Mr Arthur Calwell and Mrs Calwell at the Lithuanians Handicraft Exhibition, Canberra, 1949

Arthur Calwell, Australia’s Minister for Immigration in the postwar years, sought to meet immigration targets by selecting suitable migrants from Europe’s overflowing displaced persons camps. The first shipload arrived in Australia in 1947 from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They were all young and single and quickly became known as the ‘beautiful Balts’.