Adelaide supports Siberian deportees

Support Deportees from Siberia

Šalpa Sibiro Tremtiniams komiteto

The Adelaide Lithuanian community would at times organise special committees for various projects.  Formed on 24 March 1996, Support Deportees from Siberia committee was presided over by Stase Paceviciene.

During the period 1941-1953, some 132,000 Lithuanians were deported to remote areas of the USSR, in Siberia, the Arctic Circle areas and Central Asia. They were not allowed to leave the remote villages they were brought to. More than 70 percent of the deportees were women and children. Around 50,000 of the deportees were not able to return to Lithuania ever again. Those that did return to life in Lithuania, faced discrimination for jobs and social guarantees, their children were denied higher education.

Money was raised from donations, lunches, in lieu of flowers at funerals.  Money was divided and sent to different areas around Lithuania.  Each place that received funds provided a detailed list of how much and to whom it was given.

Some examples below:

Marijampolė       17 people received between 100-150 Litai
Alytus                16 people received between 100 – 200 litai
Panemė              6 people received 100 litai
Panevėžys           20 people each received 200 litai

The committee consisted of:
President:            Stase Pascevičienė
Treasurer:           Algis Zamoiskis
Members:            Marytė Neverauskienė, Henrikas Butvila, Janina Vabolienė, Ieva Pocienė, Aldona Patupiene.

The committee was active for five years until 2000, and in that time just under $20 000 was collected and distributed.

Total collected $19 189.

 

Vilniaus scout room

Father Kungys blessing the room

A inviting room at Lithuanian house was devoted to the ‘Vilniaus’ troop scout group.  The walls were covered with Lithuanian artwork, each piece had to be of Lithuanian basis.  The room was opened and blessed on 23 April 1961, St George day also World scout day.

Following mass at Lithuanian church a scout meeting was held at Lithuanian House.  Father Kungys, blessed the room, and urged the scouts to continue with scout principles.  Vaclovas Raginis, President of the Adelaide Lithuanian society provided the scouts with their own room where the youth could cultivate their Lithuanian heritage.

Jonas Vanagas was the scout master at that time.   Vanagas as the Museum Curator was able to prepare a display of scout journals and made a guest book was available to sign. 
After some brief speeches participants were able to view the room.  A large table had been made without nails, the legs and frame fixed together with rope.  The curtains had embroidered Guide logo sewn into them by the Guides.  A map of Lithuania, Vytis, wooden cross, photographs and framed letters also graced the walls.  The majority of the material were made by the scouts. 

As it approached sunset, the V. Šulcas prepared a fire where all gathered.  The Girl Guides (paukštytės) gave a recital, and 17 scout camp songs were sung.  The evening ended with the traditional ‘Ateina naktis’ (Night is approaching song) and the fire extinguished. 

The room was were the present day bar is, near the ladies restrooms.  It could be accessed through the hall and had an external door.  The scout room was moved at a later date to one of the rooms in the cottage, adjacent the Lithuanian House where the Saturday school was held.  Many years later, the scout room was again transferred to the Lithuanian Catholic centre where it remains today.  The room however is more of a storage room than a display room.

Kungys, Paceviciene, R. Urminas, J. Lapsys, Vanagas, Neverauskas, Raginis

Their celebration was just like home

This article was written by Max Fatchen for the Mail on 30 Oct 1954. 


In the George Murray Hall of Adelaide University last Saturday night, a unique meeting was held. It was the first gathering in Australia of men and women from Lithuania who had belonged to the Scout movement which was associated with the social activities of Lithuanian Universities.     It was also the first meeting ever of Lithuanians graduates in this country.    This is the story of some of the people who went along.
      
They were happy days in 1938 when pretty Stasė Korsakaitė was doing her dental course at Vytautas, the Great University in Kaunas, Lithuania.  There she met engineer Antanas Pacevičius, an assist ant to one of the professors, and they fell in love.  For keen-looking Jonas Kalvaitis there had been good days, too, with plenty of work when he did his law course there. There had been an occasional duel, but no one ever got hurt.  It wasn't only the academic side that was so interesting at this Lithuanian University.  There were the colourful student’s organisations, like the Scouts. This was one of the first universities in Europe which the Soviet movement penetrated. The students in the Scout groups wore peaked caps and bright sashes, and the girls called themselves Scouts as well. Then came the war and their university careers clashed.  Jonas Kalvaitis who had become a public prosecutor and a magistrate, turned instead into a fugitive from the Russians.  The Pacevičius family had to escape from the Russians too.  But they did not forget their university nor the good times.  It stayed in their minds and in the minds of other graduates through labour camps, train bombings, and frantic escapes.  Then they came to Australia and started to build a new life.  Stasė and Antanas Pacevičius built theirs slowly but they built it, until they had their own home, a car and three happy children.  But they didn't forget their university days or the happy times with the Scouts and other student organisations. 'I wish.' said Mrs. Pacevičius, 'we could meet again and talk and sing our student songs.'  Last Saturday night they did just that in the first meeting of Lithuanian graduates ever held in Australia.  It was also the thirtieth anniversary of the Scout movement in their university.  It was symbolic chat the meeting was held in a university building in their new country — the George Murray Hall of Adelaide University, and what pleased the Lithuanians was that they were able to use it without charge, like any other university body.  The University warden Mr. Frank Borland, told them in a little speech of welcome.  'We are glad to have people from a sister university meeting here among us.' And it was symbolic, too that among the audience of 120 were not only graduates of Lithuanian universities, - but also undergraduates of Lithuanian descent now going to Adelaide University.   So students of yesterday talked to architects and doctors of tomorrow.  Mrs. Pacevičius said: 'We wanted to hand on some of our traditions to them, and tell them what we did in our university days.' Round the wall of the hall were 14 emblems of Lithuanian student organisations and Scout groups.  Representatives of various groups each made a short speech.  In the chair was Mrs. Pacevičius with the navy, red and white sash of the Girl Scouts draped over one shoulder.  Behind her was the emblem of her Lithuanian University, painstakingly copied from her diploma of dentistry.  There was Lithuanian food.  There were songs, like the student song the men had loved to sing.  Translated, it goes, in part: — 'We love girls with beautiful eyes.  If we see them our heart gets so weak.' There was tradition even in the invitation card.  It said '7 p.m. - academically' — which was a Lithuanian joke, because academic people are always late.  In other words the meeting started at 7.15 p.m. The master of ceremonies at this kind of student social in Lithuania always called 'silence' in Latin, and banged the table with a sword.  So Mr Pacevičius borrowed a fencing toil from Adelaide friends and rapped the table when he wanted quiet.  All those sitting at the committee table wore traditional white gloves. One woman even had a rakish student's cap. One of the speeches was made by Mr. A Plokštis, a former solicitor in Lithuania. He now works in an Adelaide factory.  He said, in effect: 'Everything has changed so much now, we have been through very much.

But now I have a different life.  It doesn't matter that I am working in a factory.  I am free and my family has a new chance for education and life.  Jonas Kalvaitis, too. spoke of his university days. Perhaps his unspoken thought was of the death sentence the Russians had given him in his absence in 1946.  He works in the metal department of a city firm.  But on Saturday night he was back in the past again.  And tall young Stasys Cibiras spoke.  He escaped twice from the Russians, and has a bullet scar on his arm; he is chairman of the Lithuanian Students Society of Australia. There are 53 attending Australian universities, and 25 of them are in Adelaide.  This same Cibiras is swotting for his final law examinations.  He is in the University Air Squadron, training for the administrative side as a pilot officer.

He spoke for new Australian students such as George Naujalis (Architecture) and attractive table tennis star Aldona Snarskytė  (Medicine).     Dr. J. Mikužis spoke. Once he was a lecturer in medicine at a university in Lithuania.  He has done a three year course in medicine at Adelaide University. And now he is in private practice again in an Adelaide suburb.   As Saturday night went on the antidotes came more freely, the songs sounded happier.  There was so much to remember that midnight came all too quickly. The Lithuanians departed—happy to have talked of old times, happy to know that another university should interest itself in them, happy that some of their people are getting a new chance as students.   Mrs. Pacevičius looked at the spires and outlines of Adelaide University against the night sky and said softly:  'For a while it seemed as if we were home again.''

First Lithuanian scout camp in SA

From 27 December 1954 through to the new year, Lithuanian scouts and guides gathered for their first camp in the State. On the morning of December 27th about 25 scouts and 23 guides boarded a specially hired bus from St Joseph’s church in the city to make their journey to the camp site at Lobethal in the Adelaide hills.  Thirteen tents were erected, with a wooden cross in between.  A kitchen, a dug in table that was decorated with a tower and cross with “rupintojelis’ in the middle.  Across the small creek the scouts build some steps to a site where the fire was built. 

Early the next morning the scouts arose for exercise which was followed by a quick tidy of their uniforms and tents before inspection.  Following this all marched to the cross for the flag raising where the scout prayer was said and the Lithuanian and Australian anthem sung.   After a hearty breakfast the days activities began. Sport, scout games, and camp improvements . After lunch followed some free time, then more activities.  As evening settled in the flag was lowered, a prayer said and the hymn ‘Marija Marija’ sung.  Once dark a fire was lit where campers would sing, perform skits or other performances.  The evening ended at 10:00pm and, only those on night duty were allowed to wander. 


Special guest, Mr E.W Dearman, the Country Fire Service area commander came to speak to the scouts.  He spoke of bush fires, how they occur, and how to avoid them. He lent the camp several fire extinguishers which was kept  outside the kitchen or by the campfire, or sometime used by the scouts for water fights.   Other speakers included P. Jasevičius spoke of the phenomena of folk meteorology.  Mrs Pacevičius spoke to the girls on hygiene and Stasiškienė taught the girls weaving, while some of the boys tried their hand at shooting a small calibre gun.

The camp was visited by distinguished ‘aunts and uncles”.  One evening Pulgis Andriušis visited and demonstrated how he could light a fire with one match.  He then spoke of his childhood.  Pakalnis sang  a moving ballad about the devil who tried unsuccessfully to build a bridge across the river Nemunas. Australian scouts leaders also paid visits, Mrs Trimble, Miss M Sullivan (SA District Commissioner) and Miss May Douglas (State Commissioner) and Mr W.R Thompson (Adelaide Commissioner).
Miss Douglas wrote a message to the scouts;


It is a great pleasure to see a such a good camp, particularly in conditions which are new to you all.  Congratulations on it all, good layout and most of all the evidence of real Scouting and Guiding spirit.


On another day the campers marched into Lobethal where they viewed the country town, then set about tidying up the war memorial and even sang a few songs to the hospital patients.