by Israel Kipen
So did my first venture into business come to a swift end. I was again left with no notion of what to do or where to begin. In the many discussions that took place about work opportunities for new arrivals, a frequent suggestion was to look for a shop in a country town. If one found suitable business connections, then one could well succeed in such an enterprise. The idea did not particularly appeal to me, but with the same advice being given repeatedly, I relented and one day set out with Moshe by train to inspect a shop in Benalla. Nothing came of the trip. The prospect of chaining myself to a shop for three to five days each week away from communal life and public affairs, let alone a Jewish environment, and of having constantly to travel between that sleepy township and Melbourne, was less than appealing. I let go the whole idea.
The weeks following my arrival turned into months, and month followed month with no suitable work materialising. I remained watchful and continued to make enquiries, but even as winter came and went, I found myself groping in the dark and becoming impatient with myself. I was teaching at Bialik School, then in Drummond Street, North Carlton, on Sundays and twice during the week.
One afternoon, as I walked into the building housing the Dorevitches’ factory, I saw ahead of me a man carrying a large bale of woollen cloth over his shoulder and heading for the lift. Even though I did not see his face and his posture was distorted by the load, I recognised the figure and the gait. Scarcely hesitating, I called out: “Berl!” Sure enough, it was Berl Dzivak, a schoolmate from Bialystok who had emigrated to Australia before the war. The reunion was an emotional one as he recognised me and dropped his load and marvelled that I was still alive. Soon after, I visited him and his wife Peshka. I learned a good deal from him about local business prospects.
The scarcity of goods was felt everywhere in the immediate post-war period. Demand had increased, but supply lagged far behind, while rationing was still in force. Such factories as were in operation worked at 25% of normal capacity. Not only were young men not yet back in the workforce, but women, too, could not be found to work in the factories. On one occasion, I received a query from friends in Shanghai about the availability of tinned fruit for export. I made enquiries at a large cannery in Prahran, and was advised to save the soles of my shoes. The problem in business was not to sell but to buy. I finally understood that, considering my financial situation, it made little sense to look to shop ownership or retailing as a viable activity. What was more feasible and sensible was to uncover sources of supply, after which the rest would take care of itself.
Once I came to this realisation, I knew what to do. Once again, I went from door to door, this time, however, not to sell but to buy. Lygon Street, Carlton, was then the hub of manufacturing of underwear, socks, knitwear and the like. In October, then, I began my rounds of these factories, prepared to be refused, but determined nonetheless to persevere. On the whole, the owners had no time for me. The short “No” I repeatedly received said everything. Their response was understandable. Each factory had its own customers to supply and saw no reason to divert its production to a middle-man. However, I persisted in the expectation of an eventual breakthrough. One day, I walked into a factory called Victoria Gloves run by two brothers named Hirsh. As well as manufacturing ladies gloves, they produced ladies’ underwear, a most sought-after commodity made of shiny knitted material called swami. The underwear was not available, having sold out, but the brothers were prepared to offer me the ladies’ gloves if I was interested in the line. I knew by then that women in Australia wore gloves both summer and winter and I agreed. The samples they showed me looked good to me. They were basically summer gloves made of cotton and available in different colours. I was also shown mittens, for which I could see little use, there being no fingers other than the thumb issuing from that peculiarly-shaped tube of cotton. I was assured that these too were a saleable commodity, even if not on the scale of the more customary gloves. I was ready to accept this; surely, if there were no demand for mittens, they would simply not be manufactured. I took home a range of samples. I had something tangible in my hands and an accompanying sense of expectation. I could also expect a profit margin ranging between eight and ten shillings per dozen pair of gloves and mittens.
The following morning, the 4th November 1946, was an unusually hot day for that time of year. My spirits matched the brightness of the day. I set out as soon as the shops opened and, wherever I went – Myer’s store, Foy and Gibson, Mantons, Georges, Peters, and others – I secured orders. By the end of the first day, I sold 240 dozen pair of gloves at a net profit of ten shillings per dozen. When I told them, the Dorevitches were amazed. Next day, I ordered the goods from the brothers Hirsh, had them delivered to Moshe’s factory, and within two days supplied each customer with the required stock. Within a few days, I was phoned by one store for immediate delivery of another order. This became a daily pattern. Some buyers took to calling at the factory when they needed more stock, taking with them several boxes at a time. I was clearly in business. Thanks to the availability of sufficient stock to continue meeting the buyers’ demands, I gained a reputation for reliability and service. By the end of the first month of trading, the Hirshes could say that I had outstripped the major warehouse of Patterson Lang and Bruce who had till then been their main outlet. By the time Christmas of 1946 came around, I had made good the six months of inactivity and knew that I was on the right path. I was turning my small capital over quickly and continuing to add to it all the time.
As soon as the factories re-opened after the summer vacations, I set out in search for ladies’ underwear and persuaded a Mr Yudel Slonim to sell me some. I do not recall the circumstances, but a man, recently demobilised, contacted me and offered to buy my whole stock and paid cash on the spot. I opened dealings with him, and he would come twice a day to take whatever other stock of underwear I had in the interim acquired. In turn, I went daily to Slonim’s factory to replenish my own reserves. As the demand grew, I also looked elsewhere for supplies.
One day I walked into Mantons in Bourke Street to be met by an order for 10,000 dozen pair of ladies’ underwear. I was taken aback, knowing that I could not possibly obtain such a quantity of merchandise and suspecting that the buyer, himself, must have doubted my capacity to supply all these. Nonetheless, I did secure – to my buyer’s delight – 500 dozen pair.
By that time, certain decisions had to be made. I had no further need to burden the Dorevitches with my presence in their home, nor was it appropriate to continue conducting my business from their factory. I had, by that time, also established other contacts and widened my range of goods to include woven woollen material which was also at a premium. Because of its bulk, I looked for a warehouse. I soon found premises on the first floor of a building in Swanston Street between Little Collins and Bourke Streets at a rent of ten pounds per week. Moshe Dorevitch, when I disclosed to him of what I had done, roundly told me that I had made a mistake. The carriers would not deliver goods upstairs without a lift. I had made a basic and monumental blunder, he said: I should have consulted first with him.
He was clearly right and I decided to correct my error. I learned that the Oxford Chambers, where Eagle Insurance stands today, were being let as office and warehouse space. Here I found an office in the basement which suited my purposes. The building had a side lane with a direct opening to the basement, thereby resolving the problem that made the other premises unsuitable. The rent asked was five pounds per week and I accepted the office on the spot. Moshe’s concern now was over my dual rent obligations. I did not worry unduly. I was on an upswing; I was self-assured – a hallmark of youth, even if not always warranted; and I would not be deterred. Shortly after, I made over the Swanston Street premises to the Imp ballet shoe manufacturers who used them as display rooms. They were as happy to acquire the place as I was to unburden myself of it. Next, I moved to a rooming house in St Kilda.
My transfer to a private room had a profound side-effect I had not anticipated at the ti
me of moving. Where my intention had been to end my dependence on the Dorevitches who had been warm and hospitable, the side-benefit was the privacy I gained and, with it, the freedom to listen to the radio at will. At that time, 3LO was the only ABC station that provided classical music as regular fare. I had had little opportunity to listen to such music till then, the oriental music I had heard for several years not having touched me in any particular way. As soon as I began to listen to European classical music, these became a passion with me. I could not get enough of it. I would stay up till late at night, listening to every classical music program. On Sunday mornings, the program between ten and twelve featured the very best. Beethoven and Tchaikovski came to lead my list of favourite composers. I began also to attend symphony concerts.
With the onset of autumn, the demand for summer gloves abated and I turned to looking for knitwear and socks for winter. Again, I made Lygon Street my first destination. Walking from one factory to another, I came upon one owned by three partners, Bergman, Ehrlich and Honig. They were amiable men who took a personal interest in me. I recall Yehuda Honig, whom I came later to admire through our communal involvements, saying that if he were in my shoes, starting from scratch, he would not go into the clothing business. He would turn rather to plastics which was a new industry with unlimited applications and potential. Plastics was a field totally unknown to me and I could not entertain the idea of becoming involved in such an industry without adequate capital when I found it relatively easy to make profit out of buying and selling without over-committed investment. Though I knew, rationally, that he was right, I decided to pursue the course I had already set out upon.
Slowly, I acquired supplies. B & G Knitwear sold me matrons’ cardigans; a man by the name of Ackman sold me whatever wares remained on his shelves at the end of each week; Sender Burstin gave me socks. A pattern of a sort steadily developed in my merchandising. When I phoned the buyer of ladies’ knitwear at Myer’s that I had goods for him, he would come promptly to my rooms at Oxford Chambers and, more often than not, would say, “Send in the lot”. So desperate did buyers sometimes become to obtain goods at that time of general shortage that they would literally stand in a queue waiting to be served. I particularly recall one such scene at a men’s knitwear factory owned by a Mr Bender in Carlton where buyers, some from interstate, waited patiently to be admitted into the warehouse.
I was in business. Most of my time was spent roaming the factories and buying up whatever was for sale. There was no cause for being too particular. There was no such thing as bad merchandise. Nor was one concerned whether the product was first-rate or medium. Everything was saleable. One afternoon, I was examining a delivery of swami bloomers I had just received, checking each pair against the light to sort out those garments that had runs in them. Just then, Berl Dzivak walked in. Catching me in the act of stretching out a pair of extra large bloomers for inspection, he said that if our teacher Moshe Zabludovski could at that moment see what I was doing, he would turn in his grave.
I replied that I considered myself fortunate to be able to do even this.
While I had spent the greater part of the war years in Shanghai, my parents, brothers and sister had been in Russia.
In 1942, in the first year of the German-Russian war, Russia concluded an agreement with the Polish Government in exile in London which resulted in the mobilisation of Polish nationals being transported through Southern Russia to North Africa to fight the Germans there. This was to become known as the Sikorski Agreement.
My brother, Hershl, who, though eligible for military service, was not called up, nonetheless joined this force along with many other young Poles. However, he set off without identification papers; but, without such papers in Russia, a person was a non-entity. He was arrested in Samarkand, imprisoned there for several months, and returned home, barely alive, in 1943. Father, who, having been imprisoned in Osmiany in Lithuania and sentenced to 5 years’ hard labour in the Komi region of northern European Russia, after being caught at the Lithuanian border in February 1940, was released in 1943 as part of a 1942 amnesty extended to Polish nationals as a consequence of the Russo-German war. He joined Mother and the rest of the family in Pavlodar in September 1943. At about this time, Hershl did enter the army, conscripted this time into the newly-formed Polish Army by order of a provisional Polish government based in Lublin, then under Russian occupation. This army, known as the Wanda Wasilewska army, participated in the Russian offensive against the German forces. Hershl advanced with this army to Berlin itself, remaining unharmed. The Polish government in Lublin then entered into another agreement with the Russian government which provided for the return to Poland of all Polish citizens who had spent the war years in Russia. Father also applied for repatriation, but was told that he was ineligible as he was a Jew and not a Pole. In the face of the refusal, he stood his ground, insisting on his Polish nationality, and won through. The family as a unit left Russia for Poland in May 1946.
I had learnt, prior to my departure from Shanghai, about their imminent return, and wrote a letter to them, care of the Jewish community office in Bialystok on the assumption that they would pass through the town on their westward journey. As it turned out, they were taken directly to the northern Baltic city of Stetin, only my brother Lazar venturing to return to Bialystok where he collected the letter I had written. Hershl, who was still in the army, had kept touch with the family by correspondence and joined the others in Stetin after demobilisation.
From Stetin, Father, Mother and my sister left for a Displaced Persons’ camp in Kassel in West Germany. My brothers Hershl, Lazar and Simcha joined a General Zionist Ichud Kibbutz with the aim of going on to Palestine. The kibbutz was in Stetin where they spent six months. Subsequently, the entire kibbutz decamped and travelled in a westward movement that was called breicha through Silesia and the Carpathian Mountains into Czechoslovakia. There, they stayed for a week in Prague and moved still further west, via Germany, to the south of France. My brothers here left the kibbutz unit and went on to Paris.
Parents in Paris 1948.
In the meantime, I managed, with the help of Moshe Dorevitch to obtain immigration permits into Australia for my parents and my sister. They left the DP camp and sailed from Marseilles in February 1948, reaching Melbourne a month later.
The day of their arrival was foggy. Waiting for them at the foot of the gang-plank, I was assailed by a flood of emotion. Eight years had passed since I had last seen them. The events that had affected each of us separately, events fraught with dangers, privations and uncertainties, were extraordinary in themselves, while our survival and imminent reunion as a family bordered on the miraculous. In the grip of these thoughts, I paced the dock, wondering, among other things, whether, after my own experiences, I should be capable of returning fully and fitting into the family. When I finally saw Father, Mother and my sister descending the gang-plank, I found myself as if riveted to the spot. They approached me, but my own feet resisted all efforts to move forward. How long that lasted, I do not know, but finally I did embrace them, feeling the while that what was happening was unreal, and having to persuade myself repeatedly that they were actually with me and that it was not all part of a dream.
That day coincided with the festival of Purim which commemorated the deliverance of the Jews of Persia from Haman 2500 years before. The date of my family’s arrival could not have been more appropriate, theirs, too, having been a miraculous deliverance.
I had rented for them a modest house in Byron Street, Elwood, this being within easy walking distance from Elwood Synagogue which was then in Avoca Avenue. The house was simply furnished, while Mother’s delight at walking into a small kitchen of her own was patent. We sat down to a traditional Purim meal that evening, opened a bottle of wine to celebrate the reunion and talked long into the night. Having undergone vastly different experiences during our separation, we had, of necessity, to get to know one another again. In the two years that I had already spent in Aus
tralia, my thinking and outlook had evolved in ways that differed greatly from their concerns being dominated still by issues of survival.
Father was elated at his new circumstances. For the first time in eight years, he felt genuinely free and rejoiced in his freedom. He kept repeating how, in his darkest hours, he would tell himself he was destined to survive and regain his dignity. The first taste of it was to him very sweet indeed. Mother was still in a daze. She found everything – her past experiences, her new surroundings, her emotions – too much to assimilate at once. Added to this was the fact that she had left her three youngest children on their own, this concern depriving her of total peace.
With my parents’ arrival, new contingencies presented themselves. They had come with a pitiful few items of clothing as the sum of their possessions. Their immediate needs were to be many, but, above all, Father needed occupation. He was then 59 but, despite his privations, full of energy, and restless to set about making good the preceding wasted years and to regain his self-esteem by earning his own living. However, that could not be immediately achieved. As days extended into weeks of inactivity, Father’s mood darkened. It became obvious that I must do something for him. I bought a few old rusted knitting machines, rented premises in Little Bourke Street where the Navy House stands today, and got Father busy restoring the machines to re-usability. My next aim was to secure yarn. This was almost an impossibility at the time. Spinning mills would not supply me with yarn. However, we were able to buy some yarn and set about producing matron’s cardigans. Our first garments were as wide as they were long. I showed it to one of my regular customers who, despite its disproportion, bought it.