Helmi Liiver Samuels (1921-1971): Not wanted here? by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 11 May 2024.

Helmi Liiver was born in the small village of Kotsama, Viljandi county, in the centre of Estonia on 13 March 1921. She died in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 12 March 1971 – just one day before her 50th birthday.  She was one of the 30 Estonian-born women selected to join the first party of refugees from WWII travelling to Australia on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman.

Helmi Liiver's photo from her Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When former NSW Premier, Jack or JT Lang, was expelled from the NSW Branch of the Labor Party in 1943, he started his own Australian Labor Party (Non-Communist) and represented it in the lower house of the Federal Parliament from 1946 to 1949. As a former Premier, his views would have been newsworthy anyhow, but the House of Representatives gave them even more status when he claimed that Australians were being displaced in their own land, thanks to the Chifley Labor Government bringing in Displaced Persons. In April 1949, he obtained much publicity for his claim that the Government was bringing in Communists among the displaced persons.

Helmi Liiver had her answer published in the Smith’s Weekly issue of 7 May 1949. She wrote, “In view of your recent articles on the lives of Displaced Persons, I feel that yours is the only newspaper that is prepared to publish honest facts and that you are a friend to whom I may submit a protest against the statements of Mr Lang.

“May I introduce myself as a girl born in Estonia in 1921 during the period in which my country was freed from bondage with the help from Great Britain and other Scandinavian States.

“I suggest that it would be educational for Mr Lang to obtain a book recording the history of our country and he will then appreciate our economic recovery, progress, and development. The facts will prove that our standard of democracy and education is equal to the best in the world.

“We have a prior history of domination by foreign powers and practical experience of what Communism means; hence the reason why we are new Australians.

“My father served with the Imperial Russian Army fighting Japan in the Far East and later again in Europe in World War I. On the collapse of the Russian Army he immediately joined the Estonian Army to push the Russians back from our country. Revenge, they say, is sweet. Definitely so with the Russians, who, on occupying our country, arrested my father and sent him to Siberia and I pray that in the meanwhile the Creator has seen fit to take him to Heaven.

“Has Mr Lang a daughter? If so, will he compare her life with mine?

“I am an only child and my parents were farmers and owners of freehold land and I was regarded as a woman of substance. I arrived in this country with a small suitcase and no money. I was fortunate enough to be given immediate employment at the camp, but it was three weeks before I received pay and felt that I could buy a chocolate.

“Since being in this country I have developed a skill at dressmaking and now have a reasonable wardrobe and the best part of £100 in the bank.

“Believe me, Mr Editor, the going has been hard, but we are of the spirit and type that are not quitters or second-rate people.”

Helmi’s Bonegilla card shows that she started working for the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) in the Bonegilla camp on 15 December 1947. Smith’s Weekly said that Helmi was writing to them from the Bonegilla CES, indicating that she still was working there in April 1949. She was one of the 33 women who had been selected in Germany to work as a typist in Australia.

The front of Helmi Liiver's Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

As for the “best part of £100” she had saved in less than 2 years, the Reserve Bank’s inflation calculator says that in 2022 it was worth more than $6,300: what a saver!

By the time she was advertising her application for Australian citizenship in two daily newspapers, with full residential address, as then required by law, she had moved to Melbourne. According to her citizenship application, she had left Bonegilla in May 1949 and lived for one year in Mentone, which was then probably on the fringe of urban Melbourne. She moved nearer to central Melbourne, at 427 Chapel Street in South Yarra in May 1950.

A certificate of naturalization was granted to her in Prahran, Melbourne, on 26 January 1954, Australia Day.

Helmi is at the far right of this group of Estonian women waiting for their train to Bonegilla to move off from Port Melbourne on 9 December 1947:  her height of 178 or 180 cm visible

Source: Melbourn Sun, 10 December 1947, via Põder collection, Estonian Archives, Sydney

At the other end of the train journey, Helmi (nearest camera) and Helgi Nirk
(white sunglass frames) leave the train together at Bonegilla

Source:  Collection of Helgi Nirk, now in the Estonian Archives, Sydney

At some stage her path crossed that of one Sidney Ernest Samuels, known as “Sammy”. He had been a colonel in the Australian Army but gave his occupation as engineer when he married Helmi on 19 December 1962. He was 28 years older than Helmi, and this was his second marriage. His first wife, Elise Maria Schrey, had died only 24 days before this marriage.

Helmi gave her occupation as accountant. This was a favoured career for bright women and men among the First Transporters, like working in information technology is today. Both have the advantage of not needing a full range of English language skills for success.

Their marriage was to last less than a decade. Sammy died first, of coronary artery disease with myocardial scarring, on 20 February 1971 aged 77. The death may well have been sudden, since a coroner’s inquiry into it was held on 29 March 1971.

By then Helmi was dead too, having died 20 days later on 12 March from systemic lupus erythematosus, the most common type of lupus. Given that, even now, it takes an average of 6 years for diagnosis from when the patient first notices their symptoms, Helmi may well have been ill for all 8 years of the marriage.

I was told that Helmi had been a friend of Helgi Nirk when they were still in Estonia. They were born two years apart and grew up in different counties. Helgi studied agricultural science at Tartu University. Helmi had studied architecture, possibly at the Tallinn Institute of Technology, now the Tallinn Technical University.

I think it more likely that they met in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. Despite the slight age difference, they had much in common given that both were the only children of farmers of some wealth. The two of them shared a room in the Bonegilla camp until Helgi was sent to Melbourne’s Austin Hospital to train as a nurse.

As you can see above, Helmi nominated Helgi as her closest relative, her “cousin”, on her Bonegilla card. She gave Helgi’s address as Austin Hospital, Melbourne, so this must have been added after Helgi left Bonegilla on 3 January 1948. Helgi did not reciprocate though, having “Nil” next of kin on her card.*

Helmi was a good friend across nationality lines. It was she who recommended that Lithuanian Viltas Salyte, later Kruzas, be employed by the CES in Bonegilla after she had left already for Canberra on 22 December 1947. Three weeks later, Viltis was asked to return to Bonegilla and stayed there until April 1949. I hope to have more about her on this blog soon.

I’ve been told also that, after Helmi’s death, Sammy’s family visited their Moorabbin home to remove and discard everything that Helmi had owned. The way it was put to me made the destruction sound like a case of intolerance of someone from another country, another culture.

Now that I’ve looked at Sammy’s death certificate, I can see another explanation. He had 3 children from his first marriage. The middle child, his only son, was the same age as Helmi. The son had a sister who was 4 years older and another sister who was 2 years younger. The destruction, if it occurred, could well have been caused by their distaste of having a woman of their own age take the place of their mother and so soon after her death.

There is another possible cause of the antipathy. The Samuels’ marriage certificate shows them living at the same address. While this probably is the norm now, it certainly would have raised eyebrows 60 years ago. And they may well have been living together while Sammy’s first wife was alive, compounding the children's distress.

Indeed, someone has written beside the name, Helmi Samuels, on the marriage certificate, 'Deed Poll'.  In other words, she married Sammy as Helmi Samuels, not Helmi Liiver.  This tends to confirm the idea that they had been living together for some time before the marriage, long enough for Helmi to change her name legally.

It was a sad end for the former Helmi Liiver.

FOOTNOTE

* Geni.com calculates that the relationship between the two is that Helmi was Helgi Nirk's second cousin twice removed's husband's niece's husband's first cousin.

SOURCES

‘Advertising’, The Age (Melbourne) 2 February 1953, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206118801, accessed 22 May 2023.

‘A New Australian Replies to Lang’, Smith's Weekly (Sydney),7 May 1949, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article235982182, accessed 26 May 2023.

‘Australians Becoming the Displaced Persons — Mr. Lang’, Border Morning Mail (Albury,) 6 November 1948, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263793577, accessed 26 May 2023.

Fitzgerald, Hilja, personal communication, 10 March 2001.

‘Lang's Charge on Reds as Migrants’, The Sun (Sydney), 18 April 1949, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article231069599, accessed 22 May 2023.

Lupus Foundation of America, 'Lupus facts and statistics', https://www.lupus.org/resources/lupus-facts-and-statistics, accessed 26 May 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A434, Correspondence files, Class 3 (Non British European Migrants); 1949/3/7658 ATTACHMENT, SS General Heintzelman [Nominal Roll].

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A435, Class 4 correspondence files relating to naturalisation; 1949/4/760, Liiver, Helmi — born 13 March 1921 — Estonian.

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; 765, LIIVER Helmi DOB 13 March 1921.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42); 18/180, LIIVER Helmi born 13 March 1921; nationality Estonian; travelled per USAT GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; LIIVER, Helmi : Year of Birth - 1921 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1134.

‘Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator’, Reserve Bank of Australia, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 24 May 2023.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, ‘Certificate of Marriage, Sidney Ernest Samuels and Helmi Samuels’, 19 December 1962, Certificate 1678/62.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Deaths in the State of Victoria, ‘Helmi Samuels’, 12 March 1971, Certificate 5673/71.

Victorian Government, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Deaths in the State of Victoria, ‘Sidney Ernest Samuels, 20 February 1971’, Certificate 7135/71.

Bonegilla 1947-1948: The First Five Days (December 7-11) by Endrius "Andrew" Jankus

Endrius Jankus, known as Andrew in Australia, was born on 7 July 1929 in Draverna, a village near the Lithuanian coastal town of Klaipėda in the south of the country.  He died in Hobart, Tasmania, on 23 July 2014.  He was a grandson of the 'Patriarch of Lithuania Minor', Martynas Jankus, a printer, publisher and social activist.  Endrius' memories of his first four months in Australia were written in 2012 but based on a diary he had kept in 1947-48.  You may see something of his grandfather's social activism in his views. I would not be surprised if the Commandant of the Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Major Alton Kershaw, had seen a brash 18-year-old who needed to be trained to obey.  Read on...

7 December 1947

We arrived in Melbourne on the dirty old tub, Kanimbla.  It was like a hell ship out of some fantasy.  Dingy quarters, grime-ingrained bunks with food to match.   It was a big letdown after the General Stuart Heintzelman.*  

At 2.30 pm, the then Minister for Immigration, Mr Calwell, arrived with his retinue on the main deck and welcomed us to Australia.  With newsreel cameras whizzing and camera flashes just about blinding everyone, the whole ceremony was over within the hour.  

Estonian Lucia Maksim thanks the Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell,
(centre, in light suit)
on the Kanimbla at anchor in Port Melbourne, 7 December 1947.

Source:  Private collection**

I had volunteered to help load baggage onto the train. There were not that many pieces. While we were loading, a chap approached us and introduced himself as the First Officer of the Danish ship Java berthed on the other side of the pier. Since I could speak English, he told me what a terrible country this was. The exact conversation escapes me after 65 years. 

It would be better if I joined his crew as they were leaving for Europe in the morning. That was a great temptation as I always wanted to go to sea. He showed me a newspaper called the Tribune. This Australian Stalinist rag had a cartoon of people getting off a ship with swastikas and SS armbands. The caption was, "These people will make good Australians". 

But my first reaction to the proposal was no desire to return to Europe, since we had just arrived in Australia. Secondly, we travelled on international refugee papers and were still regarded as stateless persons. We did not belong to any country, since our country had been swallowed up by the criminal Soviet Union. ”Thanks” to the idiotic US President Roosevelt who sold us out and three-quarters of Europe to the Stalinist butchers. 

I had heard stories of stateless persons on ships travelling the seas who were not allowed to step ashore on any land due to lack of a passport or identification. That thought made me decline the offer. 

It was the days when the White Australia policy was strongly defended. We were lily white but not English, which was unacceptable to the population. Most of them had some black blood cruising through their veins but that was ignored. That was why we were discriminated against for many years to come.

Some groups, particularly in Tasmania, of the isolated, inbred, black-brushed population and the Stalinist unionists made our life a misery. We faced strikes on our arrival organised by the Communist-dominated unions and fights in the pubs. 

This antipathy is still alive today in 2012. It’s more gentle because of laws prohibiting discrimination, but it is still being practised by some idiotic clerks in government departments and in businesses and workplaces. Under our breath, we used to call them Anglo-Saxon Nazis and Australia a country built on bullshit. You never struck that many conmen, crooks and criminals in any country as you did in Australia. 

Just like going through the medical in Germany. They looked at our teeth, like the old horse traders did, to make certain that they were healthy. On arrival in Australia, we found out that most people had no teeth at all but had prostheses. 

8 December 1947 

This morning we boarded trains and our journey began towards Bonegilla. We were divided into two groups, one per train. I was in the first one with all our girls. 

This sparsely occupied land already had sunburned yellow grass as far as the eye could see. It was almost the middle of December, in the summer. The train stopped for lunch at Benalla. Some Red Cross Ladies provided us with a meal. 

After about one and a half hours, we were told to board the train again and proceeded. In the rolling northern hills of Victoria, with no signs of life, the train stopped. Had we arrived? 

The girls, some 120 of them, alighted on the dirt ramp which was level with the floor of the train. The rest of us jumped out into the belly-high grass. There was deathly silence interrupted only every now and again by the locomotives snorting. 

Someone suggested that we had arrived at our execution spot. I countered that they would not have sent us halfway round the world to execute us. The suggestion hadn’t been that far-fetched. Those sorts of isolated places were normally used for mass murder in Europe. 

Suddenly, we could hear the noise of revving motors. Khaki green trucks were slowly working towards us. Only a slight wisp of dust rising from the ground indicated the Army trucks’ position as they laboured to reach us. There was no road, just a miserable track between the high grass and a fence. The girls got preferential treatment and went first to the trucks. 

Three of the Lithuanian women, with Viltis Salyte on the left
seated on one of the Army trucks at the Bonegilla railway stop

Source:  Border Morning Mail via Trove

We followed some time later and got a bumpy ride across some paddocks to the main highway. Once we reached the highway, our vision of the countryside improved. We could see Lake Hume and a large conglomeration of barracks on its foreshore. The Hall, a massive barn, stood out amongst the corrugated iron huts, our accommodation. 

Our group from the Flensburg Camp (close to the Danish border) and a few friends had stuck together throughout the journey and now were allocated accommodation on the outskirts of the camp in Block 18, Barrack 33. 

Endrius Jankus as a sea scout in Flensburg, 10 September 1947,
just 3 months before his arrival at the Bonegilla camp

Source:  Europeana

The corrugated iron huts were stinking hot like a sauna. The beds were tubular, folding iron and fencing mesh constructions made up with white sheets. Twenty-two of us took up our accommodation, threw our few belongings under the beds and bolted outside. 

It was cooler there. A group of kangaroos watched us in dumb silence from the High Hill, keeping a respectable distance. 

At 5 pm a loudspeaker blared out that it was teatime and all should proceed to the mess hall. What we ate, I didn’t record in my diary, only that it was sufficient and tasted bland. That seemed to be the norm in this country. We always maintained that the good food was spoiled because of the lack of tasty ingredients. 

9 December 1947 

We were shown a film about the Australian environment. After that we had to hand in our International Refugee Organisations documents. We were told that we had to be photographed for new documents, which never materialised.***  This left us only a red card for identification. 

This is likely to be the photograph of Endrius 
taken in the Bonegilla camp on 9 December 1947,
for use with his 'Bonegilla card'

Source: National Archives of Australia

10 December 1947 

Everyone had to have an x-ray of their lungs. The strict medicals that we went through in Germany were partially checked again. There seemed a suspicion that somehow people had escaped health scrutiny. 

It made the camp authorities and Immigration Department scratch their heads when they found almost 30 people with lung damage, mainly injuries from bullets. We knew about some of our fellows who we had helped smuggle into the country. They arrived here with someone else’s lungs. How it was done shall remain a mystery. Several had only one good eye, but they too were discovered. 

Actually out of 839 passengers this wasn’t such a great number of fraudulent immigrants. We had expected that all of them would be deported back to Germany and discussed what action we could take to prevent this or at least convey our displeasure. 

A few days later, they all were rounded up and sent to Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. They returned to camp about a week or so later and the whole affair was “swept under the carpet”. They all stayed here. 

In the meantime we just rested, went for walks to the kangaroo vantage points, the hills, and discovered the multitudes of rabbits — black, brown and brindle. The hills seemed alive with rabbits. Someone in our group had a camera and we photographed ourselves on the walks to the hills and the Hume Weir. What happened to these photos, I am unsure. 

11 December 1947

We were called to the camp office and asked what sort of work we wanted to do. This was a strange question as in Germany we had been told that unless we signed up as labourers, we would not be accepted for the interviews. Just like the medical where they scrutinised the status of our teeth. And on arrival here we found that most Australians did not have any but chewed on their falsies. 

This was payday for us. The unemployment benefit at this time was one pound and five shillings. The camp kept the one pound for our keep and handed us the five shillings as spending money. We had to sign that we had received it. 

I spent three shillings at the shop down the road a bit on tobacco, cigarette papers and a box of matches, plus an ice cream. I had one shilling left. These days, the anti-tobacco or anti-smoking campaigns amuse me. I began to smoke at 14 years of age. I found out, like millions of others, that smoking calmed you down and suppressed your hunger pangs. 

In four years of warfare, I can well remember being hungry day after day. It was just like a rat gnawing at your empty stomach. It may be dangerous to your health, but no little Hitler should have the power to ram his ideas down other people’s throat. In my book, they are the “perverts of democracy”. Besides, I stopped smoking 30 years ago. 

To be continued.

Footnotes

* Endrius was not alone in this recollection.  Several of the women have told me too that they regarded the Kanimbla as filthy, and not just in comparison with the General Stuart Heintzelman.  The captains (Army and Navy) of the Heintzelman had figured out, probably through the experience of other troop transports of the same class built before her, that the best way to keep their soldier passengers out of mischief on the high seas was to give them work to do.  Much of it has to do with keeping the ship clean, but there were other tasks as well, such as helping in the kitchen and bakery or the ship's library.  Australia's first post-WWII refugees on the Heintzelman had been subject to the same regimen, but benefited from a clean and orderly voyage.

** There are so many copies of this image in public and private collections that I think it was taken by one of the Heintzelman passengers with their own camera.  These photographers could run something of a business, selling or bartering their prints to cover their costs, and probably make a small profit as well.

*** The new documents were quite likely to have been the 'Bonegilla cards', National Archives of Australia series A2571.  They were for the use of the administration, not the Centre residents.