Jonas Motiejūnas on How the Lithuanian Scouts in Australia Started, with Ann Tündern-Smith (with much help from Google Translate and Gemini.ai)

Updated 1 August 2026.

Back in August last year, we looked at the life of Jonas Motiejūnas, who had been made leader of the Lithuanian men on the First Transport in the Diepholz camp where all had been gathered to await their departure to Australia one week later.

Jonas Motiejunas' ID photograph from his Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

We have also looked at how Borisas Dainutis, chosen by the Lithuanian scouts' organisation in Germany to lead the scouts going to Australia, devoted himself to a campaign of having them recognised as a discrete unit within the Australian scouting movement.  That was in July last year.

Photograph of Borisas Dainutis attached to his selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Now these two themes come together, in an article written by Jonas for a scouting publication in Germany detailing how the scouts organised themselves while on the General Heintzelman and in their first days in Australia.  It is in English below, with lots of help from Google Translate and Gemini.ai.

The first meeting of the Lithuanian Scouts going to Australia took place on 9 November 1947, on board our ship, General Stuart Heinzelman, passing through the Suez Canal. The scout authorised to take care of the Lithuanian scouts travelling to Australia, Assistant Section Leader Borisas Dainutis, took over the duties of the leader, choosing Assistant Section Leader Algirdas Liubinskas as his deputy.

Algirdas Liubinskas (left) and Borisas Dainutis at the First Pan-Pacific Scout Jamboree,
Yarra Brae, Victoria 1948-49

Source:  Weekly Times, Melbourne, 5 January 1949

Here, the idea of dividing the scouts into groups was introduced. It also was decided to strictly monitor the behaviour of the scouts and, if necessary, to immediately remove them from scouting, because our task as the first Lithuanian scouts is to represent our homeland and its culture in the best possible way.

On the evening of 10 November, the next meeting took place on the deck of the ship.  After reading the orders to the group, its leader reminded everyone in warm words of the tasks of the Lithuanian scouts in Australia.  He highlighting the consequences of good behaviour and scouting for our nation and for the future of the country.  

Scout and folk songs echoed on the ship and the waves of the Red Sea, uniting the scouts of the new company in close friendship. It was proposed to think about the name of the group and prepare for a bonfire.

On the evening of November 14, on the deck, while the ship was sailing in the Arabian Sea, there was a joint meeting of the younger scouts and senior scouts. In the official proceedings, order No. 3 was followed by a rendition of the anthem, "Lithuanians we were born".

The leader read a long essay by Lord Baden-Powell about the tasks and duties of a Venturer Scout.  At intervals, there was singing.  On this occasion, the leader once again urged us, in sharp words, to think carefully about remaining in the ranks of the scouts, because the tasks were great and the duties heavy.  Participation in the national dance group was clarified and it was asked to prepare performances for the next meeting.  Finally, the Vyčiai song (the anthem for the Rover Scouts) was performed.

On 15 November, the management met, with the participation of the Girl Scouts' leader, Konstancija Brundzaitė.

The leaders of the groups were ordered to collect personal information and scouting knowledge from the scouts, to repeat all scout knowledge in the groups and to prepare for a joint public bonfire with the Latvians and Estonians. 

After discussion, it was agreed that the Vyčiai (Rover) badge must be worn below the Union badge near the left pocket. The name of the society should express our irrepressible desire to return to the homeland. The meeting was concluded with a minute of silence, remembering our native land and our Vyčiai duties to it.

In the evening of 19 November, a joint meeting of Venturer and Rover scouts was held. Many did not participate.  The songs intended to be sung at the joint bonfire were rehearsed.

The long-awaited joint Lithuanian-Latvian-Estonian bonfire was held on the upper deck of the ship  on 22 November at 7 pm.  All free seats were occupied by passengers interested in the bonfire. The IRO representative, Lithuanian Captain Žibās, and the ship's commander with his team watched the performances from the bridge. 

The countless Estonians performed especially beautifully.  The Lithuanians were weak, especially in singing, although two-thirds of the participants were from our country.  Not enough effort and practice!

I cannot discuss the bonfire program in more detail, because the wind caught hold of my sheet of notes, lifted it to the top of the mast and blew it into the ocean. 

The bonfire was led by Lithuanians, Assistant Section Leader Algirdas Liubinskas and Senior Sea Scout Patrol Leader Aleksandras Gabecas.

In  Fremantle, on 30 November, in order to get acquainted with the newly arrived scouts, the Australian Sea Scouts’ District Commissioner, Brother Jack, arrived at the Swanbourne camp.  There, some of our men had spent a few days of rest after a 10,231 nautical mile (18,948 kilometre) journey.  He invited several senior scouts to go and see the Sea Scout headquarters.  It was agreed immediately to hold a joint bonfire in the evening.

The Australians liked our program at the previous evening's bonfire so much that they invited us to repeat it during the scout hour on radio on the evening of 1 December. The hastily gathered Lithuanians and Estonians went by train to the radio station.  Balanda Dulaityte (already Mrs Liubinskienė, although this was not known to the authorities) explained our origin and arrival in English .

The sailors' march was sung, and Juozas Songaila played a medley of national melodies (on his piano accordion). The Estonians sang several songs. Everywhere we were shown great sincerity.

None of these three Skaudu Aidas articles mention the arrival in Melbourne
but Gabecas' article includes this photograph of Australian Girl Guides
waiting to greet the Lithuanian scouts;
there's at least one equally interesting element in the upper right,
which looks like a young lady in a very short skirt for the times and white boots

Source:  Skaudu Aidas

In the Bonegilla camp, on 18 December, a Chief Scout representative from Melbourne, another scouting official and a Girl Scout leader came to visit. Having greeted the scouts of all three nationalities who had gathered together with kind words, he was pleased that Australia had received many new scout leaders, whom it lacked. A few songs were sung in the visitors' honour.

Later on 18 December, scouts of the city of Albury visited. Unfortunately, due to the long drought, the danger of bush fires was so great that we had to be content with a kerosene lamp.

Here I should note that in Australia, bushfires are quite frequent and cause very great losses, as entire grain farms, sheep and cattle herds burn, and it is very difficult to fight the fire when everything is completely dry. 

Again, there was a singing session.  Aleksandras Gabecas performed excellently with a string of bottles tied to a pole and filled with water.  The Australian leaders were presented with our scouting publications, and they rewarded us with fruit.

On 4 January 1948, there was another meeting, during which a tracking exercise was conducted.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This story ends abruptly, perhaps due to a decision by the editor of the publication in which it appeared, Skautų Aidas or Scouting Echo, published during 1923-2023 and, in 1947, being edited in a DP camp in Augustdorf bei Detmold, Germany.  I thought it might be because the next item, by Jonas Urbonas, might continue the story without a break.  It does not.  Instead, it is about a campfire on 6 January when the Scouts farewelled their "first swallow", Vytas Kunciunas, who was off to Pyramid Hill.

We've already used some of that article in a biography of Vytas in this blog, when we found it reprinted in Mūsų Pastogė some 50 years later.

What is missing from this sequence is the drowning of Aleksandras Vasiliauskas on 4 January 1948 and his funeral, in which the scouts played a leading role, on 5 January.

NOTE:  This is the second item in a series written by Lithuanian Scouts who resettled in Australia.  We have not translated the first item, as it is about the voyage to Australia on a later Transport.  The second item, on a campfire at Bonegilla in early January was written by Jonas Urbonas and the third, from Aleksandras Gabecas, is about moving to his first job in Tasmania (at Rosebery, about which Jonas Mockūnas has written already.)

CITE THIS AS:  Motiejūnas, Jonas (1948) (How the Lithuanian Scouts in Australia Started) Translation and comments from Ann Tündern-Smith with Google Translate and Gemini.au.

SOURCE:  Skautų Aidas (Scouting Echo) (1948) 'Įspūdžiai Is Kelionės Australijon, 2. Jau Laive' ('Impressions From a Trip to Australia, 2. Already on Board', in Lithuanian) Augustdorf bei Detmold, Germany, 15 June, p 29 https://www.spauda2.org/skautu_aidas/archive/1948/1948-Nr05-06-SKAUTU-AIDAS.pdf, accessed 17 July 2026.

Alexander Nõmm (1922-2000): Sportsman, Builder, Family Man, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Silvi Nõmm Simpson

[Silvi Nõmm Simpson is the daughter of Aleksander.]

The photograph below comes from the collection of Aleksander Nõmm. It shows him with 3 Lithuanians, whose names he could not remember.

Aleksander Nõmm is seated on the running board of the truck in this photograph
which we have used 3 times already in this blog, for Edvardas Lapinskas on the left,
Bernardas Matkevičius in the cab and Juozas Nakas on the right

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

Fortunately, it matches exactly with a photograph already supplied by Diana Bučiūtė, a niece of Juozas Nakas, who wrote his life story for this blog. There it was 3 named Lithuanians with an unindentified Estonian.

Now identified, Aleksander was born on a farm on the Estonian island of Saaremaa on 8 May 1922. He was named after his uncle, also Aleksander. Estonians often shorten Aleksander to Sass or sometimes Sander. His uncle was known already as Sander so the younger Aleksander got Sass.

Aged 18 or 19 in 1941, he found himself conscripted by the Soviet military machine into servitude in Russia. This was a period of his life about which he did not like to talk much.

He later believed that his loss of taste and smell was due to the freezing winters he spent in Siberia nearly starving, but being a farm boy, he knew what to eat to survive. His work was mainly building barracks, which meant that he developed carpentry skills which he could offer the Australian migration selection team in 1947.

After three years in Siberia, Aleksander was able to return to Estonia when the Soviets used all the manpower they could find to advance against the German occupation of the Baltic States.

Another Estonian who came to Australia in November 1947 on the First Transport with Aleksander, a man maybe 15 centimetres shorter than Aleks (who was nearly 2 metres tall), once told Ann that there was one Estonian on the ship of whom others were afraid. This was because he was a big man who had walked all the way back from Siberia.

At the time, Ann imagined an escapee on a solitary journey, living off the land. Even if the other Estonian was describing someone who had survived a walk from Siberia with a military unit, he still was talking about a massive effort. It could have been an effort which lost many participants under its wartime conditions. It was a walk from Asia, across Europe to an island off its west coast.

Back on Saaremaa, he joined other local men in what was meant to be a surprise attack from the rear on the German occupiers of their island. However, two German machine-gunners were able to fight off the invaders. Most were killed as the seawater turned crimson with their blood.

Sass was among a handful of survivors taken to Germany as prisoners-of-war. They left from the port of Mõntu on Saaremaa's Sõrve Peninsula.

The report of his interview for possible migration to Australia repeats some of this, saying that he arrived in Germany in October 1944, brought as a prisoner-of-war.

The carpentry skills that Sass said he had developed in Siberia were in great shortage at the time of his interview. As we’ve reported in some other entries in this blog, building was minimal during the War. Many of the people with the necessary skills were in the military, the Federal Government had brought in restrictions and the building that did go on mostly was for military needs.

So what did the selection team write on its report of the interview? Occupational suitability: “Heavy general labouring”. This is why “labourer” Nikolai Müristaja landing a first job in his watch-making profession in an earlier entry is so amazing.

The middle of three sons, Sass was the only one who was taken westwards by the Germans. After the Soviet occupation of 1944, his older brother, Heimar, decided to remain in the woods and fight. He became was the Estonians call a “forest brother” or metsavend.

While he participated in a guerrilla war from his forest bunker, the younger brother (Artur) and a sister 10 years younger than Sass (Linda) were the ones who kept Heimar supplied with food from the farm. Heimar and Artur were caught.

Heimar, the metsavend, was sentenced to a mere 10 years in a labour camp for treason. Artur received a 5 year sentence for assisting treason.

The thinking behind the March 1949 deportations from the Baltic States to the Gulag is said to have been, “Your family member is there already so you can join them”. It also was expected to destroy the economic base of the Kulaks, the small farmers, a class to which the Nõmm parents belonged. Thirdly, it was expected to destroy support for the Forest Brothers. Father, Jaan, then 63 years old and mother, Marie, then 56, were rounded up and sent off to Siberia for an indefinite period, the rest of their lives.

Sass’ sister Linda had caught pneumonia and was being cared by family friends. This meant that she was not at home when the authorities came looking for the family of Heimar and Artur. She was not deported.

Heimar and Artur did hard labour, shovelling hazardous materials, and it is believed in the family that this is why they both died young. Artur was lucky enough to have been released in December 1951, from a camp in the Archangel Oblast, having served a 4 and a half year sentence, and no doubt expected to survive as best he could. He died in 1986, still in a Communist country, aged 61.

Heimar was released in July 1955, from a camp in the Komi Autonomous Republic in the northeast of European Russia (around 1,000 Km east of the Archangel area) after 8 and half years of hard labour. He died in January 1981, also aged 61. In contrast, Linda was 78 when she died, her mother was 82, her father was 2 days past his 89th birthday, and Sass lived until he was 98.

As for destroying support for the Forest Brothers, Estonia had a least 2 who died without giving up, in 1980 and 1987, even after the last active one drowned himself rather than surrender when caught fishing by the KGB in 1978. The last Forest Brother of all was Jānis Pīnups, who emerged from the Latvian forests in 1995.

After his liberation in Germany in March 1945, towards the end of World War 2, Sass was in the Oberkassel camp on the Rhine River. He remembers Canadian Red Cross parcels were received by the camp administration but the managers took out the cigarettes, coffee and best clothes for themselves.

By 1947 he had moved to one of the four camps for Estonian displaced persons in the town of Melle. It was there that he heard about the Australians seeking young men and women to work in their country.

Aleksander in Melle, Germany, 1947

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Sass reckoned that he had his first real meal in six years on board the General Stuart Heintzelman. He was employed in the shipboard butcher’s shop for the duration of the voyage. Like other non-smokers, he used the freely issued American cigarettes to barter for other luxuries.

He remembered that the ship had steam turbines and a system which condensed the steam, giving plenty of fresh drinking water and allowing the use of large shower rooms. (Another passenger on a later voyage to Australia told Ann that the showers were hot, something special in those days.)

Those people who had brought musical instruments on board the Heintzelman formed a dance band which played during the evenings. The tables in the Heintzelman mess facilities could be hoisted up to the ceiling to create a dance floor.

Sass learnt modern dances, such as the samba, rumba and tango, while he was in Germany. He said he was best at the tango, but he was not musical or a folk-dancer.

On the train to Bonegilla, Sass thought that his first sight of eastern Australian countryside was “like a desert”. In early December, the fields were dry already. The yellow grass was a shock because he had thought that Australia was going to be mainly tropical.

Bonegilla itself was very exciting for the young Estonian men at first. They even found the local rabbits exciting. Sass remembers letting two of them loose in the barracks. Possums invaded the barracks without human assistance.

They went swimming in Lake Hume and found that they could catch yabbies for meals. There were big fish in the Lake also, near the Hume Weir, but their attempts to catch them were unsuccessful.

Those who returned late to the barracks would be welcomed with a bucket of cold water perched carefully on top of the partially open door.

Busloads of girls turned up from Wodonga and Albury to meet the new young men in the camp. Despite his dancing skills, Sass was afraid to take any of the girls to a dance as they were well dressed, while he “looked like a scarecrow”.

While in Bonegilla, the displaced persons received 5/- per week “tobacco money” for personal spending, after the costs of their board were deducted from their social security payments. At that time, a packet of tobacco cost 2/6.

His first Australian employer was the company of CJ Row, Webb and Anderson which operated what Sass called the Eildon timber mill. We know it from the Bonegilla cards as a timber mill at Thornton, about 12 Kilometres away from the better-known township of Eildon. Both are more than 130 Kilometres away from the company’s headquarters in South Melbourne. Given that much of the trip is on rural roads, it still is around 2½ hours drive between South Melbourne and Thornton or Eildon.

Sass reported Row and Webb were generous Australians, counterbalanced by Anderson, a “stingy Pom”. Sass received a minimum of £5/12/- for a five-day week, from which he paid 16/- tax and 36/- for accommodation and board. This left £3/-/- to spend or save.

Aleksander stacks timber at the Thornton mill

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

After three or four months, his weekly wages went up to £7/10/-. Also, he found that he could earn an extra £3 on Saturday mornings doing piecework for Mr Webb. However, the accommodation provided was in barracks which had grass growing through the gaps in the floor. The gaps also permitted lizards to make forays through the barracks.

Aleksander (left) and another employee among the stacked timber

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

While he was at Thornton, Sass attended English classes four days a week. Among the other DPs employed by Row, Webb and Anderson were the 3 Lithuanians in the photo above, who spoke to him in German, so he learnt some German there also. He had not picked up the German language while in Germany as he always was in camps with other Estonians.

Three Lithuanians and an Estonian again, with their clothes suggesting that this photo was taken in the same session as the truck photo: from the left, Edvardas Lapinskas, Aleksander, Bernardas Matkevičius and Juozas Nakas, with the CJ Row, Webb & Anderson sawmill in the background

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

After finishing his compulsory employment at the Thornton Mill, Sass was able to find other work, but it was “three weeks here, six weeks there”. The Dunlop tyre company provided him with better employment, but best of all was Kraft Foods.

He started work with Kraft in 1953 and stayed with the company more than thirty years, until he retired in 1985. He was employed as a storeman, and a forklift driver and eventually in the company’s office.

At some stage, possibly even in his Estonian youth, Sass took up sport. As mentioned already, he was tall, and of medium build when younger, so he had the right body for a sportsman. His speciality in Australia was the shotput and javelin, until he damaged his shoulder.

Oberkassel, Germany, 1946:  Two volleyball teams with their trainers/managers
in plain clothes in the middle of the front row, with Sass 4th from the left

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

In December 1949, a sports writer for the Melbourne Herald listed him as one of 9 javelin throwers invited to tests for inclusion in the Victorian athletics team. Success would lead to the Australian championships and inclusion in the team for the Empire Games (now the Commonwealth Games) in Auckland, New Zealand, two months later.

The Australian Estonian newspaper, Meie Kodu, reported in January 1950 that he had competed in the Victorian Athletics Championships, despite the heat affecting all competitors. Affiliated with the Box Hill Club, he was placed third in the javelin. It looks like Sass just missed out on the Victorian team in the leadup to an Australian team for the Empire Games.

The first Australian Estonian Sporting Games were held in Melbourne during Easter 1954. Sass did well, coming second in the long jump with a leap of 5.78 metres and second also in the shotput, with a throw of 11.53 metres.

In June 1954, Sass was participating in an Estonian volleyball team which was involved in trial games against others to determine the grades in which eventually they would play. The Estonian team had won its 3 games so far. The following month, Meie Kodu reported that they had defeated a Greek team, Olympic (of course), maintaining a record of 5 wins and no losses.

Meie Kodu also reported in the same month that Sass had chaired a meeting of Melbourne sportspeople and was chosen to be the coach of the girl’s handball team.

Another Australian Estonian Sporting Games were held in 1955. Sass came second in the long jump again, with a slightly shorter jump of 5.74 metres. It looks like there was no shotput competition.

He wasn’t just a sportsman. He successfully played bridge as well. As early as July 1954, Meie Kodu was reporting Sass coming second in a bridge doubles competition when partnering another First Transport arrival, Sven Kiviväli.

By 1957, Sass was building his own house in the northern Melbourne suburb of Fawkner, having married Irene Sein who arrived in Australia in 1949. Their only child, Silvi, was born while the house was going up. Silvi worked as a librarian, married and provided 2 grandchildren to Sass and Irene. Mrs Nõmm also had an older son. The family moved into the Fawkner house in 1958.

That year was also the year when Sass became an Australian citizen, with Irene on 5 March 1958.

A turning point must have been reached in 1957-58, with marriage, house-building and citizenship, as there are no more digitised reports of A. Nõmm’s sporting achievements.

At the time of writing in 2026, Melbourne Estonians had held a Last Hurrah weekend to farewell their Estonian House on Melville Road in West Coburg 6 weeks previously. Back in 1971, they were renovating the recently acquired former cinema. A contributor to Meie Kodu listed those who turned up every weekend to help, including Sass and his bridge partner, Sven Kiviväli.

All dressed up and somewhere to go, 9 Estonians from the First Transport, probably in Melbourne's recently renovated Estonian House:  Standing, left to right, Ants Sumberg, Valentin Reesel, Erich Väli, know to all as "Potsa", Lembit Koplus (looking really happy to have left Pyramid Hill), Kalev Veermäe, Sven Kiviväli, and kneeling, left to right, Ralf Knuude, maybe Mihkel Kaige, Aleksander Nõmm 

Source:  Collection of Aleksander Nõmm

After arriving in Australia, Sass has lived and worked only in Victoria, but travelled by car through NSW, South Australia and as far north as Mossman in Queensland. He undertook bus tours of Tasmania and from the centre of Australia to Darwin. He and Irene toured New Zealand.

Ill health, however, prevented travel back to Estonia, even after its second independence in 1991. He didn’t actually want to go, because he wanted the memories of how things were to stay in his mind.

Irene died on 29 March 2008, days short of her 86th birthday. This was the point when Sass had to leave the home he had built himself. He lived with his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren for nearly 3 years. Then more health issues forced him into retirement care with Claremont Terrace Aged Care, McKinnon, near where his family lived.

Sass stayed there for another 9 years, passing the respectable age of 98 years. The ashes of both Sass and Irene rest in the Estonian section of the Fawkner Memorial Park in northern Melbourne.

SOURCES

Estonia’s Victims of Communism, Search Nõmm https://www.memoriaal.ee/en/search/?q=N%C3%B5mm&f=all, accessed 1 July 2026.

Hayward, Steve (1949) ‘Jack Davey's Test In Six-Mile Event’, Herald, Melbourne, 8 December, p 27 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244143925, accessed 19 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1950) 'Melbourneist' (‘From Melbourne’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 26 January, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85529847, accessed 10 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1953) 'Melbourne', (In Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 27 August, p4, https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1953/08/27/4, accessed 14 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) ‘Terves kehas terve vaim' (‘A healthy mind in a healthy body', in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 29 April, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85536610, accessed 10 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) 'Melbourne' (in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 1 July, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85536914, accessed 19 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) 'Sport, Melbourne' (In Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 8 July, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85536935, accessed 10 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) 'Melbourne' (in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 15 July, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/85536971, accessed 19 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) Sydney, NSW, 'Melbourne', (In Estonian) 15 July, p 3 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1954/07/15/3, accessed 14 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1954) 'Melbourne', (In Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 29 July, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article85537041, accessed 11 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1955) ‘Rekordid kõnelevad’ (‘The records speak for themselves’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 10 February, p 3, https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1955/02/10/3, accessed 14 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1971) ‘Eesti Maja’ (‘Estonian House’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 14 October, p 2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1971/10/14/2, accessed 14 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1972) ‘Rahvuskapitali Tänu’ (‘National Fund Thanks’, in Estonian, Sydney, NSW, 20 September, p 2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1972/09/20/2, accessed 16 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1974) ‘Melbourne, Märkmeid Yarra-Linnast’ (‘Melbourne, Notes from the City on the Yarra’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 11 September, p 3 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1974/09/11/3, accessed 16 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1981) ‘Rahvuskapitali Tänu’ (‘National Fund Thanks’, in Estonian, Sydney, NSW, 9 September, p 2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1981/09/09/2, accessed 17 June 2026.

Meie Kodu (Our Home) (1985) ‘Meie Kodu tänab Toetuskaardid’ (‘Meie Kodu Thanks Supporter Cards’, in Estonian) Sydney, NSW, 9 September, p 14 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1985/12/18/14, accessed 17 June 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; 212, NOMM Aleksander DOB 8 May 1922, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005625, accessed 17 June 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; NOMM ALEXANDER, NOMM, Alexander : Year of Birth - 1922 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 608, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203902046, accessed 17 June 2026.

Nõmm, Aleksander (2003) Personal communications, 9 January and 16 September.

Viktoras Žeimys (1914-1997): Footballer, Cook, Telephone Technician, by Rasa Ščevinskienė and Ann Tündern-Smith

More than one year before the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the First Transport, the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman, at Fremantle with 839 Displaced Persons on board, about to settle in Australia, in 1996 the Mūsų Pastogė Australian-Lithuanian newspaper was publishing reminiscences.

One of them was from Viktoras Žeimys, a professional footballer in Lithuania and even in Germany before selection for Australia. Let’s translate what Viktoras wrote from his Lithuanian.

Professional footballer in Germany

“I lived in the Rotenburg DP camp in the British zone of Germany. [Rotenburg is about 45 km west of Bremen, more by road]. At the end of July 1947, when emigration to Australia began, I did not think of emigrating there because I played football for the German team, and the club urged me to stay in Germany — they would give me a good job, I would live closer to my homeland ...

“In the camp, those who wanted to emigrate were examined by Dr Ivinskis. He advised me to emigrate. He said — you will not play football all your life, but there you may find a better life. When I decided to go, he filled out the necessary forms and checked my health.

“After that, they sent me to Hanover to check my health and political past, and after a few weeks, to the Diepholz camp, where they mainly checked my lungs, blood, etc. Later, my health was also checked by Australian emigration and UNRRA officials.

[Viktoras’ selection papers for emigration to Australia have been lost, so we no longer have access to what Dr Ivinskis or the others wrote, nor a photograph of the footballer from those days. Further, we don’t know what the Australian officials recorded about his arrival in Germany or his work there or earlier. We do know that he passed the medical exams or we would not be writing about his now.]

“During the last inspection, we had to take off our underwear and raise our hands — they checked whether we had SS signs (tattooed blood groups on our arms, near our armpits). [Lots of the men with whom Ann was able to talk twenty years ago spoke about raising their arms so that they could be checked for the blood group tattoo, but Viktoras is the first so far to put this aspect of the checking for migration to Australia into writing.]

“We received our personal documents, and a few days later we were taken to the port of Bremerhaven, where we boarded the beautiful USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. Goodbye to our homeland, Lithuania, goodbye to Europe!

The Mūsų Pastogė caption for this photograph said that it was taken in Bremerhaven,
just before boarding the Heintzelman, and Žeimys was second from the left:
we think that meant that he's the one in the light-coloured coat with the shrug

Mūsų Pastogė captioned this photograph, "Five future Australians on board": Žeimys was fourth from the left and Teresevičius was next to him, but Žeimys could no longer remember
the other names 49 years later — do you recognise anyone?

Source: Mūsų Pastogė

A Soviet Submarine!

“Upon entering the Red Sea, rumours spread on the ship that a Soviet submarine was following us and, possibly, wanted to sink us. Of course, these were just rumours, and on November 28, 1947, we arrived in the port of Fremantle, Western Australia, having spent 28 days on the journey.

Viktoras Žeimys, identity photography from his 1947 Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

“After spending [nearly] a week in a military camp near Fremantle, on December 5, we boarded the Australian warship HMAS Kanimbla. We were taken to Melbourne. From there we took a train to Bonegilla, Victoria, an emigrant camp set up in a former barracks. I was put to work in the kitchen.

Google's Gemini AI thinks that the man on the far left of this photo of Bonegilla staff,
most of them working in the kitchen, could be Viktoras Žeimas

Source:  Collection of Galina Vasins Karciauskas

From Bonegilla to Bathurst to Tully, Queensland

“A few months later, when an emigrant camp opened in Bathurst, NSW, I was with a group of other workers who were transferred there. I worked as a cook again.

“Later, I worked for a season in the sugar cane harvest in Queensland, but, not having made a fortune, I returned to the kitchen.

“In 1949, I was sent to the Army Cooks School. After graduating, I worked as a cook in an army unit, where I completed my two-year government contract. But even after graduating, I did not give up my job as a cook and worked at the Sydney Yacht Club, and from 1952 to 1979 — at the NSW Post Office.”

Viktoras Becomes an Australian Citizen

The digitisation of Australian Government gazettes by the National Library of Australia’s Trove service shows that Viktoras was amongst the very first from the General Stuart Heintzelman to apply for and be granted Australian citizenship. He received his citizenship certificate on 5 June 1953, only 6 months after he became eligible.

He then lived on Hugh Street, in the Sydney suburb of Belmore. The Australian citizenship means that Ancestry.com allows us to follow any changes of address or occupation until 1980, the year of the last digitised electoral roll. During this period, he and his wife continued to live at the same address, while Viktoras continued to record his occupation as telephone technician. By the time he died, though, the family had moved into the neighbouring suburb of Belfield.

Mūsų Pastogė correspondents have filled in more of Viktoras’ life. “AVK” for example, undertook the sad duty of an obituary after Viktoras died before that 50th anniversary, one month after his 83rd birthday, on 17 July 1997.

Chef? Footballer! Telephone technician ...

AVK pointed out that while Viktoras worked at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron club in Kirribilli, he had the opportunity to cook lunch for Sir Robert Menzies. He received a very large tip from the Prime Minister that afternoon.

AVK explained that Viktoras was a member of the Sydney branch of Ramovė, the organisation for former members of the Lithuanian military. His military speciality had been communications. After completing his military service, he worked for the Lithuanian Post Office and was an active athlete. As a member of the Lithuanian football team, he travelled all over Europe.

[While AVK described Viktoras, apparently also known as "Stasys", as a member of the "Lithuanian football team", we have been unable to find him in any lists of players for Lithuania in the late 1930s.  It looks as if Viktoras was good enough to travel with the squads but never had the opportunity to take to the field in any FIFA-recognised international match for Lithuania.]

Viktoras Žeimys in military uniform

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

We also learn from AVK that Viktoras’ speciality with the Lithuanian and NSW Post Offices was as a telephone technician. Abandoning his cooking career, despite Prime Ministerial patronage, indicates that Viktoras found the challenges of sorting telecommunications problems more to his liking than the challenges of new recipes.

Return to Lithuania

In 1991, Viktoras returned to Lithuania for the 4th World Lithuanian Games. Mūsų Pastogė published 3 articles about this visit. The first was based on an interview in the Mūsų Pastogė office and appeared on 1 July 1991.

The footballer about to return to Lithuania

Source:  Mūsų Pastogė

Viktoras was asked what prompted him to return to Lithuania. To that he replied, love of one’s native land, youthful memories, the desire to participate in the 4th World Lithuanian Games, and also the opportunity to meet with footballing friends. He hoped to renew acquaintances about whom he had dreamed in exile for more than forty years.

Viktoras explained that he started to play for the Žemaitis team in his home town, Kretinga, when he was only 13 years old. Given that he was born on 14 June 1914, this would have been in 1927. Three years later, he was invited to join the Klaipėda team, Švyturis. That was in 1936, he said, meaning that 6 years were lost somewhere in the explanation.

in 1938, the chairman of Kaunas football club, Kovas, asked him to join this team. He played there until the war began.

Viktoras had been told that former sports people in independent Lithuania were invited to participate in the opening of the 4th World Games in Kaunas. He was waiting excitedly for that day and hour.

The second article in Mūsų Pastogė, on 23 September, repeated an article in the Klaipėda city newspaper, which also was called Klaipėda. Their honoured visitor had started a Sydney football team in 1954, later coached Australian football players [meaning members of the national team?], and then coached juniors. However, he had said goodbye to active football completely in 1971, when he was 56 or 57.

The third report was published on 2 December 1991. During the opening ceremony for the Games in Klaipėda, 77-year-old sports veteran Viktoras Žeimys walked onto the field, knelt down and kissed the green grass. Before the War, he had played there many times with his father, he told Robertas Mackevičius, who was responsible for the stadium’s maintenance.

When he left, Viktoras handed Robertas 100 dollars and told him, "Tidy up our field, I really want everything to be beautiful here like before."

Robertas Mackevičius did not spend this money on the maintenance of the grass. When it was necessary to pay salaries to the stadium employees one month later, and “the winds were whistling through the bank account”, he took those dollars to the bank and exchanged them for roubles. Mentally thanking the Australian Lithuanian, he paid modest salaries to his small group of colleagues.

Robertas consoled himself with the thought that he still had 38 light bulbs left in the storeroom.

Still supporting Kovas at 80

In April 1995, the sports reporter for Mūsų Pastogė noted that Viktoras was still involved in sports. He was always present when the Sydney team, Kovas, trained. He always supported the athletes with donations and took care of their problems. He was unable to attend to the 1995 World Lithuanian Games but he had donated $50 to the athletes who were going and wished them good luck. [The Reserve Bank of Australia advises that, 30 years later, $50 would buy a basket of goods and services worth nearly $110.]

Viktoras the Scout

Two years later, after Viktoras’ death, an initial report in Mūsų Pastogė noted that he also had been a scout in his youth. In 1933, on 17 August, he had participated in a massive rally in Palanga, Lithuania, which brought together Lord Robert Baden-Powell, Lady Olave Baden-Powell, and a contingent of 650 British Scouts and Guides with nearly 2,000 Lithuanian Scouts and Guides. The British delegation was received by the President of Lithuania, Antanas Smetona, at his official summer residence in Palanga, and a street was named in Baden-Powell‘s honour.

The end, and the family

Viktoras was not well in the last few years of his life, so he was rarely seen at Lithuanian events in Sydney — apart from training sessions for Kovas, it would seem. His cause of death was a heart attack.

Viktoras Rufinas Žeimys was buried on 21 July 1997 in the Lithuanian section of Rookwood Cemetery after a funeral service conducted by Fr Jonas Girdauskas. The chairman of the Sydney Ramovė branch, Antanas Vinevičius, farewelled him on behalf of his comrades. We note that his name was Australianised for the burial: Victor Rufin Zeimys.

He met and possibly married his younger wife, Anna Katerina in Germany. She died 14 years after him and is buried with him.

We know that they had at 3 children, 2 daughters and a son. That’s because a daughter accompanied Viktoras on his 1991 return to his homeland and the 4th World Lithuanian Games. Sadly, the son, John Phillip, born in March 1954, lived for only 63 years, dying in March 2017. His ashes rest in a wall among other Lithuanians in Rookwood Cemetery. We hope that the 2 daughters, named as Anna and Elizabeth in the obituary by AMK, are doing well.

The father with whom he played football on the grass of the Klaipėda field was Juozas, who had married Marijona Zmidaitė according to the details on an American Expeditionary Forces DP Registration Form completed for Zeimys somewhere in the south west of Germany in October 1945. That form also reports that he left in December 1945 for a DP camp in Freiburg in the French Zone of Occupation. Perhaps he had heard that the Displaced Persons there were keen on football.

SOURCES

AEF DP Registration Record, ‘Žeimys, Viktoras’ Document ID 69001742, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69001742, accessed 22 June 2026.

Alfas (1995) ‘Sportas’ (‘Sport’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 17 April, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1995/1995-04-17-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Australian Cemetery Index, Name/Cemetery Search https://austcemindex.com/?family_name=zeimys&cemetery=1150, accessed 21 June 2026.

“AVK” (1997) ‘A † A Viktoras Rufinas Žeimys, 1914.6.14 – 1997.7.17’ (‘RIP Viktoras Rufinas Zeimys’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 1 September, p 7 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-09-01-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Bonegilla Migrant Experience, Bonegilla Identity Card and Memory Collection, ‘Viktoras Zeimys’ https://idcards.bonegilla.org.au/record/203728731, accessed 21 June 2026.

CM/1 No.207702 ‘Zeimys’ 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from SA, Folder DP3618, names from SEJMICKI, WACLAW to ZEZNELOVICH, Shaban (1), ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69001743, accessed 22 June 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1953) ‘Certificates of Naturalization’ Canberra, ACT, 16 July, p 1978 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/232810367/25083994, accessed 22 June 2026.

Find a Grave ‘Anna Katarina Zeimys’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/180428496/anna-katarina-zeimys, accessed 21 June 2026.

Find a Grave ‘John Phillip Zeimys’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/272633188/john-phillip-zeimys, accessed 21 June 2026.

Find a Grave ‘Victor Rufin Zeimys’ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/180428497/victor-rufin-zeimys, accessed 21 June 2026.

Mundrys, Virgilijus (1991) ‘Kai pristinga pinigų …’ (‘When money is tight...', in Lithuanian) Respublika, 12.10.1991, reprinted in Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 2 December, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1991/1991-12-02-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1991) ‘“Pašaukė tėvynės ilgesys”’ (‘“Called by longing for the homeland”’, in Lithuanian) Sydney, NSW, 23 September, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1991/1991-09-23-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Mūsų Pastogė (1995) ‘Mirė a.a. Viktoras Žeimys‘ (‘Died, RIP Viktoras Zeimys’) Sydney, NSW, 28 July, p 7, https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1997/1997-07-28-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; ZEIMYS VIKTORAS, ZEIMYS, Viktoras : Year of Birth - 1914 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number - 737, 1947-1958 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203728731, accessed 24 June 2026.

National Football Teams, 'Lithuania, Lietuva:  Players of Lithuania in 1938' https://www.national-football-teams.com/country/108/1938/Lithuania.html, accessed 28 June 2026.

National Football Teams, 'Lithuania, Lietuva:  Players of Lithuania in 1939' https://www.national-football-teams.com/country/108/1939/Lithuania.html, accessed 28 June 2026.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Inflation Calculator, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualDecimal.html, accessed 20 June 2026.

Ryerson Index, Search for Notices https://ryersonindex.org/search.php, accessed 21 June 2026.

“V.A” (1991) Pasiilgau gimtosios žemės (‘I Miss My Native Land’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 1 July, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1991/1991-07-01-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Žeimys, Viktoras (1996) ‘Pirmieji metai Australijoje, Emigrantu į tolimqjq Australiją’ (‘First Years in Australia, Emigrant to distant Australia’, in Lithuanian) Mūsų Pastogė, Sydney, NSW, 5 August, p 6 https://www.spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1996/1996-08-05-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf, accessed 22 June 2026.

Nikolai Müristaja (1912-1989): Watchmaker, Jeweller, Gardener, by Ann Tündern-Smith

Nikolai starts Australian life with a job in his speciality

By some fluke, Nikolai Müristaja, recruited as a Labourer to Australia from Estonia via Germany after WWII and travelling here on the General Stuart Heintzelman, was sent for his first job after arrival to employment which really suited him.

Might this have been because his first employer, recorded on his Bonegilla card as “Geo. W. Speirs of Griffiths” (sic) had thought to ask at Bonegilla if any of the new arrivals had trained as a jeweller or watchmaker?

The fluke would have been anyone know that Nikolai had this training, and advising Mr Speirs of it. (I am assuming that Nikolai's own English and knowledge of his industry in Australia was not yet up to the task of making his own enquiries.)

Nick Müristaja with friend, Griffith, NSW, 1948

Source:  Collection of Valeria Mets Blackburn

Watchmakers and Jewellers

The Estonian Pärnu Päevaleht newspaper reported, on 9 February 1935, that Nikolai Muristaja was about to receive a certificate commemorating his passing of examinations in the field of working on time-pieces.

The one known newspaper advertisement for the business opened by Nikolai in the northeast Estonian town of Kiviõli, as a watchmaker who also sold moderately priced crystal, gold and silver object, optical requirements, etc.

Source:  Rahvaleht, 30 May 1940, through DIGAR

George W Speirs, according to a notice about his will published in the Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales on 30 November 1962, was a Jeweller and Farmer in Griffith, New South Wales. Since Jewellers often are Watchmakers and repairers too, what a match with Nikolai!

In time (no, that pun was not intended), Nikolai opened up his own business as Nick Muristaja the Jeweller. This was not in competition with George's business, but because it was getting more work than he and Nick could handle in the one workshop.

Nick the Jeweller opens his second business, this time, in Griffith, NSW

Source:  Estonian Archives in Australia

The Estonian Archives in Australia, in its collection of papers relating the Nick and his wife, Nora, has an advertisement for Nick Muristaja, The Jeweller, clipped from an unknown Australian newspaper with no date. It also has a clipping from the Riverina Daily News, dated 21 October 1970 and titled, Griffith Jeweller Bows Out.

The latter reports that Nick worked for “this particular jeweller for about 15 years”, meaning that he would have started his own business in perhaps 1963. This was soon after George Speirs died, but a business in the family name still exists in Griffith. It is likely that Nick first helped the family and executors with the handover to its heir or heirs.

Selling his business in 1970 means that Nick ran it for only 7 years.

Nick the Jeweller bowing out from his Griffith shop

Source:  Daily News, Griffith, 21 October 1970 via

Estonian Archives in Australia

His plan was to retire to the coast. An  anonymous, undated summary of Nora’s life, including Nick, held by the Estonian Archives, places this on the NSW Central Coast.

Nick's Birth and Death

Having been born on 16 August 1912 (in Leisi, on Saaremaa Island) Nick was aged only 58 in October 1970 and 71 in July 1984. He died on 5 August 1989, just before his 77th birthday. Either he was temporarily unwell in 1970 but recovered in retirement, or he had made and invested enough money for his foreseeable needs and those of Nora.

In July 1984, Nick still had enough money saved to travel to North America for ESTO (the global Estonian cultural festival) held every four years, this time in Toronto, Canada. According to Vaba Eesti Sõna (Free Estonian Word), he also had stopovers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Lakewood (New Jersey, where many Estonians lived) and Long Island, New York, and would move on to Europe.

Nick Marries

Nick and Nora had married on 8 December 1951, not in Griffith where Nick was living, but in another Riverina town, Leeton. It is about 45 kilometres away from Griffith as the local birds fly, more by the local indirect roads. Why Leeton was chosen we no longer know.

The Riverina Daily News journalist, Jim Mulcair, told his readers that the couple had first met in Germany and their marriage was followed by a one-day honeymoon in another local town, Narrandera. Nora then flew to Adelaide, where she was working as a nursing aide in the Northfield Mental Hospital.

Nikolai's early life and War

Jim Mulcair summarised Nick’s early life in Estonia as training in the village of Vändra, about 45 Km northeast of the city of Pärnu, and in the capital city, Tallinn. He than opened his own shop in the northeast town of Kiviõli. This is where he was located, close to Russia, when the Soviet Union first invaded in the summer of 1940.

He told Mulcair that, “I lived an adventurous life during the War, experiencing the good and the bad. I found myself at the front line, fighting the Nazis, who captured me 3 times. I escaped from their prison camps in Germany, Russia and Czechoslovakia, the last one of which was the worst camp I have seen.”

It is interesting that Nikolai focussed on fighting the Germans, yet finished the war in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. I suspect that he told the Australian journalist what he wanted to hear, knowing that the Germans were Australia’s enemy during the War. For Estonians and other Baltic people, the Germans were unwanted invaders but the Soviet Union, based in Russia, was even worse.

The Australian selection team’s report on the intending immigrant has him working as a watchmaker for 5 years (from that 1935 certification), followed by 7 years as a labourer, including the last 5 months labouring for a farmer in Germany. It looks everyone was too busy to get watches and clocks repaired during the War.

The selection report leaves empty the places where the team might have recorded Nikolai's date of arrival in Germany and his reason for coming.

Mulcair’s report continued, “After the War, no-one seemed to know what Nick was so he was placed in a Displaced Persons camp.” An Arolsen Archives record card for a file destroyed in 1951 reports that Nick was in “DP Shop Oldenburg”, presumably the workplace associated with his camp. His medical examination for migration to Australia was carried out in Oldenburg, confirming the separate record of being in a DP camp there. Another sheet records his address as “Assembly Centre 224”, which a Web search confirms as likely to have been in the Oldenburg area, where there were camps for Baltic people and Poles.

Photo of Nikolai Müristaja from his 1947 selection papers

Source:  National Archives of Australia

While Nick has only two records in the Arolsen Archives, his wife-to-be, Nora Lellep, has 6. She was in DP Camp 2515, and DP Camp Sandplatz, in Oldenburg, explaining how she and Nikolai may have met in Germany. She was classified then as a Nurse. (She had been the Head Housekeeper on a farm owned by the President of Estonia, Konstantin Päts, an association which would make her, even now, prima facie a political refugee.)

More on Nora

Soon after the marriage, Nora was touring northern Tasmania in February 1952 when she was involved in a fatal motor vehicle accident. The driver of a panel van which collided with the car in which she was travelling, with a driver and 4 others but not Nikolai, died before he could be moved to a larger hospital in Launceston. The accident was front page news in the North Eastern Advertiser based in Scottsdale.

The anonymous, undated, summary of Nora’s life says that she worked as a nurse in Tasmania but says nothing about the time. She also had nursed at a mental hospital near Newcastle, at the Concord Hospital in Sydney (which we have considered in some detail already) and in Melbourne. It does not mention Adelaide.

Nick and Nora Become Australians

Nick became a naturalised Australian on 20 November 1957. Nora was naturalised in the same ceremony, but for some reason known only to officialdom, this was confirmed in a Commonwealth Government Gazette 4 months after Nick’s naturalisation was announced.

Retirement and Gardening

According to the Archives’ summary, Nora and Nick had retired to the Central Coast before moving to the Estonian Retirement Village in Thirlmere, NSW. After Nick died, on 5 August 1989, days before his 77th birthday, Nora moved into the Retirement Village’s Hostel. That is where I met with her 20 years ago.

Nora Müristaja's own photograph of her late husband, Nikolai

Source:  Müristaja collection

scanned 7 August 2006

She was in her nineties then, and thought that the man in the large framed photograph might be her brother when it was her husband. She could still remember winning gardening competitions with the garden she and Nick developed in Griffith though. Jim Mulcair reported first prizes in Griffith, Riverina and Sydney garden competitions. Nora showed me the certificate for what might have been a Sydney Morning Herald competition, but it appears not to be in the Estonian Archives collection.

Ülle Slamer, who had worked with Nora when both of them had first arrived in Australia, celebrated Nora’s 100th birthday in late 2012 in Meie Kodu. She confirmed that the first prize was in a Sydney Morning Herald competition, in 1963. Retirement to the Central Coast was a home in Gosford, where they also won a first prize for gardens in small towns.

Nora accepts a sash for winning one of the garden competitions

Source:  Estonian Archives in Australia

They also created a new garden around their unit in the Thirlmere retirement village.  When Nora moved into the hostel, she started a rock garden there.

Jim Mulcair and Ülle Slammer both mentioned Nora’s bark paintings. They were popular with purchasers in Griffith and, later, in Newcastle (a major city north of Gosford).

In 1987, “O.P.” reviewing the art exhibition at the 13th Estonian Days gathering at the end of the previous year, included both Nikolai and Nora as less well known exhibitors. We could expect someone who made his living from jewellery as well as watch repairs to have something of an artistic bent.

Nora Müristaja on her 100th birthday

Source:  Meie Kodu via DIGAR

Nora lived to be 101 years old. Her ashes now lie next those of her husband of 38 years, in a repository in the Thirlmere Cemetery.

A plaque for Nigoolas Müristaja in the Thirlmere Cemetery
(The Estonian version of Nikolai usually is spelled 'Nigulas';
'Puhka rahus' means Rest in Peace)

Source:  Ken on Find A Grave

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I wish to thank Terry Kass, Archivist at the Estonian Archives in Australia, for copying that Archives' file on the Muristajas for this project.

FOOTNOTE:  Estonians think that the Müristaja name might have been handed to the family as a joke, given that Nikolai's meek appearance might have been inherited from his male forebears.  It means "Thunderer".

CITE THIS AS:  Tündern-Smith, Ann (2026) 'Nikolai Müristaja (1912-1989): Watchmaker, Jeweller, Gardener'

SOURCES

AEF DP Registration Record 'Muristaja, Nikolai' https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/68364350?s=muristaja&t=2740782&p=0, Reference Code 03010101 16 266, Folder DP2802, names from MURINAS to MURNIEKS, Modris (1), ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/search/person/68364350?s=muristaja&t=2740782&p=0, accessed 9 June 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) 'Certificates of Naturalization, Nikolai Muristaja’ Canberra, ACT, 8 May, p 1442, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240891976, accessed 3 June 2026.

Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (1958) 'Certificates of Naturalization, Nora Muristaja’ Canberra, ACT, 4 September, p. 2870, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240881940, accessed 3 June 2026.

Geni 'Nikolai Müristaja' https://www.geni.com/people/Nikolai-M%C3%BCristaja/6000000007645412229, accessed 9 June 2026.

Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales (1962) ‘RE will of GEORGE WILLIAM SPEIRS, late of Griffith' Sydney, NSW, 30 November, p 3619, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article220383899, accessed 17 March 2026.

Mulcair, Jim (1970) ‘Griffith Jeweller Bows Out’ Riverina Daily News, Griffith, NSW, 21 October, p 1.

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; 206, MURISTAJA Nikolai DOB 16 August 1912, 1947-1947 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=4105816, accessed 7 June 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; LELLEP NORA, MURISTAJA Nora - Nationality: Estonian - Arrived Sydney per Svalbard 29 October 1948 Also known as NEE LELLEP recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9195434, accessed 7 June 2026.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; MURISTAJA NIKOLAI, MURISTAJA, Nikolai : Year of Birth - 1912 : Nationality - ESTONIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 602, 1947-1948 recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203729837, accessed 7 June 2026.

North-Eastern Advertiser (1952) 'Serious Accident Near Derby' Scottsdale, Tas, 26 February, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149421507, accessed 17 March 2026.

“O.P” (1987) ‘XIII Eesti Päevade näitusel’ (‘At the 13th Estonian Days Exhibition’, in Estonian) Meie Kodu, Sydney, 29 April, p 4, https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1987/04/29/4, accessed 4 June 2026.

Pärnu Päevaleht (Pärnu Daily Paper) (1935) ‘Uusi ostustöölist’ (‘New Craftspeople’, in Estonian) Parnu, Estonia, 9 February, p 3 https://dea.digar.ee/page/parnupaevaleht/1935/02/09/3, accessed 3 June 2026.

Rahvaleht (National Paper) (1940) [Advertising] Tallinn, Estonia, 30 May, p 8 https://dea.digar.ee/page/rahvalehtvabamaa/1940/05/30/8, accessed 4 June 2026.

‘Refugee/Displaced Person Statistical Card (Lellep, Nora)’ Reference Code 03010101 14 150, Folder DP2339, names from LEKES, Vavrinec to LELIONKA, Vincas (2), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from L, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/68011981, accessed 7 June 2026.

‘Resettled file, Muristaja, Estonian’ Reference Code 03010101 16 266, Folder DP2802, names from MURINAS to MURNIEKS, Modris (1), 3.1.1.1 Postwar Card File / Postwar Card File (A-Z) / Names in "phonetical" order from MI, ITS/Arolsen Archives https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/68364349, accessed 4 June 2026.

Slamer, Ülle (2013) ‘Nora Müristaja pühitses 15. detsembril 2012 oma 100 aastast sünnipäeva’ (‘Nora Müristaja celebrated her 100th birthday on 15 December 2012’, in Estonian) Meie Kodu, Sydney, NSW, 30 January, p 8 https://dea.digar.ee/article/meiekodu/2013/01/30/25.1, accessed 4 June 2026.

Vaba Eesti Sõna (Free Estonian Word) (1984) ‘Reporteri Märkmikust’ (‘From a Reporter’s Notebook’, in Estonian) New York, NY, 5 July, p 8 https://dea.digar.ee/page/vabaeestisona/1984/07/05/8, accessed 7 June 2026.