Povilas Laurinavičius, Another Who Left Australia, by Daina Pocius, Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinskiene

Povilas Laurinavicius worked on his Lithuanian parent’s farm until August 1944. He then was conscripted into the Luftwaffe, the German air force, and taken to Westfalia in Germany.  He was expected to help build fortifications for the Luftwaffe.

He was born in Riga, now the capital of Latvia, on 18 May 1908.  This was during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II when, as in the Soviet era, workers moved wherever they were needed regardless of internal boundaries.

Personal records for members of the extended family are among those of the Palėvenė church, suggesting that the Laurinavičius farm was near this small town in northeast Lithuania.

Povilas’ migration selection record for Australia shows that he had 4 years of primary education and 4 years of secondary.  Again, he was more educated than many of the Lithuanian men selected for the First Transport.  He had no knowledge of English but he did know Lithuanian, Latvian, and something of Russian, Polish and German. 

Povilas Laurinavicius' photo in his immigration selection papers

Source:  NAA:  A11772, 174  

He had 15 years’ experience as a farmer and would be suitable for heavy labouring work.  He had wanted to migrate to Canada.

At the time of interview by the Australian team in October 1947, Povilas’ occupation was described as Lumber Worker.  He had been doing this work for the previous 2 years, that is, from around October 1945.

Heading towards 40 years of age, Povilas was one of the older DPs selected for resettlement in Australia after travelling there on the First Transport.  After arrival,  he was one of the 185 men sent to pick fruit in the Goulburn Valley on 28 January 1948.  He returned to the Bonegilla camp after only 2 weeks, so clearly the experience had not gone well for him. 

Povilas Laurinavicius' 1947 photo on his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A2571, LAURINAVICIUS POVILAS 

Then he was assigned to be part of the first group sent to work at Broken Hill Proprietary Limited’s Iron Knob mine in South Australia.  They left the Bonegilla camp on 19 February.

Povilas applied to have his sister, Bronė Minkevičienė, brother-in-law, Vytautas Minkevičius, niece, Regina-Marija, and another female relative come to Australia.  Research by Rasa Ščevinskiene has shown that the other female relative, Alina Bonasevičius, was his brother-in-law’s older sister.

There’s nothing on the sponsorship file apart from the application, which Povilas signed off on 3 November 1948.  The absence of any other paper or comment on the file is strange, but the date of application was only 11 months after he came to Australia.  He had not been in Australia for long enough to lodge a successful sponsorship. 

He needed only to try again after 28 November, marking 12 months’ residence.  Nothing on the file suggests that he was told that or attempted it.

A search for Povilas’ brother-in-law in the Arolsen Archives reveals that the sister, brother-in-law and niece left Germany on 8 August 1951 to resettle in the United States.  They left on the General Muir, a sister ship to the General Stuart Heintzelman.

Povilas’ sponsorship application tells us that he had moved on from Iron Knob to what probably was safer employment and better paying also.  He was still in rural South Australia but at Woomera, working for the Commonwealth Government’s Department of Works and Housing.  He was earning nearly £11 per week (£10/19/10). This was at a time when the minimum wage was only £5/19/-.

We know from the story of Romualdas Zeronas that the pay at Iron Knob was £6/8/- each week. 

An index card recording Povilas’ changes of address and workplace, which had to be reported to the Department of Immigration by any resident alien under the Aliens Registration Act, advises that Povilas’ move to Woomera was on 27 May 1948.  He was released from his contractual obligation to work in Australia for 2 years on the same date as the vast majority of the other Heintzelman passengers, 30 September 1949. 

His next move was to Glenelg in suburban Adelaide, where he lived and worked at the Pier Hotel from 23 January 1950.  The mysterious initials M.W. suggest another change of employer when he changed his residence to Gilles Street, Adelaide, on 4 April 1950.

The Pier Hotel, Glenelg, was clearly on the coast, as was his next move, to Semaphore Road, Semphore, only 4 weeks after moving to Gilles Street, on 1 May 1950.  His records were transferred to the Melbourne office of the Department of Immigration from the Adelaide office on 10 October 1951, marking a move from the State of South Australia to the State of Victoria.  We do not have access to the Victorian records yet.

There is one Victorian record in Mūsų Pastogė, though. In its 23 June 1958 edition, this newspaper included him in a list of people who had donated £1 each to support the elderly, sick and injured Lithuanians who were still in Germany.

Cards indicating a move to Tasmania and then New South Wales are available from the National Archives of Australia, however.  They show that on 4 April 1960, he was living on Weld Street, South Hobart and working as a wharf labourer—hard physical work for anyone but especially a man now aged nearly 52. 

By 9 March 1962, he had moved to Elizabeth Street in the middle of Hobart.  Presumably he was working still as a wharf labourer.  The records were transferred to NSW on 26 June 1962, probably after a move to that State.

Povilas left Australia around 1964 and moved to Chicago, Illinois. He was aged only 61 at the time of his death, on 16 November 1969, he was living at 6159 South Artesian Avenue, Chicago.

Povilas had been in America for only five years before his death.  He was mourned by his sister Bronė (Bronislava), her daughter, Regina, and Alina Bonasevičius, of Chicago—the very people he had tried to sponsor to Australia back in 1948.  Another sister, Joanna, and her family were still in Lithuania.

Povilas' death notice

Source:  Draugas, 17 November 1969

Bronė’s husband, Regina’s father, the Vytautas Minkevičius who Povilas had started to sponsor for migration to Australia, had died in New York State on 30 May 1953.  This was less than two years after arriving in the States and he was aged only 53.

His sister, Alina Bonasevičius, had been living at the same address as Povilas according to her death notice in Draugas, around 16 months after it carried the notice for Povilas.  It looks as if Povilas decided that, if rest of the family were settled peacefully in America, he would join them there instead, at 6159 South Artesian Avenue.

Povilas may have died early and overseas, but his name is stamped in Australian philatelic history. Tasmanian Stamp Auctions, in 2023, offered an envelope addressed by Povilas from the Bonegilla camp to ‘Mr’ David Jones (the department store, of course) at the corner of Castlereagh and Market Streets in central Sydney.  The envelope had been damaged when someone had torn off the stamp roughly, but someone else had recognised the value of its clear Bonegilla and nearby Wodonga postmarks.

The envelope had been in private hands, rather than the rubbish bin, for 75 years!  We cannot tell for how much it was sold, but can see that the starting price was $11.00.

Povilas' envelope, a registered letter sent from Bonegilla camp on 16 February 1948

Source:  Tasmanian Stamp Auctions

Namefellows

The only Arolsen Archives records currently available are for another Povilas Laurinavičius, born after ours, on 7 July 1909.  This Povilas Laurinavičius looked different, wore glasses, was a qualified and experienced lawyer, and resettled in the United States after his trip there on the USAT General M L Hersey, leaving Germany on 1 September 1949.

We found also that papers for a later DP immigrant to Australia, Povilas Laurinaitis, date of birth 8 April 1922, had been placed first on the selection papers file for our Povilas Laurinavičius (NAA: A11772, 174).  We have notified the custodian of those papers, the National Archives of Australia.

Sources

Draugas (1969), ‘A.†A. Povilas Laurinavičius’ [‘RIP Povilas Laurinavičius’, advertisement, in Lithuanian] Chicago, Illinois, 17 November, p 5 https://draugas.org/archive/1969_reg/1969-11-17-DRAUGASm-i7-8.pdf accessed 17 May 2025.

Draugas (1971), ‘A.†A. Alina Bonasevičius’ [‘RIP Alina Bonasevičius’, advertisement, in Lithuanian] Chicago, Illinois, 5 March, p 7 https://draugas.org/archive/1971_reg/1971-03-05-DRAUGAS.pdf accessed 24 May 2025.

Mūsų Pastogė (1958) ‘Pinigai gauti’ [‘Money received’, in Lithuanian] Sydney, 23 June, p 5 https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge /archive/1958/1958-06-23-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 17 May 2025.

National Archive of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A261, Application forms (culled from other file series) for admission of Relatives or Friends to Australia (Form 40) (1953-61); 1948/592, Applicant - LAURINAVICIUS Povilas; Nominee - MINKEVICIUS Vytautas;Bronislarma; Regina- Marijan; BONASEVICIENCE Alima; nationality Lithuanian (1948-48) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7861148 accessed 17 May 2025.

National Archive 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); 174, LAURINAVICIUS Povilas DOB 18 May 1908 (1947-47) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1834754 accessed 16 May 2025.

National Archive of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series (1946-76); LAURINAVICIUS POVILAS, LAURINAVICIUS Povilas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 (1947-51) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9180525 accessed 17 May 2025.

National Archive of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1183, Registration cards for non-British migrants/visitors, lexicographical series (1944-76); 16/317 LAURINAVICIUS, LAURINAVICIUS, Povilas born 18 May 1908 - nationality Lithuanian (1947-62) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=60155147 accessed 17 May 2025.

National Archive of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] (1947-56); LAURINAVICIUS POVILAS, LAURINAVICIUS, Povilas : Year of Birth - 1908 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL HEINTZELMAN : Number – 571 (1947-48) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203619595 accessed 17 May 2025.

Tasmanian Stamp Auctions (2023) '(CN1961) VICTORIA · 1948: cover with damaged front bearing a clear strike of RELIEF No.3 used at Bonegilla Immigration and Training Camp and a nice strike of the rubber boxed WODONGA datestamp (3 images)' https://www.tsauctions.com/listing/cn1961-victoria-1948-cover-with-damaged-front-bearing-a-clear-strike-of-relief-no3-used-at-bonegilla-immigration-and-training-camp-and-a-nice-strike-of-the-rubber-boxed-wodonga-datestamp-3-images/15125?fbclid=IwAR0BAnFLvsaiQtpdk8UmkXRRjTDaiv6BdO9qk-pSzIWdyzIq-C0y0XJaP_8  accessed 24 May 2025.

Helmuts Oskars Upe (1926-2018): Sheet Metal Worker by Ann Tündern-Smith

Helmuts Upe was easier to track down than many other First Transport arrivals because he was married to a cousin of a Dutch-born friend of mine.  We spent a couple of September afternoons in 2003 talking in his Gooseberry Hill home in the Perth hills.  A summary of what he told me then follows.

Helmuts Oskars Upe's photograph from his selection papers for entry to Australia

Source:  NAA, A11772, 313

He was born in Riga, Latvia, on 6 February 1926. When he was only 8 years old, his mother was one of several people drowned in a motorboat accident.  Helmut missed his mother deeply.  “A father is useful but a mother is necessary”, he said.

One winter’s night, the boat in which his mother was travelling hit a snag in the river and passengers were thrown overboard. Helmut’s mother could not swim and would have been wearing heavy clothing because of the weather. The cold water would not have allowed her to survive for long. 

Helmut was a keen reader but used to daydream through mathematics classes. When he reached high-school age, his teachers said that he should give up thought of further education. 

While the Soviet Army was invading Latvia for the first time, in 1940, he was already working behind the counter in a hardware shop. Given his now obvious intelligence, it is difficult to say how he would have earned his income had he been able to stay in Latvia.

Even at the still tender age of 14 in 1940, Helmut was politically aware and an active nationalist. He was a member of a group which resisted both the Soviet invasion and the ensuing German occupation. 

He and fellow younger members would play ball games against a high wall, say that of the local church, while the older resistance members were meeting nearby. They stayed on duty, despite the taunts of other youngsters, because they knew that they had to warn their colleagues if the meeting was likely to be discovered.

Given Helmut’s activism, it is not surprising that the likely return of the Soviet Army in September 1944, when he was already 18 years old, saw him travelling westwards. After he got to Danzig on a German ship, he joined the German Army. 

He was in Austria when World War II ended in May 1945. Arrest by the Americans and nine months as a Prisoner of War in the Bad Kreutznach camp followed.

The conditions here without any shelter were so poor, particularly when it was wet, that thousands died. 

Early on, he had to wear the same boots and socks for two weeks without changing. When he and others were finally able to take their socks off, the soles of their feet came off too. They had to move about on their hands and knees for a couple more weeks until new skin grew and hardened.

He passed himself off as a German to ensure that he did not join other Latvians being forcibly repatriated to the now Soviet Latvia immediately after the War. 

Later on he found out that, in his absence, he had been sentenced by a Soviet court to 10 years of hard labour for his resistance activities. Such a sentence might well have been accompanied by 25 years of exile, if the Estonian experience is any guide.

When he and a friend, Peter, were released from the POW camp, they started a wandering life, knocking on doors to ask for food and work. They found that the Germans were always kind to them, sharing the little food that they had. 

One door belonged to a man who had been a general in the German Army. He looked after them first until their health improved and they could do some work in return.

On his application to migrate to Australia, the wandering life was described as '1 year, farm labourer'.  This was after '2 years, merchant' in Latvia'.

At one of the German homes in Worms, in the Rhineland, they met another Latvian.  She recommended that they try one of the camps which were being set up for Displaced Persons. 

This was the name now being applied to the refugees from communism, who could not be called 'refugees' as the Soviet Union was one of the Allied victors in Germany. Helmut and Peter made their way north to one of these camps.

Life there was better, but boring. There was nothing much for them to do during the day. 

Somehow they seized upon the idea of joining the French Foreign Legion and travelled westward to the French Zone of Occupied Germany. They were recruited and started training. It did not take them long to realise that they had made a big mistake.

On parade, they were being asked to swear an oath of loyalty to France. Helmut asked to be excused to go to the toilet. Given permission, he jumped a fence, headed for the nearby railway station and found a train about to leave. 

Peter was with him. It did not matter where the train was going. This was just as well, since the train took them to Switzerland.

So it was over the border, back to Worms and, finally, back to the camp whose boredom they had escaped for a while. One day, somebody told them that there was a notice in the camp office about Australia recruiting migrants. Put me down, Helmut said casually.

In one of the holding camps before he left for Australia, Helmut saw the Chips Rafferty film, The Overlanders. This gave its viewers the impression that Australia was a vast desert. Wondering what he had let himself in for, Helmut was greatly relieved when the film’s action moved to Brisbane. 

As he had no scars or tattoos, he had no trouble passing the medical examination for Australia as well as the interview. 

He noticed on the General Heintzelman that something had gone wrong with the thorough selection processes as there were at least four passengers who could not speak any of the Baltic languages. One of them was one of the men who was sent back. 

What he did not notice was that there were also 114 women on the ship.

Helmut remembers that the men on the ship had Turkish cigarettes which had become mouldy. As they were the same length as American cigarettes, the men took American cigarettes out of their packets and replaced them with the Turkish cigarettes. They used the packets with the substituted cigarettes to pay for goods traded by Arabs who came out to the ship in the Suez Canal. 

It is hard to say who had the last laugh from this deal, as the men found that the brandy bottles which they pulled up in return were filled with tea.

As the Heintzelman sailed, its officers were suggesting that the men among the passengers should volunteer for jobs for the voyage, as they would get letters of commendation at the end. Helmut did not volunteer, as he believed that letters from the crew of the Heintzelman would carry no weight once they were in Australia.

When the Heintzelman berthed in Perth, Helmut remembers local people throwing small buckets of ice-cream up to the passengers. 

The passage across the Great Australian Bight in the Kanimbla was very rough. Few people turned up in the dining room for meals. 

One of Helmut’s friends returned from a meal to report that the ship was serving mushrooms in white sauce. Helmut quickly developed an appetite which overcame his queasiness. 

At the mess table he found, however, that the “mushrooms” were in fact tripe, which he had never eaten before and has not eaten since.

He does not remember mutton on the Kanimbla but it was on the menu in the Bonegilla Camp. He refused to eat it there, and still cannot eat lamb.

Helmut remembers Bonegilla Camp as a time of dreadful food. For example, the residents received only one slice of bread a day. 

The residents believed that the cooks were stealing the food to sell it. They used to walk to the local shop to buy extra food with the five shillings per week which they were paid.

The attitude of the commandant of the Bonegilla camp was, “If you don’t like the food here, go back to where you came from”.  The Bonegilla and Kanimbla experiences contrasted with the good food on the Heintzelman.

Some of the residents used to slip out of Bonegilla to work for neighbouring farmers. Helmut knew three or four others who did this, for fifteen shillings a day, three times their weekly income at the camp.

Helmuts Oskars 'John' Upe at 21, on his Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA, A2571, UPE HELMUTS

Helmut’s first job outside Bonegilla was fruit-picking at Shepparton. He felt well treated on this job. He was fed by his employer as well as being paid £8 per week.

Once he started working, the Germanic forename Helmuts was changed to John for Australians.

He and around twenty others were sent to Tasmania next, to work for the Goliath Cement factory at Railton, near Devonport. He was paid only £5 each week, from which he had to buy his own food.

Helmuts Upe (l) with Ojars Vinklers (r) captured by a street photographer --
they worked together at Railton, Tasmania, so perhaps this was in nearby
Launceston or Devonport

Source:  Helmuts Upe collection

He left Goliath Cement and Tasmania as soon as his two years’ contract was up.  He moved to Melbourne where he was recruited by the Cyclone company and started in sheet metal work. 

He married another Latvian.  They had one son, a journalist who commenced his professional training with a cadetship in Ballarat.  He is married, with two daughters.

Helmut and his wife ran a milk bar together in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe for a while.  This proved more and more stressful, leading to the break up of Helmut’s first marriage. It was at this point that Helmut moved to Perth, in 1966.

He returned to sheet metal work and was involved in major projects, such as the kitchens of the Parmelia Hotel and various hospitals. 

His childhood indifference to mathematics was replaced by skilled awareness of the need to translate architects’ drawing exactly into three-dimensional stainless steel. He was so good at this that he remained in employment one year beyond the then normal retiring age of 65. 

He even taught himself how to use the company’s new computer for his work. 

One day his boss came to him to tell him that he had to leave because the company’s insurers were refusing to cover him any more.  This refusal on the grounds of age may well be against the law now.

Helmut visited Latvia twice after its second independence, in 1992 and 1995. While life for the residents was obviously still difficult, Helmut felt much more at home there than he had in Australia. 

Indeed, he would have returned to Latvia to live if it were not for his wife and son in Australia. 

He enjoyed an active retirement, looking after his own large garden on the summit of one of the hills surrounding Perth and those of many neighbours.

Death came on 9 September 2018, while in the care of a Perth nursing  home, at the advanced age of 92.

SOURCES

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; 313, UPE Helmuts Oskars DOB 6 February 1926, 1947-1947.

National Archives of Australia:  Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571,Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956;UPE HELMUTS, Upe, Helmuts: Year of Birth - 1906 [sic]: Nationality - LATVIAN: Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN: Number - 709, 1947-1948.

Upe, Helmuts (2003) Personal communications, 3 and 7 September.

Vytautas Stasiukynas (1920 –?): The Vet Who Found Happiness in South America by Daina Pocius with Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024.

One of the Lithuanians in the First Transport group sent to Goliath Cement at Railton, Tasmania, was a Doctor of Veterinary Science.  Vytautas Stasiukynas had given his intended occupation in Australia as farmer, possibly to fit in with the known occupational shortages in Australia.  He was 27 years old on arrival, having been born in Peršėkininkai village, in the south of Lithuania, on 14 February 1920.

He had found himself on a farm two months after arrival in Australia, but it was to pick fruit in the Ardmona area for nearly 6 weeks.  Returning to the Bonegilla camp, he was employed there for one week as a casual labourer.  Probably it was more labouring with Goliath – until he left early, after less than 10 months, in February 1949.

A youthful Vytautas Stasiukynas, photographed for his Bonegilla card in 1947

Source:  NAA: A2571, STASIUKYNAS VYTAUTAS

A list probably compiled by Ramunas Tarvydas, the author of From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, shows that another 6 of the men left during February or March, well before their 2 years of employment in Australia was up.  The work must have been extremely hard indeed.

This does not include Endrius Jankus who, we know from his own account, stayed for maybe another month but he too decided that he could do better working in Melbourne instead.  We know that Endrius was contacted by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to be told that it was not up to him to decide where he could work: he had to be willing to go where the CES said that workers were needed.  Perhaps, one way or another, the CES located the other 6 and found them different work still in an area of national need.  Or perhaps they had gone directly to the CES, asking for a change of employment.  These individual employment records are unlikely to have survived for us to check them.

As for Vytautas Stasiukynas, his friend, Juozas Peciulis, also on the First Transport, wrote his story for the 14 June 1950 edition of Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven), the new Australian-Lithuanian newspaper.  He based his account on the time they had spent together during the first two years, and a letter received from Colombia.  Yes, Vytautas had found a happier life in South America.

Juozas Peciulis reported that Vytautas had tried every possible way to get a job in his profession. His efforts were in vain.  He enrolled in a veterinary course at Sydney University, in case Australian qualifications would help him, but had to stop when his finances ran out. 

While living as a refugee in Germany, Peciulus wrote, Stasiukynas had received from Lithuanian Salesian priest, Father Mykolas Tamošiūnas, a visa for emigration to Columbia.   Father Tamošiūnas worked with a Lithuanian diplomat and journalist, Stasys Sirutis, to form the Lithuanian Catholic Committee for the Collection of War Victims.  Sirutis would contact Lithuanians in refugee camps in postwar Europe, taking care of their visas and permits so they could freely migrate to Columbia. The new arrivals would be assisted in finding work and housing, contributing to the Lithuanian colony in Columbia. 

By 1948, Colombia had become one of the main places of migration for Lithuanians.  The first Lithuanians settled in the city of Bogotá, but eventually spread to other cities: Medellín, Barranquilla, Cali, Bucaramanga, Villavicencio.  They were mainly farmers or hired workers. It is believed that around 850 Lithuanians came to Colombia after the Second World War. 

Frozen out of his preferred career in Australia, Vytautas turned again Father Mykolas and received another Colombian migration visa.  On 17 March 1950, he boarded a ship from the United States, the American Leader, to cross the Pacific.  The Brisbane Courier-Mail says that ship was bound for Boston, leaving Brisbane at 6 am on 18 March.  Juozas Peciulis reports that Vytautas paid £200 for the trip to Panama, while a flight from Panama to Medellin cost an additional $60 (US dollars, presumably).

This is a rare, if not unique, instance where we have the name of the ship of departure from Australia because it was recorded as a Change of Abode on his Aliens Registration Certificate.  This was retained by the Department of Immigration and subsequently by the National Archives of Australia.  We therefore have the date of departure also.

On arrival in Colombia, Vytautas immediately received a job as a vet on a farm owned by the brother of the nations’s President.  The farm was about 130 km from Medellin, 100 square kilometers in size with 1200 cows.  The area was very mountainous, with no roads, only riding tracks.  Vytautas lived on the farm, travelling around it by horse to inspect the animals.

He did not regret leaving Australia.  He wrote back to Juozas Peciulis that Columbia “is truly the land of opportunity and freedom exists in the full sense of the word.”

Vytautas remained in Colombia, where he married another Lithuanian and had 4 children. Evidence comes from V. Rociūnas in the August 1971 issue of Draugas (Friend), who reports that “Veterinarian Vytautas Stasiukynas has a wonderful family of four children and his excellent wife Nijole, a sincere supporter of Lithuanian activities. Stasiukynas has a large practice and a good reputation in the area.”*

Vytautas' wife, Nijole, is first on the left in this photo of the
board members of the Bogotá Lithuanian women's club

Source:  Moteris Lithuanian Women’s Magazine. 1966. No. 6 (54)   

(double-click to see a larger version of this photo)

An August 1972 issue of Musu Lietuva (Our Lithuania), published in São Paolo, Brazil, advises that Vytautas Stasiukynas from Bogotá was one the judges of an Inter-American Philatelic Exhibition which had opened in Rio de Janeiro.  He had won all sorts of medals at these exhibitions and was visiting Rio with his wife, Nijole.  They had promised to visit São Paolo as well.

In February 1981, Vienybė, (Unity, from Brooklyn, NY) had the larger part of a page devoted to Vytautas’ philately.   It featured an article he wrote about the Buenos Aires '80 International Stamp Exhibition, a ten-day long activity to celebrate 400 years since the permanent settlement of Buenos Aires.  He brought back a second prize, a gold-plated silver medal, from this Exhibition. Below that article, another records his own philatelic interests.

In a December 1982 issue of Mūsų Lietuva, on a page headed Greetings from Venezuela and Colombia, Vytautas and Nijole Stasiukynas “from Bogota remembered and congratulated their compatriots in Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo”.

In June 1983, Vienybė ran a full page article about the Lithuanian community in Colombia.  One of the illustrations shows Vytautas and his wife, Nijole, with another Lithuanian couple in a cacao plantation.

The photograph from Vienybė showing, from left to right in a cacao plantation, 
a Colombian, Laima and Algis Didžiulis, Dr Vytautas Stasiukynas, 
the Colombian plantation manager and Nijolė Stasiukynas.  The caption further adds that,
"The Didžiulises are big industrialists, with one company in Bogotá, another in Caracas, Venezuela,
a representative office in Fort Lauderdale, warehouses in Woodside, NY.
They also have a nice dairy farm near Bogotá."

Someone has started a family tree for Vytautas on Ancestry.com, but only got as far as noting that he died in Bogotá on an unknown date and adding one son. This son, José Vytenis Stasiukynas Hosie, is said to have been born in 1960 and to have died in 2006, at the early age of 46. This early death raises the possibility of an interaction with FARC, the Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group which has operated in Colombia since 1966, or with other armed left-wing and right-wing groups.

Nijole (front row, third from left with a red handbag)
attending a church service in Lithuania in 2012
as a representative of Bogotá's Lithuanian community

Source: XXI amžius (21st Century), 13 February 2015

While Vytautas saw Colombia as, “truly a land of opportunity (where) freedom exists in the full sense of the word”, a civil war was being fought there even as he arrived. The violence has waxed and waned, mainly in the countryside, in the more than 70 years since.

We believe that another member of the family is now activity in the field of caring for animals. Diana Stasiukynas is very likely to be a granddaughter of Vytautas.  Panthera.org, a New York based charity, says that Diana is “a biologist with a master's degree in biodiversity management and conservation.  She works with camera traps, in-situ genetic sampling, statistical analysis and other survey techniques in various wildlife conservation and management projects involving local communities, farmers and governmental and non-governmental organizations throughout Colombia.  In addition to conservation science, her professional interests include wildlife photography and community participation.”

It looks like not just Vytautas, but his whole subsequent family, was a loss to Australia.  Two other vets who arrived here on the General Stuart Heintzelman in 1947 were lost to Australia also. Lithuanian Anicetas Grigaliunas left for the United States in the 1950s.  An as yet unnamed Estonian left for Venezuela, where he supposedly became veterinarian to the country’s then President.  Ann remembers adding Venezuelan stamps to the collection she was given when aged 6.

SOURCES 

Courier Mail (1950) ‘Weather’ (including ‘Shipping’), Brisbane, Qld, 18 March, p 10, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49697105, accessed 9 November 2023. 

Gavenas, P (1982) ‘Sveikinimai iš Venezuelos ir Kolumbijos’ (‘Greetings from Venezuela and Colombia’) Mūsu Lietuva (Our Lithuania), São Paulo, Brazil, 2 December, p 6, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_lietuva/archive/1982/1982-nr47-MUSU-LIETUVA.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Matuzas, K (1983) ‘Kaip Gyvena ir Dirba Lietuviai Kolumbijoje’ ('How Lithuanians Live and Work in Colombia'), Vienybe (Unity), Brooklyn, New York, 15 June, p 7, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1983/1983-06-15-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Moteris (Woman), Lithuanian Women's Magazine (1966) 'Bogotas, Kolumbijoje, LMF Klubo Valdybos Narės' (Bogotá, Colombia, LMF Club Board Members), Toronto, Canada, 6 (54) p 18, https://www.spauda.org/moteris/archive/1966/1966-nr06-MOTERIS.pdf, accessed 18 December 2023.

Mūsu Lietuva (Our Lithuania) (1972) ‘Svečiai iš Kolumbijos’ (‘Guests from Colombia’), São Paolo, Brazil, 31 August, p 10, https://spauda2.org/musu_lietuva/archive/1972/1972-nr35-MUSU-LIETUVA.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; STASIUKYNAS, Vytautas : Year of Birth - 1920 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 684, 1947 – 1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203905639, accessed 10 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Department of Immigration, Central Office; 37/541, STASIUKYNAS Vytautas born 14 February 1920; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7272994, accessed 10 November 2023. 

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents; LITHUANIAN/STASIUKYNAS VYTAUTAS, STASIUKYNAS Vytautas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Departed Commonwealth on 19 March 1950, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5926058, accessed 10 November 2023. 

Papers held in the Lithuanian Archives in Australia, https://www.australianlithuanians.org/uncategorized/adel-arkhives/ accessed 25 May 2024.

Peciulis, J (1950) ‘Iš Viktorijos — Laimēs pēdomis Kolumbijon…’ (From Victoria — Finding Happiness in Colombia) Mūsu Pastogė (Our Haven), Sydney, NSW, 14 June, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259362958, accessed 9 November 2023. 

Rociūnas, V (1971) ‘Čiurlioniečiai P. Amerikoje’ (‘Ciurlionis in S America’ — Ciurlionis was a music ensemble formed in Vilnius in 1940 but based in Cleveland, Ohio, in exile until it disbanded in 1992) Draugas (Friend), the Lithuanian World-Wide Daily, Chicago, Illinois, 23 August, p 2, https://www.draugas.org/archive/1971_reg/1971-08-23-DRAU GAS-i7-8.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Stasiukynas, V (1981) ‘Vienybėje Pagamintas Leidinys Argentinoje Susilaukė Medalio’ (‘A Publication Produced by Unity Received a Medal in Argentina’), Vienybe (Unity), Brooklyn, New York, 13 February, p 5, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1981/1981-02-13-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Šeškevičius, Arvydas (2015) 'Paminėjo daug metų Kolumbijoje gyvenusį kunigą Vaclovą Vaičiūną' (Commemorating Priest Vaclovas Vaičiūnas, who lived in Colombia for many years), XXI amžius, 13 February, https://www.xxiamzius.lt/numeriai/2015/02/13/atmi_01.html accessed 19 December 2023.

Tarvydas, Ramunas (1997) From Amber Coast to Apple Isle, Hobart, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee. 

Tarvydas, Ramunas, (nd) unpublished papers in the possession of the Goliath Cement, Railton, Tasmania. 

Vienybe (Unity), (1981) ‘Dr. Vytautas Stasiukynas’, Brooklyn, New York, 13 February, p 5, https://spauda2.org/vienybe/archive/1981/1981-02-13-VIENYBE.pdf, accessed 18 November 2023. 

Wikipedia (2023) ‘La Violencia’, last edited 17 September, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Violencia, accessed 24 November 2023. 

Wikipedia (2023) ‘Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia’, last edited 15 November, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Armed_Forces_of_Colombia, accessed 19 November 2023. 

Žukauskienė, Deimantė (2020) ‘Kolumbijos lietuviai tiki, kad lietuviškumas bendruomenėje atgims’ (‘Lithuanians in Colombia believe that Lithuanianness will be revived in the community’), 8 August, Pasaulio Lietuvis (World Lithuanian), https://pasauliolietuvis.lt/kolumbijos-lietuviai-tiki-kad-lietuviskumas-bendruomeneje-atgims/, viewed 9 November 2023.

Povilas Niaura (1919-2006): A Settled Settler, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 2 January 2024. 

Povilas Niaura recovered enough from the terrors of the war in Lithuania and Germany to settle happily in Tasmania. Sent to work at Goliath Portland Cement Co Ltd in Railton, he stayed with the company for the remainder of his working days. The company lent him and other workers a brick-making machine to build their own homes, so clearly the company was one which looked after its employees when they were loyal in return.

Povilas reached Railton on 28 April 1948 with 19 others from the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, exactly 5 months after reaching Australia. The group contained 13 Lithuanians, 4 Latvians and 3 Estonians. They had been sent to Victoria to pick fruit first.

The addition of these 20 men to the workforce of the main local industry was so important that the town put on a gala welcome for them.

Povilas Niaura in 1947, aged 26

Source:  NAA, A2571, Niaura, Povilas

Goliath Portland Cement is the reason for the continued existence of the town of Railton, although this also is a service centre for the surrounding agricultural and forestry community. It is only 23 Km south of the city of Devonport, on Tasmania’s north coast. Goliath took over the smaller Tasmanian Cement Pty Ltd in 1928, leading to Railton’s prosperity.

The new arrivals were accommodated in what Ramunas Tarvydas calls ‘the single men’s camp’. He adds, ‘At first the accommodation was shared, but soon the company built new huts for all the men. The huts had timber framing and were clad in their own “fibro” sheets. Inside was a folding iron bed, mattress and a couple of blankets. The company gave the men timber to make their own furniture, but no tools; eventually they relented on that point.’

Sixteen of the 17 Latvians and Lithuanians are in this photo,
perhaps taken by the seventeenth;
Povilas is the tallest man standing on the right

Source: Tarvydas, From Amber Coast ...

Tarvydas continues, ‘At first most of the Balts worked either in the factory or in the quarry, where the pay was five shillings per week more but the work harder. One of the more hazardous jobs, in hindsight, was making the asbestos-cement products, although [researching in the mid-1990s] no Balt seems to have suffered any long-term effects.’

The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) has said that, ‘Goliath made everything from asbestos sheeting to a giant asbestos fairy penguin in its factory from 1947 to 1986’. Tarvydas adds that the company made ‘corrugated roofing, guttering, fascias, vats, etc.’

In the Railton district, Povilas met Margaret Jean, married and had two children, Stephen and Denise. Their cemetery plaques indicate that grandchildren too. Until 1948, the Niaura family name was not to be found in Tasmania. Now there are 8 adults in the family as well as great grandchildren.

Povilas, or Paul, the English equivalent of his Lithuanian name, worked for Goliath Cement for 36 years. He retired in 1984 at the age of 65. Despite attending English language lessons in the Bonegilla Camp and perhaps trying again with the lessons broadcast by the ABC, he never managed to read and write the language. 

This lack of fluent English limited his rise to more senior positions in the Company, but it did not stop it from trusting him to be sent to installation jobs.  They were a great improvement on his initial task, operating a jack hammer in the limestone quarry.

The most memorable of the roofing jobs was on a grandstand at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, in preparation for the 1956 Olympic Games.  There were times when he was away for weeks at a time, more often away than he was at home.

Son Stephen now has spent nearly as long with Goliath Cement as his father did. Stephen has clocked up 32 years. He now is a control room operator for the company, supervising from mining the limestone to the end products. His younger sister works with the Tasmanian Government-owned company which runs the ferries to and from Devenport in Tasmania, across Bass Strait to Geelong in Victoria.

One of the 6 grandchildren, Jason is a Pilates instructor and graphic designer, originally a hairdresser. Another, Bradley, is a former carpenter who is now regional manager of Fairbrother, a commercial and industrial construction, joinery and facilities management company operating in Tasmania and regional Victoria. The others are, respectively, James, another carpenter, Danielle, a school teacher, Katrina, a real estate agent and Rachel, a nurse. All contribute significantly to their local communities, to Tasmania and to Australia.

Paul was born to a farming family in Anykščiai, Lithuania, on 4 September 1919. His mother died when he was young so his father remarried. Along with Elžbieta (Elizabeth), his one full sister, he found himself living with something like 6 step-sisters and step-brothers.

Growing up on a farm, his skills were utilised by the Germans when they occupied Lithuania between the summers of 1941 and 1944. He was nearing 25 years old when the Soviet forces started their return. His oldest step-sister told him that he should run or else he would be shot by the Soviets. He took this advice. Like others exposed to a year of Communism under the Soviet rule in 1940-41, he would have wanted to get out. He could, as his food-production abilities would have led to the Germans to want to take him on their retreat.

He loved the farming life, so saved before marriage to buy 5 acres in Railton, where he built his house with Goliath’s brick-making machine. At first he rented out the house while continuing to live in the single men’s quarters. After he and Margaret Jean met and married, the 5 acres provided a semi-rural home for them and the two children.

The house that Paul built
with cement bricks courtesy of Goliath Portland Cement and its brick-making machine

Source: Stephen Niaura

The family had its own dairy cow and geese. Paul loved his geese. Regardless, they would be fattened and sold for the Christmas feasting of others. Every so often, the surplus milk could be churned into butter, which could be bartered for groceries at the local store. Paul’s son, Stephen, still keeps geese on the Railton land.

Stephen Niaura's geese

Source:  Stephen Niaura

The barn that Paul built to store feed for his animals on the 5 acres

Source: Stephen Niaura

Paul's cowshed, with the bail for milking the house cow on the left;
now a home for chickens

Source: Stephen Niaura

After the children were born, Paul still had enough money to buy 50 acres at Sunnyside, less than 10 minutes’ drive southeast of Railton. He raised beef cattle there, with help from Stephen when he was old enough.

Paul became an Australian citizen in August 1959.

When Lithuania’s impending independence became obvious again from the late 1980s, Paul wished that he could go back to see his remaining family. The question of cost arose, so he was urged to sell the 50 acres to raise the money. Having done this, however reluctantly, he spent some weeks in his homeland.

Before he returned to Australia, the family gathered to tell him that part of the land which had been restored to them by the Lithuanian Government was his. He assured them that he was handing it back to them to use as they saw fit.

Denise and her daughter have also been able to spend time in Lithuania visiting relatives. Neither had learnt much of Paul’s language from him, but they stayed with a great nephew of Paul’s, a Lithuanian who spoke English, having visited the United States and United Kingdom.

The house Paul built in Railton is still in the family though the 5 acres decreased when some had to be sold to pay for the cost of connecting to the town’s new sewerage system.

Paul Niaura in December 1997, at a reunion of Tasmanian 'First Swallows',
the name Lithuanian passengers from the First Transport gave themselves

Source: Hobart Mercury, 2 December 1997

If Paul had developed any signs of mesothelioma from his work with asbestos, it would have cut short what became an extremely long life. He was 87 years old when he died on 18 November 2006. He was buried in the Mersey Vale Memorial Park in Quoiba, a southern suburb of Devonport.

Grave Marker for Paul Niaura

Source: FindAGrave.com

Paul’s early plans to buy land for farming led to Aussie drinking mates christening him ‘Cocky’. The School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at the Australian National University thinks that this nickname arose in the 1870s, as an abbreviation of cockatoo farmer. Back then, it was a disparaging term for small-scale farmers, probably because of a habit of using a small area of land for a short time and then moving on, like cockatoos feeding.

‘Cocky’ stuck with Paul to his memorial plaque. This features his geese, though, looking especially pampered, rather than cockatoos. The Cocky nickname has transferred to his son Stephen, who initially was ‘Cocky Junior’.

Margaret Jean lies besides him. She was only 73 years old when she died less than 3 years after him. This means that there was a 16-year age gap when she married the tall (5 feet 10 inches or 178 cm on one form and 6 feet 1 inch or 185 on another) and handsome foreigner in the 1950s.

Grave marker for Margaret Niaura

Source: FindAGrave.com

I thank Stephen and Denise Niaura for their assistance with this biography.

Sources

Australian Broadcasting Commission, ‘New factory owner managing asbestos tragedy’, ABC News, 8-12 May 2010, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-08/new-factory-owner-managing-asbestos-tragedy/427088, accessed 21 January 2023.

‘Certificates of Naturalization’, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 26 November 1959, p 4167, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240887808, accessed through Trove, 20 March 2023.

'Fairbrother', https://www.fairbrother.com.au/, accessed 2 January 2024.

'Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms, C', School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, ANU College of Arts & Social Sciences, https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/meanings-origins/c#:~:text=Cocky, accessed 2 April 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; NIAURA, Povilas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 795, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203689468, accessed 2 April 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Tasmanian Branch; P1184, Registration papers for non-British migrants, lexicographical series, 1949 - circa 1966; Niaura P, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=1777815, accessed 2 April 2023.

Niaura, Denise, personal communications, March 2023.

Niaura, Stephen, personal communications, February-March 2023 and January 2024.

‘Paul “Cocky” Niaura’, Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/234461136/paul-niaura/photo, accessed 2 January 2024.

‘People whose last name is NIAURA’, LocateFamily.com, https://www.locatefamily.com/N/NIA/NIAURA-1.html, accessed 21 January 2023.

‘Railton: Quiet country town south of Devonport’, Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2004, https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/railton-20040208-gdkqow.html, accessed 21 January 2023.

Rimon, Wendy, ‘Goliath Cement’ in The Companion to Tasmanian History, 2006, https://www.utas.edu.au/library/companion_to_tasmanian_history/G/Goliath%20Cement.htm, accessed 21 January 2023.

Tarvydas, Ramunas, From Amber Coast to Apple Isle: Fifty Years of Baltic Immigrants in Tasmania 1948-1998, Baltic Semicentennial Commemoration Activities Organising Committee, Hobart, pp 46-8.

Whitfield, Meg, ‘Railton firie recognised for more than 30 years service’, The Advocate, (Burnie, Tasmania), 25 May 2021. Also https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/7266622/railton-firie-recognised-for-more-than-30-years-service/?cs=3674, accessed 26 February 2023.

Wikipedia, ‘Lithuania Independence Restoration Day’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania_Independence_Restoration_Day, accessed 27 February 2023.