Veronika Tutins (1911–2006), who disappeared? by Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 4 August 2024

Veronika Tutins was a great friend of two other Latvian women from the First Transport, sisters Irina and Galins Vasins. Evidence of the friendship still exists in the form of 6 photos of Veronika, mostly with Irina and Galina. Suddenly, she vanished. What happened to her?

Veronika Tutins, 1947, from her Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A257, TUTINS, VERONIKA

All of them were employed initially in Australia at the Bonegilla camp. Irina was employed until February 1951, when the Department of Immigration offered her a transfer to another Reception and Training Centre for new arrivals, at Greta in NSW. Galina had left one year earlier, in February 1950. They certainly could be viewed as long-term Bonegilla employees, having worked there beyond the end of their initial contract  on 30 September 1949.

(L-R) Galina Vasins, Veronika Tutins and Irina Vasins
in the grounds of the Bonegilla camp, 1948

Source:  Private collection

Veronika, however, had ceased duty at Bonegilla on 22 August 1948 and was supposed to commence at the Bedford Park TB Sanitorium in South Australia on 24 August. We know that she wasn’t sent to South Australia as a patient, since any TB cases from Bonegilla were treated in the local Albury Hospital. 

(L-R) Galina Vasins, Irina Tutins and Irina Vasins
in the remains of a tank in the Bonegilla camp grounds, 1948

Source:  Private collection

Perhaps the answer lies in the story of Eduards Brokans, who arrived in Australia on 12 February 1948, on the Second Transport, the General MB Stewart. Due to the West Australian Government’s mistaken idea that all the passengers from the First Transport were to work in its State, the men from the Second Transport were held there pending a work allocation. So Eduards does not have a Bonegilla card. (The women were sent by train across the south of Australia, from Perth to Bonegilla, and do have Bonegilla cards.)

Eduards Brokans, from his 1947 selection papers

Source:  NAA: A11938, 494

Eduards were sent to Bedford Park in South Australia to labour for that State’s Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS). We don’t know exactly when this happened, as we do with anyone whose Bonegilla card is extant. We can guess that this happened between February and August 1948, so Veronika had arranged to be near him.

It’s unfortunate that she did not tell Irina and Galina about her plans. Irina, for one, was still wondering what had happened more than 50 years later. If Veronika wrote to the Vasins sisters after moving to South Australia, they did not get the letters.

While Veronika's plan was to be near Eduards, both working in the suburb of Bedford Park, the South Australian Government had other plans.  Instead of Bedford Park, that Government sent Veronika to the Belair Sanitorium, 9 kilometres by road from Bedford Park.  That must have made seeing each other at weekends harder than it needed to be.

After Veronika stopped working there, the name was changed to Birralee, a named used previously when the property was a private home.  Belair was the name of the suburb in which the Birralee Sanitorium was located.  Birralee is  the name used by Veronika to describe her workplace when she applied for Australian citizenship.

Her application for citizenship shows that Veronika worked at Belair until December 1949.  My guess is that she left before her marriage.  Extant records in the National Archives of Australia show that Eduards and Veronika Tutins were married in Norwood, South Australia, on Christmas Eve, 1949. He was more than two years younger than his bride, being born on 29 June 1914. Her birthday was 15 November 1911.

Veronika had stayed at her Belair workplace for at least two months longer than required under the conditions of the voyage which brought her to Australia.  As reported here earlier, the first Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, decided that the obligation to work as directed should end early, on 30 September 1949.  This was due to “the outstanding contribution they have made to Australia’s labour starved economy”.

Veronika had 6 years of primary education, followed by 4 years of commercial schooling. Eduards had 6 years at primary school only. She had been born in Zvirgzdene, a rural parish in Latvia’s Latgale province. Latgale is the one predominantly Catholic of Latvia’s four provinces: the others are predominantly Lutheran. Veronika advised the Australian selection team that she was a Roman Catholic.

Her registration as a Displaced Person with the American Expeditionary Forces now with the Arolsen Archives recorded that, in late 1945, she knew the Latvian, Russian and German languages. Two years later, when appearing before the Australian selection team, she undoubtedly could add English to the list. She had been selected as a waitress, back in the days when the Australian Government was setting up hostels for its younger, unmarried staff, although whether she waited on tables at Bonegilla is not known. He had been selected as a labourer.

Another Arolsen Archive card records that she had been living in Latvia’s capital, Riga, before fleeing to Germany. While in Latvia, she had worked as a typist, according to her application for Australian citizenship.

In Germany, from 7 December 1944 to 2 March 1945, she had been employed as a metal worker in a Chemnitz factory. Since Chemnitz became part of the zone occupied by Soviet forces, then became part of East Germany, undoubted Veronika was on the move westwards from early March 1945. By October 1947, she was living in a Displaced Persons camp in Esslingen, in south-western Germany.

She told the Australian selection team that she was single, but had one dependent, a sister. The sister was recorded on her Bonegilla card as Olga Zakis, still resident in Esslingen.

By the time of her application for citizenship in September 1958, Veronika had just obtained work as a comptometrist with a long-established Adelaide hardware manufacturer.  Since comptometers have not been used in offices since the 1990s, I suspect that the majority of readers will not know what they were.  

They were mechanical adding machines, which could be used for subtraction as well.  Trained comptometer operators could enter all the digits in a number at once, using up to ten fingers, unlike on modern calculators, where one digit at a time is entered.  This made them exceptionally fast.  Their decline was not due to the invention of modern calculators but to advances in electronic computing.

A comptometer manufactured in the 1950s

Source: John Wolff's Web Museum

Eduards had been born in the Rezekne area, also in Latgale. Like Veronika, he was a Roman Catholic. At the time of interview by the Australian selection team, he gave a street address in Esslingen. It does look like Esslingen could have been where these two met.

His previous occupations were recorded by the Australian team as farmer from 1927 (at the age of 13) to 1937, then ‘worker’ (perhaps labourer) for 1937-40, then office worker for 1940-44 and ‘worker’ again for 1944-47.

Veronika had recently had her 38th birthday at the time of her marriage. Despite this relatively advanced age for childbearing, they had three children together: two girls and a boy, born between 1950 and 1954.

Eduards became an Australian citizen in the Adelaide suburb of Mitcham on 17 October 1955. Very often, a couple make the commitment to Australia by applying at the same time and taking the oath of allegiance in the same ceremony. Veronika waited. She applied in September 1958, she was approved with her certificate sent to South Australia in February 1959, but she did not take the oath to become an Australian citizen until 27 October 1959, also at Mitcham.

Maybe even before this commitment to Australia, the United States became more attractive to them. It might have been economic opportunities, as with some of the other First Transporters who left (like Vytautas Stasiukynas) or it could have been personal reasons, including reunion with family members (see Viktoras Kuciauskas).

The attraction may well have been Eduards’ younger brother, Aleksandrs, born on 19 July 1917. Unlike the older sibling who started working on a farm at the age of 13, Aleksandrs had attended university in Latvia and graduated with a PhD in agronomy from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany. He initially resettled in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which also became the home of his brother’s family.

Ancestry.com has a digitised passenger list showing Veronika reaching San Francisco from Sydney on the SS Oronsay on 13 June 1960. With Veronika was her husband, a son and two daughters. The daughters were named as Mary and Rita, while the son was Edmunds. ‘Mary’ is likely to be the daughter identified on Geni.com as ‘Mērija Ilze Brokāne’. The names of the other two in their original, non-Anglicised versions, are not spelt out on this Website. 

It is possible that Veronika finally applied for Australian citizenship in order to have a passport for the journey to the United States. The Australian-born children would have been on one of their parents’ passports.

Dr Aleksandrs Brokans died at the age of 100 in 2017 in a Maryland nursing home. The children of Veronika and Eduards are listed among surviving members of his family.

Eduards did not have quite the long life of his younger brother, dying at the age of 86 in December 2000.

Eduards and Veronika Brokans in later life

Source:  Geni.com

Veronika lived on to the respectable age of 94, dying on 10 April 2006. Irina Vasins was still alive then, dying in 2008, while her sister Galina is still alive as far as I am aware. Mind you, it was not as easy 18 years ago to use the Web to solve disappearance mysteries, so I wasn’t able to find the answers in this blog entry while Irina was still with us.

Veronika is buried in the Resurrection Cemetery, West Hanover Township, near her final home of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

SOURCES

Ancestry.com ‘California, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1882-1959 for Veronica Brokans, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/10094931:7949 accessed 12 July 2024.

Arolsen Archives ‘DocID: 69544463 (Veronika TUTINS)’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69544463 accessed 10 July 2024.

Arolsen Archives ‘DocID: 75443572 (VERONIKA TUTINS)’ https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/75443572 accessed 10 July 2024.

Geni.com ‘Veronika Brokāne’ https://www.geni.com/people/Veronika-Brok%C4%81ne/6000000011861721721 accessed 12 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Australian Customs Service, State Administration, South Australia; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1937-65; BROKANS Eduards - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General M B Stewart 12 February 1948, 1948-1955; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4072903 accessed 10 July 2024.

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; 819, TUTINS Veronika DOB 15 November 1911, 1947-1947; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118138 accessed 10 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration Central Office; A11938, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stewart departing Bremerhaven 13 January 1948, 1948-1948; 484, BROKANS Eduards born 29 June 1914, 1948-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4664555 accessed 18 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D400, Correspondence files, annual single number series with 'SA' and 'S' prefix, 1945-1969; BROKANS VERONICA - Application for Naturalisation - [Box 92], 1950-1959; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=202814862 accessed 29 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; TUTINS Veronika - Nationality: Latvian Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 also known as BROKANS, 1947-1949; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7171511 accessed 10 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; BROKANS Eduards - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General M B Stewart 12 February 1948 https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7205717 accessed 18 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; BROKANS Veronica - Nationality: Latvian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947 Also known as NEE TUTINS, 1947- 1959; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7205718 accessed 13 July 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria] ; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; TUTINS, Veronika : Year of Birth - 1911 : Nationality - LATVIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1187, 1947-1948; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203711044 accessed 10 July 2024.

Star-Democrat (2017) ‘Obituaries: Dr Alexander Brokans’ Easton, Maryland, USA, 28 November, p A6 https://www.newspapers.com/image/353165191/?match=1&terms=edmunds%20brokans accessed 12 July 2024.

Vasins, Irina (2000-2007) Personal communications.

Vintage Calculators Web Museum,  Calculator Companies (2024) 'Comptometer' http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/comptometer1.html accessed 31 July 2024.

Wikipedia 'Comptometer' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comptometer accessed 31 July 2024.

Flaavi Hodunov (1927–2023): SAR Train Driver, by John Mannion

Updated 5 April, 12 May and 26 October 2024.

Estonian-born Flaavi Hodunov was another of the 18 with good English selected at the Bangham camp to be sent to be Peterborough. My three previous blog entries, on Australia's post-WWII displaced persons' program, Peterborough in general and Paul Deimantas in particular, refer. 

Flaavi's ID photo taken in Germany before departure to Australia --

Source:  Tatyana Tamm collection

Flaavi Hodunov's ID photo from his Bonegilla card
clearly a mistake has occurred!

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Flaavi was a keen railway man and eager to learn. He recalls the ‘Roundhouse Rat’, a V-class steam shunting engine that was fired with big lumps of coal thrown into the firebox by hand.

'The little engine that could', the Roundhouse Rat, is on the left of this photo;
built in 1877, it was already at least 70 years old when the First Transporters met it
for the first time; it is now on display in a Naracoorte park

Source:  State Library of South Australia

He spent over three years at Peterborough and celebrated his 21st birthday at the Railway Institute. Eventually he moved to Adelaide and built his own home. 

He recalled that a few weeks after the arrival of the ‘very first’ Balts at Peterborough, another group arrived, followed by many more. Many families were separated as a result of the work contract and accommodation. 

Flaavi and another Estonian, Artur Klaar, moved out of the hostel and found private board with the Linke family, through the Lutheran Church, on a dairy farm at Peterborough West. 

Two Baltic boarders, standing and kneeling on the left, with the Linke family

Source:  John Mannion Collection

The first means of transport for the Balts was on foot, push-bike and motor-bike. 

The push bikes could be used for recreation too;
here we have Juozas or 'Joe' Donela on the left with friends

Source:  John Mannion collection

It was difficult at first but these men later recalled the acceptance they received from Peterborough railway men including Ray Schell, Dave Rosser, the Brennan brothers, Lionel Noble, Peter Smallacombe and many others. 

Flaavi's girlfriend, Walya [Wasylisa Proszko], came to Australia with her parents and sister [on the Wooster Victory, in May 1949]. They too stayed at Bonegilla. She had to wait until Flaavi found her a job as a domestic with the Casey family on a farm east of Peterborough. 

Walya's Bonegilla card, with that assignment to the Casey family

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Walya recalls that, while she was at Bonegilla, some of the locals came to see what these Balts look like, just out of curiosity. The general opinion was that they ‘looked just like us!’ 

Walya remembered being given clothing, in particular a bright pink raincoat. ‘When you don't have much, you remember things like that’ she told me. 

Men and women were in separate accommodation at Bonegilla. 

Everybody had to work for two years so, in order for the couple to marry, the authorities agreed for Walya working near Flaavi. According to Flaavi, when they married, Walya's contract was cancelled. 

Walya's family were reunited after they came over from Sydney for the wedding at Peterborough Lutheran Church [on 26 December 1949] and found work in Adelaide. 

Walya recalls the trip from Bonegilla to Peterborough well. She was given a packed lunch of sandwiches and a couple of eggs. ‘All I had was a suitcase and a handful of papers. I was unable to speak a word of English’. She reckoned that she has never waited so long for a train. 

On arrival at Adelaide station, she could not ask questions, but a Lutheran priest advised her in German how to get to Peterborough. Walya remembered that the train trip to Peterborough was in the dark, so she couldn't see where she was going, but when she did arrive, there was no platform. This was unheard of in Europe. 

The Peterborough Railway station, 1974, still without a raised platform

Source:  Lionel Noble collection

‘I expected a street with houses and shops on both sides of the street but found a very, very poor street, very scary, with one big hotel dominating the long Main Street’. 

The Hotel Peterborough would have dominated Walya's first view of
Peterborough's Main Street

Source:  John Mannion collection

Peterborough's Main Street, with
a hotel in the distant centre, around 1950

Source:  Lionel Noble photographer, John Mannion collection

Many of the migrants, including Walya, didn't like country life, but Flaavi reckons he would still be in the bush if not for Walya. 

According to the men I spoke with, Heini Koch, a descendant of the original Petersburg settlers, did a lot of work for the ‘lads who could not speak very well English’. 

Before they married, Walya would visit Linke's on weekends. As a married couple, the Hodunov's rented a little tin house that Flaavi had renovated for the new bride, near the hostel on Telford Avenue. They eventually rented a railway cottage. 

Flaavi found out that it was very hard to get transferred to city, but once he did, he excelled on the job and was the first 'Balt' to graduate as an SAR driver at Mile End.

Flaavi's achievement of locomotive driver status was celebrated in the New Australian,
a monthly publication for migrants from the Department of Immigration, in its August 1952 issue; the fettler work actually was when he was based at Bangham, near Wolseley,
the cleaning job was after redeployment to Peterborough and initial training there

Source:  New Australian, August 1952

Flaavi (right) on the job as a fireman, before his 1952 promotion to driver

Source:  John Mannion collection

He liked his job in the railways and worked freight trains back to Peterborough after the broad gauge was extended from Terowie to Peterborough in 1970. 

He spent 37 years on the job, 37 years of shift work, and agreed that it was not easy for the women being alone when men away on shift work.

Flaavi and Walya in 2003

Source:  John Mannion collection

Flaavi was born in Estonia's easternmost coastal city of Narva on 21 September 1927, so was 20 years old on arrival in Australia.  He died in Adelaide very recently, on 27 November 2023, aged a hearty 96.  Walya predeceased him, in March 2014, just after her 84th birthday.

POSTSCRIPT by Ann  

Flaavi's life before his voyage to Australia is encapsulated in the document below, a DP Registration Record created in the American Zone of occupied Germany.  In addition to confirming his place and date of birth, it tells us that his parents were Teodor Hodunov and Liidia Kolk, that his usual occupation when the record was created in maybe 1945 was motor-car locksmith, and that his first choice for resettlement was Canada.

From one of Flaavi's daughters, Tatyana Tamm, I now know that those parental given names were misrecorded.  Flaavi's father actually was Feodor while his mother was Leida-Bižarde Kolk.

Flaavi's name has intrigued me since I first saw it on the Heintzelman passenger list 25 years ago.  Although his Estonian birthplace means that he had Estonian nationality until the time during WWII when that no longer had practical meaning, the name is not Estonian.

The -ov ending of Hodunov indicates clearly a Slavic family name.  The most likely source of Slavic names in Estonia is Russia, but a Russian would spell this name with an initial G, as in Mussorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov, about an early Tsar of Russia.  

A Ukrainian friend has confirmed that this is indeed a Ukrainian spelling of the name, where the initial G gets transliterated as an initial H.  It happens with many Slavic names.  An example is the female first name Halina, diminutive Halya, in Ukrainian, which become Galina and Galya in Russian.  I've used this example because I can tell you that this name sounds just the same in Estonian, but is spelt Galja.

Flaavi, my friend said, absolutely was not Ukrainian, so more research was required.  I found that Flavi is known to be a first name used in Rumania, derived from the Latin name Flavius, meaning 'golden'.  Rumania still has many links in its language to the Roman occupation some 2,000 years ago, starting with the name of this nation-state being derived from Rome (or Roma in Latin and Italian).

Flaavi with two a's is a typically Estonian spelling, lengthening the initial vowel sound in Flavi and adding to the normal stress on the first syllable of Estonian words.  The name turns out to be quite multicultural, even before this concept was invented by the Canadians.

As reported above, Flaavi's mother's family name was Kolk, which translates from Estonian into English as an out-of-the-way place or, a dangling piece of wood.  Regardless of the reason for its application to his mother's family in the 1830's, when Estonians first got family names, it is authentically Estonian.  Her first name, Leida, is authentically Estonian too, but Google Search has never come across Bižarde in any nation.  Geni.com, a genealogy Website much used in the Baltic States, can find only Flaavi's mother with with this given name.

Starting with a B as it does, Bižarde is likely to be an import from another language, but from where? Does it help to know that the name transliterates into Бизарде in Cyrillic?  If you know more, dear reader, please feel free to comment below.

A family like her's, living in eastern Estonia as Flaavi's daughter, Tatyana Tamm, has found (specifically, Unipiha village, Nõo parish, Tartu county) would have been exposed to a lot of Russian cultural influences.

Tatyana also has found that Flaavi's Hodunov grandfather, Efim, was born in the village of Tverdyat', which is southeast of Narva and 110 Km distant by road.  Flaavi's great grandfather, Nikolai, was a farmer there.  That's long way from Ukraine, let alone Ukraine's border with Rumania.

Mixing ethnic groups up by translocation was a deliberate policy of the Soviet Union, in an attempt to reduce nationalism developing, but it occurred as well in Tsarist Russia, probably for economic reasons.

Efim was born in 1869, so Nikolai probably was born in the 1840's or 1830's.  It may be that the family was moved to Tverdyat' from elsewhere in the Tsarist Russia when Nikolai was young or even earlier.

As for the motor car locksmith trade, another of the First Transporters, a Lithuanian, called himself an 'engine locksmith' when interviewed by the Australian press in December 1947.  Did motor car and engines (perhaps pulling trains) have different locks to houses in the 1940s and earlier?  Who knows about this?  Please feel free to comment below if you do, reader.

A later entry on Flaavi, by one of his daughters, Tatyana Tamm is at https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/05/more-about-flaavi-hodunov.html.

American Expeditionary Forces Displaced Persons Registration Record
for Flaavi Hodunov in Germany

Source:  Arolsen Archives

SOURCES

Arolsen Archives, 'Folder DP1475, names from HODIONENKO, ANNA to HOFFEINS, Marija (2)'

https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/67368899?s=hodunov&t=2738137&p=0, accessed 20 March 2024.

'Lionel Noble Photo Collection, Peterborough Station', https://lionelnoble.com/station/ accessed 20 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; HODUNOV, Flaavi : Year of Birth - 1927 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 920, 1947–1948.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; PROSZKO, Wasylisa : Year of Birth - 1930 : Nationality - UKRAINIAN : Travelled per - WOOSTER VICTORY : Number - 85482, 1949 –1949.

'Railway transport: Locomotives and rolling stock 3'6" narrow gauge [B58892/492]', photograph, State Library of South Australia, https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/B+58892/492, accessed 20 March 2024.

Tamm, Tatyana (2024) Personal correspondence.

'V 9, The oldest steam loco in South Australia', http://www.australiansteam.com/V%209.htm, accessed 19 March 2024.

Povilas Deimantas (1917-2009): A Peterborough Balt, by John Mannion

Born in Lithuania, Povilas Deimantas was already 30 years old when he boarded the General Stuart Heintzelman for the longest trip of his lifetime, from Germany to Australia. 

Povilas (Paul) Deimantas in 1947,
ID photo from his Bonegilla card
Source:  National Archives of Australia

He was a subject of the newspaper reports I told you about in my first blog entry.

He recalls that after several weeks at the Bangham camp, 18 were selected to transfer in the South Australian Railways (SAR) system to Peterborough, midway between Adelaide and Broken Hill. He had no bloody idea where Peterborough was! 

Those selected had a good grasp of the English language and were largely self-motivated with the prospect of becoming engine drivers in 'loco' or as station staff in 'traffic'. Paul explained to me that these were the fortunate ones and that he planned to become ‘a big man’ in the railways! 

Back to the Balts: when Deimantas disembarked from the Heintzelman at Fremantle in November 1947, his first impression of Australia was one of disappointment — it was so ugly! The first things he noticed were the dry yellow grass and the dead trees — nothing like Lithuania (which was green and densely forested) — the public drinking and the Italian migrants. 

He didn't find Bonegilla in north-east Victoria much better — he disliked the intense summer heat as well as peeling potatoes, which he had to do in the camp for two weeks. 

At Bangham on the Wolseley to Mount Gambier railway line, the 62 workers slept in tents and water was in short supply.  At Peterborough, the men first lived in tents and later Nissen huts and other 'prefab' buildings which were relocated from Loveday Internment [WWII] Camp in the Riverland. 

Then a migrant hostel was built on Telford Avenue adjacent the railway workshops and ‘loco’.  Initially designed to house only single men, in the 1950s with the influx of German and Polish migrants, families were admitted.  Up to 200 people at as time lived at there.  The hostel operated on and off  from 1948 until 1972. 

Peterborough migrant hostel in 1952, in its quiet location next to the railway yards;
the still-standing Nissen hut is on the left of the buildings

Source:  John Mannion collection

In 1975 the hostel was demolished and removed by tender. Very little is known of who bought it and where the buildings went. Now the only remaining building left on the site is a Nissen hut that served as a recreation room. 

Despite only staying at Peterborough for four years, Povilas and his colleagues are still remembered by many in Peterborough for their manners, behaviour and appearance, particularly by the young girls of the 1950s. By now, Povilas would have been using the English form of his name, Paul. 

Paul Deimantas (centre) and friends
at the Peterborough Town Hall about 1949

Source:  John Mannion Collection

Although there was general acceptance, life was often difficult for these and other new Australians at Peterborough or other locations within the Peterborough Division of the SAR. At times they had to put up with some racial discrimination, the most common being called a 'Bloody Balt' or told to 'Speak English you bastard'. 

However, it is surprising that despite the influx of over 300 European migrants into a country town where Australians had heard virtually no foreign languages on their streets, there was little prejudice. This is attributed to the fact that Peterborough was a working class town with a very transient population. 

There was some fear of these 'strangers’ however, particularly among the youngsters. A 15-year-old girl who moved from Marree to Peterborough for schooling and lived with her grandparents in 1950 recalls that although she had been exposed to Afghans and Aborigines, she did not know what to make of the 'Balts' with their long pushed-back hair. She would not go near them, convinced they ‘would take me away’. 

Another girl who grew up at Peterborough during the ‘Balt’ era relates how they would not even leave the pegs on the line in case the ‘Balts’ stole them. 

It has been said that friendships were difficult to establish at Peterborough, as ‘you didn't know where your mate might be next week’. This did not detract from some firm friendships however, with quite a few long-term railway families staying in the town. 

Paul relates a story about the time at Bangham when the ganger phoned the railway storeman at Mt Gambier for a bag of fish-plate bolts to be sent up, only to be told ‘You've already got 60 bloody Balts up there, isn't that enough?’ 

Learning English was not always easy: from whom were they supposed to learn English? Was it the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish, the English or Australians? The other difficulty in learning English was that they were often put to work in track maintenance gangs with a number of their own countrymen, thus making it easier to communicate with each other, but not the ganger in charge. 

However, those who wanted to ‘get on' watched, listened, asked questions, carried notebooks and learned. Paul was curious as to what a ‘water bag’ was — he had heard of a water tank and water bottle, but could not picture a ‘bag of water’. 

A canvas water bag from about 1950,
Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society

Source:  Victorian Collections

A young migrant railway worker heads for the Peterborough hostel with
 a) a tucker box at the left and b) a water bag on the right

Source:  Harry Piers/John Mannion collection

The other thing was the dust. Paul felt that it took him five years to get used to the heat, dust and flies. 

After shifting to Mile End in 1952, Paul met and married his Australian-born wife June. He clearly was more than acceptable to at least one Australian now.

Paul died on 13 November 2009, at the respectable age of 92, having been born on 6 October 1917.  June, having been born in Adelaide on 25 November 1931, died on 29 July 2018, also at a respectable age, 86.  They have been buried together in the Dudley Park Cemetery, Adelaide.

SOURCES

Dudley Park Cemetery Search Records, https://search.dudleyparkcemetery.com.au/ accessed 17 March 2024.

National Archives of Australia,National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] 1947–1956; DREIMANTAS [sic], Povilas : Year of Birth - 1919 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 911, 1947–1948, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203662951

Victorian Collections, From the Collection of the Kiewa Valley Historical Society, Bag Canvas Water Circa 1950, https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/507df2be2162ef014495f50f