The songs my father sang

Paulius Rutenis (Rutkauskas)

19 March 1919 – 28 August 1983

Singer, soloist, actor, director, journalist.

A man who was seen on and off stage in Adelaide, Melbourne and later Sydney.

He was born in Liepaja, Latvia, to Lithuanian parents who travelled there to work.  When he was around three years old, the family returned to Lithuania.  His father loved to sing and would encourage the whole family to sing together.  They would open the windows and hear the applause from their neighbours.  His father was tenor, his brother was a strong bass, his mother an alto and sister soprano, in a word, a full choir.  Friends, all singers would gather and sing, Lithuanian folk songs in their home.

 Paulius finished Kaunas Aušros boys school and then studied at Vytautas Didžiojo University.  He became a soloist with the Kaunas National theatre.  In 1943 he moved to Vienna where he studied at the Theatre Wissenshaft, then the following year moved to Austria where he joined the Innsbruck Opera. He then moved to Stuttgart where he sang on radio and would perform for Lithuanians in Displaced Persons Camps.  He was able to sing in five languages.

 Migrating to Australia, he arrived in Adelaide having traveled on the General Black on 3 June 1948.  He was sent to work on the railways at Peterborough, South Australia.  While in Peterborough he gave a concert at the Peterborough Town Hall with two other Baltic artists, a classical ballet dancer from the Berlin Wintergarten, Borys Schinkow, and Stasys Liaksas, piano  accordionist formerly of the American Army Officers' Club band.

 He actively involved himself in the Adelaide Lithuanian community and local music scene.  He could often be heard singing on the radio.  He organised the Lithuanian theatre group, where he acted and directed numerous plays.  He studied at the University of Adelaide for two years, leaving to move to Melbourne.  From 1966 he joined the Australian Opera where he had minor roles and sang in the Opera Choir. He retired in 1981.

In 1977 he moved to Sydney and joined the Sydney theatre group, Atžala where he acted and directed plays.  Shortly before his death, he formed the Sydney Lithuanian women’s ensemble Sutartinė. He commenced teaching them the songs he had learnt as a child from his father, long forgotten folk songs.

References

Australijos Lietuvis December 6^th 1948 Nr.7

The Argus Thu 17 Jun 1948, page 3,  Three Baltic artists to give concert

Agnė Lukšytė-Meilūnas

 Agnė Lukšytė-Meilūnas 

1920 - 2007

The writer Agnė Lukšytė-Meilūnienė, born in 1920 in the village of Subačius wjere she grew up with two older brothers. When Agnė graduated from Subačius elementary school, she moved to Panevėžys girls' high school. After graduating in 1939, she entered Kaunas Vytautas the Great University to study Lithuanian language and literature. After the Faculty of Humanities was moved to Vilnius, Agnė also moved there - she studied Lithuanian and German languages.  

In 1944, she moved to Germany and settled in Dresden.  In 1949, she sailed to Australia with her young son Haroldas, settling in Sydney.  

Her first book is a collection of short stories Kalnų velnias published in 1970 in Australia. The second book, Café Po kadagiais, depicts the bombing of Dresden on February 13-20, 1944.  Following this a collection of short stories White chrysanthemum which was published in 1993 in Lithuania.  In 1981, the writer won the America Dirva prize for the short story Zefirantės, in 1994 - the prize of the Society of Expatriate Lithuanian Writers for the collection of short stories "White chrysanthemum".

The novel, Prošvaistė šešėlyje (A Gap in the Shadow) depicts the people of a small Australian town, their life, and their environment.  

• Kalnų velnias, novelės. Belmore, Meiliūnas, 1970 m.

• Kavinė "Po kadagiais", Cafe "Po Kadagiais 4 veiksmų drama. Vilnius, Centrinio pašto dėžė 150, 1993 m.

• Baltoji chrizantema, novelės White chrysanthemum. Vilnius, Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1993 m., Standartų spaustuvė, 2006 m. 

• Prošvaistė šešėlyje, romanas. Vilnius, J. Nainys: Visuomenės informavimo priemonių valdyba, 1996-1997 m.

Agnė passed away on 23 November 2007 and is buried in the Woronora Memorial Park with her son. 

Picking pears for Australia

The first transport of Lithuanians to Australia, made their way to Bonegilla Migrant Camp.  The new migrants were required to work two years wherever the Australian government required workers.  One hundred Baltic migrants from the first transport were employed as fruit pickers in the Shepparton district between January and March 1948.  The District Employment arranged for the migrants to assist in the fruit harvesting subject to certain conditions, including that they be employed in batches of at least five and that satisfactory board and accommodation must be provided by the growers.  The Goulburn Valley had only a small available quantity of labour which would have been totally inadequate to harvest the crop, which could lose thousands of pounds worth of fruit.  Most of the migrants whose average age is 24 years, were employed in the Ardmona district for the harvesting of fresh fruit, canning fruit, and dried fruits.

On Wednesday, 10 December 1947, 193 Baltic migrants arrived by special buses from the Bonegilla Migrant Camp.  The Australian farmers agreed that migrants an excellent type of migrant and are well satisfied with the selection. The migrants have been distributed among 30 orchards in the Shepparton and Ardmona district.  At the end of the season, they will be free to accept employment as permanent orchard hands if they so desire. There were some instances of difficulties involving the new migrants, such as intoxication but on the whole they worked well.

Sixteen recently arrived Baltic migrants, including five married couples, have taken up permanent residence in the Goulburn Valley.  Six women have commenced employment at Mooroopna hospital as wards maids and pantry maids while the 12 men are being employed on orchards, chiefly at Ardmona.  Another 12 men are shortly expected to take up orchard work in the district.

Not all orchard owners were being fair to the new migrants.  Some workers in the Shepparton district are kept in isolated groups and are working a 48-hour week for the same pay as Australians receive for a 40-hour week.  Some of the Balts threw in their jobs and returned to Bonegilla. One proposal by CSR monopoly was to alter buildings at its Yarraville works to house workers employed on a two years' contract.  Discussion at the Building Trades Federation agreed it would not build hostels for their segregation. Housing material would be better used housing Australians already suffering an acute shortage of homes.

Building a home

Linas and Elena arrived in Australia in 1948.  They had two young children. Linas worked in the Bathurst camp for 18 months assisting new arrivals.  Accommodation at that time was scarce and he had heard there was accommodation available in Adelaide.  The accommodation being a caravan at Semaphore.  He requested permission to transfer to Adelaide.  It was granted so Elena and the children went first. 

Even renting a caravan was expensive, about £4-5, a quarter of your wage.  Linas and Elena began saving for their own place. The banks wouldn’t lend you money for land, but once you had this then you could apply for a loan to build a house. Released from his two-year compulsory employment, Linas found a job was working at the General Motors Holden’s factory at Woodville.  

 They found a block of land at Fifth Ave, Woodville Gardens for £150.   Woodville Gardens and the surrounding area was a new land development, the land was affordable and close to work. They had saved £50 and another £100 was loaned by Lithuanian friends.  At first, they lived on the block in a caravan. The caravan was just an empty shell.  They had brought with them from Germany a wooden box that someone had discarded.  This became their table where the primus stove was placed for cooking.  Elena would walk to Cheltenham racecourse about 1.5 km away and ask for straw, to be used for bedding.  With her broken English, she had trouble conveying that she needed straw to sleep on. They told her she needed a mattress to sleep on but delivered the straw to her anyway.  They had to be extremely careful that the straw did not catch fire.  Water was put on the block when they purchased it.  Council permission was needed to live in a caravan which was reviewed in six months.

 In June 1951, Linas received approval to erect a dwelling on their land.   A wooden house was built halfway down the large ¼ acre block.  They were able to construct it quickly giving them more time to save for a brick home.   A Lithuanian friend was able to make the frames for the house.  More friends would come to work on Saturdays and in the evenings after work.  In turn they would help each other build their houses.

 A small two roomed wooden house was built, with a kitchen and bathroom.  The floor of the house was made from wooden packaging boxes from Holden’s.    They lived there for a year before they could afford to start building something more permanent.  Once in their new house they rented out the wooden one to migrants.  It was common for people to rent out rooms for extra money.  They would receive £2 per week for the wooden house, and Linas would earn £6 a week working at Holden’s.

 The house was built of bessa blocks, with wooden sash windows and a red tiled roof.  It has three bedrooms, lounge and dining room and kitchen.  The bessa block was rendered and painted a pale green.  The main bedroom was to be larger, but with post war restriction, building material was restricted and the Council wouldn’t allow a larger room.   

Other Lithuanians also settled in the Woodville area.  There was little time for socialising as much of their efforts went into trying to establish themselves and their new homes.

T
heir back yard became a vegetable and fruit garden.  They planted a mandarin, pear, Granny apple, apricot, olive, grapefruit, lemon, walnut, almond and mulberry tree.  A large vegetable garden grew all year round.  Capsicums, cucumbers, beetroot, potatoes, sorrel, tomatoes and carrots.  Fruit and vegetables were preserved to be enjoyed all year round.  Elena would preserve fruit in glass jars, pickle cucumbers make jams with excess produce.  Linas built a chicken coup which stood along the back fence, providing fresh eggs daily.

 

The Arane Mystery

In March 1947, Lithuanian Jew, nineteen-year-old Judith Arane arrived in Sydney.  Already residing in Australia was her brother, John born in Kaunas 28 December 1920 arrived in Australia in 1938 and was naturalised 12 July 1945.

Tragically Judy died on 22 February 1954 after the car she was in plunged into the surf from a cliff top at Tamarama, Sydney with Dr Joseph Blank.

Dr. Blank's body was recovered from the surf at North Bondi but no trace was been found of Judy. Detectives think her body may have been pinned in the doctor's wrecked car, which was jammed in a crevice between two huge rocks at Tamarama beach.  At low tide divers dared a boiling surf to attach a rope line to the wreckage. But when a truck tried to pull it clear of the crevice, the line snapped. The tide then was rising, and further attempts to salvage the car had to be postponed until later that day. 

Police favoured the theory that the car in went over the cliffs by accident.  Mainly because the tyre marks on the cliff edge indicated that the car was out of control.   There was also no reason to view it as suicide. 

Detectives believe Dr. Blank, accompanied by Miss Arane, was merely taking an evening drive after a long and hard day's work at his King's Cross surgery.  He had written out a medical certificate at his home in Ormond Street, Bondi, and taken it round to Miss Arane's flat nearby in Sir Thomas Mitchell Road. They had shared a bottle of beer before they went out in the car. Detectives now think that in descending Thompson Street, Tamarana, where two cars have plunged across Marine Drive and into the sea in recent months, Dr. Blank tried to make a sharp right-hand turn and failed to negotiate the corner. They think the car then jumped the only barrier, a 6 in. high concrete kerbing and plunged 50 feet into the sea.  Dr Blank had served as with the Royal Army Medical Coprs in Burma during WWII, he was overworked and may have suffered a mental breakdown.  It was believed that the two were just friends.

 A black belt, a pair of women’s slippers was discovered near pieces of human flesh a few days later in the sea.  The front part of the car was salvaged five days later, but with no sign of Judy body. 

Judy was born in Kaunas and graduated from the Hebrew High School.  She and her family became a victim of Nazi brutality.  During WWII, Judy, her parents and her younger sister were sent to a concentration camp and for several years the family lived in terror, moved from one camp to another in German- occupied Europe.  In 1945 Judy’s parents and sister died. Two days before VE-day Judy was in a German prison ship in the Baltic being transferred to another concentration camp.

The ship was bombed by an Allies' aircraft which registered a direct hit.  A jagged piece of shrapnel struck her in the back. She was hurled into the sea and was picked up by a British warship.

Judy spent three months in hospital in England until a brother, Mr. Jehousua Joseph (John) Arane arranged for her to join him in Sydney. John had served as a commando with the second AIF in New Guinea.

John told reporters that, "Judy was a lovely girl, she was too young and too good to die”.  

Following Judy’s death, a short article appeared in Mūsų Pastogė about the event.  It ends, Judy was unknown to the community. 

It was never established whether the accident was premeditated, and Judy’s body was never found.

Joseph Blank born 11 September 1912 is listed as Polish Jew. He arrived on the Ormond 4 December 1946. 

References

The Sun Friday 26 Feb 1954

Herald Friday 26 February 1954, page 5

Photo from the Sun, Thursday 25 February page, 1