Australian Lithuanian History

There are several sets of index cards in the collection with details of Lithuanian families in Adelaide.  I am not sure of the reason they were created but are a great and fascinating asset to the collection.  Both sets were part of the St Casmir Church Archives and I can only presume were created by the priest of the time. South Australian families Each card is hand written and may contain surname, followed by first name, or head of the household.  In most cases they contain the persons address, and changes of address.  It may contain place of work, birth date, children’s name and dates of birth, if the house they were living in was their own.  It may contain maiden names of spouses, sometimes place of birth, occupation, arrival date, some names of extended families. The top right hand corner has a number which I believe indicates the number of people in the household. It is believed they were compiled by in the 1950’s.  In Lithuania...

Can you help support this project.  Many  Lithuanian's  coming to Australia were first housed interstate but some were placed in the Woodside Migrant camp.  The details are below. In SA History Week 2010 the Migration Museum launched an exciting new project called ‘Hostel Stories’. The aim of the project is to collect records of migrant hostel life, which will contribute to an exhibition in 2013. The University of Adelaide   are undertaking research into the Migrant hostels which will continue after the exhibition. Museum staff and volunteers are very excited about this partnership which will contribute to much greater resources for people wanting to find out about migrant lives in the hostels. Thousands of migrants passed through South Australia’s migrant hostels, reception centres and camps – including Elder Park, Gepps Cross, Glenelg, Rosewater, Pennington/Finsbury, Smithfield, Willaston and Woodside – from the 1940s to the 1980s. The hostels were tem...

I have written briefly on the Baltic University that existed for a short time in Germany, just after WWII. I have come across a booklet on the University published in English and Lithuanian printed in the 50th year after the University was formed. The University, or Study Centre as it was officially known was unable to confer any academic degrees, but the course of study was in line with other universities.  The University was one of the cheapest at the time.  The teachers received no salaries, no funding was received.  The students and professors shared the same overcrowded barracks, the same food and shared the same common pursuit of knowledge and ideal of freedom and justice.  It was founded by scholars of three different speaking nationalities.  It was important for the three Baltic countries to preserve and further develop their national cultures. ...

The end of the war for many of the Lithuanians became a waiting and hoping game.  Hoping that their country would be free again and they could return home.  While they hoped, they waited.  Some 70,000 Lithuanians made their way west, mainly ending up in Germany.  A large percentage of these Lithuanians were professionals: physicians, engineers, jurists, teachers, artists, public officials, and others who would have been targeted by the Soviet occupational regime had they stayed in or returned to Soviet-occupied Lithuania.  While in DP camps, members tried to resume their former occupations, or worked at other jobs, and tried establish a sense of normalcy in what were abnormal conditions. With time on their hands, many camps began printing their own newspapers.  These camp publications come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some contain news simply typed up and mimeographed on low-quality paper. Others were professionally type-set and contain artwork...