Gunars Berzzarins OAM (1925-2015): Chess champion, accountant, journalist, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Gunars, chess champion, arrives in Australia

Gunars Berzzarins was singled out by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper in its 8 December 1947 report of the arrival in Melbourne the previous day of ‘more than 800 sturdy, sun-tanned Baltic migrants’.  This economics student had been, the paper noted, chess champion of Latvia’s capital, Riga.  (That had been in 1943 and 1944, before the return of Soviet forces from the east made Gunars and thousands of others flee westwards.)

Gunars Berzzarins' ID photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

In January 1950, soon after moving to Adelaide, he won that city’s Summer Chess Training tournament, a 6-man competition.  In 1952 he won the Adelaide Chess Masters tournament again and organised the first Adelaide Schools Team tournament.  He finished 11th at the Australian Chess Masters in Brisbane in 1951.

Why Gunars left Latvia

Another entry in this blog discusses 13-14 June 1941, the night when Baltic people known or thought to be anti-Communist were rounded up for deportation to Siberia. During that night, Riga lost some 35,000 of its population of 400,000: nearly 10 per cent.

Gunars himself lost school friends and friends of the family to this deportation. He told me that this had generated fear in the remaining Latvians rather than hatred.

After the Germans occupiers of Latvia lost the battle for Stalingrad in February 1943, they began calling up Latvians to serve in the German Army. Boys still at school could choose to serve instead in the RAD, the Reichsarbietsdienst (the Reich Labour Service). Gunars’ birth year, 1925, was to be called up in 1944.

The Soviet forces pushed into the Bay of Riga on 30 July 1944. A day or two later, Gunars and Valentins got themselves to the port city of Liepaja and managed to flee to Germany from there.

Gunars told me that it was much easier for city dwellers to leave Latvia than for rural Latvians. The latter were likely to have been living where their ancestors had lived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years so they had a strong emotional attachment to their land.

Riga, the capital city where one-third of the Latvian population lived, finally fell to the Soviet forces on 13 October 1944.

Gunars in Germany

Initially the refugees who had fled the Soviet invasion, knowing that their lives under Soviet rule would be even worse than under German rule, thought that they would be able to return to their homelands soon. For that reason, they tended to find refuge together. By 1947, however, the hope of an early return to their homelands had faded.

In Germany, Gunars became an economics student in Göttingen, whose university had become the first to resume teaching after WWII. This meant that he could live in student quarters. Valentins wanted to continue his medical studies, so made his way to Dusseldorf.  This town is still more than 3 hours to the west by train or road.

Gunars’ parents had lost everything during the Russian Revolution, so they believed strongly that what you had in your head, your education, was most important. His father worked for the Latvian public service, in its upper levels, including for its Auditor-General.

His parents also had evacuated from Riga before it fell. They found refuge in Erfurt, a city which was captured by the Americans in April 1945 but then handed over to the Soviet Union in July 1945. They had not left Erfurt before the handover, but managed to get back to Riga. Gunars’ father died in 1956, around the time that the Soviet Union under Khrushchev decided to let older people go if they wanted to leave. As Valentins was settled in the USA, his mother migrated there.

The winter of 1945-46 in Germany was grim, with no coal and little electricity. There was no light after 4 pm. He was able to continue his studies in three helpful homes, one of a man, one of a woman, and one of a couple. As a student, he was fed by UNRRA. Cigarettes and coffee had become the local currency. Shops had almost nothing to sell.

He had started to learn English when he attended the English High School in Riga, which had English language instruction in its final years. Initally he had 7 sessions of English in a 5-day week, Linguaphone records, other records of English songs and books in English.

After the 1940 invasion of Latvia by the Soviet Union, English became just another language – until English-speaking troops successfully invaded Germany, where he had found refuge.

That 1945-46 winter was so difficult that Gunars did not want to spend more time in Germany, and knew that the Germans did not want the refugees either. He wanted to go to Venezuela or another warm country. Coal miners were wanted in both Germany and England, while Germany also wanted farm labourers. Gunars was neither, studying pure economics although this topic did not thrill him.

He considered Canada as well, since it was an English-speaking country on a similar latitude to Latvia. Everyone else wanted to resettle in the United States, of course. Canada was not making any offers, however, when he saw a notice about going to Australia on the noticeboard of his student quarters. Since UNRRA was feeding the residents, he thought an UNRRA official had put up the notice.

He was interviewed by the Australian team in a camp in Hannover, sent there with other applicants in a canvas-covered truck. He stayed in another camp in Bucholz, also used by the interviewers, on his way to the General Stuart Heintzelman in Bremerhaven.

What did Gunars know about Australia before his interview? In a few words, it was the Fifth Continent, with sheep, gold and wheat. It had been half a page in a geography textbook. He asked UNRRA staff to tell him what more they knew, but they replied, “Nothing”. Still, he knew that it was an English-speaking country.

He travelled through the interview process and the trip to Australia with friends from Göttingen. They included Olgerts Bergmanis, a fellow chess and table tennis player who Gunars knew from his chess club in Riga, Indulis Nicis and the Seja brothers, Andris and Juris.

Gunars in Fremantle

Nicis’ father had left his family in the 1920s to travel, stayed in Australia and remarried. Kārlis Nicis had become secretary to the Honorary Consul for Latvia. He probably knew or knew of most of the pre-War Latvians in Australia. He also knew that his son now was coming to Australia and that there would be a stopover in Perth. He wrote to friends there, who came to the camp where Indulis and Gunars were staying to drive them around the city.

Bonegilla camp

The Commandant of the Bonegilla camp, Alton Kershaw, seemed to be fierce but was known to be a good man underneath it. His offsider, Allan Dawson, was not liked. Gunars did not remember any problems in the running of the camp. Although supposedly dry, this was not actually the case.

Gunars remembered oranges, grapes, chocolate and port wine in the camp for Christmas 1947.

Gunars worked as a storeman at Bonegilla camp for nearly two years, from one week after his arrival, from 15 December 1947, to one month after the Minister for Immigration said that the new arrivals’ obligation to work in Australia was finished, to 28 October 1949.

Do you remember the women Heintzelman passengers filling out forms with some vital statistics and the men completing forms with their shoe size even before they reached the wharf in Fremantle? Do you remember a representative of a clothing factory estimated the size of the men's clothing by watching them disembark?

That was so that surplus Australian Army clothing in the correct sizes could be supplied to them after arrival at Bonegilla. And the clothing had to be stored somewhere, as did bedding and other supplies. Gunars curated these for 22 months. It would have been much better employment for the former economics student than some of the heavy labouring to which his peers were sent.

Marianne Hammerton’s book on the history of South Australia’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply includes the remark that “The migrant labour force was not without its problems. There was no system of matching individuals to positions. The Department found it had a mixture of professionals, tradesmen and technicians working as labourers …”

I reckon it's actually Gunars Berzzarins on the LEFT,
judging from the glasses and the blond, wavy hair,
playing with OlgerTs, not Olgerfs, making his move on the right

Source:  Sydney Morning Herald, 18 December 1947

Gunars was underemployed compared with his previous education but at least he was not digging ditches or felling trees. Plus he had time to play chess, as we can see in the photograph above. Gunars’ brother, Valentins, 4 years older, had taught him this game. At Bonegilla, his friend Olgerts taught him how to swim in the adjacent Lake Hume.

Latvians working in the Bonegilla camp gather to celebrate one year in Australia:
(left to right) Andris Seja, unknown, Galina Vasins, possibly Nikolajs Krukovs, unknown, Irina Vasins, unknown, Gunars Berzzarins, (kneeling in front) Antanas Norkeliunas

Source:  Collection of Galina Vasins Karciauskas

Gunars started competing publicly in Australian chess tournaments in September 1948.

To balance the quiet time with a chess opponent, Gunars played table tennis. By May 1948, he was winning A Grade table tennis matches in Albury. At this time, a team called Balts was playing in the competition, with Vacys Morkunas and Janis Belousovs as well as Berzzarins and later arrivals. They were winning. Gunars even represented Wodonga in a match against Albury, which Wodonga won, in July 1948. In September, Balts won that year’s Wodonga table tennis competition.

Around June 1949, Balts had changed its name to Bonegilla, reflecting a greater diversity of camp residents and potential players.

Gunars in Adelaide

One week after leaving Bonegilla, Gunars was working as a clerk for the Adelaide Car Service company in Flinders Street, Adelaide and had found accommodation at 6 Wheaton Road, St Peters.

He was soon making news in Adelaide, under the headline, ‘Migrants keen on “night life”’. The former Prime Minister, now leader of the Federal Opposition, had told Australia’s first Citizenship Convention in Canberra on 23 January 1950 that many of the new arrivals must miss the opportunity for a chat and a glass of wine in the evening. Gunars, as a migrant in the street, asked for a poll on 6 o’clock closing (of hotels) and suggested open-air cafes, where customers could be liquor, listen to music and even dance. These would have been radical ideas to 1950 Australia!

After ten months in Adelaide, Gunars moved to 15 Castle Street. His next job was as a salesman with the British Sales Company, in August 1952. Seven months later, he had switched to selling for the Home Appliances Sales Company. He stayed in home appliance sales for 13 months before becoming a clerk for an accountant, TS Wilson. All of these jobs were in Adelaide’s Central Business District and he was still living at 15 Castle Street.

Gunars, accountant, citizen, journalist, university lecturer

Like at least 6 of the other young passengers, Gunars was presented with the idea that accountancy was a good way for a person whose second, third or fourth language was English to make a living.

They could work in an office with numbers rather than English language words in the days before Information Technology provided a similar pathway for smart young immigrants. There are two such stories on this blog already: those of Helmi Liiver Samuels and Artur Klaar (although Artur is a special case as he was working as an accountant already in Estonia).

In Gunars’ case, he obtained a Diploma in Accountancy in 1959 from the South Australian Technical Institute, which became part of the University of South Australia. He was a part-time lecturer in office management and related subjects at his alma mater during 1972-76, in addition to his other activities.

Gunars was still at 15 Castle Street when he became an Australian citizen on 7 March 1957. This is quite unlike the other Heintzelman passengers at whom we have looked so far, most of whom moved often from one place of residence to another.

Another First Transport passenger, Emils Delins, began publishing the Austrālijas latvietis newspaper in May 1949. Gunars became an immediate volunteer contributor. The Latvietis online newspaper obituary says that he already had publishing experience, since he and two friends had published Šacha pasaule (Chess World) during 1946-47 while he was in Göttingen.

From 1950 to 1953 he wrote about chess for the Adelaide Advertiser, in English of course. Additionally, from 1952 until 1964, he was that newspaper’s basketball correspondent, this being another sport he had played when younger.

One of Gunar's chess reports, from the Adelaide Advertiser, 20 September 1951 —
his middle name was Eizens, related to Eugene in English

Source: The Advertiser, Adelaide

His story is starting to look very much like that of a previous entry, Jonas Strankauskas, from January 1950, when he participated in the founding of the Adelaide Latviešu Sport (yes, Adelaide Latvian Sport) club and became its secretary or manager for many years. I’m not aware of Strankauskas being a writer as well as a chess player and sports administrator, however.

In 1961, Gunars was elected as the head of the Latvian Sports Authority of Australia. For several years, he also worked on the boards of the Latvian Association in Australia and New Zealand and the Latvian Society of Australia. He was elected a life member of the Latvian Association and Daugava Vanagu, the international Latvian care organisation.

Gunars had his first article in English published in Australia as early as July 1949, but under a pseudonym, "Gordon Birch", which at least was in quotations marks to tell the readers it was not his real name. Whether the decision to use a pseudonym was Gunars or that of the editor of the Argus Weekend Magazine, I do not know, but suspect that the editor decided that Gunars Berzzarins would be too difficult for his (probably his) gentle readers.

The article explained to Australian readers why the displaced persons were coming to their country and dispelled some false ideas that had a risen already.

“Gordon Birch” wrote once more for English language readers, this time about sport, from one mention we have in the Lithuanian language press. Lithuanian Aldona Snarskytė was a rising table tennis star. The Sportas column of the Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian) dated 30 August 1952 reports that “Gordon Birch” had a long article about her in a publication called Sports News, in which he described her life and sporting achievements.

The only article I can find to fit this description is in Australijos lietuvis itself, in its English section of 11 October 1952. A footer on the same page contains the phrase “Sports News” in Lithuanian. (At that time, the foreign language press was allowed to publish only if it included a section in the English language.)

Gunars, the travel, food and sports writer

Travelling became a hobby. He had visited all Australian states before, in 1961, he left for New Zealand. Then he travelled 34 times to all continents, usually combining the trip with a sporting event. After his return, he would write about the places visited during the trip, first in Austrālijas latvietis, later in the US newspaper, Laiks (Time). These articles were collected in two books, Svešās zemēs esot jauki (Foreign Lands are Enjoyable) published in Latvia in 2000, and Part II, published in Australia in 2007.

The cover of Gunars' first travel book

Source:  Collection of the author

He wrote and published Where to Dine in South Australia in 1976. This was his second book, the first being the story in Latvian of the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Melburnā 1956: sespadsmitas Olimpiskas Speles. Just as writing about the Olympic Games surely requires some attendance at events, Where to Dine in South Australia must have required what scientists call “fieldwork”.

The next year saw a move to Melbourne, where he wrote regularly for the Age newspaper’s annual Good Food Guide. More fieldwork must have been required. He lived in Melbourne until retirement in 1987.  That was the year he co-authored The Age Cheap Eats as well.

He was asked to be the volunteer editor of the sports section in Austrālijas latvietis. He organised and led a group of Australian Latvian athletes to the first Latvian Global Championships in Garezer, Michigan, in 1985. The Pasaules Brīvo Latviešu Apvienība (World Association of Free Latvians) awarded him the Krišjānis Barons prize for special achievements in sports journalism in 1987.

He attended 7 Olympic Games, 7 world basketball championships, 5 European basketball championships, the Davis Cup in tennis, plus various athletics and cycling competitions. Some of his sports reporting was collected in a book called Draugos ar sportu piecos kontinentos (Friends with Sports on Five Continents) published in 2003.

Latvia proclaimed its independence from the Soviet Union in May 1990 and regained its de facto independence in August 1991. From 1990, Gunars visited his homeland a number of times, writing up his observations in Austrālijas latvietis. They were collected into his sixth book (not counting the Age Good Food Guides or The Age Cheap Eats), Rīgas piezīmes 1990- 2003 (Riga Notes 1990-2003), published in 2004.

All this travel and sport attendance costs money, unlikely to have been covered by the sale of his books. Perhaps Gunars was able, as an accredited reporter, to attend sporting events for free or at a reduced rate, but he was not being paid for his journalism (except by the Melbourne Age). I would assume that Gunars was able to find work as an accountant, auditor or management consultant when not travelling but have not confirmed this.

Gunars Berzzarins in later life

Source:  TimeNote

Gunars is honoured

As far as I am aware, he is the only passenger from the first refugee voyage to Australia of the General Stuart Heintzelman to have received an honour from the Australia Government. On Australia Day 2012 he received a Medal of the Order of Australia for ‘service to the Latvian community, and to sport as an administrator and journalist’. This entitled him to the OAM postnominal.

Gunars’ death

Gunars died in Adelaide on 14 November 2015. He had reached the respectable age of 90. He had clearly found some things more interesting than economics to keep him engaged, active and contributing to the broader community in such a long life.

Sources

Advertiser (1950) ‘Berzarrins wins chess tourney’ Adelaide, 14 January, p 12 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article50205342 accessed 2 January 2025.

Berzzarins, Gunars (2004) Personal communication, Adelaide, 6 January.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Leneva in Close Match’ Albury, 6 May, p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263461640 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Wodonga Table Tennis', Albury, 20 May, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263463451 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Table Tennis', Albury, 3 June, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263465225 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Table Tennis', Albury, 17 June, p 11 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263467117 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Table Tennis', Albury, 22 June, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263467589 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Revised Draw’, Albury, 1 July, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263775553 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) 'Table Tennis', Albury, 3 July, p 15, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263775858 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Colts’ Second Win’, Albury, 8 July, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263776405 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Colts’ Down Wodonga’, Albury, 15 July, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263776405 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Wodonga Table Tennis’, Albury, 29 July, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263779206 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 19 August, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263781859 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1948) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 2 September, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article263783514 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Played Balts Table Tennis’, Albury, 27 June, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264034366 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 1 July, p 15, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264010971 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 25 July, p 12, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264017837 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 18 August, p 15, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264024590 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Table Tennis’, Albury, 29 August, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264027862 accessed 2 January 2025.

Border Morning Mail (1949) ‘Wodonga Win Narrowly over “Bulldogs”’, Albury, 25 September, p 26, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article136315066 accessed 2 January 2025.

Britannica (2024) ‘Göttingen, Germany’ https://www.britannica.com/place/Gottingen accessed 1 January 2025.

Čepliauskas, V (1952) ‘Sportas’, Australijos lietuvis (Australian Lithuanian, in Lithuanian), 30 August, p5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/280312004 accessed 11 July 2025.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1957) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 3 October, p 2988 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232986655 accessed 1 January 2025.

Daily Telegraph (1947) 'New Migrants from Baltic', Sydney, 8 December, p 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248104979 accessed 2 January 2025.

GEB (1951) 'Chess Prizes Presented' Adelaide, 20 September, p 8 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/45784498 accessed 21 July 2025.

Hammerton, Marianne (1986) 'Water South Australia' Netley, Wakefield Press pp 232-5.

Latvietis (2015) ‘Gunars Bērzzariņš, 1.09.1925-14.11.2015’, Victoria, Australia, 27 November, https://www-laikraksts-com.translate.goog/raksti/raksts.php?KursRaksts=5851&_x_tr_sl=lv&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc accessed 1 January 2025.

Nagy, Boti (2016) ‘Goodbye and God bless three of our finest’ 16 January, http://www.botinagy.com/blog/goodbye-and-god-bless-three-of-our-finest/ accessed 1 January 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; 35, BERZZARINS Gunars born 1 September 1925 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5169917 accessed 20 July 2025.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series; BERZZARINS G, BERZZARINS Gunars - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4072326 accessed 20 July 2025.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series; BERZZARINS GUNARS, BERZZARINS Gunars - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7215890 accessed 20 July 2025.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; BERZZARINS GUNARS, BERZZARINS, Gunars : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 435 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203663902 accessed 20 July 2025.

News (1950 )'N.S.W. Chess Champion Coming Here', Adelaide, 6 January, p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130800048 accessed 2 January 2025.

News (1950) 'Migrants keen on "night life"', Adelaide, 25 January, p 16 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130793823 accessed 2 January 2025.

Ryerson Index, https://ryersonindex.org/search.php accessed 19 July 2025.

Sydney Morning Herald (1947) 'Yacht Race Entrant — Migrants', Sydney, 18 December, p 11, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27893069 accessed 2 January 2025.

TimeNote ‘Gunars Berzzariņš (in Latvian)’ https://timenote.info/lv/Gunars-Berzzarins accessed 15 July 2025.

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Wikipedia ‘Kruschev thaw’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khrushchev_thaw accessed 17 July 2025.

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Artur Klaar (1919-1970): Economics student, accountant, Estonian

Updated 18 July 2024

We've met Artur Klaar already as the fellow Estonian who befriended Flaavi Hodunov in Peterborough.  It's possible that they had become friends at Bangham, at Bonegilla, on the First Transport or even earlier, when they discovered that they had both attended the same public primary school in Narva, Estonia.

Artur was also the best man at Flaavi's wedding on 26 December 1949 and the godfather to Flaavi's first-born daughter in 1951.

Artur Klaar (left) with Flaavi Hodunov on Flaavi's wedding day;
the blue eyes are authentic, according to their Bonegilla cards, but whoever hand-coloured the photo used their imagination for the auburn hair as people of Estonian descent are much more likely to have dark brown or blond hair or sometimes Viking red if they have Swedish blood

The best man and the bridesmaid before the wedding of Flaavi and Walya:
Artur Klaar with G Linke, probably Gladys

Source for both:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Born on 1 June 1919, Artur was nearly 8 years older than Flaavi so probably would have been in high school already as Flaavi started primary school. It was not just the same school premises and maybe teachers that they had in common, though.

They both would have remembered many other parts of the small but significant town of Narva. Perhaps the older Artur would have been able to explain things about it that the younger Flaavi had not understood.

Artur Klaar (left) with Walya and Flaavi Hodunov, probably in Peterborough

Source:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Their paths had separated after the primary school. Flaavi probably did not start school until the late summer of 1935, as Estonian children still don’t start until after they have turned 7. If he finished primary school at the start of the 1941 summer, this would have been the time when the Soviets retreated ahead of a German advance into Estonia.

We know from Flaavi’s daughter, Tatyana, that Flaavi’s parents sent him to Germany as the Soviet forces invaded again in September 1944, since he had been working with German mechanics.

After finishing primary school around 1932, Artur finished high school around 1938 before becoming a bookkeeper in a bank while enrolled in an economics course at the University of Tartu.

All young Estonian men during the first period of independence (1918-40) were required to do many months of military training after they finished their schooling. Artur had not only completed this but completed an officer’s training course at the military academy. At the end of this, he was promoted to the most junior officer rank, of ensign.

Artur had completed only 1½ years of his economics course when WWII disrupted it. At this point in his story, it is relevant to consider what preceded WWII and the first independence period in Estonian history.

The first known foreign occupiers of Estonia were the Danes, who maybe arrived during the 12th century. The King of Denmark sold the Duchy of Estonia to German crusaders, the Teutonic Order, 1346. While these German occupied themselves with christianising the Estonians, they probably were amongst those who took the opportunity to settle on land which seemed theirs for the taking.

The Swedes came next, ruling over Estonia from 1561 until forced out by a Russian invasion in the early 18th century. During the Swedish period, some Swedes also bought land in Estonia, giving the country a mixture of German and Swedish nobility. The Russian occupation of Estonian was formalised in 1721. In order to keep the nobility on side, the Russians initially gave them more power over the Estonian peasants, who were living on the less salubrious parts of the noble estates.

The Russians had occupied Estonia for more than 200 years when the October Revolution gave the locals a longed-for opportunity to claim their freedom. This became official with a proclamation of independence on 24 February 1918. The Russians, now the Soviet Union, invaded again in August 1940, claiming all the Baltic States as theirs under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Hitler broke this Pact, having decided that Germans needed Lebensraum in the Soviet Union too. German rule returned to Estonia in June 1941, but was under threat again in the summer of 1944.

This history indicates that the Estonians’ lived experience of the German nobility and the Nazis, and Tsarist and Communist Russia meant that, of the two evils, they certainly preferred the Germans. Thus joining the German Army to fight the return of the Russians was not supporting the Nazi regime but opposing the Russians. Many of the Baltic men who came to Australia on what I have called the Fifth Fleet were among those who fought against the Russians, and Artur Klaar was one.

He fought in two major battles, those of Narva and Vaivara, the latter known as the Sinimäed (or Blue Hills) and remembered by Estonians today as a battle in which the Soviet forces were defeated. He was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant and awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. I know that he was not the only First Transport passenger who had an Iron Cross in his luggage.

The Allies in occupied Germany decided to overlook this form of co-operation with the former Nazi regime. It often happened in circumstances where the young Baltic men had no other option, and sorting out volunteers from conscripts was not worth the effort. As time as proven, the Allies were more interested in removing Communists from the ranks of those migrating to third countries than looking into the details of apparent co-operation with the Nazis.

The report for his September 1947 interview by the Australian selection team in Buchholz refugee camp records that Artur’s knowledge of English then was slight. However, I happen to know from my own mother’s life and a good friend who was studying economics at Tartu University at the same time as her, that a knowledge of English was something of a prerequisite. I imagine that many texts were available in English only, plus English was available as a high school subject.

The report also said that Artur had 6 years experience as an accountant in a bank.  I think this is a bit of an exaggeration.  Six years from the end of high school in the summer of 1938 takes us to the summer of 1944, when the Russians/Soviets were invading again and Artur was fighting the battles of Narva and Vaivara, possibly from February.  There was also the greater part of a year spent around 1939 in compulsory military training.

Only four months later after his arrival in Australia, Artur was sent from Bangham to Peterborough because of his good language skills. That tends to support the idea that he knew some English before starting at Tartu University. His studies there, Edna Davis’ shipboard classes and classes at the Bonegilla camp all would have helped Artur hone his skills.

From Peterborough, Artur was sent to Adelaide to work in the South Australian Railways (SAR) offices. He remained with the SAR for the rest of his life.

In Adelaide, he met and married another Estonian, Silvia Tulina, on 21 June 1951. Silvia had studied medicine for 6 years at the University of Tartu between 1936 and 1942. In Germany from September-October 1944, she had made her way to Göttingen to complete her medical qualifications before travelling to Australia in 1950.

In Australia, Silvia found along with other doctors with European qualifications, that she could not practice medicine here, not without doing the whole course again.

There were so many such instances of this that Egon Kunz, himself with a doctorate from Hungary in Hungarian language, literature and social history plus an Australian doctorate in demography, wrote a book about it. Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia was published in 1975.

The situation for those with medical degrees from outside English-speaking nations has changed little since. It can be compared with the struggle which Vytautas Stasiukynas had to obtain employment related to his veterinary science qualifications.

Silvia Klaar was more fortunate than most. At the time she reported her change of name by marriage to the Department of Immigration, Adelaide, for its Aliens Registration records in July 1951, she advised that she was now employed as an assistant pathologist at the University of Adelaide. She was employed in similar non-clinical fields for the rest of her working life.

Artur died way too early, on 6 November 1970, of a heart attack when aged only 51. He would have been employed still by the SAR when this happened.

Silvia told me that Artur was a smoker who could not give up the habit. He also had developed high cholesterol in the days before heart by-pass operations were performed in Australia.

He merited an obituary in the Australian-Estonian newspaper, Meie Kodu, on 3 December 1970. It’s in the Estonian language, of course, but Google Translate now can be a useful starting point for any of us.

The obituary’s author, Richard Ollino, noted that Artur had enrolled again in Economics at the University of Göttigen in Germany, but abandoned this course due to his selection for resettlement in Australia.

Artur then matriculated to the University of Adelaide, but again abandoned the course when bad health interceded. Silvia said that he had passed two Adelaide University subjects at this point. Richard also wrote mysteriously of “a duty, and obligation”, which blocked Artur’s return to study.  Maybe it was his marriage, into which Silvia brought a young daughter.  In any case, three times interrupted might have left him feeling that it was not meant to be.

Richard Ollino’s obituary describes how Artur was able to contribute greatly to the Estonian community in Adelaide. In translation, it reads in part, “The problems of preserving the Estonian spirit abroad were close to his heart. He devoted his strength and energy to Estonian social activities in Adelaide in various fields.

“He was a board member of the Adelaide Estonian Society for a long time, a board member of the Adelaide branch of the Fighters' Association, and a member of the Adelaide Congregation Council of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was always ready to help where a helping hand was needed.

“However, the Estonian community in Adelaide remembers Arthur Klaar most of all for the fact that he, as a founding member of the Estonian House, laid the foundation for our Adelaide Estonian home, in which our national activities now take place.”

This sort of community activity is at least as important volunteering to support the wider community through organisations which might benefit more of those in need, whether it's the Good Neighbour Council and Red Cross like Edvins Baulis, the local hospital or the lost dogs home.  It stabilises a new community in its unfamiliar surrounds and is likely to stop those on the periphery from drifting further away into problems in a foreign language, a foreign society. 

Artur Klaar is at the rear left of this 25 January 1953 photograph
of the elected members of the committee of the Estonian community in Adelaide

Source:  Siska

Despite not completing a degree, Artur continued his membership of Fraternitas Estica, a Latin name meaning 'the Estonian fraternity'. Fraternities for men and sororities for women were a serious, lifelong commitment in Estonia’s one pre-War university and for Estonians in exile.

The fraternity certainly honoured Artur’s life, with its death notices appearing in what might have been all the Estonian community newspapers in the English-speaking world: Vaba Eesti Sõna (Free Estonian Word, America), Vaba Eestlane (Free Estonian, Canada) and Meie Kodu (Our Home, Australia) advised their readers of Artur’s passing.

Sources

Klaar, Silvia (2011) Personal communication.

Korp! Fraternitas Estica (nd) ‘Coetus 1957/1958 [1957/1958 Group]’ https://www.cfe.ee/album-esticum?show=1957#A778 accessed 23 March 2024.

Kunz, Egon (1975). Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia. Canberra, Australian National University Press, digital copy now available from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114807, accessed 16 May 2024.

Ollino, Richard (1970) 'Artur Klaar, In Memoriam' Meie Kodu, Sydney 30 December, p2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1970/12/03/ accessed 17 May 2024.

Persian, Jayne (2018) ‘Egon Frank Kunz: Displaced Person’ https://australia-explained.com.au/history-shorts/egon-frank-kunz-displaced-person/ accessed 23 March 2024.

Pocius, Daina et al (2023) 'Vytautas Stasiukynas (1920 –?): The Vet Who Found Happiness in South America' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/01/vytautas-stasiukynas-veterinarian-Colombia.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Siska, Voldemar (nd) ‘Eesti ühiskond Lõuna-Austraalias’ [‘The Estonian community in South Australia’] https://www.folklore.ee/rl/fo/austraalia/rmt/EAI/siska.htm accessed 23 March 2024.

Tündern-Smith, Ann (2022) 'The only Australian aboard our Heintzelman voyage, Edna Davis (1906-1985)' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2022/12/edna-davis-only-australian.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Urmenyhazi, Attila (2008) 'Kunz, Egon Francis (Frank) (1922–1997)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/kunz-egon-francis-frank-14133/text25143, accessed 16 May 2024.

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.