Jonas Švitra (1925-1980): The will of the people, by Daina Pocius and Ann Tündern-Smith

Updated 18 July 2024

A policeman and four State accommodation officials evicted an unemployed family from a hut in the Camp Pell housing area in October 1952.  The family was Jonas Švitra, his Australian wife Mabel, who had four children aged from seven years to four months (Herald, 1952a).

Jonas was born in Lastijei, Lithuania, on 21 August 1925.  After leaving his homeland in 1944, probably under compulsion from the German Army, he eventually lived in the Mattenberg Displaced Persons camp, in Oberzwehren, a suburb of the city of Kassel (Arolsen Archives nd).

'Jonas Mekas Overlooking Kassel/Mattenberg DP Camp in 1948',
a photograph by his brother, Adolfas Mekas.
The photograph was part of an exhibition of current art trends, documenta 14, in 2017,
held every 5 years in the city of Kassel.

Source:  'I had nowhere to go' by Jonas Mekas

Jonas Švitra was 22 when he arrived in Australia on the First Transport ship, General Stuart Heintzelman, in November 1947 (NAA: PP482/1, 82).  He made the perfect migrant, single, healthy, with blue eyes and fair hair.  He was 6 foot tall, or maybe only 5 foot 8 inches, depending on who was noting down the details (1.72 to 1.83 cm) (NAA: A2571, SVITRA JONAS; NAA: A11772, 663; NAA: A12508, 37/571; NAA: B78, LITHUANIAN/SVITRA JONAS).

The records in Australia’s National Archives show that Jonas was selected as a “heavy farmer”.  He had only 4 years of primary education, which was obvious when he tried to fill out one of the German forms now in the Arolsen Archives (1946).  That was no problem when it came to farming, so his first assignment in Australia was to the Commonwealth Government’s Flax Production Committee in Melbourne.

Jonas Švitra's ID photograph,
as used on at least two of his migration documents

Source:  National Archives of Australia

Despite his farming experience, it looks like Jonas was put to work as a labourer in a mill processing flax at Lake Bolac, near Ballarat.  That certainly was where he and his Australian partner were working until a couple of months before their Melbourne eviction hit the news.

Worried by the health of Mabel’s seven-year-old daughter, who has been in a Brighton convalescent home, they moved to Melbourne.  At first, they stayed with Mabel’s relatives while they searched for accommodation.  The shortage of places to live in Melbourne was then so severe that they finished up in an empty hut in the Camp Pell housing area (Herald 1952a).

Camp Pell had started in early 1942 as a US Army transit camp called Camp Royal Park after its location just north of the Melbourne Central Business District.  Its name was changed to Camp Pell after Major Floyd Pell, a member of General Douglas Macarthur’s staff.  He had been the first US Army Air Corps member to come to Australia, checking out the suitability of the Darwin area for B-17 bombers.  He had been killed during a Japanese air raid on Darwin in February 1942 (Dunn 2020).

By 1946, Camp Pell had become home to around 3,000 people experiencing the post-war housing shortage.  Many of these families needed temporary accommodation, having been directly affected by 'slum’ reclamation policies.  It was one of at least 4 similar camps in inner Melbourne but the most notorious, with some newspapers nicknaming it 'Camp Hell' (Commonwealth of Australia 2019).

Jonas and Mabel moved into an empty hut, empty because it was condemned, with two of their children.  Mabel was working with a dressmaking firm but Jonas had been unable to get work for some time.  He was registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service but could not keep in close contact because he had to stay home and mind the baby he had fathered with Mabel.

They moved into the hut on a Friday.  On the following Monday, a police constable arrived with four men from the State Accommodation Office, wanting Jonas to open the door.  Jonas said he would wait until his wife returned.  The door was then broken down and their belongings put out on the ground between the rows of huts.

Mabel said their relatives could not take them back and she did not know where the children would sleep that night.  The State Accommodation officer said they were trespassing.  Mabel said she had asked him earlier for help but he had refused.  The Accommodation official said that he could not remember this (Herald 1952a).

The evicted Svitra family

Source:  The Herald, 13 October 1952

That night they took shelter in another empty hut, staying for two days.  Then the authorised tenant arrived, and caretakers supervised removal of the family’s belongings to the ground between huts again.

The couple made their home next in a communal laundry at the Camp for several nights before friends found a space for them.  Other friends cared for the children (Herald 1952b).

Thanks to the intervention of a Member of the State Parliament, who read about the family in the Melbourne Herald, they were found a home in Ararat.  Their savings were down to £10 only, not enough money to get there.  Then Jonas gratefully accepted 10 shillings which had been sent to the Herald for him by an anonymous sympathiser.  The Herald was the newspaper which had run with the story from its start.

A third reader, a City businessman, paid the fares for the whole family to travel to Ararat.  He then took up a collection in the office building where he had his business, to pay for transporting the family's luggage.  “I just thought I would like to help them”, Mr K Glynn told the Herald.  The newspaper assured its readers that Jonas Svitra would be able to get a job in Ararat, despite his doubts on this score (Herald 1952c).

During this time, the Herald published two letters from readers shocked by the family’s story.   “It’s a scandalous way to treat a family with a sick child”, said Mona B Robinson from Deepdene (Robinson 1952).  “Whatever Government is elected, citizens have a right to demand that it solve the housing problem”, wrote Mrs Dorothy Irwin from Parkville (Irwin 1952).

On 4 November, the Herald printed a “Thank You” statement from Jonas and Mabel.  We want to thank the people of Camp Pell who stood by us in our need; The Herald for its reports about us; Mr Barry, MLA, for finding an emergency hut for us in Ararat: the people who broadcast our story, and the people who read about us, offered to carry our furniture to our new hut, and gave us money to reach our destination.  Our experience has shown us that the unkindness of governments is not the will of the people (Švitra 1952).

Jonas and Mabel probably were the type of people who would have been able to make ends meet easily in a fair society, judging from advertisements in the Dandenong Journal (July 1952).  This presumably was while they were living with Mabel’s relatives.  Jonas was advertising his shoe repair skills while Mabel offered to take orders for hand knitting to any pattern.  Both of them gave their address as care of Mr A Hill of Noble Park, a Melbourne suburb within the Dandenong area.  It also probably was closer to the convalescent daughter than Camp Pell in Royal Park.

Hill was Mabel’s maiden name, as shown on the certification of her marriage to Jonas on 4 October 1955.  Maybe Mr A Hill of Noble Park was a brother.

Their marriage took place after the divorce from her previous husband had come through in August 1953.  It was a civil marriage in the Melbourne city office of the Government Statist.  Their address was 5 Neylan Street, Ararat, so they had moved from their initial McGibbney Street residence.

Of interest is the occupations ascribed to both on the marriage certificate.  Mabel had become a Mental Nurse, while Jonas was described as a Mental Attendant (Victoria, 1955).

Jonas acquired Australian citizenship on 23 September 1957, when he was still at 5 Neylan Street, Ararat (Commonwealth of Australia 1957).

What happened to the family over the next 23 years is not on the public record.  The next available record is a death certificate for Jonas, who died on 31 August 1980, in Drummond Street, Carlton, an inner Melbourne suburb with lots of low-cost housing for students of the nearby Melbourne University.

It is clear that Jonas had become an almost anonymous individual, as his name is the only known detail of his life on the death certificate.  It records no birth details, no period of residence in Australia, no marriage, no children, no parents.  Even the stab at his age, 62 years, was an underestimate by 3 years (Victoria 1980).

What is at least as sad is the manner of his death: “Asphyxia due to aspiration of stomach contents”.  We are no doctors, but Ann has come across this previously in another First Transporter who lived and worked in a hotel and who had spent all of his final Sunday morning drinking.  Various articles on the Web, for instance, Novomeský et al (2018) and Vadysinghe et al (2022), confirm that this is a rare form of death in a previously healthy individual. It is more common in those who have been consuming alcohol or sedatives.  An autopsy found coronary sclerosis also: plaque on the inner walls of the heart arteries.  The coroner ordered the burial of Jonas’ body without an inquest, a legal inquiry into the cause of death (Victoria 1980).

More than 3 weeks later, he was buried in a public grave in the Springvale Botanical Cemetery.  He was back to his temporary 1952 refuge of Dandenong City.

From the age of 15 years onward, Jonas’ life was one of war and turmoil with temporary moments of calm.  May he now rest in eternal peace.

References

Arolsen Archives (nd) 3 Registrations and Files of Displaced Persons, Children and Missing Persons / 3.1 Evidence of Abode and Emigration / 3.1.1 Registration and Care of DPs inside and outside of Camps / Folder 170:  Kassel-Oberzwehren, DocID 81997634, https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/81997634, accessed 27 August 2023. 

Arolsen Archives (1946) 3 Registrations and Files of Displaced Persons, Children and Missing Persons / 3.2 Relief Programs of Various Organizations / 3.2.1 IRO “Care and Maintenance” Program, Personal file of SVITRA, JONAS, born on 21-Aug-1925, born in LIETUVA, DocID 79803711 – 79803712 https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79803711 and https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/79803712 accessed 10 September 2023.

Commonwealth of Australia (1957) ' Certificates of Naturalization' Commonwealth of Australia Gazette (National) 3 October p 2958 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article232986660 accessed 10 September 2023.

Commonwealth of Australia (2019) 'Victoria – Place, Camp Pell (1946 - 1956)', Find & Connect, https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/guide/vic/E000676 accessed 10 September 2023.

Dandenong Journal (1952) 'Advertising' 23 July p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222360507 accessed 10 September 2023.

Dunn P (2020) 'Camp Pell, Melbourne, Formerly Camp Royal Park, During WW2' https://www.ozatwar.com/ozatwar/camppell.htm accessed 10 September 2023.

Irwin D (1952) 'Homeless' The Herald 25 October p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245289176 accessed 10 September 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Western Australian Branch; PP482/1, Correspondence files [nominal rolls], single number series (1926–52); 82, GENERAL HEINTZELMAN - arrived Fremantle 28 November 1947 - nominal rolls of passengers (1947 – 52) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=439196 accessed 10 September 2023..

National Archives of Australia: Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla] (1947–56); SVITRA, Jonas : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN.HEINTZELMAN : Number - 1037 (1947–56) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203693580 accessed 10 September 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 (1947–47); 663, SVITRA Jonas DOB 21 August 1925 (1947–47) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118086 accessed 10 September 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Central Office; A12508, Personal Statement and Declaration by alien passengers entering Australia (Forms A42) (1937–48); 37/571, SVITRA Jonas born 21 August 1925; nationality Lithuanian; travelled per GENERAL HEINTZELMAN arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947 (1947–47) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=7235050 accessed 10 September 2023.

National Archives of Australia: Department of Immigration, Victorian Branch; B78, Alien registration documents (1948–65); LITHUANIAN/SVITRA JONAS: SVITRA Jonas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General S Heintzelman 28 November 1947 (1939–72) https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30126217 accessed 10 September 2023.

Novomeský, F, M Janík, ST Hájek, F Krajčovič, and L Straka (2018) 'Vomiting and aspiration of gastric contents: a possible life-threatening combination in underwater diving' Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine 48(1): 36–39 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6467823/accessed 10 September 2023.

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

Robinson MB (1952) 'Camp Pell Eviction' The Herald, 15 October p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245276695 accessed 10 September 2023.

Švitra J and M (1952) '"Thank You"' The Herald 4 November p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245286315 accessed 10 September 2023.

The Herald (1952a)  ‘State Evicts Jobless Migrant’, Melbourne, 13 October p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245298488 accessed 10 September 2023.

The Herald (1952b)  ‘Evicted Family Split-Up: Parents in Laundry' Melbourne, 21 October p 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245284573 accessed 10 September 2023.

The Herald (1952c)  ‘Got help for evicted family' Melbourne, 28 October p 8, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article245279084 accessed 10 September 2023.

Vadysinghe AN, 

Nayakarathne TB,

 Banda I and

 Perera RAEI (2022) '

Choking together with aspiration of gastric contents: rare form of maternal death' Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences 12 Article number 58 https://ejfs.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41935-022-00318-x accessed 10 September 2023.

Victoria, State of (1955) 'Certificate of Marriage' Jonas Svitra and Mabel Carmen Hill 1236/55.

Victoria, State of (1980) 'Deaths in the State of Victoria' Jonas Svitra 31 August 1980 22400/80.

Why did Australia have an immigration program which brought our families here? Arthur Calwell (1896-1973) by Fiona Basile

Arthur Calwell, Australia’s first Minister for Immigration, had been thinking and reading about population growth as a means of ensuring Australia’s security even before he became a Federal Member of Parliament in 1940. No, he did not coin the ‘populate or perish’ phrase – that honour goes to Billy Hughes – but he certainly popularised it. This summary of the life of the man who brought our family members to Australia in 1947 as part of the commencement of his migration program, by Fiona Basile, was published in the Melbourne Catholic on 21 September 2022. It is reproduced here by kind permission. Additional footnotes have been provided by Mary Elizabeth Calwell, Arthur Calwell's one surviving child.

Arthur Augustus Calwell

Source:  Museum of Australian Democracy

Mary Elizabeth Calwell was just a schoolgirl when her father, Arthur Calwell, was sworn in as Australia’s first federal minister for immigration in 1945. Labor’s Ben Chifley had become prime minister, and World War II was coming to an end. Calwell had a visionary plan for a large-scale immigration scheme—a plan that would later see him labelled ‘the father of multiculturalism in Australia’.

In his inaugural parliamentary speech on 2 August 1945, less than three weeks after his appointment, and before the official end of World War II, Calwell presented his vision for Australia:

If Australians have learned one lesson from the Pacific War, it is surely that we cannot continue to hold our island continent for ourselves and our descendants unless we greatly increase our numbers. We are about 7 million people, and we hold 3 million square miles of this earth's surface … much development and settlement have yet to be undertaken. Our need to undertake it is urgent and imperative if we are to survive … The door to Australia will always be open within the limits of our existing legislation ... We make two things clear ... The one is that Australia wants, and will welcome, new healthy citizens who are determined to become good Australians by adoption. The second is that we will not mislead any intending immigrant by encouraging him to come to this country under any assisted to unassisted scheme until there is a reasonable assurance of his economic future ... 

Though Calwell died in 1973, having served in federal politics from 1940 to 1972, the impact of his policies and work in initiating and implementing post-WWII immigration to Australia continues to be felt today, including within our Archdiocese’s rich tapestry of multicultural faith communities.

Reflecting on her father’s legacy, Calwell’s daughter Mary Elizabeth notes that both historian Geoffrey Blainey and former Prime Minister Bob Hawke believed that Labor’s greatest achievement in the 20th century was probably Calwell’s ambitious immigration scheme.

Calwell was born in 1896 in West Melbourne. Many immigrant families lived nearby, so he enjoyed friendships with people from Jewish, Lebanese, Italian, Greek and Chinese backgrounds. He spoke fluent Irish and some Mandarin and French.

Calwell was raised in the Catholic faith of his mother and Irish grandparents, and was the eldest of seven children. He attended St Mary’s Boys’ School in West Melbourne and won a scholarship to attend St Joseph’s College in North Melbourne, both run by the Christian Brothers. He is reported as saying, ‘I owe everything I have in life, under Almighty God and next to my parents, to the Christian Brothers.’

Arthur Calwell’s mother died in early 1913. Although his father was a policeman and later Police Superintendent, a university education was not possible, so Calwell began work as a clerk for the Victorian State Government, first in the Department of Agriculture and then in the Department of Treasury. He was secretary of his ALP Branch at just 18 years of age, and was elected to many ALP and union positions, including Victorian ALP president from 1930 to 1931—the youngest person at that time to have held that position—and was the first president of the Victorian branch of the Amalgamated Australian Public Service Association, Clerical Division, from 1925 to 1931.

In 1921, Arthur Calwell married Margaret Murphy, who died just five months later. Ten years on, in 1932, he married Elizabeth Marren, an Irishwoman who was social editor of the Catholic weekly newspaper, the Tribune, and had also been a journalist at the Advocate. They met through Irish organisations. They had two children, Mary Elizabeth and Arthur Andrew, who died of leukaemia when he was 11 years old.

Mary Elizabeth, who went to boarding school at the age of 10, says she was fortunate to have grown up in a home that valued intellectual activities. Both her parents wrote extensively, and in 1933, they established the Irish Review, which continued under other auspices until 1954. Mary Elizabeth says both her parents had a ‘big influence’ on her life.

‘My father wrote for the Age Literary Supplement on American history for the 4th of July, and he quoted spontaneously from the Bible, history or literature in parliament. He was elected to positions in social, cultural and sporting organisations.’

However, it was Calwell’s role as [Australia's first] Immigration Minister that cemented his place in history. To win support, he emphasised the importance of immigration for national development and defence. ‘Australia’s population was 7.4 million with 250,000 available jobs,’ Mary Elizabeth says, ‘and he used the slogan “populate or perish”.’ According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, Calwell’s immigration scheme brought more people to Australia than had come in all the previous years since settlement.

In 1947, Arthur and Elizabeth Calwell, along with his secretary Bob Armstrong, visited 23 countries in just under 13 weeks, travelling by flying boat, plane and ship. In July, Calwell signed an agreement with the United Nations Refugee Organisation to accept displaced persons from European countries ravaged by war. Despite shipping shortages, 100,000 British and 50,000 assisted migrants had arrived in Australia by August 1949, along with many thousands of sponsored migrants.

The Calwell party in Berlin, 18 July 1947
From left: Brigadier T. White, Head of Australian Military Mission to Germany, Harry Beilby (Department of Immigration), Malcolm Booker (Second Secretary (Political) Australian Military Mission [Department of Foreign Affairs]), possibly Ian Hamilton (Department of Information), Elizabeth and Arthur Calwell, Bob Armstrong (Arthur Calwell's Secretary), the Military Mission's Australian driver with car

Source:  Calwell collection

'He allowed Holocaust survivors to come to Australia when other countries were uninterested,’ says Mary Elizabeth. ‘Descendants and survivors are proportionately greater here than in any country outside Israel.’ In 1946, 100 trees were planted in Israel by the Melbourne Jewish Community through the Jewish National Fund (JNF). In 1995, trees were also planted in Melbourne, and in 1998, the Australian Jewish Community established and dedicated the JNF Arthur A Calwell Forest of Life at Kessalon near Jerusalem, Israel.

Mary Elizabeth is particularly proud of her father’s implementation of the Nationality Act 1946, which enabled Australian women to retain their nationality after marriage to a foreigner [an international rarity then], and the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, proclaimed on Australia Day 1949, with the first citizenship ceremony taking place in Canberra on 3 February 1949. He also introduced the term ‘New Australian’ to discourage hostility to migrants, and he approved the introduction of Good Neighbour Councils. By 1952, the Australian population had increased to 8.7 million through births and immigration.

When not engaged in politics, Calwell was devoted to the North Melbourne Football Club, becoming the club’s first life member. According to Mary Elizabeth, he was also devoted to the Church, receiving a papal knighthood from Pope Paul VI and being made a Knight Commander of St Gregory the Great with Silver Star in 1963.

'My father had a very deep and informed knowledge of his faith, which sustained him and complemented his commitment to Australian Labor values,’ Mary Elizabeth says. Among his many initiatives, for instance, he arranged for paid chaplains to be appointed to immigration reception centres, where displaced persons were welcomed, and he was on the committee that bought the first Maronite Church in Rathdowne Street, Carlton.

Having served as both deputy leader and leader of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party—narrowly missing out on becoming prime minister in 1961, when Democratic Labor Party preferences were directed to the Liberal and Country Parties—Calwell retired from politics in 1972. He died on 8 July 1973 in East Melbourne and was given a large state funeral at St Patrick’s Cathedral.

Looking back on her father’s legacy, Mary Elizabeth observes, ‘There were 7.5 million in Australia in 1945, and by the time Dad died in 1973, we had an extra 6 million people.’ She agrees with sociologist Professor Jerzy Zubrzycki that her father’s immigration policies ‘changed Australia in a far more fundamental way than anything else since the end of the Second World War’, and that our nation is a richer place for those changes.

[I thank Mary Elizabeth Calwell for her support of my research for more than 20 years now, and Fiona Basile with the Melbourne Catholic for permission to reproduce Fiona's article.]

Footnotes

Arthur Calwell released an autobiography in 1972, titled Be Just and Fear Not, and Labor’s Role in Modern Society in 1963.

Mary Elizabeth published a biography of her father in 2012, titled I Am Bound to Be True.

It was the July 1947 agreement with the Preparatory Commission of the International Refugee Organisation signed by Calwell in Geneva which led, in September and October 1947, to staff from the Australian High Commission in London joining the deputy head of the Australian Military Mission to Berlin as the interviewing panel for the first group of displaced people. That first group were the passengers on the General Stuart Heintzelman arriving in Fremantle on 28 November 1947 – our First Transporters.

Arthur Calwell not only started government-sponsored migration to Australia, which continues today, especially for those determined to be refugees under the terms of the 1951 International Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. He not only was responsible for establishing the legal concept of Australian citizenship. He established Australia as a place of refuge for Holocaust survivors in 1945 as well as those displaced by Hitler’s war and Stalin’s expansion of the Soviet Union to its west despite very little shipping after WWII.

Professor Louise Holborn, in her official history of The International Refugee Organization, stated that Australia was the country which most generously responded to the resettlement needs of family units, promoted the resettlement of unmarried mothers and was the only country to perform its own orientation work.

As Minister for Information (1943-1949), Arthur Calwell was in charge of the wartime Censor, employed war correspondents, and controlled Radio Australia and its translators.  He ensured that the Australian flag flew on major occasions and that Advance Australia Fair (not God Save the Queen) was played on official occasions, at picture theatres and before the ABC News broadcasts.  His department had a film unit which produced many documentaries and employed many important journalists, who promoted our literature and culture in Australia and to millions of people overseas.

Arthur Calwell opposed conscription for military service outside Australia from 1917, vehemently opposed our involvement in Vietnam, defended the separation of Church and State, and worked for social justice through Labor’s commitment to democratic socialism and democracy as the best political system available in the world.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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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