This country doesn't want me

One Lithuanian couple arrived in Australia in February 1948, after being accepted as displaced persons. This part of the story is no different to the other 10,000 Lithuanians who came to Australia, but where the story becomes almost too hard to believe is that this couple ended up living in caves at Killarney Heights, a suburb of northern Sydney for nearly 20 years.

The true story of Stefan and Genovefa Pietroszys, is not clear as it changed many different times.

Stefan was born in 1898 in Vilnius, Lithuania, while Genovefa was born about 1910 in the Russian city of St Petersburg.      No sooner had the couple arrived than the authorities assessed Genovefa as having a mental illness and she was placed in a mental hospital.

The authorities also realised all was not well with Stefan – he was given a job at a timber mill near Perth but the mill owner told the authorities that Stefan was unable to work and appeared to have a mental illness.  By mid-March 1948, the authorities were recommending sending Stefan and Genovefa back to Europe.

Before this was initiated the couple fled but was soon caught and sent to the Bonegilla Migrant Centre in northern Victoria but they ran off again before reaching Bonegilla.  They remained at large for the next four years before being arrested and charged with vagrancy. They were returned to Bonegilla where papers and jobs would be found for them.

Again the couple ran off, later being found in Sydney.  They were ordered to return to Bonegilla but they left the train at Wagga and later that month were found living in a disused quarry near Wagga suffering severe malnutrition and exposure, and were taken to Wagga Base Hospital.

Immigration officials intimated that the couple could face deportation from Australia.  Stefan was being driven from Wagga to Bonegilla, when he dived out the window of the moving car, cracked his skull and was knocked unconscious.  He was placed in hospital under police guard.  Genovefa having been taken back to Bonegilla escaped again.  The couple were reunited somehow and in 1954 were arrested on charges of vagrancy and sentenced to three months.

For the next fourteen years little is hear of Stefan and Genovefa until 1968, when the Salvation Army was told about a couple living in primitive conditions in a cave.  The Salvos visited them regularly over the next 11 years. To avoid the public, they moved about the Middle Harbour living in caves.

The couple were considered odd, locals are recorded as referring to them as eccentric Russians.  Both had been interned in German labour camps before coming to Australia and they feared returning home.

In February 1979, Genovefa died of a heart attack, aged 68.  Stefan agreed to move into a Catholic aged care home at Marayong, where he died in October 1982, aged 84.

Stefan and Genovefa lie side-by-side in Frenchs Forest Bushland Cemetery.

 

Genowefa and Stefan from their Immigration Papers

A neighbourly helping hand

War experiences would have been traumatic and many had long term consequences.  It is not surprising that some would be admitted to an institution.  Here is a moving article, that talks about how the community responded.

In a small cafeteria sits 14 men.  From their appearance you can tell that they are Lithuanian.  Some of them have nicely tanned faces, clean shaven and wearing clean clothes.  We talk of everyday things, about the weather, food, autumn. If you look more closely at them in their eyes you can see a warm Lithuanian palpable sorrow. They miss genuine freedom.  On the table is piled a package for each person in which you will find fruit, biscuits, sweets, cigarettes, tobacco, Lithuanian newspapers, handkerchiefs, tooth paste and other small items.  Inside the room are two Adelaide Women Society members who have brought the packages.  They have known these men for a long time.

They talk to each one of them. “I could leave, the doctor would let me, just there is no one who will give me work.  I am bored here”.

Others have been here for 12 years, and from appearance you would think they could live like us.  Some have been here 6, 8 or 9 years, they all speak lovely Lithuanian, some of them are real Žemaičiai (Samogitians), Dzukai or Aukštačiai (Highlanders) (References to the regional groups of Lithuania). After an hour we say our goodbyes.  We visit 2 women and one man lying in hospital. Going through the doors, the guard unlocks and then locks, the doors with large rattling keys.  The sound goes through your heart.  On the other side of the door are our blood brothers.  Born on Lithuanian soil, grown up in the Lithuanian countryside, through grass and forests they ran as children.  Today there are 17. Only a few remember them, only a few visit.  Every 4-6 weeks they receive small gifts from the Adelaide Women’s Society, so they are not forgotten.

The outside is beautifully kept, the lawn and flowers trimmed, by the gate you notice a modest sign, “Parkside Mental Hospital”.

Bledzdingėles prie Torrenso, Lietuvių Isikurimas Pietų Australijoj 1947 – 1962

Health in migrant communities

I was fortunate to recently meet a historian who is researching health in post war migrants to Australia.  Our conversation raised many questions about health in migrants communities, which of course I wanted answers to.

What would new Lithuanians do in the first years if they needed a doctor?
I know there a quite several Lithuanian doctors who came to Australia.  To practice medicine in Australia, the new migrants would have to undergo further study.  This would have been extremely hard for any new arrival.  Firstly there was the language, secondly you would have to work your two year contract before you were free to pursue a career and thirdly you had to work to support yourself and family.   

Language would have been an important factor.  To be able to communicate personal detailed information in your own language and to understand treatment would have been vital.  If no Lithuanian doctor was available, going to a doctor of a similar migrant background would suffice.

Did the community provide support to its members?
One of the principle aims of the Lithuanian Women's Society and Lithuanian Catholic Women's Society was to offer assistance, financial or in kind to members in need.  Some aims of the society were to visit the sick in hospital and assisting disadvantaged families, assist with payment of school fees, medicine.  The society’s focus has always been on the elderly members of the community.  The society in its formative years remembered Lithuanians still displaced in Germany, they sent monetary donations twice a year.

The Society has a focus on older members of the community that are alone, or have not adapted well to Australian environment.  Their moral and material needs are supported by the Women’s Society.  In exile we are one large family.

How was mental health issues viewed in the community?

Cases of suicide and detainment in mental institutions are recorded.  But are these figures any greater for one ethnic group?

I will do some more research on this, but in the mean time if anyone has stories or information to share, please do.