My Role Models

Lilli and Tuli were a wonderful couple I knew many years ago in Melbourne. I came to refer to them as my Melbourne parents, as my parents lived in Queensland then. Oddly enough, not only were they born in the same years as my parents, they were within weeks of their birthdays, Lilly 3 weeks’ before my mum’s and Tuli 4 weeks before my dad’s. Both have passed away now however they will forever remain in my memory.

They were local garment manufacturers and we met through my work as a buyer. We did more than just work together though and I used to eat dinner regularly in their kitchen at home. Lilly, another girlfriend of mine and myself used to subscribe to the Melbourne Theatre Company plays each season and we’d usually have dinner first at Lilly’s place.?

One time, I remember Lilly saying? to me that my introduction to ballet had to be seeing the Russian Bolshoi Ballet in their performance of Swan Lake. So, when they came to town and were doing that very performance, she got us tickets and indeed it was a memorable night.?

What made them so special is their kindness to everyone. They had employees in their business who had been with them for many years which is always a good sign of a well run and a happy place to work. Everyone I knew liked them a great deal and I don’t think I ever heard a bad word said against them.

Yet, they had experienced a lot of adversity and sadness in their lives before coming to Australia around 1950. You see they were both Czech Jews and had been in the German concentration camps during the WW2. Lilly came through it with only her mum whom she brought out to Australia and what a sweet woman she was too. Lilly lost her dad and sister while Tuli lost his entrie family in the camps. I remember seeing the tatto of numbers on Tuli’s inner arm from his internment in one of the camps.

I travelled with each of them on various business trips overseas to Europe and I remember being with Tuli in Munich on one trip. It was his first time back to that city since the end of WW2 and he couldn’t believe how all the buildings had been rebuilt. The last time he’d seen the city centre of Munich, it was nothing but rubble. I looked around trying to see it through his eyes as it had been in 1944.

On a couple of trips with Lilly, she would tell me stories of being in the concentration camps with her mum and they were so sad to listen to that I think I’ve blocked most of them from my memory. I recall one story very vividly that she told me once though. It was during the allied forces’ bombing of Dresden, Germany and Lilly and her mum along with lots of other prisoners were in a cattle car of a train sitting in a railway yard. It was night and very dark when there were suddenly bombs dropping all around them and they didn’t know what was happening and if they would be alive at the end of that night.

How people who go through so much yet remain loving and kind people has always been amazing to me. I believe they taught me a lot as they were role models for me with their generosity and love for life.

Even after I moved from Melbourne and back to Sydney and later Brisbane, I would always make a point of visiting them when I went to Melbourne and we would catch up when they were holidaying up on the Gold Coast.

I remember one occasion on the Gold Coast at the resort they were staying at over the Christmas holidays. Quite a number of their Sydney friends were there as well and the women in particular would sit around the pool during the day. Many of their Sydney friends were originally from Hungary and Lilly had grown up speaking Hungarian as well as Czech.?

One day when I was visiting, all the ladies were sitting around together and they started speaking in Hungarian. Lilly always disliked it when people spoke in a language if there was someone there who didn’t understand it. So, she asked everyone to speak in English as she informed them I didn’t understand Hungarian and of course they obliged.

One lady then said to me “You’re from Sydney, aren’t you?” To which I replied I was. Then she said something that I had to bite my tongue not to laugh out loud at and still remember to this day. “ You come from Sydney and yet you don’t speak Hungarian?” I felt like jokingly saying I didn’t realize that it was a prerequisite to speak Hungarian if I lived in Sydney. Obviously I didn’t though.

Another time, I couldn’t go to work as I had an ear infection and I was running into the walls of the passageway at home as I tried to walk down it. Lilly brought me over some chicken noodle soup to make me feel better which of course it did. That plus her caring for me meant a lot.

On another occasion, after having enjoyed a lovely dinner one evening at their home when I was still recovering from a serious accident and couldn’t walk yet, I remember Tuli picking me up in his arms and carrying me out to the car as I couldn’t manage the steps to their house.

They were the loveliest of people and so wonderful and positive to be around. I learnt a lot from watching and listening to them and I’ll never forget them. Even as I write this now, tears are weling up at the thought of them.

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