The passing of Leon Lehrer

The death of Leon Lehrer on January 29 marked the passing of one of the giants of the Australian textile industry.

He was 90-years-old and left Australia's biggest producer of circular knit fabrics, Standardknit, to be continued by his family. The plant, based in Botany, not far from Sydney Airport, is also one of the few knitting mills still operating in this country. Imports of both fabric and garments have, by government intent, decimated textile production in Australia.

You could say that Lehrer was a double survivor, first of the Holocaust and then of import competition in Australia which has threatened his business and those of his competitors.

Both stories are compelling and became intertwined when he immigrated to Australia in 1950 and began building his company - and his new life - from scratch. Although he embraced the business opportunities and personal freedom Australia offered him, his wife Eugenie, and their toddler son Gus, the past was never far from his thinking. German and Russian occupying forces in the Second World War had murdered every member of his immediate family.

In the year 2000 Leon and Engenie Lehrer published a small book entitled From horror to haven in which they recounted the events that brought them to Australia. It is yet another Holocaust survival story - there are many of them - yet its simplicity and freedom from bitterness makes it especially moving.

Leon was born in Stryj, a small river town in the Austrian sector of Poland. The river eventually finds its way into the Black Sea. He had a brother, a sister and quite a large extended family.

His early childhood was lived in well provided comfort with a strong emphasis on Jewish traditions. A talented student, he developed a strong interest in reading works by great Russian, French and Polish authors.

While his childhood was secure and stable he suffered the restrictions that many eastern European countries imposed upon Jews. They were not allowed to be public servants nor to attend university. Although they learned to live with the restrictions in Poland, by 1937 Germany was following the same anti-Semitic path. Leon finished high school in that year and wanted to follow his brother to study medicine in Italy but was refused a passport. The Polish Government wouldn't allow him to study in Poland either. He settled for an accountancy course and went into the family clothing business.

In August 1939 the German army marched into Poland and the persecution and extermination of Jews had begun in earnest.

Leon was forced into the Russian army and was given a horse and buggy to transport munitions. He managed to escape and walked the 90km home - only to find that his brother Henryk, a serving doctor at the local hospital, had been shot dead simply for being Jewish. Soon afterwards his father was taken away and a few months later his mother was bundled into a cattle truck and transported out of the town by train - never to be seen again. This left Leon to fend for himself. He went from one hiding place to another. June 1943 found him hiding in an attic with a family of three and a lot of pet rabbits. They provided a reason for food to go into the attic and buckets to go up and down. During this self-imposed incarceration Leon taught himself English. When he emerged from the cramped attic he could hardly walk because, in 14 months, he had been unable to stand up beneath the low, sloping roof.

Shortly after Germany withdrew from Poland he met Eugenie, a girl who had also been in hiding. They married in September 1944 and continued to live in Stryj until liberation early in 1945 when they decided to head for Paris. But they only got as far as Munich before Leon came down with pneumonia. That led to an accounting job with the sanatorium which had treated him. Even though a friend in Australia suggest he move there, the family stayed on in Munich until 1950 - largely because Leon wanted to look after his wife and born son Gus. But as various new conflicts around the world began to emerge, he decided that a move to Australia looked to be in his family's best interests. In November 1950 the Lehrer family of three arrived in Sydney. Leon was by then 27 and Gus was three. Leon found a job at Standard Telephones and Cables which later provided the inspiration for the name Standardknit. He then took a sales position with a small flat-bed knitter while Eugenie went to work as a seamstress at Bonds. Leon eventually bought out his two partners in the knitting business which gave birth to Standardknit Fabrics. The company soon evolved from making fully fashioned knitwear into cut and sew knitted garments for the mass market and from there became a producer exclusively of knitted fabrics. Along the way it bought International Dyers and Bleachers which not only increased its own production capacity but brought it regular commission work as well.

Leon Lehrer will be remembered as a studious, strong manager who always had time for his people and their problems. His skill as both entrepreneur and accountant enabled him to continually analyse his business with meticulous accuracy. Standardknit and its related companies were his consuming passions. He was never far from a notebook - even beside his bed - to record ideas as they came into his head. He was a man of routine who liked to walk, enjoy a coffee and discuss current affairs.

Today, Standardknit is run by Carol Crawford, Leon's daughter. It has been like that for the past 10 years since Leon retired - although he loved to keep an eye on the remarkable business he had built. Carol is married to Andrew Crawford who established and still runs Trackmaster, a volume supplier of cut and sew knitted garments. They have three children in a close family but their business interests are quite separate and always have been.

With her father gone and an uncertain future for textile production in Australia, nobody would blame Carol Crawford if she walked away from Standardknit to lead a less stressful life. But she is quick to point out that she loves the business and feels a responsibility to her staff of nearly 100, many of whom have been with the company for decades. She also knows that many Standardknit customers rely on her company for a diverse range of fabrics - many of which are now supplied in small quantities from stock.