Australian Lithuanian History

    On the crossroad of I. Kanto and Simonas Daukanto streets in Klaipeda a memorial to victims of Nazi and Soviet occupation during 1940-1990 was unveiled and blessed in 1997.   On the other side of Simonas Daukantis street you will find a building that during communist occupation was used to torture Lithuanian men and women.   Prisoners could not stretch out, nor lie down, they were held down in water until they passed out.   The building was the KGB offices.   The memorial is located in a square named for those exiled, shielded by a wide canopy of leaves from the 200 year old oak tree that grows there.   By the tree political prisoners and exiled people erected a statue from a large stone, in memory of those who perished between 1940 – 1990.   Near this memorial another was erected from Lithuanian stone with the names and dates of those who were killed or died.   Many fathers, brothers, sisters of those who fled Lithuanian were ...

Australian Lithuanian demonstrator in Canberra   On August 3, 1974, with no forewarning, it was announced that the Government had recognized, de jure, the annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union. It was soon revealed that it was Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Whitlam’s own decision, taken without cabinet or caucus debate, to give legitimacy to the forced annexations by the Soviet Union of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, carried out in 1940 by a mixture of military force, terror and political fraud under the secret terms of the Nazi Soviet Pact of August, 1939. Balts in Australia were horrified and began to campaign against the decision.   Recorded in a Lithuanian newspaper in Boston was a poem coined by an Australian Lithuanian. I’m glad I’m a Lithuanian, I’m happy I am free I wish I was a big dog, And Whitlam was a tree. Vienybe 1974.IX.27

Baltic Games 1973 For a time every two years, from 1969, Baltic Games were held in Australia over the Anzac long weekend.   When held in Adelaide the Forrestville basketball stadium was a hive of activity as Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians came to compete with each other in volleyball and basketball.   Created to help strengthen ties among young Australians of Baltic descent, 200 competitors, some top of their field would compete. Among the Latvian basketballers, Andris Blicavs [i] , SA State player Peter Vitols, NSW state player Maris Jaunalkanis for the men and Ilze Blicavs [ii] for the women. Lithuanians had American born Frank Chickowski and superstar Karen Maar [iii] will be the Estonian top women basketballer. The Estonians had a strong volleyball team, all members of their team had played State volleyball.   Their women’s team contains only one player who hasn’t played State and were coached by national women’s volleyball coach Juhan Olesk. ...