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.

Destination Australia: Sharing post WWII migrant stories

The National Archives of Australia has recently launched a new website, called Destination Australia. The website aims to draw on the stories of the people and their family members featured in the photographs showcased on the site to create an in-depth history of Australia’s post-war immigration.

The featured photographs come from a promotional series of photographs taken by the Department of Immigration which are now stored as the Immigration Photographic Archive collection (Series A12111) hosted within the National Archives of Australia, RecordSearch database.

The series contains more than 25,000 photographs and over 21,000 of those are featured on this site. With nearly six million migrants to Australia since 1945 it would be challenging to try to identify everyone who might appear in the photographs, and to collect and share their stories. But with the help of all Australia, we are going to try.

This is your opportunity to share your immigration stories related to the photographs.

The site is continuing until at least 2015 and the information shared will become part of the Archives’ RecordSearch system as a permanent part of Australia’s history.

You are able to tag people who you know, tag where they came from and came to, add descriptions and comments, and comment on others’ contributions, or scan photographs to explore what Australia’s post-war immigration boom was really about.

 www.destinationaustralia.gov.au

Lithuanian medals

Once again I found myself a long way off from my starting point. While scanning a program from 1968, the 50th anniversary of Lithuania's Independence Day, I came upon a name who was a receiver of an award. So began an Internet search which let me to this site http://www.decorations.lt/ Uz nuopelnius Lietuviai (For merits to Lithuania). Its a list of people who have received Lithuanian awards. Parts can be translated to English. If you go to "Albumas" (Album) you can enter a name. There isn't much detail but photographs are included.


A database is only a good one for me if I can find some connection between Lithuania and South Australia. I entered a few names and an entry was found for Jonas Pyragius (Karo lakūnas JONAS PYRAGIUS -savanorio byla Nr. 1113). Jonas arrived in Australia in 1949. A few more clicks on the web took me too www.plienosparnai.lt (Lithuanian Aviation history 1919 - 1940, with a whole entry on Jonas http://www.plienosparnai.lt/page.php?823 Unfortunately there is no English translation, but you could use Google translate. There are over 400 detailed histories (including photographs) on people which you can search alphabetically http://www.plienosparnai.lt/page.php?122