Victoria

The 1933 Australian Census recorded 37 males and 22 females in the state of Victoria who stated that their birthplace was Lithuania. As noted in previous posts and comments, given the changing jurisdictions in that region during and after the First World War, others born there may have recorded their birthplace as Russia, Germany, or Poland.

As with the other states, the early Victorian migrants included a mix of pre-World War One arrivals and those who arrived in the 1920s and 1930s. The earliest arrivals to Victoria were probably Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) fleeing persecution in czarist Russia in the 1880s.  Some of their stories are well documented elsewhere, for example:

• the PHILLIPS (FIVOVSOVITCH) family from Salantai and Skuodas; see  http://www.judelmanfamily.com/forum_detail.aspx?ID=7; and

• the OBERMAN family from Kedainiai; see http://www.oberman.org.au/lithuania.htm

An economic depression hit Victoria in the 1890s and may have temporarily put a brake on further migration, but in the early twentieth century a steady stream of mainly single men - Litvaks, ethnic Lithuanians, and others born in the region of Lithuania - started arriving and settling in Victoria. Many of them enlisted in the 1st AIF and served at Gallipoli, Egypt or the Western Front during the First World War and have been described in previous posts:

• Samuel BRITAIN from Vilnius (see my post of 7 May 2015);
• Harry COOPER from Kaunas (7 May);
• Joe IPP from Kaunas (14 May);
• Adolph MISHKINIS from Zarasai (30 April);
• Reuben ROSENFIELD from Raseiniai (2 April);
• Emerick SCHIMKOVITCH from Zarasai (21 May); and
• Nathan WATCHMAN from Navarėnai (19 March).

In the 1920s and 1930s a new generation of migrants arrived, for example:

Jonas JAKOVLEVAS, born in Kaunas in 1897.  Naturalisation records at the Australian National Archives state that his father was Russian and Jonas had spent his youth in Russia, serving as a pilot in the Russian airforce in World War One before returning to Lithuania in 1921. He married a Lithuanian girl from Telšiai in 1924 and a son Alex (Aliekseij) was born in 1927. Jonas arrived in Australia alone at the end of 1929 and his wife and son followed 3 years later. By the mid 1930s Jonas was operating his own photographic business 'Ivan Studios' at 190 Bourke Street, Melbourne.

Kazys ZAKAS, born at Lygumai, Šiauliai county, on 8 November 1898.  His Lithuanian passport shows that he was an agricultural worker, single and was issued a visa for Australia by the British consulate in Kaunas in May 1930. He arrived by the Oronsay in June 1930; his naturalisation records state that by the mid 1930s he was operating his own business as a 'knitting manufacturer' in Melbourne. Kazys had married in Australia but died suddenly in Melbourne in 1950.

Metraštis No.1 (1961) records that when the first ship carrying World War Two DPs (Displaced Persons) arrived in Melbourne in 1947 the Lithuanians on board were greeted by two early migrants; Jonas Jakovlevas and a man identified only by his surname, Paliokas, who had been born in Ventė and lived in Australia since 1928 (p.10). That publication also records a story by one of the first DPs (Kazys Mieldažys) that that they were visited on the ship by Paliokas and also by Mr and Mrs Jakovlevas who subsequently sent parcels to some of the Lithuanians when they were at the Bonegilla migrant camp and later allowed them to use their apartment in Melbourne for music and song rehearsals as well as helping the newcomers in many other ways (p 24).

Some updates

Thanks to everyone who has written to me or commented on this blog site since it started in February 2015!  Here are a few of the updates, amendments or corrections that have come to light:


Joe BROWN, Perth (blog post of 12 February 2015).  Thanks to Žydrė Pember, I now realise that the man who had introduced my father to Australian horseracing in Perth way back in February 1948 was probably Joseph Brown, born in Scotland in 1915 and the son of Juozapas LAZORAITIS, who had lived in Scotland for around 35 years before arriving in Australia with his family in 1928.


Alexander (Ksaveras) SKIERYS (post of 12 March 2015).  Thanks to Rosemary (Petraitis/Peterson) Mitchell for forwarding this great photo of Alex Skierys and Ellen (Petraitis) Skierys with their first two children Alex and Nelly, taken in Sydney in 1917.  Rosemary has some great family stories which I hope to share in due course.

Nathan WATCHMAN (post of 19 March 2015).  Thanks to Dana Grigonis for alerting me to additional information on this Lithuanian Jewish Anzac and to Simon Hill for agreeing to share the following:

Nathan Watchman was born Notel-Kalman Pelts on 2nd February 1884 in Virmenai, Telsiai, Kovno, son of Aron (Orel) Pelts and his wife, Iudes. They were part of an extended family of Peltses who lived in Nevarenai and the surrounding area, having come there in the 1870s from Plunge. Before going to Newcastle [UK] (to embark for Australia – see 1911 UK Census), Nathan visited his second cousin, Shneyer Peltz, in Dublin. Shneyer had gone to Dublin in the 1880s to work for a Mr Wachmann, and had changed his name because it was easier, to Simon Watchman - after this, any members of the family who came to Dublin had to change their names to Watchman, to avoid awkward questions! Simon Watchman was my wife's maternal grandfather.  Nathan’s birth details come from the Telsiai records. 

Jonas BALAIKA (post of 27 July 2015).  Balaika had returned to Lithuania in 1925, taking out Lithuanian citizenship and thus losing his Australian (British) citizenship.  He married and raised a family, surviving the Second world and the Soviet annexation of the country, but in 1947 expressed a desire to return to Australia with his family. An anonymous contributor has advised that she is Balaika's great granddaughter and that three of Balaika's daughters are still alive; it would be valuable to learn more of that family's story (please!).


Norman McLEOD (post of 10 August 2015).  The Latvian Government appointed Norman McLeod (not 'J McLeod' as recorded elsewhere) as the Honorary Consul for Latvia in Sydney in July 1931.  McLeod also attended Australian Lithuanian Society functions in Sydney as a guest of honour and served as Latvia's Honorary Consul until his death in June 1958.

Lithuanian ANZACS - summary

Immigrants in the AIF

Over 420,000 men enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force (1st AIF) during the First World War, of whom around 332,000 were sent abroad.  Almost a quarter (22 per cent) of those who embarked for service overseas were not born in Australia, with a range of minorities represented amongst the English-born majority.  These minority groups are currently receiving some renewed attention:

• German Anzacs and the First World War (John F Williams, UNSW Press, 2003) looked at men of German origin and their war-time experiences, including internment in Australia.  Williams speculated that there may have been as many as 18,000 young men of German origin (not necessarily born overseas) who served abroad with the AIF;
• Anzacs and Ireland (Jeff Kildea, UNSW Press, 2007) focused on Irish-born members of the AIF.  Subsequently the UNSW's Irish Anzacs project has established a database of almost 6000 Irish-born Anzacs who served in the AIF;
• Next of Kin Untraceable; Foreign Born in Australia's First AIF was the title of a paper presented by Karen Agutter at 'The First World War - local, global and Imperial perspectives', The University of Newcastle, 25-27 March 2015 [this paper has not been sighted - JM]; 
• Elena Govor, author of Russian Anzacs in Australian History (UNSW Press 2005) has identified 1036 men born in the former Russian Empire who served in the AIF.  Of these, 241 were born in the then Baltic provinces of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  - see http://russiananzacs.net/statistics/.  These figures do not include Slavs or Jews from those provinces; Govor has aggregated them separately.

Previous posts on this blog have looked at 40 Lithuanian-born men who served in the 1st AIF.  The following seeks to summarise the findings so far (keeping in mind that not all personal particulars supplied at enlistment - on the attestation papers - were necessarily accurate and ideally should be corroborated through other sources).

Origins

The first feature that soon becomes obvious when looking at Govor's statistics is that there were many fewer Lithuanian-born men in the AIF than Latvian- or Estonian-born; http://russiananzacs.net/ lists 100 ethnic Estonians, 130 ethnic Latvians and 14 ethnic Lithuanians. This suggests differences in migration flows which could be worth exploring.

The attestation papers held by the National Archives of Australia suggest that the Lithuanian-born men in the AIF were broadly representative of the various regions of the country; they were not exclusively from any one part of Lithuania.  About half of these men gave a specific town or village as their place of birth.  The others gave either Kaunas or Vilnius in almost equal measure; in the absence of other information this could be taken to mean either the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius or the surrounding provinces (gubernia) administered through them. They were also broadly representative of the various ethnicities living in that region: ethnic Lithuanians, Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks), Slavs (Poles, Russians, Belorussians), and Germans.

Their dates of birth ranged from 1870 to the late 1890s, with the most common years being 1892 and 1894 (4 each) and 1886, 1889, and 1891 (3 each).  By the time they came to enlist, they were mostly in their 20s, although a few saw active service overseas in their 40s.

They were mostly single men, although 6 were married.

Their dates of arrival in Australia also spanned a few decades: while Reuben Rosenfield reached Australia in 1888, Adolph Cantor in 1902, Stanislaus Urniarz in 1904 and Leo Gordon in 1908, all the others arrived in the second decade of the twentieth century (5 in 1914, 4 each in 1910, 1911, and 1912, 3 in 1913, 3 in 1915, 1 in 1916 and 1 in 1917, suggesting a fairly constant rate of arrivals in the first half of that decade).

The most common occupations shown on their attestation papers were seaman (12), labourer (6), salesman (4) and tailor or clothing cutter (3).


Enlistment

None of the 40 men appear to have enlisted together, and their enlistment dates span a period of 3 years.  The earliest enlistment was that of Charles Oscar Zander (August 1914) and the latest was that of Antonio Samson (November 1917).  In all, 6 men enlisted in 1914, followed by 12 in 1915, then 19 in 1916, and 3 in 1917.

Over a third of the men enlisted in the state of  New South Wales (15), followed by Victoria (10); South Australia (5), Western Australia (5), and Queensland (4).

Their discharge dates also spanned several years, from 1915 to 1920.


Service

Over half of these men served in the various AIF infantry battalions; the others saw service in pioneer or engineering battalions, machine gun companies, light horse regiments, and the medical corps. Most served as privates, only a few had the opportunity to serve as corporals.  Dr Rosenfield, engaged as a specialist surgeon on contract, was the only one on this list who was appointed as an officer.

34 men were sent overseas:

• most served on the Western Front;
• 6 saw action at Gallipoli;
• 4 served in Egypt/Sinai.

Twelve men were wounded in action (not counting those who were subsequently killed):

• Harry Cooper;
• Paul Elias Isaac Finn;
• Leo Gordon;
• William Frank Jaks;
• Anthony Januski;
• Joseph Josephson;
• Arthur Levy;
• Adolph Ignatieff Mishkinis;
• Sigismund Romaszkiewicz;
• Gerard Martyn Skugar;
• Kazys Waliukevic;
• Nathan Watchman; and
• Heyman Wolfson.

Six men were killed in action or died from wounds received in action:

• John Brenka;
• John Lovriaen;
• Franc Matzonas;
• David Minor;
• Anthony Puris; and
• Charles Oscar Zander

Lithuanian Anzacs at Gallipoli

Migrants from Lithuania fought for Australia in all the major theatres of World War One. Some also served at home, in Australia. This post will look at the earliest enlistments, those who served at Gallipoli (1915), while later posts will look at the Western Front as well as Egypt/Palestine.

I have drawn heavily on Elena Govor's work on 'Russian Anzacs' (2005), which is the most comprehensive examination yet published of World War One service by men originating from the Baltic provinces of the then Russian empire. More recently, research work specifically on Lithuanian Anzacs commenced in 2013 through the Lithuanian Studies Society at the University of Tasmania, and the results are eagerly awaited.  

The following Lithuanian Anzacs have been identified in Elena Govor's research at the National Archives of Australia (NAA). The links against each surname bring up the digitised service record from the NAA's website.

source: http://russiananzacs.elena.id.au/ 

Charles Oscar ZANDER enlisted in Adelaide at the outbreak of war in August 1914. Born near Vilnius, probably of German heritage (his parents were naturalised Russian subjects), he became a seaman and lived for some time in England where he became a naturalised British subject. He arrived at Port Adelaide around 1911 and was a member of the first Australian contingent to depart for the Middle East in November 1914; he served at Gallipoli as a private in the 10th Battalion, and later as a corporal on the Western Front. He married in London while on leave in 1916 but was killed in action in France on 22 August 1916. Charles' service is commemorated at the Australian War Memorial, the Adelaide War Memorial and the Villers-Brettoneux memorial in France.


Kazis WALIUKEVIC /WALINKEVIC (Kazimieras VALIUKEVIČIUS, also known as Charles Valukavitz or Volukawytz) enlisted at Perth in September 1914. He had been born in Marijampolė and arrived in Western Australia in 1910 from Scotland. He was also a seaman, with a wife in Lithuania, but had remained in Australia working as a labourer. Naturalised in 1914, he served as a private in the 16th Battalion at Gallipoli where he was wounded in action. Discharged in Australia in September 1916 he appears to have returned to the UK in the early 1920s.

Nathan WATCHMAN enlisted at Geelong in September 1914 and re-enlisted at Melbourne in January 1915. Born in Navarėnai as Notel-Kalman Pelts, he had arrived in 1911 from England and worked as a commercial traveller in South Australia and Victoria before being naturalised in 1914. He served at Gallipoli as a private in the 6th Battalion before being wounded in action and returned to Australia. He was discharged in March 1916, later married and died in 1949.

Charles CEPKOUSKI (Kazimieras ČEPKAUSKAS, also known as Charles Capouski) enlisted at Perth in November 1914. He was from Arlaviškės, near Kaunas, and had arrived in 1910, working in Western Australia as a bootmaker and labourer. He served at Gallipoli as a private in the 16th Battalion, but was returned to Australia in August and discharged in December 1915 as medically unfit. Undeterred, he enlisted a second time and was accepted for home service in 1916. He married in 1918, had four children and died in Sydney in 1960.

Militan SCHATKOWSKI (Šatkauskas, also known as OLDHAM) enlisted in Liverpool NSW in November 1914. He was born at Plateliai, possibly of Polish and/or German heritage, and had arrived in Australia in 1914 as a seaman having already lived in the British Empire from 1908. He served at Gallipoli as a private in the 2nd Battalion, and later on the Western Front. He ended the war attached to the Australian Red Cross in London 1917-19, where he also married and was naturalised as a British subject before returning to Australia. He took his wife's surname, OLDHAM, and died in Sydney in 1938.  

AWM memorial panel 61

(source: http://russiananzacs.elena.id.au/)

John Brente BRENKA enlisted at Adelaide in June 1915. His place of birth is not certain (it was either present-day Lithuania or Belarus) but his declaration of catholicism as his religion suggests he was Lithuanian. Arriving at Port Adelaide on 29 September 1914 on the Ajana from Liverpool UK, he worked at a sawmill in Gumeracha for a short while before enlisting in the AIF as a Russian subject. He served for a short while in the Gallipoli campaign as a private in the 10th Battalion, then went on to serve on the Western Front in the 50th Battalion where he died on 23 August 1916 of wounds received in action. He is commemorated at the Australian War Memorial and at both the Adelaide and Birdwood war memorials in South Australia. John had no relatives in Australia.



My wife's grand uncle Lt Thomas John WOODHOUSE (12th Battalion) also served at Gallipoli and was killed in action at Lone Pine on 9 August 1915. It is tempting to speculate that he and some of the above Lithuanians may have crossed paths during that terrible campaign.

The Australian War Memorial advises that during the Centenary period, the name of each of the 62,000 Australians who gave their lives during the First World War will be projected onto the façade of the Hall of Memory at the Australian War Memorial. The names will be displayed from sunset to sunrise every night, and can be seen from the Memorial's grounds. Each name will be visible for 30 seconds.