Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Melbourne, Victoria

This is a provisional version of the article. It is being rewritten after the 2025-2026 field trip researching Australia's Lithuanian heritage. Please come back after some time to see the final version and post any suggestions in the comment section.

Melbourne (Victoria) has one of Australia's largest Lithuanian communities, centred around a large centrally-located Lithuanian House.

Melbourne also has a Lithuanian Chapel, while Victoria's ski resort of Mt Buller hosts a Lithuanian skiing club "Neringa".

Numerous localities in Victoria commemorate its Lithuanian history, including numerous exhibits at the "Immigrant Experience" Bonegilla Camp, where Lithuanians spent their initial time in Australia ~1950, the Balt Camp, where in the forests these Lithuanians were sent to work, and the Vilnius Way in a suburb of Melbourne.

Furthermore, there are numerous Lithuanian heritage sites in Geelong; however, as it had its own Lithuanian district, Geelong is described in a separate article.

Melbourne Lithuanian House (Club)

The high street façade of Melbourne Lithuanian House hides a massive, atmospheric, old-style interior. This building was acquired by Lithuanians in 1965-1966 (after the refugees who fled the Soviet occupation had settled down).

Melbourne Lithuanian House

Originally owned by Methodists, the premises were renovated by a Lithuanian architect, Jurgis Žalkauskas. Many Lithuanian details were added over time, including:
-A memorial for those who fought and died for Lithuanian freedom designed by Rimgaudas Baleišis in 1970. Typically, such memorials would be built in the yards of Lithuanian clubs or churches, but Melbourne Lithuanian House occupies the entire lot and has no yard. Therefore, the memorial was built as a relief on the wall of the main corridor.
-Columns of Gediminas with the names of deceased Lithuanian war veterans who lived in Australia (Ramovėnai).
-External door with Columns of Gediminas symbols (author: Žalkauskas).

The entrance of the Melbourne Lithuanian House / Club, adorned by Columns of Gediminas symbol

-Large "MK" sign near the entrance ("Melburno klubas") designed by Viktoras Simankevičius.
-Numerous works of art inspired by Lithuania adorn the club walls.
-A traditional Lithuanian wooden cross (UNESCO World Heritage-designated Lithuanian traditional art form), which, contrary to the usual practice, is located inside the building due to external space constraints.

A Lithuanian-inspired art inside the Melbourne Lithuanian Club. The paintings on the right and left are both based on the Lithuanian tricolor flag (yellow-green-red). The middle picture shows a corridor memorial for Lithuanians who fought and died for Lithuanian freedom, e.g., against the Soviet occupation, which, in itself, was the reason that gave birth to the Melbourne Lithuanian refugee community. Images by ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

The largest room of the Lithuanian House is the Lithuanian theater hall of 320 seats, where many of the official Lithuanian events and concerts take place. Famous for good sound quality, it is regularly rented out to non-Lithuanians as well, e.g., for gigs during the Melbourne Fringe festival.

Melbourne Lithuanian theater hall as it is seen from the balcony. ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

The House also houses a Lithuanian bar and restaurant, which is open on Sundays, with a different Lithuanian organisation preparing meals every weekend. Many of these organisations are based inside the Lithuanian Club, having their meetings in the offices on the upper floor. The bar became licenced in 1974-1975.

Lithuanian bar and restaurant during Sunday Lunch

On the ground floor, there is also a ballroom (opened in 1971) which is used for smaller events or as an extension of the restaurant when needed - for example, during the "Cepelinai Sundays", when Lithuania's most famous national dish attracts some 300 visitors for lunch.

A corridor of the Lithuanian House

Australia's largest Lithuanian Library is located in a long, high-ceiling room that, in the building's "early Lithuanian days" of the 1960s-1970s, served as a chapel for Lithuanian Lutherans, a "minority within a minority".

Lithuanian Library

The original location of the library on the front of the building is now rented out to a non-Lithuanian restaurant, allowing the Lithuanian House to cover its own expenses.

Corridors of the club with Ramovėnai memorial on the background. The Lithuanian folk costume exhibit is on the right.

Corridor with the Lithuanian Library entrance and a traditional wooden cross. Image by ©Augustinas Žemaitis.

Before the current Lithuanian House, a Lithuanian club operated in the Thornbury suburb of Melbourne since the late 1950s, it had some 300 members.

Melbourne Lithuanian Chapel

Despite attempts, Lithuanians were not able to build or acquire their church in Melbourne as Australian diocesan policies limited ethnic parishes to promote assimilation.

However, Lithuanians acquired a house in 1956 10 14 on 18 Henry Street to serve as a hub for the Lithuanian Catholic activities. There, Lithuanian priests would live, serving as chaplains for the Lithuanian community and celebrating Lithuanian masses in a local non-territorial church.

Lithuanian priest house (left) and chapel (right) in Melbourne

A chapel was also established next to the house. Since 2021, the Lithuanian Masses have been transferred to this chapel. While modest in size, the chapel is full of Lithuania-related Christian symbols, including Our Lady of Vilnius, traditional Lithuanian chapel-posts, and a copy of the Divine Mercy painting, the original of which is located in Vilnius.

Inside the Melbourne Lithuanian chapel

In 1966, there were short-lived hopes that Lithuanians could be allowed to get their own church in Melbourne, as the bishop permitted Croats and Slovenes to get their own churches. However, the change of bishop led to the end of that "thaw" on ethnic churches.

Vilnius Way in Truganina

Since 2010, the Truganina suburb of Melbourne has Vilnius Street named after the capital city of Lithuania. This name was favored over "New England Street", as that one was deemed to have too many words. This district is a modern suburb that is not otherwise related to Lithuanians, and no other ethnically-inspired street names are there. The Vilnius Way name was suggested by the developer of the district.

Vilnius Way in Truganina

Bonegilla Migrant Experience

Bonegilla Migrant Experience in Victoria, 335 km north of Melbourne, is the best-in-Australia window into the first weeks and months of the Lithuanian-Australian experience.

While most such immigrant camps of the 1940s were destroyed, a part of Bonegilla survived, turned into a captivating museum.

Bonegilla monument with the barracks behind it

The museum includes an entire block of army base barracks that were repurposed to house displaced persons, primarily from the Baltic States, who were accepted to Australia after World War 2. Here, one can see the reconstructed living conditions of the era, when men and women (with children) were separated from each other into male and female dorms. One can also visit separate halls for eating, events, common toilets and showers, and read many personal stories; as Latvians outnumbered Lithuanians, there is more information about them, yet the experience was similar to everybody, as, unlike in the DP camps back in Europe, the ethnic groups were not separated. Camps like Bonegilla were seen as instrumental in swiftly integrating the immigrants at a time when the "White Australia" policy did not yet give way to multiculturalism. Here, they learned English, underwent health checks, and were instructed in the Australian way of life, staying from several days to several months, depending on their knowledge of English and job opportunities. Even if all the immigrants were white, their acceptance still marked a major policy shift, as, before the 1940s, Australia would only easily accept English speakers who "required much less integration".

An exhibit of a Lithuanian immigrant in Bonegila

A memorial includes names of many migrants (only those whose families paid for the plaques), grouped by the year of immigration. In the early years (1947-1951), there were numerous Lithuanian names, as those were the times when Lithuanians would come from European DP camps. After that, Lithuanian names disappear and are replaced by Greek, Italian, and other names, as Bonegilla continued to be used as an immigrant camp for the economic migrants of a later era. In 1951, though, the conditions improved, with barracks reconstructed from gender-segregated dorms into small apartments where families could stay together. In 1971, Bonegilla was closed.

Memorial with immigrant names

Nevertheless, that stay in Bonegilla was temporary, even more so for men, who, still being the expected breadwinners, were often the first ones sent on a mandatory 2-year labor period at a government-designated site. One of such sites - Balt Camp - has also been preserved in rural Victoria (see below).

Between the barracks of Bonegilla

What one can see today, albeit large in size, is only the 19th Block of Bonegilla Camp. The camp itself was huge, housing 7000 migrants at its busiest time, with 1600 more in tents. In total, 300 000 immigrants passed through Bonegilla; with the Australian population being merely 7 million in the 1950s, 1 in 20 of modern-day Australians either themselves lived there, or had a parent or (great) grandparent who did.

Inside a barrack converted to apartments (as was common after 1951)

Balt Camp near Blakeville

Some 100 km west of Melbourne, in a forest near Blakeville, there is an abandoned forestry camp that is marked by a plaque as a Balt Camp. The two chimneys there are the remains of a mess hut.

Remains of the Balt Camp

As described on a "Once was a refugee camp" plaque nearby, the refugee work camp was built for 25-50 men after World War 2. They thinned the forest, cut firewood, built roads and fire tracks "far from home and family" [the family may either have been left "behind the iron curtain" in Europe, or waiting in camps similar to Bonegilla, or sent to work elsewhere in Australia].

The Forests Commission established 11 such work camps. According to the plaque, such large numbers of the immigrants of the time were Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians, that all such camps were nicknamed "Balt Camps".

Remains of the Balt Camp

Neringa Ski Lodge at Mt Buller

Neringa Ski Lodge is the only ski club built by the Lithuanian diaspora anywhere in the world. Located in the Victorian skiing resort of Mt Buller, it is a two-floor edifice where Lithuanians could stay together in dorms while skiing on nearby tracks. The building is covered with wooden ornaments. "Neringa" is a Lithuanian female name and now also the name of a municipality that covers the world-famous Curonian Spit in Lithuania.

Neringa Ski Lodge

The building was erected in 1964 by Melbourne Lithuanian DPs who remembered skiing back home in Lithuania (Jonas Mašanauskas, Vytas Vaseris, Kęstutis Miklius), and officially opened in 1965. The building was designed by Jurgis Žalkauskas. By that time, Lithuanian DPs had been living for some 15 years in Australia; typically, they built homes for their families and, as a community, they acquired the Lithuanian House and the priest's house in Melbourne itself, so they dedicated their work to creating a place to spend vacations together.

Neringa Ski Lodge

Neringa Ski Lodge is open only during the skiing season, which is during the Australian winter (June-September). Mt Buller resort has a population of just 200 people but 7000 beds for use during the skiing season.

Geelong

While Geelong is located closer to Melbourne than some other sites mentioned in this article, it has one of the largest Lithuanian communities in Australia and several Lithuanian heritage sites, as well as a historic Lithuanian district - therefore, it is described in a separate article.