 January 2007 

Like Juozas Zilinskas in Canberra, Aleksas and Klavdia were to be seen “everywhere and often” in Hobart community life. There were said to be no gatherings, commemorations or entertainment of the Lithuanian community without their participation.

On 30 January 1963, both Klavdia and Aleksas Jakstas of 623 Seventh Avenue in the Hobart suburb of West Moonah received their citizenship certificates.

Aleksas' Early Death

In 1970 Aleksas was diagnosed with a serious illness, threatening the rest of his life.

Aleksas was an amazingly caring and talented person, his obituarist wrote. What he did, he did well, so that it was beautiful, perfectly finished; he had "golden hands", people used to say. He was open and honest; he didn't have any anger or deceit.

A hundred of his friends, compatriots and acquaintances gathered for his last farewell on 2 April 1977. He had lived for only 55 years, destined never to see the forests and fields of his motherland again. Accompanied by song, he descended to the ground covered by the tricolour flag and a handful of sand from the Neris river in Lithuania, as a farewell trumpet sounded.

The deceased left behind his lovely wife, who was loved and respected by everyone. He also left behind his father in Vilnius and three sisters and their families in Lithuania. Klavdia passed away early also, less than 15 months after Aleksas.

They are interred with Nina in the Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart.

The grave of the Jakštas family in Cornelian Bay Cemetery, Hobart:
the Cyrillic at the top translates as "Ninochka", clearly her mother's pet name for Nina and
it is likely that "Aliusik" was Klava/Klavda's pet name for her husband, Aleksas;
note also the Orthodox cross at the top of the grave, which is in the Cemetery's Methodist section

Source:  Gravesites of Tasmania

*  The Arolsen Archives has a file for Klavdia Utkina (b 21 May 1928) and her daughter, Antonina (b 5 March 1948) which reveals that Klavdia married Peter Ivanovich Utkin, a fellow teacher, in Harbin, China, in 1947.  As of 1 May 1957, they were separated and his whereabouts were unknown.  

Klavdia and Nina set out for Tasmania from Hong Kong on 30 December 1957 by ship, with Klavdia's aunt, Cleopatra Krasovskaya.  They would have been travelling under an immigration program which Australia ran for White Russians from China.  This program was started after lobbying co-ordinated by the Australian Council of Churches and was at its peak during 1957-59.  The Utkina/Krasnovskaya party was headed for Klavdia's friend who was living in the inner Hobart suburb of Glebe.  All of this is to say that Aleksas and Klavdia would not have met until 1958 at the earliest. 

Algirdis Jakštas (1926-1999)

Algirdas or, in a more familiar manner, Algis, Jakštas hit the page 1 headlines in various editions of Sydney’s Daily Mirror afternoon newspaper on 25 August 1949. They reported that he had been found that morning with a knife wound above the heart, in the East Hostel, Yallourn, Victoria.

In most of its editions, the newspaper added that Algis has sought treatment the previous day for mental illness from a Yallourn doctor. It added that he now was in a serious condition in the Yallourn Hospital.

He must have recovered both from the knife wound and the mental illness, as his life continued for nearly another 50 years. He was 73 years old when he died on 26 February 1999. He was buried in Melbourne’s Springvale Botanical Cemetery on 2 March 1999.

Indeed, he was the longest lived of the three Jakštas men from the First Transport.

Algis in Germany

Algis was born 16 January 1926. His Australian Selection Report says that he had “Fled from Russian regime with parents”. He had 6 years of secondary schooling in addition to 6 years of primary, so he was well educated.

Algirdas Jakštas from his October 1947 selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

The selection team thought that his General Appearance was “Good” and he could be suited to heavy labour. His previous work experience was on his father’s farm, for 2 months every year (doubtless during the summer).

He was quite a linguist, with a knowledge of Russian and Polish in addition to the expected Lithuanian and German. In addition, his knowledge of English was “fair”.

Someone has added in pencil to another form used in the selection process, “Parents lost in East Prussia”.

His identity photographs came from a photographer operating in the Baltic Camp Watenstedt, where he was living. Another First Transport Lithuanian living in the same camp with his parents and siblings was Vladas Akumbakas.

Algis' First Jobs in Australia

Accepted for migration to Australia, his work contract took him to the pine forests of Mt Gambier in South Australia where he worked for the State Forestry Department.

By August 1949, he had been transferred to Victoria’s State Electricity Commission, Yallourn, where he made page 1, at least of the Daily Mirror.

Algis Starts a Family

The RecordSearch index to its digitised documents maintained by the National Archives of Australia shows only one Algirdas Jakstas entering Australia. Therefore, it would be the same person who next appears in the Australian press prior to his marriage, on 10 February 1951, to “Heather Jean, second Daughter of Capt. and Mrs A. Moore, Kew Street, Indooroopilly.” This notice appeared in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper of 8 February 1951.

During the next year, Capt. and Mrs A. Moore announced in the Courier-Mail that Heather Jakstas had given birth to a son on 13 July.

Algis Goes Flensing

So it would be the same Algirdas Jakštas who had an article headed, Beprotnamis Ar Banginių Medžioklė (Madhouse or Whaling), published in the Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) newspaper of 10 January 1953. It describes the author and his wife travelling by motor boat to Moreton Island, where they met the director of a whaling company. This director had promised his wife a job as a cleaner previously.

Moreton Island is a large sand island sheltering Brisbane, in Moreton Bay, from the Coral Sea. The former whaling station at Tangalooma now is an education and conservation centre.

Algirdas was put to work on the flensing deck, presumably on one of the 3 Norwegian ships whose crews were teaching Australians how to process the whales they had caught. The Australians, so Algirdas wrote, then started to attack him verbally. 

Flensing deck at Tangalooma Whaling Station, 1960

Source:  Queensland Places

Those Australians were replaced by others but “they” (the new employees? the company?) “began to use other methods (so runs the translation into English) such as not letting him sleep during the day to recover from his night shift, threatening to fence his accommodation off with barbed wire, and even to deport him”.

As a result of this, Algirdas wrote, he was admitted to a Brisbane hospital where he remained for 2 weeks. In view of his previous medical history, the reader does have to wonder if this was a mental hospital or ward.

In the same issue, Algirdas inserted an advertisement which advised that people wishing to write to Liutaveras Januškevičius should use the address, “Algirdas Jakštas, 21 Bromston Street, Gladstone, Queensland”. Gladstone is a coastal city still more than 500 road kilometres and 6 hours driving north of Brisbane. 

Algirdas must have thought that moving further north would help him escape tormenting Australians. Ann, who lived even further north in Queensland for 6 years more than 50 years ago, know that this was a mistake: the further north you go, the more isolated from the outside world and its events the other residents become …

Algis Writes Again

Three years later, Algirdas had another long article headed, “Įdomūs Kelionės Įspūdžiai ...” (Interesting Travel Impressions) published in Australijos Lietuvis. This piece was based on a story Algirdas found a magazine published by a Melbourne Lithuanian sports club, about a drive from Melbourne to Adelaide. A friend who was driving in his small car was so worried about making the trip that he made his will beforehand. 

The driver, his wife and passengers saw the car in front of them leave the road and land upside down in a field but no-one was injured. Adelaide was disappointing because the friend’s Melbourne sports club did not win and for other, apparently minor, reasons. Algirdas suggested that his friend’s next trip to Adelaide should be by train or even plane.

Algis Back in Victoria

On 3 December 1960, Algirdas was granted Australian citizenship. He had left Queensland for Victoria, wisely in Ann’s opinion, and was living at Clarke House, Elmshurst Road, Bayswater, then on Melbourne’s rural-urban fringe. As far as we can find, Clarke House was the residence of a Clarke family, identified as such for the Post Office and visitors before the new Elmshurst Road received street numbers from the local government.

And that’s all the public information we have about Algirdas, until the appearance of his 1999 burial on the Find A Grave Website.  The headstone shows that his marriage to Heather Jean did not last, as the person buried with him is called Wanda.

Algirdas and Wanda Jakstas' headstone at Springvale Botanical Cemetery, Melbourne

Source:  Julie Carver on Find A Grave

Fridrikas Jakštas

Fridrikas came from Žiogaičiai village in the county of Tauragė. The summary report on him by the Australian selection committee categorises him as someone “forcibly evacuated by the Germans” from Lithuania in 1944.

He had 5 years of primary education and 2 years of secondary. His employment experience consisted of 2 years of farming in Lithuanian plus one year as a lumber worker in Germany. He had no knowledge of English.

His Bonegilla card shows that his next of kin was an uncle living in the Rotenburg DP camp in Hannover, in the British Zone. As this was where Fridrikas had his medical examination for migration, he probably was living there too.

Fridrikas' identity photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Did Fridrikas' Uncle Stay in Germany?

The uncle did not come to Australia nor was he resettled in another third country according to the available evidence. Indeed, one of two Refugee/Displaced Person Statistical Cards describes him as ineligible for IRO assistance. He was a 56-year-old farmer. Maybe officialdom had decided that he would be better off returning to Lithuania or saw him as helped already by another program, perhaps run by the Germans. Maybe he became one of the older, sicker Lithuanians in Germany for whom those in Australia collected money frequently.

Fridrikas Goes to Bangham

Fridrikas was one of the 62 Balts who arrived in Wolseley, a small town halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne, on Wednesday night, 14 January 1948. They were sent there to work for the South Australian Railways. They were to widen the district’s railway gauge. From Wolseley, they were moved to a camp of their own at Bangham.

During their five-weeks' sojourn in Bonegilla migrant camp the new arrivals learned some basic English, but only three or four of the men could converse fluently. They adopted German as the common language of conversation. While the men hoped to improve their English, it would be extremely difficult while living together in such an isolated spot. The camp was situated about 14.5 kilometres from Custon, where the predominant features of the surrounding country were scrub and sand. The men were housed in tents.

The men had been promised by Australian immigration authorities in Germany that they would only be required to work one year. After having spent years in limbo in DP camps, they hoped to find permanent positions quickly so as to end camp life.

A representative of the Commonwealth Employment Service met the party at Wolseley. The twenty Lutheran members of the party were welcomed on Wednesday afternoon at the Bangham camp by Pastor K. Hartmann, of the Lutheran Church, Bordertown. Pastor Hartmann planned to conduct services at the camp. Fridrikas was of the Lutheran faith.

Fridrikas Goes to Adelaide

There is no notation on Fridrikas’ Aliens Registration record card, now in the Adelaide collection of the National Archives of Australia, to say that he was released from his contract to the Australian Government on 30 September 1949. There also is no known reason why he would not have been released on that date. Along with the others, he probably headed for the State capital, Adelaide, as quickly as could be arranged.

The Aliens Registration record card notes that his next employment was as a labourer with Chrysler Dodge and his residential address had become 16 North Parade, North Adelaide. This change is undated.

The next notation of the record card is employment as a labourer with Hansen & Yuncken of Torrensville, builders. Fridrikas’ new personal address was 10 Athol Street in Woodville North, as of 27 October 1949.

Fridrikas Goes to Sydney

The following notation records that the South Australian Department of Immigration file of papers about Fridrikas had been sent to the Department’s Sydney office on 6 January 1950. Fridrikas had spent less than 2 years in South Australia.

He had moved to St. Mary's, now a western suburb of Sydney, 45 Km for its Central Business District. Although closer to the Blue Mountains than to central Sydney, the area has seen European settlement, initially in the form of land grants, since 1807. Even the Anglican Church after which it was named was built more than 180 years ago, between 1837 and 1840.

In St Mary’s, Fridrikas built a house with his own hands.

Fridrikas is Married

Fridrikas Jakstas and Lidia Ruta Jakstas, both of 160 Bestic Street in Kyeemagh, a Sydney suburb where the Georges River meets Botany Bay, obtained Australian citizenship on 30 October 1960.

If we knew more about the life history of Lidia Ruta Jakstas, we might know why Fridrikas moved to Sydney rather than staying in South Australia. The vast majority of First Transport men sent to South Australia lived the rest of their lives there.

The person who wrote his obituary less than 18 months after the citizenship ceremony, for Mūsų Pastogė, someone who signed himself only as J, wrote that Fridrikas had moved to Rockdale “a few years ago”.  Rockdale is the larger, better known suburb to the west of Kyeemagh, so the reference is to his Kyeemagh move.

Fridrikas Goes into Business

The obituarist wrote that Fridrikas had bought a “colonial goods store”.  The 160 Bestic Street address is indeed part of a commercial street front with second floor residences. The Jakstas’ address now houses a personal fitness and weight-loss business, according to Google Street View.

The shops at 158-164 Bestic Street, Kyeemagh, as recorded by Google Street View in June 2022;
160 Bestic Street is second from the corner, now housing Advanced Personal Training

Source:  Google Street View

The building’s style is 1930s Art Deco, so it would have been about 20 years old when Fridrikas and Lidia owned or were buying part of it.

Fridrikas Dies Young

Fridrikas died in Rockdale Hospital on 31 March 1962 after being unwell for three days. This young man, just 34 years old, left behind a grieving wife and parents and brothers in Lithuania.

In death, Fridrikas returned to his previous Australian home. Fr. E. Lyenert and Fr. Kosticin officiated at the funeral rites in St Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in St Mary’s and at the graveside. A representative of the Sydney Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Parish Council spoke beside Fridrikas’ grave, in St Mary’s Cemetery. More than 70 people accompanied him to his eternal resting place.

The anonymous obituarist saw Fridrikas as a sincere Lithuanian and a quiet, hardworking and dutiful family man.

From her gravestone next to that of her husband, it looks like Lidia lived another 44 years without remarrying. She was buried there on 9 August 2006.  

Frederick has been buried under the Australianised version of his forename.  Since we know so little about Lidia Ruta, we do not know if Lidia was an Australian version of the Lithuanian Lidija or a variant from another language, let alone if Lida on her headstone is her proper name, a misspelling or a pet name.  We can tell that her married name is misspelt, however.

Lidia's burial in 2006 was next to the grave of her husband,
who had died too young 44 years earlier

Source:  Julie Allnut on Find A Grave

CONCLUSION

There are no hints at relationships between these three men on their Bonegilla cards, and we cannot find any other evidence that these three men with the family name Jakštas are related. 

Another nine people with the same surname arrived in Australia in the following years. They also were unrelated to the first three, we believe.

CITE THIS AS:  Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Three Jakstas refugees on the First Transport', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/11/three-jakstas-refugees-on-first-transport.htm.

SOURCES

AEF DP Registration Record, ‘Aleksas Jakštas’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67433246, accessed 23 September 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) (1953) ‘Chronika’ (‘Chronicle’, in Lithuanian) Adelaide, 21 February, p 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280311807, accessed 23 September 2025.

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.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1963) 'Certificates of Naturalization', Canberra, 24 April, p 1428, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241013003, accessed 23 September 2025.

Courier-Mail (1951) ‘Family Notices’ Brisbane, 8 February, p 16 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50091069, accessed 23 September 2025.

Courier-Mail (1952) ‘Births’ Brisbane, 15 July, p 10 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/50512361, accessed 15 November 2025.

Daily Mirror (1949) ‘Migrant Found with Knife Wound’ Sydney, 25 August, p 1 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/273698139, accessed 24 September 2025.

Dalyvis (Participant) (1955) 'Hobart' (in Lithuanian), Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian), Adelaide, 7 February, p 8 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280313783, accessed 23 September 2025.

Find a Grave 'Algirdas Jakstas (1926-1999)' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/231318643/algirdas-jakstas, accessed 16 November 2025.

Find a Grave 'Frederick Jakstas (1928-1962)' https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/211910034/frederick-jakstas, accessed 16 November 2025.

Gravesites of Tasmania, 'Jakstas Aliusik' http://gravesoftas.com.au/Cornelian%20Bay%20Live/Methodist%20Weslyan/EM/3/Jakstas%20Aliusik.jpg, accessed 16 November 2025.

Jakštas, Algirdas (1953) ‘Beprotnamis ar Banginių Medžioklė’ (‘Madhouse or Whaling’, in Lithuanian), Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) Adelaide, 10 January, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280311958, accessed 23 September 2025.

Jakštas, Algirdas (1956) 'Įdomūs Kelionės Įspūdžiai ... ', (‘Interesting Travel Impressions, in Lithuanian) Australijos Lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian), Adelaide, 5 March, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article280316318, accessed 23 September 2025.

J (1962) ‘Naujas Lietuvio Kapas’ (‘A New Lithuanian Grave’, in Lithuanian’ Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, 7 April, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1962/1962-04-07-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 24 September 2025.

Juragis, Juozas Almis (Ed.). (1961) Australijos Lietuvių metraštis I (Australian Lithuanian Yearbook I, in Lithuanian) Sydney, Australijos Lietuvių Fondas.

Kantvilas, A. (1977) ‘Hobartas, A A Aleksas Jakštas’ (‘Hobart, RIP Aleksas Jakštas’, in Lithuanian), Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland), Melbourne, 23 April (No. 16), p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1977/1977-nr16-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 22 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1953) ‘Išrinko naują Valdybą, Hobartas’ (New Board Elected, Hobart’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 11 February, p 4 , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259366077, accessed 23 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Hobartas, Nauja Apylinkės Valdyba’ (Hobart, New District Board’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 8 February, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359765, accessed 22 September 2025.

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; 98, JAKSTAS Aleksas DOB 5 October 1921, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005530, accessed 15 November 2025.

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; 97, JAKSTAS Algirdas DOB 16 January 1926, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005529, accessed 15 November 2025.

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; 117, JAKSTAS Fridrichas DOB 11 March 1928, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005546, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; JAKSTAS ALGIRDAS, JAKSTAS Algirdas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9187680, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; JAKSTAS FRIDRIKAS, JAKSTAS Fridrikas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1950 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9187681, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS ALEKSAS, JAKSTAS, Aleksas : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 497, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620931, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS ALGIRDAS, JAKSTAS, Algirdas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 496, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620932, accessed 15 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1957; JAKSTAS FRIDRIKAS, JAKSTAS, Fridrikas : Year of Birth - 1928 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number - 514, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203620933, accessed 15 November 2025.

'Personal file of UTKINA, KLAVDIA, born on 21-May-1928, born in HARBIN and of further persons' 3.2.3 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/81637386?s=utkin%20klavdia&t=3229806&p=0, accessed 15 November 2025.

Sengalvėlis (Old Timer) (1956) ‘Hobartiečiai Rinko Valdyba’ (‘Hobart People Elected a Board’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 15 February, p 6, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359981, accessed 22 September 2025.

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, p 165.

Wikipedia ‘Moreton Island’ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moreton_Island, accessed 24 September 2025.

Bronislava Jutkutė Umbražiūnas-Amber (1912-2003): Orchid grower who returned to her free homeland, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Bronė Jutkutė lived a long life, during which she became an orchid grower with the husband she married in Australia. There was turmoil in the middle of it, though, after the Soviet Union invaded her homeland in mid-June 1940, probably until she found her feet in Sydney.

Bronė was already 28 years old when the first of 3 invasions of her homeland occurred in 1940, having been born on 7 February 1912. She was born in Mažeikiai, Žemaitija or Samagotia, a city in northwestern Lithuania, on the Venta River, to Jonas and Ona Jutkus. Ona’s maiden name was Žotkevičiūtė.

From biographies we have published of fellow Samogitians, those of Bronius Šaparas and three men with the Smilgevičius family name, we know that these lowlanders are seen as different in personality and culture by other Lithuanians.

The Arolsen Archives have not digitised any records yet for anyone with the Jutkutė or Jutkus surname. The record of Bronė’s interview with the Australian selection team in Germany, in a file held by the National Archives of Australia, says that she had received the usual 4 years of primary school education. She had attended an agricultural school for an additional 2 years. She was not married, a prerequisite for selection on the First Transport.

There is no information at all on her previous employment although, now aged 35, she probably had been in the Lithuanian and German workforces for 20 or more years.

Bronė Jutkutė from her Alien Registration application

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Brone’s Bonegilla card notes that she was sent to the Hotel Ainslie in Canberra on 22 December 1947. She was expected to work there as a cleaner and a maker of beds, known at the time as a “housemaid”. Her agricultural training and possible work experience in that sector counted for nothing in Australia’s then strongly sex-stratified workforce.

The building once called the Hotel Ainslie still exists at the bottom of a major natural landmark, Mount Ainslie, near the Australian War Memorial. Wikipedia contributors record that “the building now occupied by the (Mercure) hotel was built between 1926-27" (meaning it will be 100 years old next year or the year after) "as one of eight hostels designed to provide accommodation for public servants in preparation (for) relocating the Parliament from Melbourne to the new national capital. Following the adverse impact of the Great Depression in 1932, a liquor license was granted to building lessee, Ernest Spendlove. The building was renovated and shortly thereafter re-opened as a public hotel.“

Wikipedia further records that Spendlove sold the hotel in 1950, so he was still the employer when Bronė arrived, together with another Lithuanian woman, Elena Augutis. There were 3 women from the First Transport already working at the Hotel. They were Latvians Birute Pabrants and Maria (Mika) Pimbers, and Estonian Hilda Ramjalg. All were 29 or more years old, except for Mika, who was only 19.

Bronė and Elena had left Bonegilla Reception and Training Centre for the Hotel Ainslie on 22 December 1947. Since Canberra still does not have easy access by train, they may not have arrived until 24 December. The Hotel would have been mostly shut down for Christmas Day, although we presume that some guests stayed and would have expected to be fed, in a festive fashion. Let us hope that the 5 Baltic women were given the time and support to have a celebration on the day also.

With one exception, they probably stayed at the Hotel Ainslie for another Christmas but, like most of the other First Transport refugees, were free to find their own employment after 30 September 1949. (The one exception was Elena Augutis, whose Bonegilla card outlines her special circumstances. We will have more about her later.)

In July 1954, Bronė, using the full form of her first name, Bronislava, placed the advertisements of her intention to apply for Australian citizenship in the two newspapers then required under the Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1948-1953. The National Library’s Trove digitisation service has made available one of them, from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. It records her as then residing at 35 Francis Street, East Sydney. This is only 100 metres from the Central Business District’s Hyde Park, in an area now designated Darlinghurst. Still at that address, she became an Australian citizen on 20 April 1956.

Between her departure from the Hotel Ainslie, perhaps when her contract to work as directed finished on 30 September 1949, and her Australian citizenship in April 1956, the New South Wales office of the Department of Immigration kept a record of her changes of employment.  Presumably her residential address remained constant during that period.

35 Francis Street, East Sydney, now 41 Yurong Street, Darlinghurst
and very renovated

Source:  Google Street View

While the Department's employment record does not have any dates, it does tell us that Bronė worked at the Gladesville Mental Hospital in Parramatta, followed by Lady Davidson House in Turramurra.  Like the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, Lady Davidson House was run by the Federal Government's Repatriation Department during the time that Bronė probably worked there.

Long trips would have been involved in getting to work every day, with the Gladesville Hospital trip involving at least 28 minutes on the train and the trip to Turramurra still taking more than one hour.

In June 1957, her name appeared in a list published in the New South Wales Government's Gazette, of people who were owed money by Dunlop Rubber Australia Limited.  Since a Dunlop factory is not listed on the Department of Immigration record, this change in employment probably occurred after her grant of Australian citizenship.

Bronė must have left one of Dunlop's factories without collecting the £3/18/7 she was due for her work. The Reserve Bank of Australia says that this amount had the buying power of $152 in 2024, one-sixth of the wage that would be paid now to a similar worker.  (The minimum wage in mid-2024 for a 38-hour week was $915.90)

Nikita Khrushchev had delivered his speech criticising Stalin two months earlier, in a closed session of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Communist Party control of people’s lives in the Soviet Union started to loosen up after that. So we find that Elena Staigvilienė from Telšiai is looking for Bronė Jutkutė, daughter of Jonas, born in March 1912, left Lithuania in 1944, in the 17 October 1957 edition of Europos Lietuvis (European Lithuanian). Any attempt like that to contact someone who had left would have led earlier to experiencing life in the colder parts of Siberia.

In May 1962, there was another search, this time from someone who was looking for both Bronė and her sister, Elena Staigvilienė. Now we know why Elena was looking for Bronė 4 years earlier. The second searcher knew that Bronė had lived in Hanau while in Germany and thought that it was likely that she now was Mrs. Šopienė (having married a Mr Sopis). This advertisement was in the Australian-Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven).

Bronė had not married Mr Sopis, while our National Archives records suggest that the only man of that name to enter Australia came much later than what was called officially the IRO Mass Scheme (1947-54). Instead, a November 1961 issue of Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of the Homeland) tells us that she had become the life partner of one Juozapas Renaška. We know about this because Tėviškės Aidai reports that Juozapas (Joseph in English) had collapsed and died of a heart attack on 30 October, after a hard day’s work. He was only 36 years old at the time. Bronė was just a few months away from her 50th birthday.

Her partner was known to have a congenital heart valve disorder, but doctors still said that he should live easily to be 60. He had not complained of illness or any ailments. He was buried on All Souls' Day, 2 November, at the Rookwood Lithuanian Cemetery. He was not a public man, but a circle of friends and compatriots attended a mournful service and accompanied him and Bronė to the cemetery.

By 1963, Bronė had joined her life to that of Teofilis Umbražiūnas, whose last name is probably a misspelling of Ambražiūnas. Since both were too complicated for most Australians, the couple started to use Amber as well.

This time it seems to have been a marriage, since Teofilis’ sports club, Kovas, with whom he played volleyball, recorded the union in the 14 April 1963 issue of Mūsų Pastogė. Rasa's translation of its notice is, “Longtime club member Teofilis Umbražiūnas and Bronė Jutkutė, who have created a Lithuanian family, are wished much success in their future lives by Sydney Lithuanian Sports Club Kovas". By this time, Bronė was 51 years old.

There appears to be no mention of Teofilis in the Lithuanian-language press before the marriage, especially not that he was an orchid grower, so the two are likely to have taken this up together afterwards. For example, Tėviškės Aidai reported in July 1976 that, at a concert by the Daina choir, the conductor, the accompanist and the singers of duets were presented with bouquets of orchids by the owners of an orchid garden, Bronė and Teofilis Ambražiūnai-Amber.

In 1981, a team of Lithuanian sportspeople was preparing to travel to Chicago for competition. The organisers had many ideas for raising funds for uniforms, fares and overseas expenses. One of them was to establish a group of supporters who had donated at least 100 dollars to the cause. Before the team left, the “centurion” supporters would be awarded a special departure badge, their names would be published and they would be presented at a farewell ball. The first centurion was a former good volleyball player for Kovas, a native of Vilnius, Teofilis Ambražiūnas, who owned an orchid business with his wife.

There are too many other public records of generous donations from Bronė and Teofilis to mention them all here, so the orchid business seems to have been a very profitable one.

Indeed, it may have been so profitable that they decided in 1994 not only to retire, but to retire back to their Lithuanian homeland together. They settled into the city of Klaipėda.

Teofilis died of a heart attack on 24 September 1997. As he was born on 12 November 1922, he was nearly 75 years old, a good age at that time (a little higher than the NSW median of 74.3 years) for a man who had spent more than 40 years of his life in NSW -- but some of it in the privations of World War II.

Teofilis was, however, 10 years younger than his wife, who was now 85 years old. Bronė lasted another 5 to 6 years, dying sometime in 2003 according to the headstone on their grave. They are buried in the Lėbartai cemetery in Klaipėda, together with another person, Konstancija, who is probably Teofilis’ mother.

Surprisingly, while Konstancija bears the married woman’s version of the Umbražiūnas family name, both Bronė and Teofilis have been buried under the Australianised name, Amber.

Bronė rests in peace now in her country of birth, after a life that saw happiness and beauty, as well as upheaval and sadness.

Brone's gravestone, with what looks like plastic orchids

Source:  Cemety

CITE THIS AS:  Ščevinskienė, Rasa and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) 'Bronislava Jutkutė Umbražiūnas-Amber (1912-2003):  Orchid grower who returned to her free homeland', https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/11/bronislava-jutkute-umbraziunas-amber-refugee-orchid-grower-who-returned-to-free-homeland.html.

SOURCES

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Bronislava Jutkute’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203732287, accessed 30 October 2025.

Cemety, ‘Bronė Amber (1912-2003)’ (Lėbartai cemetery in Klaipėda) https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/1596597?type=deceased, accessed 1 November 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1956) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, 20 September, p 2862 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232988815/25126342, accessed 30 October 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1954) ‘ Public notices’ Sydney, NSW, 5 July, p 25 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248935087, accessed 29 October 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Viekšnių dekanato gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Viekšniai deanery’, in Lithuanian ) (1912, Mažeikiai church, page 40, baptism record number 15, Bronislava Jutkute) https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267310872/300725240/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=40, accessed 1 November 2025.

Europos lietuvis (European Lithuanian) (1957) ‘Paieškojimai’ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian), London, England, 17 October, p 4 https://spauda2.org/britanijos_europos_lietuvis/archive/1957/1957-10-17-EUROPOS-LIETUVIS.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (1957) ‘Unclaimed Moneys’ Sydney, NSW, 14 June, p 1841 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220354404/14355216, accessed 30 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1962) ‘Paieškojimai’ (‘Searches’, in Lithuanian), Sydney, NSW, 30 May, page 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1962/1962-05-30-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 30 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1963) ‘Pranesimai’ (‘Notices, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 14 April, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1963/1963-04-17-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1981) ‘Pasirengimai išvykaiį Čikagą, Rėmėjai Šimtininkai’ (‘Preparations for a Trip to Chicago, Centennial Sponsors’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 26 October, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1981/1981-10-26-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1982) ‘Syd. Lietuvių Klubo reikalais‘ (‘Syd. Lithuanian Club Affairs’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 11 October, p 5 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1982/1982-10-11-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1997) ‘Mūsų mirusieji, A.a. Teofilius Amber-Umbražiūnas‘ (‘Our Dead, In Memoriam, Teofilius Amber-Umbraziūnas, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 15 December, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-12-15-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Mūsų Pastogės Spaudos Baliaus Rengimo Komitetas (Mūsų Pastoge’s Press Ball Organizing Committee) (1983) ‘Mūsų Pastoges spaudos balius, spaudos baliaus atgarsiai‘ (Mūsų Pastogė Press Ball, Press Ball Reviews‘, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 10 October, p 7, https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1983/1983-10-10-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

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 (sic), 1947-1947; 743: JUTKUTE Bronislawa born 20 February 1912; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 30 October 1947 (sic), 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005907, accessed 1 November 2025.

National Archives of Australia:  Department of Immigration, New South Wales Branch; SP1121/1:  Applications for Registration of Aliens, 1948-1968; JUTKUTE, BRONISLAVA:  Bronislava Jutkute [Lithuanian - arrived Fremantle per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN, 28 November 1947] [Box 564], 1947-1956 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=31906721, accessed 10 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, ‘Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualDecimal.html, accessed 1 November 2025.

Reserve Bank of Australia, ‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’ https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html, accessed 2 November 2025.

Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1961) ‘Sydnėjus, vėl mirė širdimi‘ (Sydney, died of another heart attack’, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 7 November, p 4 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1961/1961-nr44-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf

Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland) (1976) ‘Sydnėjus, Dainos Choro Vakaras‘ (Sydney, Daina Choir Evening‘, in Lithuanian) Melbourne, 24 July, p 3 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1976/1976-nr29-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 1 November 2025.

Wikipedia, 'Mercure Hotel Canberra' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercure_Hotel_Canberra, accessed 1 November 2025.

Jonas Bimba (1926-2011), Long Life Despite Scares, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Jonas Bimba was one of the 62 men from the First Transport sent to the sand and scrub at Bangham, near Wolseley in South Australia, to serve out their work contract with the Australian Government by widening a rural railway track.

He was born on 31 October 1926, in a village with his family name, Bimbos, in the Panemunėlis Eldership* of the Rokiškis Municipality. His family were farmers. Jonas had at least one younger brother.

As the second Russian occupation approached Jonas, together with an uncle from Klaipėda, took a ship to Germany.

While in Berlin he was intercepted by a German patrol and taken into the Army. For a time, he looked after the troop’s horses in Hanover.

As the front approached, and the German Army retreated, Jonas simply took off his uniform and joined other refugees. He lived in several displaced persons camps.

His uncle had relatives in America and was able to emigrate to the United States. Jonas’ request to go there was rejected.

In his American Expeditionary Force (AEF) DP Registration, he said that he had an uncle in the United States. That uncle might have been a brother to the uncle who went to Germany with him, so a close enough relative for the Americans. Mere uncle for Jonas could have been too distant in American eyes. Jonas ended up in Australia on the First Transport.

Jonas in Germany, photo from his selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When interviewed by Australia’s selection team, he advised that he had completed 6 years of primary education plus 2 years at a trade school learning to be an electrician. That ship to Germany with his uncle had become “forcibly evacuated by (the) Germans”.

In Germany, he had been a “lumber worker” for half a year and a labourer for a full year. He had worked as an electrician in Lithuania for only half a year.

None of those occupations approximate the šaltkalvis recorded on the AEF form. That word translated directly into English as “whitesmith”.

In case you, like us, have never come across the opposite of blacksmith before, it further translates into someone who works with metals which are not iron or steel, like tin or pewter, silver or lead. It applies also to tradesmen plating iron with tin, including for the drainage elements on the outside of buildings. The copper used by electricians does not get a mention though.

Either Jonas was versatile in his training and experience or a mistake had been made.

He was described as being fluent in Russian as well as Lithuanian, while his English and German skills both were fair.

He nearly missed out on Australia too, because of high blood pressure, but was declared fit in the end.

This photo of Jonas probably was taken in December 1947,
in the Bonegilla camp

Source:  National Archives of Australia

After the Bangham days were over, he lived in Adelaide for a while, Brisbane and Melbourne, but finally settled in Sydney.  Jonas married a Lithuanian, Margarita Blažytė, and had a family.

He became an Australian citizen on 11 March 1958, when he was living at 18 Fisher Street in the Sydney suburb of Petersham.

He did not participate in most Lithuanian activities, but all the time was a supporter and a regular visitor to Sydney Lithuanian Club. There was one group, however, in which he was particularly active, according to a series of reports in the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper during 1987 to 1995: the Darius and Girėnas shooters association.

In 1982, KPB in the Tėviškės Aidai newspaper reported that Jonas had been attacked and robbed at a Sydney railway station. His leg was broken in the attack and $350 was stolen before the robbers fled. Mūsų Pastogė reported that he had been admitted to Marrickville Hospital as a result of the attack.

Despite this vicious event, he was one of the survivors who attended a dinner to celebrate 50 years since the arrival of the First Transport in 1997 in Sydney – or, as they put it, 50 years since the start of the Lithuanian community. Any member of the Bauzė family or Jonas Mockūnas in his early Lithuanians blog can tell you that there were Lithuanians in Sydney before December 1947, but perhaps they were too few and isolated to form a community.

Jonas Bimba in later life
Source:  Mūsų Pastogė, 26 January 2011

The funeral of the Jonas Bimba took place on 14 January 2011 at Rookwood Cemetery. This was more than 84 years after his birth, so that high blood pressure did not matter in the long run. It was nearly 30 years after the violent robbery which, if anything, might have had the effect of shortening an even longer life.

He was cremated and his ashes were to be transferred to Lithuania. As we write, their placement has not made it onto Lithuania’s Website for the deceased, Cemety.lt. It is possible that they were scattered.

FOOTNOTE: * An eldership is the smallest Lithuanian local administrative unit, part of a municipality, equivalent to a ward in the United States or parts of Australia.

CITE THIS AS: Pocius, Daina and Tündern-Smith, Ann (2025) https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2025/10/jonas-bimba-1926-2011-long-life-despite-scares.html.

SOURCES

AEF DP Registration Record, ‘Jonas Bimba’, in Folder DP0362, names from BIMANIS, ELZA to BINDELS, Jan (1), 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps; ITS/Arolsen Archives, DocID: 66606458, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/66606458, accessed 3 October 2025.

KPB (1982) ‘Iš Mūsų Parapijų, Sydnėjus’ (‘From our Parishes, Sydney’, in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai (Echoes of Homeland), Melbourne, 10 July, p 7 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1982/1982-07-10-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 3 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1982) ‘Informacija, Pastaruoju Metu Sydnejuje’ (‘Information, Recent Times in Sydney’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 14 June, p 12 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1982/1982-06-14-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 3 October 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (2011) ‘A A Jonas Bimba’ (‘In Memoriam Jonas Bimba’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 26 January, P ?

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; 40, BIMBA Jonas DOB 31 October 1926 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005478, accessed 3 October 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; BIMBA JONAS, BIMBA Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Unknown per Unknown, 1951-1951, recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7187427, accessed 4 October 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956: BIMBA JONAS, BIMBA, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1926 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 440 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203666752, accessed 4 October 2025.

Žalys, B (1997) Sydnėjus atšventė atvykimo 5O – mėtį (‘Sydney Celebrated 50 years since the Arrival’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, 1 December, p 3 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-12-01-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 4 October 2025.

Albinas Kutka (1908-1992), Master Builder and Benefactor, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 4 October 2025.

Most of the Displaced Persons from the First Transport sent to South Australia to work stayed there, even after their obligation to work where directed finished on 30 September 1949. Albinas Kutka was different: he moved to Sydney. From the suburb of Canterbury he moved to Bankstown, a suburb with its own airport for light aviation. Undeterred by the noise, he moved even closer to Bankstown Airport, in Condell Park.

Albinas was able to get recognition from the authorities as a master builder. Together with fellow Lithuanian, Vytautas Mickevičius, he was responsible for the construction of a Lithuanian retirement village in the far south of Sydney, Engadine. Rather than being adjacent to an airport, this location is adjacent to Royal National Park, Australia’s first, and only the second in the world after Yellowstone in the USA.

In old age, Albinas sold the Condell Park home and moved into one of his own buildings in the Lithuanian retirement home in Engadine.

Albinas' youth

He had been born on 9 April 1908 in the village of Lukniai, near Vyzuonos in the Utena district. He was one of 6 children, 4 boys and 2 girls, born to farmers Kazimieras Kutka and Agota Kutkienė, whose maiden name was Macionytė.

Albinas lived all of his youth on the family farm until called away for military service at the age of 21. He earned the rank of junior sergeant. Eight years later, in 1937, he again was drafted into the army to refresh his training. He continued to work on the farm until the beginning of World War II. When the Soviet entered Lithuania for the second time, in 1944, he retreated to Germany.

Albinas Kutka's ID photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Albinas in Germany

The Arolsen Archives hold 4 documents naming Albinas, 3 of which understate his age by exactly 10 years. What can be gleaned from them is that he was in Munich between 13 August 1945 and 6 February 1946, during which his occupation was Waldarbeiter, forest worker or woodcutter or, in American, lumberjack. He also lived for a while in a town called Vilsbiburg, which is just under 90 Km northeast of Munich, and Stade, a city in Lower Saxony in northern Germany, at the opposite end of his country of refuge.

His American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Displaced Person’s registration record was filled out on 23 August 1945, but the place where it was completed is blank (unless P.A.P.Cl. 124 still can be decoded*). Another date on this form is of interest though, because its month and year suggest that 10 August 1944 was the date that he reached Germany, that is, almost one year before he was recorded in Munich. Given that its Arolsen Archives’ DeepLink number is just one more than the form which states that he is in Stade, this city may well be where he was registered as a Displaced Person.

The AEF recorded his preferred occupation not as farmer, like his father, but Tischler, German for carpenter.  Possibly he had done a lot of building on his parents' farm.

It is possible that he moved from Stade to the Munich district to get as far away as possible from the Soviet occupiers of eastern Germany and his homeland. He reported for interview by the first Australian migration selection team at the Buchholtz DP camp, though, in the centre of western Germany. 

He impressed the team enough to be included in the First Transport, departing Bremerhaven on 30 October 1947.  At 39 years, he was one of the older passengers.

Albinas and the Sawmill

Albinas’ first job in Australia was in Backhouse, Roebuck Pty. Ltd., The Bonegilla card records this company as being located in a placed called Megan, which sounds more like a girl’s name than a place name to a modern Australian. It really does exist, though, as a community hall and the remains of a railway station, inland of Coff’s Harbour in New South Wales.

The nearest town to Megan is Dorrigo, the headquarters of Backhouse, Roebuck according to a search of digitised newspapers on the National Library of Australia’s Trove Website. The company owned sawmills. 

Albinas left the Bonegilla camp for one of them in 21 January 1948, in a group of 7 men. He was back at the Bonegilla migrant centre on 11March 1948 together with another Lithuanian member of the group, Juozas Bazys, and a Latvian member of the group who was 16-20 years younger than the Lithuanians, Nikolaus Kucina.

Assuming that it took at least a couple of days to travel from Bonegilla by bus or car to Albury, then by train to Sydney, then to Megan if the station was operative in 1948, Albinas, Juozas and Nikolaus had put up with the conditions offered by Backhouse, Roebuck for less than 7 weeks. It was not the type of working with wood that Albinas preferred.

Albinas to Iron Knob

All 3 were sent off to Iron Knob, in South Australia, on 16 March, together with a fourth man who also had given up a career as a sawmill hand. The fourth man was a Latvian, Peteris Mesters, who had been sent to Northern Timbers, Pty Ltd, of Johnson’s Creek, New South Wales. Not surprisingly, Google Maps now can find 10 localities of this name in NSW, only 2 of which are in Sydney. Two certainly are northern, being on the border with Queensland.

Just before WWII, Iron Knob had been described as the largest known deposit of high-grade iron ore in the world. Broken Hill Pty Ltd – but now simply BHP – had commenced mining in the area in 1900.

The group of Lithuanians working at Iron Knob understood the importance of having a newspaper in their own language. They organised a collection to support the creation of Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian). The newspaper thanked them as its first sponsors on 12 September 1948. Albinas had donated ₤1 of the total of £8/5/- given by 10 Lithuanians.

Working together surely brought the Lithuanians there closer together. Even after they left Iron Knob, they kept in touch. For instance, 3 of them advertised on 23 May 1949 in the newspaper Australijos lietuvis that their friend Jonas Puslys, together with Olga Vainoryte, had created a Lithuanian family, so they congratulated them and wish them a sunny life. The three were Rasa’s grandfather, Adomas, and Albinas Kutka as well as Petras Juodka. By May 1949 they were not no longer working together, because Adomas for one was living already in Adelaide.

Jonas Puslys had not gone with the others to Iron Knob though. He started his working like in Australia as a fruit-picker, then had been sent to Australian Newsprint Mills’ Boyer plant in Tasmania. It looks like the connection between these four is earlier than work in Australia. None of them were in the Scouts, so perhaps it goes back to the same camp in Germany or the same locality in Lithuania.

It also looks like these men, along with Povilas Laurinavičius, had discovered the Australian postal system, and it was working for them. Actually, buying stamps and posting letters was sure to have been one of the “Australian way of life” topics covered in the Bonegilla camp English language classes.

Albinas to Adelaide

An Alien Registration record card for Albinas shows that he was released from his contract to work as directed in Australia on 30 September 1949, along with most of the others who came on the First Transport. His next place of employment was the Pier Hotel in Glenelg, suburban Adelaide, alongside Povilas Laurinavičius. Then it was off to 3 Robert Street, Canterbury, New South Wales, an address reported to the Department of Immigration on 27 June 1951.

Albinas to Sydney

Why did Albinas not stay in Adelaide like most of the others sent to South Australia to work out their contract? Another Kutka, Antanas, came to Australia from Germany on the Protea, arriving on 30 September 1948. He was sent to Sydney’s Metropolitan Water, Sewerage and Drainage Board to work. From the information available to us, we cannot tell if they were related but, since both were born in the Utena district, we cannot dismiss this possibility either.

If they were related and communicating with each other, then perhaps from Antanas' description of life in Sydney, Albinas thought he would do better there than in Adelaide.

We know already that he moved from the initial Canterbury address to Bankstown, a suburb with its own airport for light aviation. Undeterred by the noise, he moved to a home even closer to Bankstown Airport, in Condell Park.

On 3 December 1953, the Mūsų pastogė (Our Haven) newspaper reported that Albinas was in his second year of successful house construction in Bankstown. The reporter added (in Lithuanian, of course) “His example shows what can be achieved with determination and initiative.”

Ten months later, in October 1954, he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Mūsų pastogė wrote (in Lithuanian) “His face was injured, his head was cut open, and his bicycle was smashed. After spending several days in the hospital, Alb. Kutka returned home.”

Albinas acquired Australian citizenship on 22 June 1967. His address at the time, 47 Cragg Street, Condell Park, shows that he now owned his own home, probably built or updated with his own hands.

Sydney's Lithuanian Retirement Village

Ona Baužienė started campaigning for land on which to build a Lithuanian retirement village when she became the chairwoman of the Sydney Lithuanian Women’s Social Services Association in 1967. We have just met through her recollections 30 years later of meeting the First Transport Lithuanians in the Bonegilla camp.

Her committee started an intensive program of fundraising through catering for community events, raffles and the like. In 1970, the Association was granted land at Engadine on a permanent basis on condition that it be solely used for housing the elderly.

Work on the first two buildings started in 1975 after signing a contract with the builders Albinas Kutka and Vytautas Mickevičius.  A community centre finished in 1978 was financed entirely by the Association’s fundraising plus donations. It included a kitchen, dining room and library.  The remaining 17 residential buildings, for up to two residents each, were completed in 1981, thanks this time to funding from the NSW Government as well as the Association’s efforts.

Albinas (extreme left) and Vytautas Mickevičius help to celebrate the 
completion of the buildings

The topping-out wreath and 2 village buildings, 1981

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

The official opening was on 19 August 1984. The builders, Albinas and Vytautas, brought their topping-out wreath to the opening.

Albinas the Benefactor

Mūsų pastogė advised in April 1982 that Albinas Kutka, a well-known Lithuanian builder recognized by the Australians as a "master builder", had become seriously ill recently and has been hospitalized for a major operation. The patient was recovering rapidly and hoped to return to his home in Bankstown soon. Albinas Kutka was known to local Lithuanians as a generous supporter of the Lithuanian cause.

The words “Albinas Kutka was known to local Lithuanians as a generous supporter” were very accurate, because he had been donating unreservedly to many Lithuanian activities. Messages and thanks from the newspapers can confirm this. Here are some examples.

• Mūsų Pastogė, 12 May 1980: student A. Binkevičius received $200, of which $100 was donated by builder Albinas Kutka.
• Tėviškės aidai, 21 November 1981: “The always quiet and sincere Lithuanian, Albinas Kutka", sent a donation of $100 to the Daina Choir.
• Tėviškės aidai, 20 March 1986: On the occasion of February 16 (Lithuania’s Independence Day) compatriots in Sydney and the surrounding area supported Lithuania’s freedom struggle with their sincere donations. Albinas Kutka’s donation $50 was the largest individual amount received.
• Mūsų Pastogė, 25 October 1988: A. Kutka donated $100 for the trip of Lithuanian dissident, Professor Vytautas Skuodis. Again, this was the largest individual donation.

  

  The photo which accompanied Albinas' obituary
  

  Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

Albinas' Last Years

Albinas was already in his mid-70s when the village was opened.  He sold his own house and settled into a unit he had built himself. Since Albinas was single, it was more stimulating for him to live there among Lithuanian acquaintances. In his last four years of his life, his health deteriorated. Doctors recognised his condition as difficult to treat. In the end, he received care in a nearby Calvary (Catholic) nursing home.

Albinas Kutka died on 13 September 1992, and was buried in Catholic Section of the Rookwood cemetery. During his final illness, Albinas was cared for by his neighbour and friend Vincas Kondrackas and his wife. They also took care of the funeral arrangements.

FOOTNOTE:  Perhaps P.A.P.Cl. 124 can be decoded.  Recently I happened upon a list of DP Camps by Team No on the <dpcamps.org> Website.  While it doesn't explain P.A.P.Cl., it does say that Team 124 was located in München, that is, Munich, where other evidence places Albinas also.

SOURCES

‘A.E.F. D.P. Registration Record, Albinas Kutka’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67941909, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67941909?s=Kutka&t=2739669&p=0, accessed 21 September 2025.

Australijos Lietuvis, (Australian Lithuanian) (1948) ‘Pirmieji Mūsų Rėmėjai’ (‘Our First Sponsors’, in Lithuanian) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321942, accessed 21 September 2025.

Australian Cemetery Index, ‘Kutka’, https://austcemindex.com/?family_name=kutka, accessed 21 September 2025.

'Australian Lithuanian History, Australian Lithuanian newspaper’ https://salithohistory.blogspot.com/2008/12/, accessed 21 September 2025.

Bonegilla Identity Card Lookup, ‘Albinas Kutka’, https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203624970, accessed 21 September 2025.

‘CM/1 264719, Family name, Kutka, Citizenship, Lith’, 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps, DocID: 67941908, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/67941908, accessed 21 September 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1967) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, 2 June, p 5863 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/241018768, accessed 21 September 2025.

Dainos Choro Valdyba (Daina Choir Board) (1981) ‘Sydnėjuje, Dainos Chore‘ (‘In Sydney, Daina Choir’ in Lithuanian) Tėviškės Aidai, (The Echoes of Homeland) Melbourne, 21 November, p 8 https://spauda2.org/teviskes_aidai/archive/1981/1981-11-21-TEVISKES-AIDAI.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Utenos dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Utena deanery’, in Lithuanian ) (1908, Vyzuonos church, page 113, baptism record number 51, Albinas Kutka) https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267507212/276386482/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=113, accessed 21 September 2025.

Elektroninio archyvo informacinė Sistema (Electronic Archive Information System, in Lithuanian with some English) ‘Utenos dekanato bažnyčių gimimo metrikų knyga’ (‘Birth register book of churches in the Utena deanery’, in Lithuanian) (1899, Gaižiūnai church, page 71, baptism record number 158, Antanas Kutka) phttps://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/share/?manifest=https://eais.archyvai.lt/repo-ext-api/view/267506507/276386475/lt/iiif/manifest&lang=lt&page=71

Find A Grave, ‘Albinas Kutka’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/149476069/albinas-kutka, accessed 21 September 2025.

Juodka, Petras, Ivanauskas, Adomas and Albinas Kutka (1949) ‘Drauga Jona Pūsli …’ (‘Friend Jonas Puslis … ’, in Lithuanian) Australijos Lietuvis (The Australian Lithuanian) Adelaide, 23 May, p 22, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321235, accessed 21 September 2025.

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‘München Kreis, Kategorie III, Form 7’, 2.1.1 American Zone of Occupation in Germany, DocID: 70073263, ITS Digital Archive, Arolsen Archives, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/70073263, accessed 21 September 2025. [Also at https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/70073530.]

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven)(1954) ‘Sydnėjus’ (‘Sydney’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 27 October, p 4 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259359692, accessed 21 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1980) ‘Redakcijos pastaba’ (‘Editor’s Note’) Sydney, 12 May, p 3 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1980/1980-05-12-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1988) ‘Aukos’ (‘Victims’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, 25 October, p 7, https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1988/1988-10-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; PP482/1, Correspondence files [nominal rolls], single number series, 1926-1952; 82, GENERAL HEINTZELMAN - arrived Fremantle 28 November 1947 - nominal rolls of passengers, 1947-1952 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=439196, accessed 21 September 2025.

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Rep (1953) ‘Bankstownas’ (‘Bankstown’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, 3 December, p 4 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1953/1953-12-03-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Reisgienė, Martina (trans. Petras Viržintas) (2024) ‘Sydney Lithuanian Women’s Social Services Assoc. Inc‘, SLIC (Sydney Lithuanian Information Centre) https://www.slic.org.au/Community/sydlithwomen.htm, accessed 21 September 2025.

Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (1984) ‘Australija, Oficialus Lietuvių sodybos atidarymas‘ (‘Australia, Official Opening of the Lithuanian Home’) Mississauga, Ontario, 2 October, p 4 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/1984/1984-10-02-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Valdyba (The Board) (1981) ‘Vainikuota Lietiivių Sodyba’ (‘The Topped-Out Lithuanian Home’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) Sydney, 5 July, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1981/1981-07-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025.

Vinevičius, A. (1992) ‘Mūsų mirusieji, Su Ramovėnu A. Kutka Atsisveikinant’ (Our Dead, Farewell to Ramovė Member A. Kutka’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, 28 September, p 7 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1992/1992-09-28-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 21 September 2025

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