Valentinas Dagys (1927 – 1972): My father, by Jedda Barber

My father was passenger number 137, Valentinas Dagys, on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman that arrived in Fremantle, Australia, on 28 November 1947. He was called Vili by his Lithuanian friends and Bill by his Aussie family and friends. He left his parents and sister in Lithuania at the age of 17 and arrived in Australia aged 20.

An identity card dated 30 March 1943, when my father was 16, and valid until 30 September 1943:  His father's name was Jonas, he was a student and
he lived in Biržai at 6 Agluonos Street

If you click once on this map, you can enlarge it in a separate window of your browser to read the details:  each of the red circles shows places where my father stopped on his journey from Lithuania during the War, while each of the black ovals to the west shows placeswhere he stayed in Germany when the War was over

The details of my father's flight come mostly from letters that were sent from Germany back home to family.

A bundle of letters was hidden in a door frame of the family home and discovered when the new owners renovated around 2010. They gave the letters to the Biržai Regional Museum, Sela.

I assume the letters were hidden because they came from Germany and this would not look good if seen by the occupying Russians.

I learned of their existence when I wrote to a neighbouring address in 2015 after looking at the home through online maps. I noticed an old timer in the garden next door so decided to write to him.

These two images show the front and back of a postcard my Dad sent successfully
from Magdeburg to Biržai while Hitler was still in power, on 5 February 1944

The family home in Agluonos Street, as it looked in 2016

Source:  Collection of Viltis Šalyte Kružas

Scouting and Guiding groups were active among all three nationalities on the First Transport.  They had been set up in the camps in Germany, they formed again on the ship to Australia and remained active in the Bonegilla camp.

Here a clipping from the Lithuanian language weekly newspaper in Australia records those who were part of the first Lithuanian Scouts groups at Bonegilla fifty years previously.

Source:  Tündern-Smith, Bonegilla's Beginnings

This photo is of the Sea Scout group on the ship to Australia;
the grey line in the middle of the left-hand side points to my Dad

Dad was listed as a Sea Scout on the USAT Stuart Heintzelman.  In his home town of Biržai (northern Lithuania), he was part of the crew of the Biržiečių Sea Scouts' yacht "Diver" built in 1938 that reached the Baltic Sea.

Dad at the Blue Lake, Mount Gambier, South Australia, 1948

Vili left the Bonegilla camp on 9 January 1948 for his mandatory two years' work.  He was part of a group of at least 32 sent to the SA Department of Woods & Forests in Mount Gambier for employment as a labourer.

Edward Kurauskas, the former representative player for Lithuania, had arrived in Australia on the Second Transport, the USAT General Stewart, on 13 February 1948.  No doubt he was glad to find the cluster of at least 23 Lithuanians already in Mount Gambier
at the Woods & Forests camp. 

Source:  Border Watch (Mount Gambier) 8 July 1948 via Trove

Vili pretending to play the piano accordion;  he could play the harmonica

After moving to Adelaide, he was involved with the amateur Lithuanian theatre group that performed plays at the Lithuanian House, Norwood, during the 1950s and 60s.

My parents, Bill and Cynthia, on their wedding day in 1958,
at Rosefield Methodist Church, Highgate, South Australia

In Adelaide, Bill had various jobs, including manufacturing electric engines and selling land.

Dad's boat on the Murray River, with his friend William on board

The home that my parents built in 1960 in Secombe Heights, South Australia,
faced west with ocean views and was one of the first houses on the hill: 
we lived there until Dad's death in 1972

REFERENCES

Border Watch (Mount Gambier, SA), 'Want to teach men's basketball', 8 July 1948, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/78588215, accessed 8 July 2023 (yes, exactly 75 years later).

Tündern-Smith, Ann, Bonegilla's Beginnings, 2nd ed, Triple D Books, Wagga Wagga, NSW, 2014, p 93.

Margarita Vrubliauskienė (1911 - ?): Canberra goes on strike over Balt housemaid, by Daina Počius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024

‘When attractive Balt housemaid Margarita Vrubliauskiene waved a mop at the manageress of the hostel where she is employed, it nearly plunged Canberra into a major upset’.

So began one of many newspaper stories about an altercation which almost brought Canberra to a standstill. Over a three-day period in August 1949, newspapers from Innisfail in North Queensland south to Hobart in Tasmania, through Melbourne and Adelaide to Perth and Geraldton in Western Australia reported the situation. Grafton, Lismore, Wagga Wagga, Broken Hill, and Narrabri worried as Canberra negotiated.

The housemaid was Margarita Sadauskaitė-Vrubliauskienė. She was born in 1911 in St Petersburg. She arrived in Australia aged 36 on the First Transport ship, the General Stuart Heintzelman, on 28 November 1947. She was sent to work at the Mulwala Hostel in Canberra on 22 December. The hostel was run by the Department of the Interior for up to 240 public servants in Canberra.

Margarita Vrubliauskiene's photo from her Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

When Margarita was ill in bed, she had refused a request from the new management for her to work. This had led to what the Secretary of the Canberra Branch of the Liquor and Allied Trades Employees' Union called “pin-pricking”. Margarita had interpreted something said as a threat to return her to Germany and understandably became hysterical.

On 10 August, she was given 48 hours’ notice of dismissal for alleged insolence and insubordination. Fifty colleagues walked off the job in support of her. The Department of the Interior sent some staff to help but they could not cope, leaving 202 Mulwala residents to prepare their own dinners and breakfasts.

Margarita had worked at Mulwala for nearly two years with no fault found in her work. The local Conciliation Commissioner said that she could stay at Mulwala until another job was found for her but refused to order her reinstatement. Hearing this decision, the 40 employees of Mulwala Hostel who had walked out stayed out. They were on strike! As the strike continued, the residents had to make their own beds and clean up after themselves …

The Commissioner stated that he thought it was in Margarita’s own best interests that another place of work be found for her. He would not reinstate her because, if he did, “Mulwala might as well be handed over to the staff to run it themselves”. Revolutionary thought!

The strikers comprised 23 Balts and 17 Australians. The Balt strikers probably included Viktoria Berdagans who had been sent from Bonegilla to the Hostel together with Margarita. As well, we know from their Bonegilla cards that Ramona Biemelis and Jevgenija Zagorska had arrived to work there soon after. The 202 residents included 13 First Transport women who had been sent to Canberra to work as typists: Irina Fridenbergs, Elvira Kärmik, Heldi Kull, Valeska Lans, Veronika Ludzitis, Lucia Maksim, Vally Meschin, Aino Meere and her sister Maimu Naar, Elin Põldre, Reina Roosvald, Natasha Shersunova and Juta Usin. This headcount from the Bonegilla card records does conflict with statements elsewhere that 10 of the women in Canberra were working as typists.

On the following day, the strikers decided to join Margarita’s case with that of another migrant employee alleged to have received unsatisfactory treatment. Unless both issues were settled, and the manager with his wife removed from Mulwala within 24 hours, the Mulwala staff would seek the support of the staff of 15 other hostels in Canberra, and 5 hotels. Such a general strike would affect around three thousand residents of these establishments.

What was more, a number of newspapers noted, State Premiers, the Federal Cabinet and members of the Liberal Party, all of whom were due to meet in Canberra the following week, would be preparing their own meals. As the Hobart Mercury headlined on 12 August, ‘Tin-openers may be in demand’.

Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior, responsible for the hostels, asked the Conciliation Commissioner to order the Mulwala strikers back to work. He refused to do this. However, he told the Union that he would not hear an application to vary the award governing its members’ pay and conditions unless they returned to work on 12 August. The hearing for the award variations had been due to start on 15 August, but the Commissioner proposed not starting for another 3 months.

The Union Secretary told the Commissioner that he had advised the staff against striking but they had been reluctant to return to work. They had asked that their problems be discussed with the Union’s executive. The Secretary advised that the general strike would not be started until NSW State executive had considered the situation.

However, the threat of not hearing the case for the award variations worked. On Friday night, 12 August, the strikers decided to return to work on Saturday morning and abide by the decisions of a special meeting of Union members on Sunday. A deputation of staff from Mulwala and another hostel with some issues, Gorman House, headed by the Union Secretary, had called on the head of the Department of the Interior. He had promised to investigate their complaints if they returned to work. The strikers were concerned that if they stayed out, they would prejudice the claims of their fellow members to early consideration of improved conditions.

The Sunday night meeting of 150 Union members decided unanimously that the Mulwala staff should remain at work and abide by conciliation. This was on the basis that the head of the Department of the Interior would make full in inquiries into the actions of the manager and his wife while at both Gorman House and Mulwala House. The strike was over.

The husband and wife management stayed on. We know that Margarita would have been found a new workplace but do not know where it was. As other women from the First Transport were working at 6 of the 15 hostels, there was plenty of choice. We do know that, later on, she was the manager of the Astor Motel in Albury but had remarried a Pole and so changed her family name. The Astor Motel, by the way, recently has been renovated in such a retro style as to earn a report in the New York Times.

As for the hysteria on misunderstanding that she would be sent back to Germany, Margarita has gone out of her way to ensure that she was on the first ship of displaced persons to Australia. She must have heard that all of its passengers were supposed to be single. She had separated from her husband so that she could claim to be single when interviewed, even though anyone with a knowledge of Lithuanians could tell from her surname ending that it belonged to a married woman. She had placed her daughter (actually, her adopted niece) in a German hospital run by nuns. Clearly, she was very keen to get out of Germany, maybe – like many others – keen to get as far away as possible from Europe and war.

Lioginas, her husband, reached Australia on the Svalbard transport on 29 June 1948. He had been a judge in Lithuania but was sent to the Department of Works in Canberra, perhaps so that he could be near his wife. Her daughter, Henrika, was 18 when she arrived on the 12 February 1948 on the Second Transport, the General Stewart. She was employed at Mulwala Hostel with her stepmother. In September 1948, she married a General Heintzelman passenger, Alfredas Kuljurgies, in Canberra.

Henrika painted landscapes from the area surrounding her home on the road from Wodonga to the Bonegilla camp. One painting is held in a public collection, at the Murray Art Museum, Albury. She died in October 2010. She is remembered by the Henrika Kuljurgies Reserve, on a creek which runs through the new Killara village built across the Murray Valley Highway from where she used to live and into the Kiewa River.

Lioginas, Leo in Australia, died in 1984 in Canberra. If we had Margarita’s later married name, we could tell you more about her life too.

Lionginas Vrubliauskas is on the right of this Canberra photo,
a First Transporter, Birute Gruzas, is in the middle and
a gentleman remembered only by the family name Ceposz is on the left.

Source:  Collection of Birute Gruzas

Note:  We have used the 'Balt' descriptor in this article because this is the word that nearly all the newspaper reporters used.  As a noun to describe a native or inhabitant of the 3 Baltic states, it has been around since at least the late 18th century.  It was quickly applied to the Displaced Persons who arrived on the First Transport, since all of them were from the Baltic states.  The Second Transport, however, brought a greater variety of nationalities, mostly from the Baltic States and Yugoslavia but including 11 Poles, 4 Ukrainians and 2 from Czechoslovakia.  From then on, the variety of source countries grew to include all which now had Communist governments.  'Balt' was becoming inaccurate.

In August 1949, Arthur Calwell, who was Minister for Information as well as Australia's first Minister for Immigration, begged the press to use the term 'New Australian' instead of 'Balt, DP or Displaced Persons'.  However, his request was issued on exactly the day that our strikers walked off the job, so the message had not reached the journalists whose reports we have used.

References

Archives ACT, ‘Find of the month, February 2019, Mulwala House, https://www.archives.act.gov.au/find_of_the_month/2019/february/previous-find-of-the-month-22019, accessed 4 July 2023.

Australian National University Archives, ‘Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees' Union of Australia’, https://archivescollection.anu.edu.au/index.php/federated-liquor-and-allied-industries-employees-union-of-australia, accessed 3 July 2023.

Holden, Katrina, ‘The Return Of The Great Australian Motel, with Wi-Fi and a Day Spa’, New York Times Style Magazine: Australia, 23 March 2021, https://taustralia.com.au/the-return-of-the-great-australian-motel-with-wi-fi-and-a-day-spa/#, accessed 4 July 2023.

‘Margarita Vrubliauskiene’, AEF DP Registration Record, Arolsen Archives DocID 69771010, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/69771010, accessed 5 July 2023.

Mercury (Hobart), 'Tin-openers may be in demand', 12 August 1949, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/26635831, accessed 4 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; KULJURGIS NEE VRUBLIAUSKAITE, Henrika : Year of Birth - 1929 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GENERAL STEWART : Number - W 1974, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203635339, accessed 5 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; VRUBLIAUSKAS, Lionginas : Year of Birth - 1906 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - SVALBARD : Number - V 11912, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203714270, accessed 5 July 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla]; VRUBLIAUSKIENE, Margarita : Year of Birth - [UNKNOWN] : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 1190; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203714271, accessed 5 July 2023.

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

 

The Age (Melbourne), 'ACT domestics talk strike', 12 August 1949, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/189454321, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Liquor trade to review strike at Mulwala House', 13 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818471, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Mulwala Hostel Staff to Accept Arbitration', 15 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818666/692528, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'No award while Mulwala staff is on strike', 12 August 1949, p 3, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818296, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Canberra Times, 'Week-end penalty rates for nurses at Hospital’, 16 August 1949, p 2, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2818809, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW), 'Hostel strike over Balt girl', 11 August 1949, p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/248978113, accessed 4 July 2023.

 

The Sunday Times (Perth), ‘Waved mop and started a dust-up’, 14 August 1949, p 1, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59493257, accessed 5 July 2023.

The Sydney Morning Herald, '25 D.P.s on strike in Canberra', 11 August 1949, p 4, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18125036, accessed 4 July 2023.

The Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Canberra hostel staff to end strike',13 August 1949, p 10, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27584469, accessed 5 July 2023.

Wikipedia, ‘Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees' Union of Australia’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_Liquor_and_Allied_Industries_Employees%27_Union_of_Australia, accessed 3 July 2023.

Karolis Prašmutas (1914–1985): Ingenious and Compassionate, by Ann Tündern-Smith with Birute Prasmutaite

Karolis Prašmutas had moments of fame among English-language readers only two years after arriving in Australia. He had built a photographic enlarger out of bits and pieces and sent an enlarged print of himself standing with it to the Department of Immigration. The print was used in a Departmental publication, Tomorrow’s Australians, in December 1949. You can read the text below the photograph.

With the headline changed to, He Made This Gadget Himself, and slightly altered text, the photograph also appeared in the January 1950 edition of another Departmental publication, The New Australian.

The Melbourne Age newspaper decided that the story was too good to pass, so ran its own version on 11 January 1950 in a column called News of the Day. The Age wrote, without including a photograph, ‘A flair for improvisation has enable Mr. K. Prasmutas, a Lithuanian migrant now employed by the State Electricity Commission at Yallourn, to overcome an obstacle which was hampering his hobby of amateur photography.

‘Mr. Prasmutas needed a photographic enlarger but could not obtain one anywhere. He decided to build one himself, and after fossicking around the scrap heaps near his quarters he found enough material for the job.

‘The amazing variety of bits and pieces he collected included a piece from the tailshaft and the headlight from an old car, two piston oil rings, a piece of water piper, two powdered milk tins, one jam tin, two pieces of glass and a 100-watt globe.

‘To prove that it worked successfully, Mr. Prasmutas enlarged a photograph of himself on his homemade machine and sent it to the Department of Immigration, which published the photograph in the recent issue of its bulletin, The New Australian.’

The fourth publication to carry the story of the homemade enlarger was house magazine of Karolis Prasmutas’ employer, the State Electricity Commission (SEC). It headed its April-May 1950 report, Ingenuity, and started, ‘Making a photographic enlarger “off the land”, as it were, presented no obstacles to Mr. K. Prasmutas, a Commission employee at Yallourn and formerly from Lithuania. From the various scrap heaps nearby he obtained a miscellaneous collection of items and, exercising his ingenuity, built the enlarger pictured (below)’.

The next two paragraphs are more or less the same as those in the Age, but the magazine used a different photograph. Perhaps it was even taken by its own photographer given that Prašmutas has suited up for the occasion.

The enlarger with Karolis Prasmutas from the SEC's magazine

I have been told that plans for building a photographic enlarger from scrap were circulating in Displaced Persons camps in Germany after World War II. Regardless of whether or not Karolis kept one of these plans or even was influenced by one, the important point is that he actioned the idea. He built an enlarger from Australian scrap and proved that it could work.

The same issue of the New Australian which carried the report of Karolis’ homemade enlarger published a paragraph from a letter he had written to it. The sheer volume of letters being received prevented the publication of anything more than this: ‘I think that all newcomers who will not think about the new country differences, but will do more to overcome difficulties, will be happy in Australia’.

That appears to have been the extent of his coverage in the English-language press, but Karolis Prašmutas has much more to say in his native Lithuanian. The Australian Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė (Our Haven, Our Refuge) has been digitised in the National Library’s Trove collection until the end of 1956 only, but Prašmutas had at least one entry each year.

Sometimes it was just the inclusion of his name in a list of donors to a worthy cause. On other occasions, he wrote his thoughts at some length. It is clear from these that he was a major supporter of the idea of a Lithuanian House in Melbourne, with appeals for its funding.

The Lithuanian House still operates in North Melbourne. I remember well lunching there more than 10, maybe 15 years ago, with Karolis’ widow and their 2 daughters — without realising how instrumental Karolis had been in the creation of these spacious premises. I also have attended a conference there, the Lithuanian House being roomy enough to accommodate such activities.

The entrance to Lithuanian House in North Melbourne

Source:  https://www.lithuanianclub.com/

Karolis also appealed for funds for compatriots still in Germany. In both of these types of articles, he would raise some of the objections put to him by other Lithuanians, and dismiss them. In one he wrote, in Lithuanian of course, ‘ … maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now, you will be in need of comfort and support. The saying is correct: "You give to your neighbour — you give to yourself."’

On the occasion of his 50th birthday in early 1964, Mūsų Pastogė published a glowing tribute.

Karolis married a fellow Lithuanian, Morta Stakaityte, on 20 September 1952.  They had 2 daughters, Zita and Birute, and one son, Linas. 

Morta and Karolis on their wedding day ...

Source:  Prašmutas family collection

... and in later life, 1984

Source:  Prašmutas family collection

Karolis died from heart disease on 14 September 1985, at the age of 71, having been born on 19 January 1914 in the Lithuanian village of Bernotai. Morta died in May 2014, surviving her husband’s death by more than 28 years. Morta was 10 years younger than her husband and a respectable 89 years old at the time of her death. They are buried together with Morta’s mother in Fawkner Memorial Park, Melbourne. They had been granted Australian citizenship together in 1964.

Karolis’ selection papers for migration to Australia indicate that he had spent all of World War II in Germany as a prisoner of war, having joined the Poles in fighting against the German invasion of September 1939. His Personal Statement and Declaration, given at the Graylands military camp in Perth, Western Australia, the day after he arrived at the end of November 1947, indicates that he had trained in the Polish Army. 

His life in Germany as a prisoner of war must have been a hard one indeed.  No wonder he was declared only borderline fit by the Australian medical officer who examined him after his interview.

He had been working as a car mechanic in Germany for 13 months before presenting to the Australian selection team in September 1947.  He had also worked as a car mechanic in Lithuania for 2 years, presumably before World War II erupted in neighbouring Poland.

Josef Šeštokas in his Welcome to Little Europe book on the Displaced Persons sent to work in Yallourn in the Latrobe Valley, records that fellow refugees living in the same camp as Prašmutas regarded him as more dignified than the average and gave him the Lithuanian nickname, Baronas, meaning Baron. The photograph on his Bonegilla card supports that assessment.

Karolis Prašmutas' Bonegilla card

Source:  National Archives of Australia

His death certificate gives his occupation as a ‘fitter’, a person who puts together, adjusts, or installs machinery or equipment. No wonder he was able to put those disparate metal parts together into a photographic enlarger!

His skills, reinforced by that publicity, must have impressed his employer, the SEC, even before it sent its photographer to record them for the house magazine.  No doubt to their mutual satisfaction, the SEC ensured that Karolis had work which used those skills, so he stayed with that one employer for the rest of his working life.

Prašmutas family headstone, Fawkner Memorial Park, Melbourne

Source:  Ron M on FindaGrave.com

His two daughters have gone on to make significant contributions to Australia’s Lithuanian and broader communities too. The older daughter, Zita, is a musician who was the organist for the choir of Melbourne’s Lithuanian parish between 1970 and 1995. The parish uses the church of St Mary Star of the Sea in West Melbourne, not far from Lithuanian House. Since 1995 she has been the artistic director and conductor of this choir.

In 1975 she became the concertmaster of Melbourne’s Dainos Sambūris (Song Collection) choir. She was the concertmaster of the United Australian Lithuanian Choir at the First World Lithuanian Song Festival in Vilnius and Kaunas in 1994, and main accompanist at the Australian Lithuanian Song Festivals in 1984, 1990 and 1996.

During the period 1984 to 1987, Zita was concertmaster and a singer in a vocal-instrumental ensemble called Svajonės or Dreams. They performed in many Australian cities, and in the US and Canada in 1986 In the USA and Canada. They released a record in 1985.

She was the concertmaster and a singer in another vocal-instrumental ensemble called Svajonių Aidai or Echoes of Dreams in 1988-1989. They performed in Melbourne, Geelong and Sydney, as well as in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and São Paulo in Argentina and Brazil, many cities in the USA and Canada, in France, Germany, Poland and in Vilnius and Kaunas in Lithuania. in 1988 they released a self-titled record album.

Next in age, Birute starting learning the piano at age 7 and has studied at the Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music. She started conducting the Melbourne Choir, Dainos Sambūrio or Song Collection in 1978, having joined in 1974. She has been the organiser, musical director and a conductor in 10 Australian Lithuanian song festivals. Her choral activities have taken her to Lithuania. She has been a member of the board of the Australian Lithuanian Community Association Ltd, its president, and a leader of youth and scouting activities.

In 1975 the Prašmutas sisters organized a female octet, later a sextet, Dainava or Singing, which performed contemporary Lithuanian compositions as well as traditional folk songs. They gave concerts around Victoria as well as in Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart.

Zita has a Bachelor of Science degree, plus a postgraduate diploma in computer science. Birute too has a Bachelor of Science degree, specialising in mathematics and psychology.

Their younger brother, Linas, spent his working life with computers too, as an operator for a bank. He also has had a lifetime in scouting. He is the former head of the Vyciai, a unit for Lithuanian Scouts from 18 years old, and is the current Melbourne president of the Skautininkai senior scouts. His sister Zita is the current head of supply for the Lithuanian scouts in Australia.

The Prašmutas family, Zita, Karolis, Morta, Linas and Birute
in front of their East Malvern home in 1976

The Prašmutas siblings in 1975 as part of a team which organised the Third World Congress of Lithuanian Youth in Melbourne.  Birutė is on the far left, Linas is third from the left
and Zita is to the right of her brother.

Source:  Appendix to the Drauga international Lithuanian newspaper, 19 July 1975

Karolis Prasmutas would have been proud of what his children were achieving, and what they have achieved since he left us. Australia should be proud of them too.

Sources

Australia, Department of Immigration, ‘He Made This Gadget Himself’, The New Australian (Canberra, ACT), December 1949, p 2.

Australia, Department of Immigration, 'He Made This Gadget From Scrap, Tomorrow’s Australians, January 1950 p 3.

‘Birutė Prašmutaitė’, Vikipedija, https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birut%C4%97_Pra%C5%A1mutait%C4%97, accessed 16 April 2023.

‘Certificates of Naturalization', Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 3 December 1964, p 4809, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article241001096, accessed 18 April 2023.

‘Karolis Prasmutas’, Deaths in the State of Victoria, 23297/85.

Kazokas, Genovaite Elena, Lithuanian Artists in Australia 1950-1990, Volume 1: Text, PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 1992, https://eprints.utas.edu.au/17346/2/whole-kazokas-thesis.pdf.pdf, accessed 16 April 2023.

‘L.S.S, Lietuvių Skautų Sąjunga, Rajonai’, https://skautai.net/apie-mus/rajonai/, accessed 16 April 2023.

‘Melba Opera Trust’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melba_Opera_Trust, accessed 16 April 2023.

‘Morta Prasumutas’, Funeral Notices, Herald-Sun (Melbourne, Victoria), 23 May 2015.

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; Prasmutas, Karolis : Year of Birth - 1914 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 634, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203918329, accessed 17 April 2023.

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; PRASMUTAS Karolis DOB 19 January 1914; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5005650, accessed 17 April 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42); PRASMUTAS Karolis born 19 January 1914; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL STUART HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7271747, accessed 17 April 2023.

‘News of the Day, Improvisation’, The Age (Melbourne, Victoria), 11 January 1950, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article187349712, accessed 17 April 2023.

Prasmutas, B. ‘The Baltic Genocide — 60th Anniversary’, Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 25 June 2001, p 3.

Prasmutas, K, ‘My Australia … ’, The New Australian (Canberra, ACT), January 1950, p 4.

Prasmutas, K, ‘Savos spaudos reikalu' (‘Support the Lithuanian Press’)’, Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 14 December 1950, p 1, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259365951, accessed 17 April 2023.

Prasmutas, K, ‘Nekartotinos klaidos’ (‘Mistakes Not To Repeat’), Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 9 June 1954, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259366931, accessed 17 April 2023.

Prasmutas, K, ‘Duodi-Artimųi — Duodi Sau’ (‘Give To Your Neighbour — You Give To Yourself’), Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 25 January 1956, page 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259360888, accessed 18 April 2023.

Prasmutas, K, ‘Vilnius Karo Audroj’ (‘Vilnius War Storm’), Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 1 September 1954, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article259359290, accessed 18 April 2023.

Simankevičienė, D, ‘Sukaktuvininkas Karolis Prašmutas’, Mūsų Pastogė (Sydney, NSW), 5 February 1964, p 2, downloaded from Spauda.org on 21 April 2023.

‘St Mary Star of the Sea, West Melbourne’, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Star_of_the_Sea,_West_Melbourne, accessed 16 April 2023.

Šeštokas, Josef, Welcome to Little Europe: Displaced Persons and the North Camp, Little Chicken Publishing (Sale, Victoria), 2010, also available in part from Google Books, eg, https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Welcome_to_Little_Europe/PqDgc5KKfvIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=karolis+prasmutas&pg=PT231&printsec=frontcover, accessed 16 April 2023.

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"You Are Welcome in Australia" with Daina Pocius

Daina has found an undated, unsourced news clipping, about the Lithuanian First Transporters' first couple of days in Australia after they disembarked in Fremantle.  Here is her translation.

"You Are Welcome in Australia"

After a long, 30-day journey, on November 28 the first DPs (Displaced Persons) arrived from Germany.  One DP writes about his experiences in the new place.

Our first stop in Australia was Fremantle. Government representatives, press and film correspondents welcomed the arrivals on the shore.  After greetings and some brief information about future goals, we boarded the bus.  Slowly large cars move through the streets of the small seaside town, along the edge of the sea.  The feeling is a little strange, but still good, because we clearly feel that we are no longer illegitimate DPs, but full members of humanity again.

Shed A on Victoria Quay, Fremantle, was where the First Transport passengers encountered their final processing for entry to Australia: identity documents checked for immigration purposes and suitcases checked for quarantine breaches and
any customs payable (likely to be nil).  The shed was one of four built in the 1920s for preparing WA-grown fruit for export.  The 1930s photographer had a high vantage point where the WA Maritime Museum is located now.

Source:  Fremantle Ports

Like in a motley film strip, oleanders are blooming all around, near strange snow-white residential houses with verandas and carefully maintained lawns.  A large palm tree grows near each house, under which lounge chairs sit.  The palm tree here is considered the sanctity of the house and is seen everywhere.  Our first impression is excellent.  After 9 miles of travel, we reach our destination.  Instead of the expected wooden barracks, we are accommodated in beautiful tin houses with 3-4 or 6-7 people in each.  They were built for the soldiers.  The walls are painted white, and the roofs are made of white or red tiles.  The interior of the building is very reminiscent of a hospital.  Beds are covered in two sheets and several blankets.  The organisation is exemplary.

After washing off the travel dust, we go to lunch.  The dining hall is large with self-service equipment.  A pleasant surprise is the Australian government’s written greetings and wishes for each new arrival. Its content is approximately as follows: ‘Australia says welcome.  You are the first European DPs to come to Australia.  You are temporarily without your homeland, and we want to help you as much as we can. If you are kind and obedient, we will do more for you.  You are invited and welcome in Australia.  Signed: Minister of Immigration commissioned by the Australian Government.  After reading these heartfelt lines, tears appear in some eyes.

Then the eating begins.  Our first lunch in Australia consisted of soup, steak with vegetables, fruit compote, pudding, oranges and other fruits.  In reality, we have to say that we have not been interested in eating for quite some time.  This is followed by the message that we are free and can go and do what we want.  We just can't forget that at 6 o'clock, we must return for dinner.

Firstly, we go and explore the city.  We wander the streets and look through the shop windows into full shops.   Almost everything can be bought without ration cards, with the exception of some textile goods, for example, woollen materials, foreign contractor silk, etc.

The Australians have been well informed about our arrival.  Wherever possible, they come and tell us a lot about themselves and how they came to be in Australia.  Many came here with only a few suitcases, but now have a house and car.  Those who want to work and live sensibly will be able to settle comfortably in a short time.  They reassure us not to get dismayed because everything will be fine. Australians are happy to help new migrants.

There is a lot of traffic on the streets.  People are well dressed.  The first night we visited the cinema.  It looked like we would get into the hall, but there was a surprise. The walls of the "Room" were not only lined with rows of living palm trees, but blue clouds were overhead.

We will leave Fremantle by boat in a couple of days for Melbourne, where we will be assigned work.  Today, the first Australian commission arrived and will inform us about the working conditions.  The authorities are very polite, and you can speak to them openly.  They ask what we did in our homeland, in Germany, and what we would like to do in Australia.  They did say we may not be happy about the work at first not corresponding to our professions. (LZ)

Searching both the National Library of Australia's Trove and a Lithuanian-language equivalent, Spauda.org, produces no results for this article.  Can you help us source it?

About the author:  The two passengers on the General Stuart Heintzelman, the First Transport, with the initials 'LZ' were both Latvians.  Tracking down the author may be even harder than pinpointing the publication details.

Notes:  1.  About the 30 days for the Heintzelman to sail to Australia being "long", it was in fact something of a record short journey.  Most ships sailing to Australia from northern Europe at that time were taking something like 6 weeks for the same journey.

2.  Click on either image to see enlarged versions of them.

Vladas Mikelaitis (1925 –2006): 'A Good Bloke'

The tribute below was contributed to the Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, Mūsū Pastogė (Our Haven), by Rože Vaičiulevičius and published on 26.7.2006.  Its author is unknown, but I am happy to offer credit where credit is due if the author is found.

Vladas Mikelaitis was born in southwest Lithuania in the district of Šakiai on 12 July 1925. He was one of five children. His parents were Pranas and Ona Mikelaitis. His father was the village blacksmith. 

He attended Valakbudis Primary School and, as a youngster, worked on the farm. 

When WWII broke out, he worked in the cooperative shop as an assistant. when the Germans were retreating from the east in 1944, he was taken to East Prussia to dig trenches for the retreating soldiers. 

At the end of the war in 1945, he lived in the displaced persons camp in Oldenburg, in the Wehnen camp. 

On the 28th November 1947, he arrived in Australia on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman which transported the very first post-WWII refugee migrants to Australia. He was sent to the Australian Newsprint Mills in Maydena (Tasmania), where he worked on a 2-year compulsory contract.

Vladas Mikelaitis, front of Bonegilla card

Source: National Archives of Australia

In 1951 he was married to Kateryna Tscherkasky. He lived at Battery Point for a short time where his daughter, Ona, was born. He moved to Karanja in the Derwent Valley at the time Marytė was born. He lived there for 12 years. 

While living at Karanja, Vladas built a house in West Moonah. He was a weekend builder. For 2-3 years he would work all week in Maydena, then travel to Hobart every weekend to build the house. He then moved to West Moonah in 1966. 

Vladas was transferred from Maydena to Boyer in 1975 and worked in the warehouse there until his retirement in 1986. He then moved to Glenorchy where he spent the remainder of his life. 

The Maydena workers felled the eucalypts which were turned into newsprint in this mill
at Boyer, Tasmania

Source:  University of Tasmania

He travelled back to his homeland of Lithuania on 3 occasions to visit family. On the first 2 times he went on his own, the third time with Kateryna and together they also visited her homeland — the Ukraine. Vladas never forgot his family and kept contact regularly by phone and letters. 

Vladas was a very active member of the Lithuanian community. He was involved with the Lithuanian Sports club “Perkūnas” and was part of the organising committee of the 24th Australian Lithuanian sports carnival held in Hobart in 1973. In the 80’s, Vladas was part of a volunteer group who edited, produced and distributed a local publication called the “Baltic News”. 

He loved the Australian bush and the country life. He enjoyed fishing, rabbiting, going to the football, working in his vegetable garden and gathering with friends to socialise. He enjoyed his Aussie beer and in Karanja on a sunny day would sit under the shade of the trees in his beer garden watching his veggies grow. He also had a “smoke house” in Karanja where he would smoke eels that he had caught. 

Vladas owned a home movie camera. He recorded holidays and movies of his grandsons when they were growing up. He amused the children by playing the movies in reverse. He had 4 grandsons and spent time with them in the garage teaching them to use a hammer and nails. 

In his later years his failing eyesight restricted him in many things, but he still enjoyed AFL football. He would be seen sitting inches away from the TV screen. At half time he would slip out to the garage for a quick cigarette. 

Vladas Mikelaitis at a reunion for the 50th anniversary of arrival in Australia
Source:  Hobart Mercury, 2 December 1997

He was a man of simple wants and needs. He was hardworking, honest and a man of integrity. His Aussie mates knew him as a “Good Bloke” who enjoyed a beer, a good yarn, AFL football and, of course, he drove a Holden. Vladas embraced life and both cultures with open arms.

May he REST IN PEACE.

I thank Daina Pocius, Archivist at the Australian Lithuanian Archives in Adelaide, for bringing this tribute to our attention.

Notes:  1. Vladas became an Australian citizen on 20 August 1957 while living at Karanja.  Source: 'Certificates of Naturalization', Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, 22 May 1958, p 1640, viewed 26 June 2023, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article240892247.  On the FindaGrave Website, a helpful volunteer (Tanya V) has recorded that he died on 14 June 2006, so less than one month away from his 81st birthday.

2.  Double-click on the images to see enlarged versions of them.