Veronika Tutins (1911–2006), who disappeared?

Updated 4 August 2024

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

Veronika Tutins, 1947, from her Bonegilla card

Source:  NAA: A257, TUTINS, VERONIKA

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

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

Source:  Private collection

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

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

Source:  Private collection

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

Eduards Brokans, from his 1947 selection papers

Source:  NAA: A11938, 494

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A comptometer manufactured in the 1950s

Source: John Wolff's Web Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eduards and Veronika Brokans in later life

Source:  Geni.com

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

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

SOURCES

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

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

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

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

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

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 819, TUTINS Veronika DOB 15 November 1911, 1947-1947; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118138 accessed 10 July 2024.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vasins, Irina (2000-2007) Personal communications.

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

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

Naming the 64-65 Balts to Bedford Park, by Ann Tündern-Smith

The names below come from a Department of Labour and National Service list of those its Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) was sending to labour for the South Australian Department of Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) in January 1948. According to the CES, the date they were sent to the E&WS Bedford Park camp in South Australia was 7 January. According to all their Bonegilla cards, it was 8 January.

This is not the only discrepancy in the First Transport (General Stuart Heintzelman) records. For example, the newspapers reported that 18 had been chosen from the later group sent to Wolseley (then on to Bangham) in South Australia for further training in Peterborough. All the other records show 17 only. Perhaps that mistake was made by a South Australian Railways spokesman (it was sure to be a man in those days) talking to the media.

Even the number of passengers on the first refugee voyage to Australia on the General Stuart Heintzelman vary from one report to another. After 25 years, I think I have figured it out. The initial number reported to the press was 844 but it is known that one person pulled out. That’s why the number than becomes 843. Suddenly it changes to 839, but that was after 4 were not allowed to land in Australia.

One was kept on the Heintzelman because adverse (read Communist) security information had been received after departure from Bremerhaven. The other 3 were referred to an Australian doctor who boarded the Heintzelman off Fremantle by the ship’s medical team. The Australian doctor argued that they would become a charge on Australia’s health system, ending their opportunity to resettle here. (That was after a through medical examination in Germany before the selection process was finalised.)

Perhaps the 7 January date is the day the CES told the lucky 65 where they were going. In that case, they may have stayed overnight at Bonegilla after packing and actually departed on 8 January.

Just wondering why the numbers always seem a little out … why are there only 64 people on the list below?

Biographies of two of the men are on this blog already, so their names in the list below are a different colour (grey on my screen) since clicking on the names will take you to their stories. I'll add more links as more stories go up.

LITHUANIANS	LATVIANS	ESTONIANS
Aleknavicius, Juozas	Abolins, Voldemars	Aerfeldt, Olaf
Antanaitis, Ksavaras	Aboltinsh, Voldemars	Trull, Adolf
Artmonas, Pranas	Alvars, Raimonds	Viiding, Kaljo
Babinskas, Vincentas	Kopcs, Antons
Baronaitis, Antanas	Romanovskis, Viktors
Galinis, Vytautas	Skurolis, Donats
Kairys, Ceslovas	Sprogis, Alfreds
Kalendra, Apolinaras	Steimanis, Zigurds
Karpavicius, Pranas	Skrebels, Valerians
Skidzevicius, Vytautas	Strods, Janis
Skiparis, Antanas	Strupitis, Augusts
Sliuzas, Aleksandras	Strungs, Mikolis
Sluksnys, Jonas	Suchanovskis, Aleksandrs
Smilgevicius, Kazys	Svarinskis, Konstantins
Songaila, Juozas	Svilis, Vitolds
Sopys, Vincas	Vanags, Vilhelms
Stasys, Alfonas	Veide, Modris-Tautmilis
Staugaitis, Antanas	Veips, Stanislavs
Strimaitis, Kazys	Zauls, Janis
Subacius, Feliksas	Zidenis, Janis
Syrus, Faustas
Tumpa, Romuldas
Urbonas, Jonas
Urbonavicius, Czeslovas
Uzpulevicius, Alfonsas
Valinskas, Jonas
Valiulis, Juozas
Valteris, Stasys
Valys, Juozas
Velicka, Balys
Venzlauskas, Antanas
Vidginis, Juozas
Vidugiris, Alfonsas
Vidugiris, Petras
Viknius, Petras
Vitkunas, Bronius
Volkovas, Simonas
Zakarauskas, Juozas
Zumaras, Jonas

SOURCE

National Archives of Australia, Department of Labour and National Service, Central Office; MT29/1, Employment Service Schedules, 1947 - 1950; 21, Schedule of displaced persons who left the Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla Victoria for employment in the State of South Australia - [Schedule no SA1 to SA31], 1948 - 1950; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=23150376 accessed 9 July 2024.

Antanas Staugaitis (1927-2003): Lithuanian DP Taxi Driver by Daina Pocius with Ann Tündern-Smith and Rasa Ščevinskienė

Like the ill-fated Ksaveras Antanaitis, Antanas Staugaitis was one of the Lithuanian Displaced Persons or DPs selected in Germany to travel to Australia on the first voyage after World War II, on the USAT General Stuart Heintzelman. Like Ksaveras, he then was chosen to be in the first group of men sent by the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) to work outside the Bonegilla camp.

Their destination was Bedford Park, South Australia, where they lived in a tent city while building a 20-kilometre pipeline from Happy Valley Reservoir, to their south, into Adelaide to their north. Their employer was the South Australian Government’s Engineering and Water Supply (E&WS) Department. Antanas later worked for the E&WS at Port Lincoln also.

Antanas Staugaitis, ID photo 
from his migration application

Source:  NAA

Everyone on the First Transport had been told in Bonegilla that the Australian Government had changed their agreement to work, where required, for one year to a two-year agreement. Maybe E&WS hadn’t got that message, because the Adelaide Mail of 29 January 1949 reported that the DPs or Balts, as they were known also, were being permitted to transfer to other employers. If that was with the assistance of the CES to another task where there was a shortage of workers, however, it was all above board.

We know from his application for Australian citizenship that Antanas left 6 weeks after the Mail report to work with the South Australian Railways. This was initially with other Balts and Aussies at Peterborough for 6 months, then in Adelaide.

From an alien registration index card held by the National Archives in Adelaide, we find that Antanas was released officially from his “two years” contract with the Australian Government on 3 October 1949. That’s about two months short, if the contract is regarded as terminating on the anniversary of arrival in Australia, 28 November 1949.

The Minister for Immigration, Arthur Calwell, announced the early release in Canberra on 5 September 1949, according to Australian newspapers of the following date. The contracts were supposed to end on 30 September, not 3 October. The early release was due to “the outstanding contribution they have made to Australia’s labour starved economy”.

Antanas completed an Adelaide mechanic’s course in 1953. He continued to work on the railways until 1956, rising to the rank of fireman. Then he purchased a taxi license and worked as a taxi driver until retirement in 1992.

He renounced any previous allegiances and became an Australian citizen on 12 October 1956. His address at the time was on South Terrace, the edge of Adelaide’s Central Business District. Those who certified in November 1955 for his citizenship application that he was of ‘good repute’ were Railways trainers and a station master equivalent.

He loved nature and would travel to the outback, to the Northern Territory with his good friends. He was known as a smart man with a conscience. For instance, in January 1950, the infant Mūsų Pastogė Lithuanian-Australian newspaper, about to celebrate its first birthday, reported that he had donated two shillings to support it. (The Reserve Bank’s pre-decimal currency inflation calculator advises that this is now the equivalent of a bit more than $6.)

Antanas was born 27 August 1927, in Šliziai, Šakiai region, into a farming family. The Germans took him from his family and friends to work in Germany, in 1942 when he was still only 14 years old. They sentenced him to two years hard labour, claiming that they had found him carrying arms. At least the hard labour was in agriculture, so probably he got fed enough to continue working.

After the war he was in a DP camp in Oldenburg in Lower Saxony, and later in the nearby Gross Hessepe municipality, where he attended the technical school to study the motor mechanic’s trade. He did not get to finish this course as his selection to resettle in Australia on the First Transport, the General Stuart Heintzelman, intervened.

He did not marry and had no family in Australia. He died at his home in Mile End, also inner Adelaide, on 20 March 2003, aged 75.

SOURCES

Encyclopaedia of Australian Science and Innovation, ‘Corporate Body South Australian Engineering and Water Supply Department’ https://www.eoas.info/biogs/A001434b.htm accessed 23 May 2024.

Hammerton, Marianne (1986) Water South Australia: a History of the Engineering and Water Supply Department (Netley, SA: Wakefield Press) 331 pp.

Mail (1949) 'Balts Leave Govt. Jobs' (Adelaide, SA) 29 January,  p 29 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55924132 accessed 23 May 2024.

Mercury (1949) 'Migrants' Contract Time Cut', (Hobart, Tas) 6 September, p 4 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26661508 accessed 24 May 2024.

Morning Bulletin (1949) 'Contract Terms of Migrants Cut', (Rockhampton, Qld), 6 September, p 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56918854 accessed 24 May 2024.

Mūsų Pastogė (1950) ‘Mūsų Pastogės Rėmėjai’ 25 January, p 4, in https://spauda2.org/musu_pastoge/archive/1950/1950-01-25-MUSU-PASTOGE.pdf accessed 23 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Central Office; A446, Correspondence files, annual single number series with block allocations, 1926-2001; 1956/45135, Application for Naturalisation - STAUGAITIS Antanas born 27 August 1927, 1955-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=8374445 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, Central Office; A11772, Migrant Selection Documents for Displaced Persons who travelled to Australia per General Stuart Heintzelman departing Bremerhaven 30 October 1947, 1947-1947; 292, STAUGAITIS Antanas DOB 27 August 1927, 1947-1947, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=5118002 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4878, Alien registration documents, alphabetical series, 1923-1971; STAUGAITIS Antanas born 1927 Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 Nov 1947, 1947-1956; https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=30038183 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Department of Immigration, South Australia Branch; D4881, Alien registration cards, alphabetical series, 1946-1976; STAUGAITIS Antanas - Nationality: Lithuanian - Arrived: Fremantle per General Stuart Heintzelman 28 November 1947, 1947-1956, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=9222371 accessed 24 May 2024.

National Archives of Australia, Migrant Reception and Training Centre, Bonegilla [Victoria]; A2571, Name Index Cards, Migrants Registration [Bonegilla], 1947-1956; STAUGAITIS, Antanas : Year of Birth - 1925 : Nationality - LITHUANIAN : Travelled per - GEN. HEINTZELMAN : Number – 688, 1947-48, https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=203905745 accessed 24 May 2024.

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

Places in Germany, City Oldenburg in Oldenburg, https://www.places-in-germany.com/22143-city-oldenburg-in-oldenburg.html accessed 23 May 2024.

Places in Germany, Municipality Groß Hesepe https://www.places-in-germany.com/111536-municipality-gross-hesepe.html accessed 23 May 2024 accessed 23 May 2024.

Reserve Bank of Australia, Pre-Decimal Inflation Calculator, https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html accessed 23 May 2024.

Artur Klaar (1919-1970): Economics student, accountant, Estonian

Updated 18 July 2024

We've met Artur Klaar already as the fellow Estonian who befriended Flaavi Hodunov in Peterborough.  It's possible that they had become friends at Bangham, at Bonegilla, on the First Transport or even earlier, when they discovered that they had both attended the same public primary school in Narva, Estonia.

Artur was also the best man at Flaavi's wedding on 26 December 1949 and the godfather to Flaavi's first-born daughter in 1951.

Artur Klaar (left) with Flaavi Hodunov on Flaavi's wedding day;
the blue eyes are authentic, according to their Bonegilla cards, but whoever hand-coloured the photo used their imagination for the auburn hair as people of Estonian descent are much more likely to have dark brown or blond hair or sometimes Viking red if they have Swedish blood

The best man and the bridesmaid before the wedding of Flaavi and Walya:
Artur Klaar with G Linke, probably Gladys

Source for both:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Born on 1 June 1919, Artur was nearly 8 years older than Flaavi so probably would have been in high school already as Flaavi started primary school. It was not just the same school premises and maybe teachers that they had in common, though.

They both would have remembered many other parts of the small but significant town of Narva. Perhaps the older Artur would have been able to explain things about it that the younger Flaavi had not understood.

Artur Klaar (left) with Walya and Flaavi Hodunov, probably in Peterborough

Source:  Collection of Tatyana Tamm

Their paths had separated after the primary school. Flaavi probably did not start school until the late summer of 1935, as Estonian children still don’t start until after they have turned 7. If he finished primary school at the start of the 1941 summer, this would have been the time when the Soviets retreated ahead of a German advance into Estonia.

We know from Flaavi’s daughter, Tatyana, that Flaavi’s parents sent him to Germany as the Soviet forces invaded again in September 1944, since he had been working with German mechanics.

After finishing primary school around 1932, Artur finished high school around 1938 before becoming a bookkeeper in a bank while enrolled in an economics course at the University of Tartu.

All young Estonian men during the first period of independence (1918-40) were required to do many months of military training after they finished their schooling. Artur had not only completed this but completed an officer’s training course at the military academy. At the end of this, he was promoted to the most junior officer rank, of ensign.

Artur had completed only 1½ years of his economics course when WWII disrupted it. At this point in his story, it is relevant to consider what preceded WWII and the first independence period in Estonian history.

The first known foreign occupiers of Estonia were the Danes, who maybe arrived during the 12th century. The King of Denmark sold the Duchy of Estonia to German crusaders, the Teutonic Order, 1346. While these German occupied themselves with christianising the Estonians, they probably were amongst those who took the opportunity to settle on land which seemed theirs for the taking.

The Swedes came next, ruling over Estonia from 1561 until forced out by a Russian invasion in the early 18th century. During the Swedish period, some Swedes also bought land in Estonia, giving the country a mixture of German and Swedish nobility. The Russian occupation of Estonian was formalised in 1721. In order to keep the nobility on side, the Russians initially gave them more power over the Estonian peasants, who were living on the less salubrious parts of the noble estates.

The Russians had occupied Estonia for more than 200 years when the October Revolution gave the locals a longed-for opportunity to claim their freedom. This became official with a proclamation of independence on 24 February 1918. The Russians, now the Soviet Union, invaded again in August 1940, claiming all the Baltic States as theirs under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Hitler broke this Pact, having decided that Germans needed Lebensraum in the Soviet Union too. German rule returned to Estonia in June 1941, but was under threat again in the summer of 1944.

This history indicates that the Estonians’ lived experience of the German nobility and the Nazis, and Tsarist and Communist Russia meant that, of the two evils, they certainly preferred the Germans. Thus joining the German Army to fight the return of the Russians was not supporting the Nazi regime but opposing the Russians. Many of the Baltic men who came to Australia on what I have called the Fifth Fleet were among those who fought against the Russians, and Artur Klaar was one.

He fought in two major battles, those of Narva and Vaivara, the latter known as the Sinimäed (or Blue Hills) and remembered by Estonians today as a battle in which the Soviet forces were defeated. He was promoted to the rank of junior lieutenant and awarded the Iron Cross for his bravery. I know that he was not the only First Transport passenger who had an Iron Cross in his luggage.

The Allies in occupied Germany decided to overlook this form of co-operation with the former Nazi regime. It often happened in circumstances where the young Baltic men had no other option, and sorting out volunteers from conscripts was not worth the effort. As time as proven, the Allies were more interested in removing Communists from the ranks of those migrating to third countries than looking into the details of apparent co-operation with the Nazis.

The report for his September 1947 interview by the Australian selection team in Buchholz refugee camp records that Artur’s knowledge of English then was slight. However, I happen to know from my own mother’s life and a good friend who was studying economics at Tartu University at the same time as her, that a knowledge of English was something of a prerequisite. I imagine that many texts were available in English only, plus English was available as a high school subject.

The report also said that Artur had 6 years experience as an accountant in a bank.  I think this is a bit of an exaggeration.  Six years from the end of high school in the summer of 1938 takes us to the summer of 1944, when the Russians/Soviets were invading again and Artur was fighting the battles of Narva and Vaivara, possibly from February.  There was also the greater part of a year spent around 1939 in compulsory military training.

Only four months later after his arrival in Australia, Artur was sent from Bangham to Peterborough because of his good language skills. That tends to support the idea that he knew some English before starting at Tartu University. His studies there, Edna Davis’ shipboard classes and classes at the Bonegilla camp all would have helped Artur hone his skills.

From Peterborough, Artur was sent to Adelaide to work in the South Australian Railways (SAR) offices. He remained with the SAR for the rest of his life.

In Adelaide, he met and married another Estonian, Silvia Tulina, on 21 June 1951. Silvia had studied medicine for 6 years at the University of Tartu between 1936 and 1942. In Germany from September-October 1944, she had made her way to Göttingen to complete her medical qualifications before travelling to Australia in 1950.

In Australia, Silvia found along with other doctors with European qualifications, that she could not practice medicine here, not without doing the whole course again.

There were so many such instances of this that Egon Kunz, himself with a doctorate from Hungary in Hungarian language, literature and social history plus an Australian doctorate in demography, wrote a book about it. Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia was published in 1975.

The situation for those with medical degrees from outside English-speaking nations has changed little since. It can be compared with the struggle which Vytautas Stasiukynas had to obtain employment related to his veterinary science qualifications.

Silvia Klaar was more fortunate than most. At the time she reported her change of name by marriage to the Department of Immigration, Adelaide, for its Aliens Registration records in July 1951, she advised that she was now employed as an assistant pathologist at the University of Adelaide. She was employed in similar non-clinical fields for the rest of her working life.

Artur died way too early, on 6 November 1970, of a heart attack when aged only 51. He would have been employed still by the SAR when this happened.

Silvia told me that Artur was a smoker who could not give up the habit. He also had developed high cholesterol in the days before heart by-pass operations were performed in Australia.

He merited an obituary in the Australian-Estonian newspaper, Meie Kodu, on 3 December 1970. It’s in the Estonian language, of course, but Google Translate now can be a useful starting point for any of us.

The obituary’s author, Richard Ollino, noted that Artur had enrolled again in Economics at the University of Göttigen in Germany, but abandoned this course due to his selection for resettlement in Australia.

Artur then matriculated to the University of Adelaide, but again abandoned the course when bad health interceded. Silvia said that he had passed two Adelaide University subjects at this point. Richard also wrote mysteriously of “a duty, and obligation”, which blocked Artur’s return to study.  Maybe it was his marriage, into which Silvia brought a young daughter.  In any case, three times interrupted might have left him feeling that it was not meant to be.

Richard Ollino’s obituary describes how Artur was able to contribute greatly to the Estonian community in Adelaide. In translation, it reads in part, “The problems of preserving the Estonian spirit abroad were close to his heart. He devoted his strength and energy to Estonian social activities in Adelaide in various fields.

“He was a board member of the Adelaide Estonian Society for a long time, a board member of the Adelaide branch of the Fighters' Association, and a member of the Adelaide Congregation Council of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was always ready to help where a helping hand was needed.

“However, the Estonian community in Adelaide remembers Arthur Klaar most of all for the fact that he, as a founding member of the Estonian House, laid the foundation for our Adelaide Estonian home, in which our national activities now take place.”

This sort of community activity is at least as important volunteering to support the wider community through organisations which might benefit more of those in need, whether it's the Good Neighbour Council and Red Cross like Edvins Baulis, the local hospital or the lost dogs home.  It stabilises a new community in its unfamiliar surrounds and is likely to stop those on the periphery from drifting further away into problems in a foreign language, a foreign society. 

Artur Klaar is at the rear left of this 25 January 1953 photograph
of the elected members of the committee of the Estonian community in Adelaide

Source:  Siska

Despite not completing a degree, Artur continued his membership of Fraternitas Estica, a Latin name meaning 'the Estonian fraternity'. Fraternities for men and sororities for women were a serious, lifelong commitment in Estonia’s one pre-War university and for Estonians in exile.

The fraternity certainly honoured Artur’s life, with its death notices appearing in what might have been all the Estonian community newspapers in the English-speaking world: Vaba Eesti Sõna (Free Estonian Word, America), Vaba Eestlane (Free Estonian, Canada) and Meie Kodu (Our Home, Australia) advised their readers of Artur’s passing.

Sources

Klaar, Silvia (2011) Personal communication.

Korp! Fraternitas Estica (nd) ‘Coetus 1957/1958 [1957/1958 Group]’ https://www.cfe.ee/album-esticum?show=1957#A778 accessed 23 March 2024.

Kunz, Egon (1975). Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia. Canberra, Australian National University Press, digital copy now available from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114807, accessed 16 May 2024.

Ollino, Richard (1970) 'Artur Klaar, In Memoriam' Meie Kodu, Sydney 30 December, p2 https://dea.digar.ee/page/meiekodu/1970/12/03/ accessed 17 May 2024.

Persian, Jayne (1918) ‘Egon Frank Kunz: Displaced Person’ https://australia-explained.com.au/history-shorts/egon-frank-kunz-displaced-person/ accessed 23 March 2024.

Pocius, Daina et al (2023) 'Vytautas Stasiukynas (1920 –?): The Vet Who Found Happiness in South America' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2024/01/vytautas-stasiukynas-veterinarian-Colombia.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Siska. Voldemar (nd) ‘Eesti ühiskond Lõuna-Austraalias’ [‘The Estonian community in South Australia’] https://www.folklore.ee/rl/fo/austraalia/rmt/EAI/siska.htm accessed 23 March 2024.

Tündern-Smith, Ann (2022) 'The only Australian aboard our Heintzelman voyage, Edna Davis (1906-1985)' https://firsttransport.blogspot.com/2022/12/edna-davis-only-australian.html accessed 17 May 2024.

Urmenyhazi, Attila (2008) 'Kunz, Egon Francis (Frank) (1922–1997)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/kunz-egon-francis-frank-14133/text25143, accessed 16 May 2024.

Balts at Bangham (1948-49): Photographs, by Ann Tündern-Smith and Tatyana Tamm

Updated 26 May 2024.

Tatyana Tamm kindly has supplied a number of photographs of the Displaced Persons sent to work at Bangham, South Australia, for the South Australian Railways.  

Of course, we no longer know who is in them.  I you recognise anyone, please contact us through the General Stuart Heintzelman/First Transport Facebook group or comment below.

Double click on the photos to view enlargements.

This June 1948 photo may well include
Displaced Persons who arrived on 3 later transports
(the name they gave to the ships bringing them to Australia,
since the first 4 were United States Army Transports);
identification may be easier using the enlargement below

Note that these men seem be about to be transported on a flat rail wagon
with no sides and, as the sign says, No Hand Brake —
good luck is needed urgently

Are these Bangham men cooking up something, or doing the laundry?

Bath time at Bangham

Another June 1948 photo: is this group about to board more transport to work,
at least with sides this time? 

And another June 1948 photo:
do your recognise anyone?

More about Flaavi Hodunov (1927-2023): SAR Train Driver by Tatyana Tamm

Flaavi Hodunov was born in Estonia in 1927. He was passenger 201 on the General Stuart Heintzelman, the first ship to bring displaced persons (DPs) to Australia to start a new life after the traumas of WWII. He had just turned 20 years of age when he boarded the ship in Bremerhaven and sailed to Australia.

We have learned something about Flaavi and his wife, Wasylisa, from John Mannion's post about his interview of them.

At the end of the war, Flaavi was unable to return to his homeland due to Russia’s occupation of Estonia. He had worked for the Germans while they occupied Estonia. He was fourteen when Germany invaded, and he began working for Germans mechanics. This would not have been viewed favourably by the Russians, so his parents encouraged him to leave. Sadly, he never saw his family again. At the end of WWII, he applied to Canada and Australia with the latter accepting his application first.

Flaavi's photo taken for an official document
(hence the rivet on the left and partial stamp on the right)
taken in Barmstedt, Germany in the 1940s

While travelling to Australia he began learning the English language. Flaavi was keen to succeed in his new home and took to his studies eagerly. He arrived at Bonegilla, the camp where the DPs were housed until they were assigned work. Flaavi only spent 47 days at the camp, with English classes on most days, before he was sent to work for the South Australian Railways (SAR). He was sent to Bangham along with sixty-one other displaced Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians.

The Bangham camp was situated on the south-east railway line between Custon and Frances. The camp was situated approximately 14.5 kms south of Custon. The countryside was scrub and sand, a far different environment from their homeland of forests and greenery.

This environment was not conducive to the men learning English and they reverted to German as this was a common language amongst them.

During a short stay at Bangham, 17 men were identified as being suitable candidates to attend the new railway school in Peterborough, South Australia, because of their good English. Ten were Lithuanian, four were Latvian and three were Estonian. Peterborough is 248 kms north of Adelaide and 506 kms away from the Bangham camp. Flaavi, despite his short time learning English, was one of those chosen.

Baltic men at Peterborough, 1948:
Flaavi is the shortest man (at 5' 6" or 168 cm), fourth from the right —
Double-click on this or any image below to view a large version

When the men arrived, they were housed in Nissan Huts and worked hard. Flaavi started off first in the cleaning shed then worked his way to a fireman. He would work all day and then at night he would survive on coffee and study hard at English so he could take the requisite tests to become a fireman. He gained his fireman's ticket in December 1949.

Flaavi thrived in the country and enjoyed his time in Peterborough. He celebrated his 21st birthday in 1948 at the Railway Institute Hall.

During those early months in Peterborough, Flaavi was writing back to Europe to a girl he had met in a Stuttgart Displaced Persons camp. She was a Ukrainian DP named Wasylisa Proszko. She had been with her family at the camp, so could not be resettled immediately as Australia was only taking single people with families to follow later. The Proszko family did not arrive in Australia until 1949. In Flaavi’s letters he wrote of life in Australia, wanting Wasylisa to convince her father to come to this land of plenty.

Flaavi made friends with the two other Estonians at Peterborough, Artur Klaar and Hugo Jakobsen. Flaavi and Artur, with the help of the Lutheran Church, moved from the Nissan huts to board with the Linke family on their farm west of Peterborough.

Artur Klaar and Flaavi Hodunov relaxing at the Linke home, 1948

Artur Klaar (left) with Walya and Flaavi in Peterborough, 1949

Once the Proszko family had been accepted by the Australian government for resettlement, they were sent to Bonegilla too. Flaavi with the help of the Lutheran community secured work for Wasylisa on a farm owned by Tom and Margaret Casey in September 1949.  (See the official evidence of that here.)

There were restrictions placed on all DPs by the Australian Government of the day. They had to work where sent for 2 years. They had to apply to get married and they had to wait 5 years before becoming an Australian citizen.

Flaavi and Wasylisa married on 26 December 1949 in the Lutheran Church in Peterborough, once permission had been granted. Wasylisa could no longer work once she was married, so she stayed home. Unfortunately, Flaavi’s work in the railways meant that he was away from home a lot leaving his young wife alone.

The wedding party (from left) with members of the Linke family on the verandah, then Mary Proszko (Wasylisa's middle sister), Dominika Proszko (their mother), Wasylisa, Artur Klaar, Raya Proszko (Wasylisa's younger sister) in front of Artur, the bridesmaid (probably from the Linke family), a Linke family member, another Linke family member and, on the right, Flaavi Hodunov.

When Wasylisa’s mother became ill in Adelaide the following year, she relocated to take care of her mother. She refused to go back to Peterborough as she hated the loneliness and isolation of the town. Flaavi had to apply for a transfer to Adelaide through the railways, which was not easy, but in 1950 he secured work at the Mile End yards and their life together in Adelaide began.

Flaavi was determined to succeed. He continued his studies and in 1952 he became the second New Australian to gain his Engine Driver ticket. The Adelaide News ran a story to say that he was the first New Australian, as repeated by John Mannion in one of his entries in this blog. The same story then appeared in at least 5 regional South and Western Australian newspapers as well as the Department of Immigration’s magazine, the New Australian.

The story was picked up from the New Australian to be repeated by the Adelaide Advertiser's columnist, who signed himself Wm Waymouth. The SAR contacted that paper to say that the first migrant engine driver was Andrij Wyshnja, a Ukrainian who had qualified one year before Flaavi. Waymouth ran an apology on the following day, but it was not picked up by the other press which had repeated the story.

Not the first DP engine driver for SAR

Becoming a train driver was a major achievement for a man who had only 6 years of formal schooling. This was not the only achievement that Flaavi was to have in those early years in Australia.

Once he and his wife were settled, living with her mother and father, they had their first daughter Irene, born in 1951. Flaavi obtained a block of land in Brooklyn Park and began building his home mostly by himself. He would work long hours to earn the money needed to build the house and then spend all his spare time working on his home. It took him about three years to do it. The family moved into their home in 1955.

An Adelaide newspaper article about Flaavi, his family and the new home:
it's repetition of the error about Flaavi being the first 'new Australian in SA to hold a rating', 
suggests it is from the News rather than the Advertiser and the date is likely to be 1955

Their daughter, Irene, was four at the time. The following year they had their second daughter, Tatyana, and then 18 months later their third daughter, Lena. Their family was complete and life for Flaavi Hodunov flourished in his adopted home.

Flaavi enjoyed working in the railways. Although released from his contract with the Federal Government, he remained employed by the SAR for 37 years before he retired at the age of fifty-eight due to industrial hearing loss.

Flaavi lived in his own home until June 2023, when frailty caused him to be placed into a nursing home until his passing.

In the end Australia was more his home than his native home of Estonia. He arrived on 28 November 1947 and just one day before the 76 anniversary, on 27 November 2023 he passed away. He never returned to the country in where he was born.

Note:  All images are from the collection of the author, Tatyana Tamm, Flaavi's middle daughter.

References

New Australian, ‘First new Australian train driver’ Canberra, August 1952 p 4.

News, ‘New Australian Drives Loco’ Adelaide, 21 June 1952, p 2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130274483 accessed 24 April 2024. 

Waymouth, William (1952) ‘Good Morning! Good as new’, Advertiser, Adelaide, 11 September, p2 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47408025 accessed 26 April 2024. 

Waymouth, William (1952) ‘Good Morning!’, Advertiser, Adelaide, 11 September, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47416433 accessed 26 April 2024.