Albinas Pocius, the Lithuanian Minor Activist

Albinas was born on December 13th 1918, not far from Sėda. His parents were farmers. He finished Sėda Primary school and then the Sėda middle school. He first joined the scout movement  in 1930, as a 12 year old, an interest that he retained throughout his life.  Albinas attended high school in Mažeikas, but finished high school in Klaipėda.  He studied journalism at the Vytautas Didysis school.  During the soviet occupation Albinas worked on the railways.

In August 1944 he fled the Russian front and fled to the west.  He found himself in the Montomery camp in Dorverdene camp and later Seedorf, the British zone.   It was in a Seedorf Displaced Persons camp in Selsingen that he met Ruta Pociute whom he later married on the 23 March 1947.  

On February 1949 they left Naples on the boat Nea Hellas, bound for Australia.  Albinas spent his two work contract planting pine trees and later working in Housing Trust building homes.  The skills he learnt on the job allowed him to build his own home in Warragul. In 1949 he was actively involved in the Lithuanian scout movement and helped V.s B. Dainutis organise the Australian district.  He had been in Australia only one month before he sought out other Lithuanian scouts, corresponding with them.  

Albinas continued writing for various Lithuanian newspapers over the years.  He wrote “Po Svetimų Dangum” (Under a foreign sky) about scouts in the Sydney Lithuanian newspaper, Mūsų Pastogė.

Later Ruta and Albinas moved to Melbourne where they spend many years.  They became heavily involved in the Lithuanian community, Albinas in scouts, Ramovė even become president of the Australian Lithuanian and regional director of the Lithuanian Scout Association.  Albinas was Ramovės secretary and for six years was Vice-President of the Melbourne Lithuanian Club from 1968 to 1972.  For many years he was the Scouts Ramovė president and also held position of President of the Melbourne Lithuanian community for eight years and in 1980 was elected to the Australian Lithuanian community as President.  He was awarded the World Lithuanian community Karaliaus Mindaugas and Vilnius Universitetas 400m medal.  

Albinas became heavily involved in the fight with the Whitlam government acknowledgment of the Baltic states as being incorporated into the Soviet Union.  He joined the Australian Baltic Committee & Captive Nations and served on both as vice-president.

Albinas was very concerned with the plight of Mažoji Lietuva (Lithuania Minor) and wrote many articles and booklets on the situation.  He lectured extensively throughout Australia and Melbourne. In 1951 he organized the Mažosios Lietuvos Bičiulių Draugija, (Friends of Lithuanian Minor) and became the President.  

After retirement, the couple moved to Adelaide, as Ruta had family there.  Albinas involved himself in the Adelaide community and continued writing. 

In 1997 Albinas and Ruta celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  Family and friends gathered at Lithuanian House in Norwood for a lunch.  He passed away two years later in 1999. Mass was held in the Lithuanian chapel and later at the Centennial Park where he was cremated.  

Albinas was a big bulky bear of a man with a gentle soul.  He was softy spoken, well educated and a true Lithuanian patriot.  He dedicated many years of his life to the Lithuanian community, in the hope of seeing his country free again. 

Riauba takes on the Red Army

 

Juozas Riauba, born in 1910.  After withdrawing from Lithuania to Germany towards the end of WWII, he entered studies at the Munich Technical school.  At that time he also worked for United Nations Relief & Rehabilitaiton (UNRRA) in the garage as senior mechanic. 

In 1949, he made the long journey on the transport ship, Wooster Victory to Australia, docking in Adelaide where he stayed.  He arrived here with his wife.   

Juozas again entered university, this time in Adelaide in 1959.  He entered the public service and worked with the SA Electricity Trust on mechanical projects. 

Outside of work he was heavily involved with the Lithuanian community in Adelaide.  He was a founding members of the sports Club Vytis, a member of the Adelaide Lithuanian students association from 1959 – 1961, parents committee of Vilniaus scouts and teacher at Lithuanian school.

In 1962 he acted as Vice-President of the ‘Voice of Witness of Communist expansion” and later the Australian European Freedom Alliance.  In 1966 he was Vice-President of Captive Nations.

Juozas was concerned with how Lithuania was represented in printed material, newspapers and books.  He would write to publishers pointing out mistakes or misguided information. In 1969 he began to correspond with the State Library of South Australia, suggesting books that the Library could purchase about Lithuania.  He had compiled a list of books that the Library held, relating to Lithuania,  40 books in all on various aspects of Lithuania.  Juozas also appealed to the Lithuanian community in Adelaide to donate books that might better represent Lithuania in the State Library.  He went one step further; writing to Publishers seeking to purchase books which he would then donate to the Library.  Within a short time the State Library increased its collection of book on Lithuanian to 67.

In 1969, it was publicised that the Red Army choir would be coming to Adelaide to perform.  Juozas strongly opposed this and wrote numerous letters to politicians and newspapers expressing his disapproval.  To him it was “an insult to all of us, originally from the countries behind the iron curtain.  Our relatives and loved ones have suffered persecution.  We, the Australian citizen from behind the Iron Curtain now living in Adelaide have been forced to leave our homeland by the advancing Red Army and have lost everything, except our lives”.

He signed these letters as Ju-Ra, as he feared reprisals for his relatives still in Lithuania.
The Baltic Council of Australia and the Captive nations Committee of SA also sought to stop the participation of the Red Army choir from performing in the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1970. The Baltic Council published an advert in the Advertiser (20 February 1969) which states;  The choir was symbolic of totalitarian regimes and that it was a propaganda unit which existed to glorify the Soviet in song and dance. 

The chairman of the Adelaide Festival of Arts J C Irwin defended the decision to allow the group to perform.  The Red Army Choir did not perform in the Festival of Arts.