Vaclovas was one of 22 men from the First Transport who found themselves assigned to the Goliath Portland Cement Company in Railton, Tasmania. He and the others claimed to be unsure of how long they were meant to work to repay the Australian Government for their resettlement in Australia. After they had been undertaking the hard, dusty work there for 14 months, he, and others decided to find the answer.
Vaclovas wrote an article in the Australijos Lietuvis [Australian Lithuanian] newspaper about the experience, titled Kaip mes pabėgom … [How We Escaped …].
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| Vaclovas Kalytis photograph from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
Escaping from Railton
“We [Vaclovas and Kazimieras or Kazys Vilutis] each packed a suitcase, left the factory, took a taxi to the nearest airport, caught a flight to Melbourne and hurried to catch the express train to Bonegilla. Along the way, two more compatriots join us in the same direction.
“After straightening our ties, we stood before the highest officer of the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES), to plead our case.
“The young officer looked us over from head to toe for a long time and, after thinking for a long time, said, ‘You First Transporters want to change your jobs?’ He looked at his watch and said ‘I give you gentlemen 30 minutes to disappear from Bonegilla, if you are still here, I will call the police. Goodbye, you are free to go’.*
“I wasn’t sure if that meant, we were ‘free’ or just free until the police arrived. We didn’t wait around and in ten minutes were on a bus out of there. Returning to Melbourne, we encountered some countrymen who told us about the Dunlop factory. We started the next day.
“The Dunlop factory was very large, employing over 4000 men and women. The wages were good and plenty of opportunity for overtime. Soon there were 15 Lithuanians working there.
“Later we went to the Immigration Department, registered and now, like real Australians, we live as if we were free.”
He ended the article by providing his address and stating that compatriots could get in contact with him if they needed any assistance. The article caused some angst in the community, as his fellow Lithuanians began to think anyone, even recent arrivals, could shorten their working contract by doing the same.
Return to Railton
Vaclovas wrote a follow up letter from Railton, dated 2 May 1949 and published 6 weeks later, stating that his How We Escaped article applied only to the Lithuanians of First Transport, who all were single. In Germany, the First Transporters had signed a contract for one year only, the argument they were using with Australian officials. He asked his compatriots not to ask him about this anymore, as he did not know what his future held.
The Immigration Department had contacted them and threatened to have the five men deported to Germany if they did not return to Tasmania. They did return. Vaclovas’ follow up letter indicates that he was back in Railton, so his escape had failed.
Staying in Tasmania
He stayed in Tasmania, but he moved around between residences and jobs. Signs of this is advice in the Launceston Examiner newspaper, in October 1952, that W Kalytis was in a group of 5 presenting a ‘hula dance’ at a fundraiser on Flinders Island. Two months later, Mrs W Kalytis of Whitemark, the one town on Flinders Island, had been a passenger on a trip to mainland Tasmania with her baby daughter. We assume that the Examiner’s Country News reporter or a typesetter had problems separating V’s from W’s.
Vaclovas' Youth
Vaclovas was born on 15 September 1918. His selection papers for Australia say that he was born in Leningrad, in Russia. He spent his youth in the village of Norkūnai near Utena, however, where he finished 4 years of school. When he grew up, he moved to Ukmergė and Kaunas and worked as a sales clerk. During the war he served in the anti-aircraft unit.
He also had worked on farms. The selection papers say that he had done this for four years in Lithuania, and that it was his present occupation in Germany as of mid-October 1947.
By the 1944 northern summer, he must have been working in a factory, however, because the record of his selection interview for Australia says, “Moved with his factory to Germany”. After the War, he found accommodation in one of 5 Displaced Persons camps in Lübeck, which together housed almost 10,000 refugees.
Early Days in Australia
From there, he arrived in Australia in the First Transport. More than 7 weeks in the Bonegilla camp, included 2 days in January when a health worry was checked at the Albury General Hospital. Shortly after, on 28 January 1948, he was assigned to pick fruit for Messrs Turnbull Brothers in Ardmona.
He returned to Bonegilla after 3 weeks and soon after found himself working as a kitchen hand at Bonegilla for just over one month. It was not until 8 April that he was sent to Railton in Tasmania and the Goliath Portland Cement Company with 8 compatriots.
Vaclovas the Singer
As soon as he arrived in Tasmania, he organised a Lithuanian choir at the cement factory. His obituarist wrote that, “He sang to anyone who would listen”.
We have already read that the Burnie newspaper on 2 October 1948 reported a Railton function to celebrate one of Lithuania's national days. Tarvydas writes that the singing was led by Vaclovas Kalytis and the women joining in the national dances were locals who had been taught the steps by Railton’s Lithuanian men. Kalytis kept the music going at other gatherings with his piano accordion.
The next year’s public Lithuanian national day celebration is described in more detail by Genovaitė Kazokas in her PhD thesis on Lithuanian Artists in Australia 1950-1990. She wrote, "In September, 1949, the fifteen Lithuanian men working in Railton celebrated Lithuanian Day by organising a Lithuanian folk-art exhibition, the first ever held in Tasmania, and by performing national songs and dances. Invited guests included local clergy and Mr. Davies-Graham, the manager of the Railton Cement Works where the Lithuanians were employed.
"Young local Tasmanian women, trained by the Lithuanians, partnered the men in folk dancing and the small male choir was trained and conducted by Vaclovas Kalytis. The programme also included a talk on Lithuanian history by Napoleonas Butkunas.
"The male choir was invited to sing at several Catholic churches in the district. The official Catholic newspaper published a complimentary report on the men's cultural abilities and activities."
After moving to Hobart, Vaclovas was one of the founders of the Lithuanian community there, but was more famous for forming the Hobart Lithuanian Quartet. In addition to Vaclovas, (second tenor), it included Bronius Bukevičius, (first tenor), Karolis Maslauskas (baritone), and Juozas Ilčiukas (bass).
In December 1950, the quartet sang carols and folk songs at the Hobart City Hall for the Christmas function for New Australians. (Arthur Calwell, the Minister for Immigration, had asked the press and public to call the Displaced Persons New Australians instead of the universal “Balts” or “reffos”.)
For several years the quartet sang Lithuanian songs in Hobart, sometimes on stage, sometimes on the radio, and introduced Lithuanians to the Australian public. When the quartet disbanded, Vaclovas’ voice was still heard whether it was in the community commemorations or ceremonies.
As money was always short, Lithuanians would help each other with building their houses on weekends. Vaclovas assisted his friend Antanas Viknius build his house in Orchard Lane, Hobart. At the end of work on Sunday, the workers would sit down for a meal and drinks. Vaclovas would take out his accordion. According to Ramunas Tarvydas, the sound of the singing would be so loud that it would carry almost one kilometre to Kenbrae Avenue, Glenorchy, to another group of Lithuanians. They would hurry over and join the party.
Life and Death
He married Rita had two daughters and a son. When he was fulfilled all requirements for Australian citizenship on 4 June 1963, the family was living in Kingston, an semi-rural area 10 kilometres south of Tasmania’s capital, Hobart. (It was 11 minutes by road north of Electrona, about which we have written recently.)
They were neighbours to Margot Paterson, who wrote in detail about their life there. She reveals that, on 11 September 1967, Vaclovas was murdered in Hobart, only days before his 49th birthday. It seems that his likely killers were known, but never arrested or charged.
He had been working with Electrolytic Zinc at Risdon, upriver from Hobart. He had become a cyanide specialist, which was a one-man job. He seldom had contact with fellow workers except during the brief handover at the end of the shift. He had a 40-minute wait in Hobart for the bus south to Kingston. So it was natural to have a couple of drinks in the nearby pub while he waited, which gave him a spot of adult male company. Unfortunately, he also had become very generous is shouting rounds at this pub.
One evening, two young men insisted on giving him a lift home instead of letting him take the bus. After he failed to arrive home, he was found the next morning on Sandy Bay Beach, with many injuries and near death after a bashing. His recovery took many weeks but, eventually, he was able to return to work. His English was much improved by his many weeks in hospital.
The two young thugs were jailed, as they had been identified by Vaclovas' fellow drinkers at the pub. They were released on parole two years later. On that day, Vaclovas failed to come home and family and a neighbour spent fruitless hours searching for him. The phone call to say that he had been found dead came the next morning. The inquest found that he had been killed by a single blow to the head.
This time, no-one was arrested as likely to have been involved in his murder.
This death, of course, was a great shock to his wife and children. His two daughters were studying at high school and his son was still in primary school.
In Vaclovas’ obituary he was described as a typical ‘Aukštaitis’ (eastern highlander); cheerful, a singer, friendly, active and energetic but with an easy and carefree manner. He left behind an aging mother and many relatives in Lithuania, as well as a brother in the United States of America.
The children have become achievers, with one an artist, another a published author, music and film director and producer who has become a therapist, while the third became the head of an information technology company. However, the middle child, artistic Diana, died of cancer on 6 March 1983, aged 30.
Margot Paterson's "The Road to the Farm" is well worth reading, especially its Chapter Chapter 3, which covers her view of the Kalytis family's life as her neighbours.
Footnote
* Povilas Niaura’s son Stephen has obtained copies of documents prepared by Ramunas Tarvydas (see Sources) and amended by staff of the Railton company now known as Cement Australia. One amendment shows that Vaclovas Kalytis and Kazimieris (Kazys) Vilutis both ‘absconded’ on 14 February 1949. Two more absconded on 28 February 1949: Antanas Viknius and Endel Uduste, an Estonian. Another Lithuanian who ‘absconded’, on 16 March 1949, was Edmundas Obelevicius. Perhaps there was some hanging around Melbourne for at least two weeks until a group of 4 had enough courage to present together before the CES official in Bonegilla.
By the time Ramunas wrote up his notes, he had changed the group which ‘absconded’ from Railton to Kalytis, Vilutis, Viknius, Endrius Jankus and Vytautas Stasiukynas. The typed note against Endrius’ name says ‘Explosives Engineering’, the name of the company he had founded. Vytautas Stasiukynas ‘left of own accord’ rather than ‘absconded’ on the same date as Antanas and Endel.
We know in some detail what then happened to Endrius, who is not known to have found employment with Dunlop. That detail is reported on page 32 of Ramunas Tarvydas book’ and in this blog, in the entry on the life of Endrius.
On the other hand, those who have reported on the life of Vytautas Stasiukynas, a veterinarian who left Australia for Colombia in 1950, have avoided the detail of his 1949 interactions with the CES.
As far as Arthur Calwell, Minister for Immigration was concerned, the official should have found members of the group employment in areas of reported need somewhere else. This certainly is what happened in the cases of Adomas Ivanauskas, Rasa’s grandfather, and his friend, Domas Valancius, when they returned to Bonegilla on 12 April 1948. Did the official react differently to Vaclovas and his companions because they had waited until February 1949? Had the official not been advised what he should have been doing should a case like this occur?
Sources
AK (1967) ‘AA Vaclovas Kalytetis’ [‘RIP Vaclovas Kalytis, in Lithuanian] Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, 11 November, p 2 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1967/1967-11-06-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 28 March 2025.
Examiner (1952a) 'News from the Country' Launceston, 18 October, p 16 trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/52918517, accessed 8 September 2025.
Examiner (1952b) 'Country News' Launceston, 23 December, p 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/52927170, accessed 8 September 2025.
Kalytis, Vaclovas (1949a) ‘Kaip mes pabėgom …’ [‘How we escaped …’ in Lithuanian] Australijos Lietuvis [Australian Lithuanian], Adelaide, 11 April, p 9 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/31542465 accessed 25 March 2025.
Kalytis, Vaclovas (1949b), ‘Kaip Mes Ten Iš Tikruju "Pabėgom”’ [‘How We Really "Escaped" From There’, in Lithuanian] Australijos Lietuvis [Australian Lithuanian] Adelaide, 23 May, p 11 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280321227 accessed 25 March 2025.
Kazokas, Genovaitė (1992) 'Lithuanian Artists in Australia 1950-1990, Vol 1, p 328 https://figshare.utas.edu.au/articles/thesis/Lithuanian_artists_in_Australia_1950-1990_Vols_I_and_II/23205632?file=40902071, accessed 8 September 2025.
DPCamps.org ‘DP Camps in Germany – L’ http://www.dpcamps.org/dpcampsGermanyL.html accessed 25 March 2025.
Mercury (1950) ‘Lithuanian Quartet’, Hobart, 9 December, p 6 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26744818 accessed 28 March 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, 1947-47; 391, KALYTIS Vacslavas (sic) DOB 15 September 1918, 1947-47 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005687 accessed 28 March 2025.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria], 1947-56; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla],1947- 1956; KALYTIS VACSLAVAS, KALYTIS, Vacslavas : Year of Birth - 1918 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 775, 1947-48, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203640629 accessed 28 March 2025.
Paterson, Margot (2020) ‘The Road to the Farm, Chapter 3’ https://alexpaterson.net/anecdote/TRTTF_3.htm accessed 7 September 2025.
Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998. Hobart, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, p 64.
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