Arrivals from China and Japan

The Australian Lithuanian Community Archives are located in Adelaide, South Australia, and managed by Daina Pocius. In 2016 Daina posted an interesting item on her blog 'SA Lithuanian History' about Lithuanians in Harbin, China, in the 1930s (click here for a link to that post). That prompted me to think about what other records might exist of Lithuanians arriving in Australia from Harbin (Manchuria) or elsewhere in East Asia.

China, early 1930s, with Japanese occupied Manchuria and Harbin (source:http://www.balticasia.lt/straipsniai/istorija/lietuviai-kinijoje-xix-1940-m/ ) 

A 2014 article 'Lithuanians in China, 19th Century to 1940' by Gediminas Giedraitis on the BalticAsia website (in Lithuanian) provided an introduction to how and why some people had made their way to eastern China, over 4000 km from their birthplace. The first group to arrive were participants or supporters of the 1863 uprising who had been banished to Siberia and from there escaped into China. They were followed by several other waves of deported or displaced Lithuanians who also decided that life in China was a better option. There was also one significant group of voluntary migrants, the construction workers who came to work on the East China Railway at the end of the 19th century and stayed. By the 1930s there were an estimated 1000 Lithuanians residing in eastern China, including perhaps 350 in Harbin and 150 in Shanghai.

Lithuanians in Shanghai (1920s/30s)
 (source:http://www.balticasia.lt/straipsniai/istorija/lietuviai-kinijoje-xix-1940-m/)  

Then I consulted Elena Govor's book Russian Anzacs in Australian History and found that the route from the Russian Far East to Australia was not an unusual migratory route in the early 20th century (pp 22-23):

This choice of route was encouraged to some extent by the activities of emigration agents in far-eastern ports and the availability of steamship services to Australia. These Russians usually came via Harbin (China) and the Japanese port of Moji, from where Japanese steamships sailed ... [to] Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.  ... Almost all of them disembarked at Brisbane.

Here are some examples of these migration patterns. Although in many cases we have scant details, there is enough to see that this was a regular corridor for people who had either settled in China or used it as a transit route:

1910: The ROMASZKIEWICZ family arrived in Brisbane from Nagasaki, Japan, aboard the Kumano Maru. Sigismund Romaszkiewicz was born in Krekenava, Lithuania, in 1876 and appears to have lived in Harbin from at least 1900; this link to the Russian Anzacs website provides more details.

1911: The DAPKEWITCH family arrived in Brisbane aboard the Yawata Maru. Jan (John) Dapkewitch had been born in Vilkaviskis in 1877 and married Paulina Svershchevska in Harbin in 1905. They had had two children before arriving in Australia: Nina, born in Belarus in 1906, and John, born in Kamchatka in 1910 (source: Foster Family Tree on ancestry.com.au).

1911: Vladislav SCHILLER arrived as a single man in Melbourne on the regular steamer service operated by the Yawata Maru. He was born in Lida or Vilnius in 1889, had worked in Harbin on the railway, and soon found employment as a fitter and turner at West Footscray. He married Elizabeh Eldridge in 1915 and was naturalised in 1922. Vladislav later moved to Sydney and died there in 1968 (source: Turnbull Wasson Tree on Ancestry.com.au).

1911: Joseph MANJIKE, born in 1873 in Vilnius, arrived in Brisbane from Manchuria. See my earlier post on Joseph here.

1914: Edward Charles PHILLULE (?PILIULIS), born in 1881, arrived in Brisbane from Japan aboard the St Albans; see my earlier post on E C Phillule here.

1923: Josephine RUCKMAN, born in 1863 in Kaunas, arrived at Brisbane on the Yoshino Maru with her sons John and Felix and a daughter (source: National Archives of Australia).

1923: Bronislau KRETOVITCH, born in Vilnius in 1889, had first arrived in Brisbane on the Yawata Maru in 1911 leaving his wife Vida and family behind in Harbin. After service in the AIF during World War 1 (see the Russian Anzacs link here) he made a return visit to Harbin and then came back to Australia in 1923, arriving in Melbourne from Kobe on the Tango Maru.  He was followed by his daughter Jadvyga Kretovitch who arrived in Melbourne in 1928 on the Aki Maru.    

1938: The AGRANOFF family arrived in Sydney aboard the Kamo Maru. The Jewish parents Chaim and Rachel had been born in Lithuania, but their children Faivel (Paul) and Sara Lia were born and raised in Harbin (source: National Archives of Australia).

Harbin in the 1920s (commercial postcard)

In 2020 Laurynas Kudijanovas, a student at Vilnius University, wrote his Master's thesis about Lithuanians in Asia during the early 20th century 'Lietuviai Azijoje 1900–1939 metais: kultūrinės istorijos siužetai apie lietuvybės raišką ir diplomatus Rytų kraštuose'. His research sources included this blog and the Australian Lithuanian Archives.

  

Lithuanians in the Australian Outback

Lithuanians, like most migrants to Australia, tended to settle in the capital cities or adjacent coastal fringe areas. There were some, however, who pursued their dreams in the more remote parts of the country. For some, the mining centres of Kalgoorlie (Western Australia) and Broken Hill (New South Wales) were favoured destinations which usually offered better pay, but more demanding conditions. A few others found opportunities even further afield.

This blog has already looked at some early Lithuanian migrants who spent longer or shorter periods in the outback, for example:

• the Lithuanian Jewish families at Broken Hill (see my post of 19 October 2015);

• the Lithuanian Anzacs who enlisted while working in remote locations of Australia, including William KALIN/KALINOVSKY/KALINAUSKAS at Cloncurry and John LOVRIAEN at Kalgoorlie (23 April); 

• Father Paul ZUNDOLOVICH at Wilcannia and White Cliffs (31 August);

• Charles ASHE/ Kazys ASTRAUSKAS at Kalgoorlie (29 June); and

• Bruno GREITSCHUS at Offham Siding, Goolburra Station (16 April).

Here are two more stories of the men who settled in outback Australia:

Mykolas/Michael REPECKA - Mount Isa, Queensland

The township of Mt Isa, 1958
from the collection of the National Archives of Australia
 (NAA: A1200, L27995))

National Archives of Australia records indicate that Mykolas was born in 1877 at Kurkliai, near Ukmergė, and that he was later a resident of Vladivostok before arriving in Australia (probably around 1910). He settled in Queensland and in 1928 lodged an application to sponsor another Lithuanian, Julius CESIUNAS, to Australia. In 1941 he lodged a notice in the Townsville Daily Bulletin (30 July, 1941) advising his intention to seek naturalisation; he stated that he was a Lithuanian national who had been resident in Australia for 31 years. His naturalisation certificate was issued in March 1942, noting that he was a 64 year old labourer living at Coal Stage, Mt Isa.

Electoral Roll records for 1963 and 1968 show Mykolas in his later years as a resident at the Salvation Army Home, Riverview (Ipswich, near Brisbane).

Joseph MANJIKE - Broken Hill, New South Wales

The Barrier Miner (a Broken Hill newspaper) of 27 September 1929 carried a notice inserted by Joseph Manjike stating that he had been born at Vilnius, was of Lithuanian nationality, had been a resident of Australia for 18 years, and now intended to apply for naturalisation. He gave his address as 117 Chloride Street, Broken Hill. National Archives of Australia records throw a little more light on him: he was born on 28 January 1873 in Vilnius, his father Michael was a Lithuanian, he arrived at Brisbane on 20 August 1911 from Manchuria, and prior to settling in Broken Hill he had lived for short periods of time in Brisbane, Bundaberg, Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. At the time he applied for naturalisation in 1929 he was a miner with South Broken Hill Mining Co and was aged 56.

Joseph had married Mary Antonoff (who had been born in Russia) in 1918 in Victoria and together they had brought up two girls and a boy in Broken Hill. However the Depression of the 1930s hit Broken Hill hard; many people lost their jobs and were forced to seek work elsewhere. That is probably why the 1937 electoral roll shows Mary Manjike still at 117 Chloride Street, but not Joseph; he was working at the Wurang Unemployed Wood Camp, 183 miles from Broken Hill, which was a community project established to cut and supply wood to unemployed families in Broken Hill. Sadly, the Barrier Miner of 23 July 1937 reported that Joseph Manjike was found dead at the camp the previous morning. He was 64 years of age and was buried in the Roman Catholic section of the Broken Hill cemetery; the Barrier Miner recording that the funeral "is expected to be largely attended by members of the Unemployed Union, who have been requested to march".  

The NSW Births Deaths and Marriages record lists Joseph Manjike's death and records his parents' names as Nicholas and Marcella.