Book review - Lithuanians roots in American soil

I think I have read every autobiography concerning Australian Lithuanians, and so thought I would give an American Lithuanian story a read. 

Lithuanian Roots in American Soil: A Memoir of the Barunas Family by Audrone Barunas Willeke      2014

 

The story reads like so many of the DP's who fled the Soviet invasion at the end of WWII.  The Barunas family, then consisting of Kazys, Jadvyga and baby Audrone left Lithuania in the summer of 1944. They expected to return home at the end of the war but instead had to move further west into war-ravaged Germany.

 

After miraculously surviving bombings and near starvation, they ended their flight in displaced persons' camps under American administration. In these camps three more children were born and a grandmother died.

 

Unable to return to communist-occupied Lithuania, they found the chance to start a new life when a helpful stranger invited them to the United States.

 

The book is compiled by Kazy's two daughters, using Kazys journal mixed with family memories written by Audrone.  The book is well written, includes lots of photographs, and family details.  It explains the historical time well giving the reader context.  It evokes the emotions of the families loss, of homeland and family left behind, but also the thankfulness of a new life in a country and the opportunities that arose from migration.  The Barunas family had close ties to the Lithuanian community, which helped them to feel a part of a community where otherwise one could easily not fit in anywhere. 

It was interesting for me to read of how the family moved about as adults, all living in different locations.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and quickly read it, so I could learn the fate of the family.  The sisters wrote the book mainly for their own family for those who no longer speak Lithuanian. I think they have given the family a fantastic legacy.

 

I purchased a new copy from the Book Depository for  only $15.00.

 

 

Useful sites

From time to time I come across some great resources relevant to Lithuanians in Australia.  Here is the latest.

The Lithuanian Studies Society at the University of Tasmania has produced an annual journal for 28 years. It features articles about Lithuania written in English on a variety of subjects. It is a great read and from this year the publication is only available online. You can view and download it here for free.

ORT and Displaced Persons Camps

The letters O-R-T form the Russian acronym for "Obschestvo Remeslenovo i zemledelcheskovo Trouda", meaning The Society for Handicrafts and Agricultural Work.  This reflects the conditions that prevailed when ORT was conceived, when the acquisition of agricultural and manual skills were the key to employment. ORT is one of the largest non-governmental education and training organizations in the world.

It is a private, not-for-profit organization that meets the educational, and manpower training needs of contemporary society with more than 3,000,000 graduates worldwide since its inception.  It maintains a non-sectarian, non-political position in its education and training provision. 

 

ORT was founded in St Petersburg in Tsarist Russia in 1880 to provide employable skills for Russia’s impoverished Jewish people.

 

ORT have made a website on the organisation and its involvement in Displaced Persons camps after WWII.  It contains general information on camps which may be of use.

Australia land of tomorrow

Ruth Balint in her paper on ‘Industry and sunshine; Australia as home in the displaced persons camp of postwar Europe’  writes that the Australian government had to work hard to recruit the migrants they considered to be the ‘best types’ to immigrate to Australia.  
The Australian government created a publicity drive targeting the displaced persons in order to sell Australia as a new homeland.  The campaign included film, radio programs, booklets, posters and lectures.

Several films were produced, one of which was Mike and Stefani 1948/49.

Made just after World War Two, Mike and Stefani follows a family of displaced persons from their refugee camp in a devastated Germany to their new home in Australia. It features moving re-enactments of their travails in Europe, chronicling the wartime separation of the young Ukrainian couple, the difficulties of the labour camps, the loneliness and chaos, their eventual reunion and their application to emigrate. The final sequences, filmed as they actually occurred in Bavaria, shows their selection interview and journey to Australia with some of their family.

http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition
/objectsthroughtime/post-war-migration-poster/

Posters
Joe Greenberg
The poster displays Australian Government promoting Australia as the land of prosperity and growth to prospective European migrants with the banners such as “Australia: Land of Tomorrows” and imagery of opportunity. The poster interprets the attempts by the Australian government to build up Australia’s population of European migrants at a time when the White Australia Policy was firmly enforced. 







You can access Ruth Balint article here.

http://journals.publishing.monash.edu/ojs/index.php/ha/article/viewFile/1103/1662   

Lithuanian DP periodicals

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 and photographs.   173 are known to exist, produced in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.  The names given to the publication show that the DP’s retained hope,  Kelyje Tėvynėn  (The path to homeland),that the newsletters were practical Lietuvių Žinios (Lithuanian news), or echoed their current predicament Tremtinio Žodis (Word of an Exile).

Stories, poems and articles were scattered throughout, mixed with day to day news of the camp. Various regulations and schedules of all types are published in these newsletters. The DPs had to contend with not only the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), but also with national governments as well as they formulated policies regarding the stay and the immigration of Displaced Persons. 

The newspapers do contain names, names of deceased, people being saught, even wives to go to other countries were advertised for. Sports scores of competitions between the athletes of the various DP camps also featured.

Aušros Belaukiant (Waiting for the dawn) first published 11 October 1945 in the Montgomery camp, Dorverden Kreis Verden.  Edited by Albinas Pocius, the cover drawn by V. Vaitekunas.   It was a monthly publication, that initially cost 1 Reich mark and later 2.  The eighth publication printed on 15 June 1946 was done in Seedorf with the added subtitle of Literature and Cultural information.  Not sure when the publication ceased, the last we have is August 1946.

Albinas Pocius was born on December 13th 1918, not far from Sėda in northern Zemaitija, Albinas finished high school in Klaipeda and then began a course in journalism.  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. He later moved to Rotenburg camp.  At Rotenburg he assisted in the publication of a daily newspaper, Mūsų Žinios (Our news).   In 1949, Albinas and his new wife Ruta boarded the boat for Australia.  They settled in Melbourne until their retirement in the 1980’s when they moved to Adelaide to be closer to Ruta’s family.  They were both actively involved in the Lithuanian community, Albinas with the newspaper and scouts.  He wrote many articles and even a small booklet on what was obviously a passionate topic of his, ‘Mažosios Lietuva’ (Lithuania Minor). 

Several camps also issued books on various Lithuanian topics. 

The Adelaide Archives have varied copies of books and journals.  One such journal is ‘Gintaras’ Neperiodinis literaturos Žurnalas  (Amber, a occasional literature journal).  This was edited by J. Kruminas from Haffkrug,Germany first printed on October 1945.  The first issue was 56 A4 pages with sketches by A. M Šimkunas and later A. Džukas and S. Krutulis.  'Gintaras' was printed at Baltija.  Baltija appears to be a communal printer, located in Neustadt Holst DP camp IV Block.  Issue 10 was in September 1946.

Baltija had also released ‘Baltija’ literature almanac of 60 pages, ‘Tevų Nameliai’ Vytautas Nemunelis poems for children, 44 pages, ‘Sugrižimo Laivas’ a book by Juozas Kruminas, ‘Išpirktoji mirtis’ by Bronius Daubaris. 

The publications never lasted for more than a few years.  A refugee’s life was one of upheaval and frequent changes in where you lived were common.  USA accepted refugees much earlier than Australia, and so it wasn’t long before the workers migrated.  It’s amazing that copies still exist, firstly because of the poor quality of the works and secondly the fact that someone thought to bring with them copies as they migrated to a new country.