Edmundas' background
Edmundas was one of the older refugees on the First Transport, having turned 41 in the middle of the selection process. He had been born in Lithuania on 17 October 1906.
An entry on the Geni.com genealogy Website records his parents as Kiprijonas and Elžbieta. He had a brother and 2 younger sisters.
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| Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius in his selection papers Source: National Archives of Australia |
Australian documents give his birthplace in Lithuania as either Pasekine, Pocejkien or Pacejkinie but Web searches cannot find these places with these spellings.
His selection documents reveal someone single at 40, who had spent 25 years as a farmer in Lithuania but was well educated. In addition to 4 years of primary school, they recorded 5 years at a teachers' college and 4 years in a faculty of economics.
The economics presumably had been studied at Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania's only university during the inter-War period. It offered economics, but did not have a separate faculty in this area. He was enrolled in doctoral studies in economics at the time of applying to move to Australia.
Edmundas the Displaced Person
Edmundas was living in '46 DPAC Brauweiler' at the time of the application. DPAC stands for Displaced Persons Assembly Centre. While there are 2 places called Brauweiler in Germany, the one in which a DPAC was known was just west of Cologne. The British occupation administration repurposed the Brauweiler Abbey to accommodate the Displaced Persons, while the Wikipedia summary of its history indicates that it has accommodated a wide variety of other people during its now 1000-year history.
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| Brauweiler Abbey, the former Assembly Centre (hardly a 'camp') for Obolevičius and other WWII Displaced Persons Source: A Savin in Wikipedia |
Edmundas scored a D Recommendation after his interview, possibly because of his age, lack of English, and academic interests. His 25 years of farming and his recent employment as a mechanic should have stood in his favour. Despite the D, he was a passenger on the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, leaving Bremerhaven and Germany on 30 October 1947.
Edmundas in Australia
His Bonegilla card tells us that he was one of the 187 or more sent to pick fruit in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley in late January 1948. His employer there was TE Young of Ardmona. He picked the fruit for more than 2 months, returning to Bonegilla on 10 April. He was then employed as a casual labourer in the camp for one week, between 13 and 20 April.
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| Photograph of Edmundas Obolevičius from his Bonegilla card Source: National Archives of Australia |
He was one of a group of 20 sent to the Goliath Portland Cement company in Tasmania on 22 April 1948. Ramunas Tarvydas, in his 1997 book, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, has been able to compile a detailed picture of life there for the 20, and another 3 who joined them later. It’s worth noting here that Edmundas gets a special (misspelt) mention, as a teetotaler who was saving his money to return to Europe.
More on Life in Germany
Where in Europe is the question, with Lithuania occupied and the only available Arolsen Archives document suggesting that Edmundas had a nasty time in Germany while the War was still on.
The Arolsen Archives document is stamped Organisation Todt Speer, indicating that Edmundas was likely to have been employed as a slave labourer. Apart from Edmundas’ birthdate, the only date on it is 6 December 1944. A second page notes, in translation from the German, that it has been recorded, and was received from the Federal Archives in Aachen. This is a city in the west of Germany, near its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.
If there was any more detail, it has gone. The Organisation Todt Speer name, however, is enough to tell us that Edmundas survived probable hard labour in difficult conditions.
Despite this, his Australian interview form reports that he 'fled from Russian regime'. Most likely he had, but into the worst that Germany had to offer, it seems.
After what must have been equally hard labour but under much better employment conditions, Edmundas is said to have moved on to the Electrolytic Zinc company’s Risdon operation in Hobart. Zinc from Tasmania’s west coast was smelted there. This information was recorded by Ramundas Tarvydas during his research.
Edmundas Leaves Australia Early
Records maintained by the Goliath Company (now part of Cement Australia) show a different picture. Papers which appear to be working documents created by Ramunas Tarvydas were acquired from the Company’s office through Stephen Niaura, son of Povilas (Paul or Cocky).
Obolevičius is one of 11 with Absconded, or Left of Own Accord, written against their names. In his case, the approximate date recorded is 16 March 1949. In Edmundas’ favour, the date is more than two weeks after the date recorded for most of those absconding, and more than one month after the first 2 disappeared. He had plenty of examples to follow.
Underneath the record of absconding, someone has written, possibly in pencil ‘Back to Germany; why?’
An item in the Mūsų Pastogė newspaper in August 1951 suggests that Edmundas was still in Australia and perhaps in Melbourne. This is because he had donated 7 books to a library which the Lithuanian community had started in Melbourne. Could he have donated them from Germany?
A 1956 Mūsų Pastogė item reports that enough candidates had been found to have an election for a committee to oversee the Sydney community’s affairs. Obolevičius (no given name) was one of them. The National Archives of Australia has only one Obolevicius in its RecordSearch: Edmundas.
This conflicts with a 1952 comment in a Canadian newspaper, Tėviškės Žiburiai, reporting on Lithuanian students still in Germany. The report includes the Doctor of Economics Obelevičius, who went to Australia but who has returned to Hangelar (a district of the city of Sankt Augustin located between the centre of Sankt Augustin and Bonn). If that Dr Obelevičius is indeed Edmundas, the question asked by the Goliath Cement management is answered easily.
Despite the absence of a second Obolevicius from the National Archives’ records, a report in the Mūsų Pastogė sports section of the 8 May 1959 includes a B Obelevičius living in a Snowy Mountains camp named River Camp. This is some distance from Sydney in 1956, but it is possible that B Obelevičius was volunteering then for the Sydney community committee, rather than Edmundas.
We’ve tried to find more information about the PhD in Economics, but available evidence on the Web has not yielded more information. The best that Artificial Intelligence can do is suggest a number of reasons why further information is missing, such as, the successful candidate was not required to lodge his thesis back then, or, it was completed at the University of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, whose records might be buried in Russian Archives.
Edmundas Returned to Lithuania
What we can find is the return of Edmundas Obelevičius to a liberated Lithuania, where he died in 1996. He may not have married, as he is buried by himself in the Ignalina City Cemetery. He had lived what must have been a varied life to a considerable age of around 90.
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| Edmundas' headstone in the Ingalina Cemetery, Lithuania Source: Cemety.lt |
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| Ignalina Cemetery from the air Source: Cemety.lt |
Cement Australia ‘Railton community’ https://www.cementaustralia.com.au/railton-community, accessed 18 April 2026.
Cemety.lt ‘Edmunas Obolevičius’ https://cemety.lt/public/deceaseds/2287576?type=deceased, accessed 18 April 2026.
(Edmunas Obolevicius) DocID: 77182225, 2.2.3.1 Card file of the "Organisation Todt" / File cards of foreigners who were deployed by the OT/Speer, 12.7.1934, 16.1.1941, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/77182225, accessed 16 January 2026.
Geni ‘Edmundas Obolevičius’ https://www.geni.com/people/Edmundas-Obolevi%C4%8Dius/6000000181316756829?through=6000000026482812166, accessed 16 January 2026.
Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1951) Iš mūsų buities’ (‘From our Life’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 30 August, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259365682, accessed 167April 2026.
Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1956) ‘Sydnejus, Nauja LN taryba’ (Sydney, New Lithuanian Council’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 5 September, p 4 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1956/1956-09-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026.
Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven) (1959) ‘Sportas, Sportiškumo pavyzdys’ (‘Sport, An Example of Sportsmanship’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 8 May, p 5 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1959/1959-05-08-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 18 April 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 858, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas DOB 17 October 1906, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005963, accessed 20 April 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42), 1937-1948; 37/395, OBOLEVICIUS Edmundas born 17 November 1906; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 29 November 1947, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272948, accessed 20 April 2026.
National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; OBOLEVICIUS EDMUNDAS, OBOLEVICIUS, Edmundas : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 1231 1947-48 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203728249, accessed 20 April 2026.
Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, Tasmania, pp 48, 174.
Tėviškės Žiburiai (The Lights of Homeland) (1952) ‘Iš lietuviškojo pasaulio’ (From the Lithuanian world’, in Lithuanian) Toronto, Ont, 3 July, p 4 https://spauda.org/teviskes_ziburiai/archive/1952/1952-07-03-TEVISKES-ZIBURIAI.pdf, accessed 17 April 2026
Wikipedia 'Brauweiler Abbey' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brauweiler_Abbey, accessed 19 April 2026.
Wikipedia ‘Hangelar’ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangelar, (in German) accessed 18 April 2026.
Wikipedia ‘Organisation Todt’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_Todt, accessed 16 January 2026.
