April 2010

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A FULFILLING LIFE WELL LIVED F rank Albert Slutzkin, was born on 16 th January 1924 to Sholom and Gladys Slutzkin in Melbourne. He had five older brothers, Leo, Ivon, Alan, Peter and Bob, an older sister Shirley, twin sister Valda and younger sister Nona. Only Bob, aged 92, and Nona survive him. It was a strict religious upbringing but the children still managed to have a lot of fun and get up to lots of mischief. Frank attended school at Wesley College and courted Meryl Cohen, who was attending PLC. He used to work out his coming home time from school so that he could be on the same tram as her! Both sang in Rev Kowadlo’s St Kilda Synagogue Children’s Choir. Their service to the choir continued for many years after the War and Frank took over the Choirmaster duties following on from his brother Leo. Frank served in the War in the RAN, enlisting as soon as he could in 1942. He rose through the ranks to Lieutenant, serving on HMAS Geelong, which was sunk off PNG in 1944, and then on HMAS Hawkesbury. He served in many areas off PNG, Borneo, Singapore and Phillipines, and was one of the first in to Changi to release the POWs and states it was a sight he will never forget. He continued to serve after the war in the Naval reserve in the rank of Lieutenant Commander and was awarded a VRD for those services. He joined VAJEX (Victorian Association of Jewish Ex- Servicemen & Women) after the war and served in many capacities including as its President in 1956 and then as the Federal President. He was very active in the blood donor aspect of VAJEX and organised the donors out to the Repatriation Hospital in Heidelberg every month. Frank was also involved with prevention of anti-semitic activities with VAJEX, investigating suspect groups and providing security to important Jewish buildings. Frank married the love of his life, Meryl in May 1946 and they first lived in a house in Dixon Street, Malvern with their beloved springer spaniel, Plonka. Frank initially went into business with his brother Leo but then ventured out into his own fashion agency in Capitol House on Swanston Street and was successful in that for many years. He served as President of the Fashion Agents’ Association. He and Meryl produced two loving children, Sandra and Colin, and lived all of their family life in Fosbery Avenue, Caulfield with various dogs, birds and fish. They created a warm, loving, kosher family home and taught their children the importance of caring for others, charity and community. Meryl was a role model for charitable work with her long involvement with Jewish Welfare and Ezra, but Frank also served as a Probationary Officer for troubled youth for several years. Frank and Meryl moved to their unit in Northcote Avenue, Caulfield nearly 30 years ago. Their grandsons Ben and Paul, fondly remember Friday night dinners there and then the fun of sleeping over at Nanna and Poppa’s house and being spoilt by Nanna in the morning! When Frank decided to leave the fashion industry, he joined his brother Ivon in the manufacture of masonic regalia for many years. He was then approached to become CEO of Montefiore Homes. He was initially reluctant to do this as he felt he had no experience in the field, but with his flair for business and FRANK ALBERT SLUTZKIN 16 Jan 1924 ~ 5 Dec 2009 organisation, he was able to make a great success of it and was popular with both residents and staff. Frank was successful in whatever he has attempted due to his dedication and commitment to the task. Over the last 22 years, he worked as Secretary to the Queen Elizabeth Centre Foundation in a fund-raising capacity and was proud to be part of the building of a new complex in Noble Park. In recognition of his work, he was appointed a Life Governor. He was retiring in his role at the end of the year and was looking forward to a function that was being held in his honour. He never felt that he should retire as he never felt too old to work and contribute! His brain was still so active! He thoroughly enjoyed his very long involvement with Freemasonry and many years ago, was very proud that he was offered the honour of being Grand Master. He made friends all over the state through Freemasonry. He thoroughly enjoyed the community work and friendships he developed over 20 years through Prahran Rotary which he attended weekly and readily participated in their fund-raising and charitable work. He was President of Prahran Rotary from 1992 - 1993 and was honoured a few years later with a presentation of the highest award in Rotary, the Paul Harris Award, for his community service. He was one of the many loyal supporters of the St Kilda Football Club and was devastated by last year’s Grand Final result. He went with Sandy and Lionel to all the home matches and happily watched replays of wins time and again! Frank was a loving family man and loved Shabbat dinners at Sandy and Lionel’s, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He was proud to see his grandsons happy and settled in their personal and professional lives and got a thrill out of their successes. He was an avid stamp collector and had an amazing stamp collection consisting of 37 albums which he had collected and lovingly worked on all his life. He had many passions apart from football, including cricket, reading, gardening, the arts such as music and opera, and a game of poker. When they were younger, he also loved to travel with Meryl and had a great knowledge of the world. Since Meryl’s passing, Ruth has been a wonderful companion for him and we appreciate all that she has been to him. After Frank’s stroke a few years ago, which weakened his left side, everyone imagined this would devastate him. But with his amazingly resilient nature and the help of the wonderful carers from Silver Circle who came every day to shower and dress him, he was back driving himself to work and into his busy lifestyle, much to the admiration of us all. Sandy wants to make mention of the fantastic love and care that Lionel showed to his father-in-law. Lionel had been a surrogate son to Frank with his son, Colin absent for 30 years in South Africa. Lionel has done everything from helping shower Frank to including him on holidays. Frank would often ring to ask Lionel to fix something for him that had to be done “right now”, or assemble some complicated thing he had bought. Lionel, Frank loved you like a son and appreciated all you did for him. Frank has had a wonderfully rich and fulfilling life. He will be very sadly missed by his family who loved and admired him so much and by all his friends who enjoyed his good humour and companionship. Written by Sandy Walvisch ~ Frank’s daughter 10
After various setbacks & holdups, on 20 th December 2009, Webmaster Judy Landau published the first page of our website. STEVE TUSAK reports. The story of the VAJEX website. During committee meetings which included discussions of how to raise the staid profile of the venerable Association, the committee brainstormed various methods of modernising the Association to make it attractive to new members. Bearing in mind that the Association’s numbers were reducing at an alarming rate with the passing of senior members and the lack of new recruits, the constitution was changed to allow family to become members, but still more needed to be done. The committee decided to investigate the concept of a website as one of the ways of publicising the existence, aims, and benefits of our Association to current and potential members as well as to the general public. The decision was made to go ahead with the planning and investigation of the website concept. Unfortunately, there was a noticeable lack of volunteers to take the matter further. This can be partly ascribed to the lack of computer knowledge and expertise of the more senior generation comprising most of the committee. What you will find under the tabs… CONTACT US: Email addresses and phone numbers; Message to ADF Personnel ABOUT US: Who’s Who; Our Chaplain; Association History; Services Provided; Sponsorships; How to Donate; Our Constitution MEMBERS: Join; Member Stories; Our Fallen; Book of Remembrance; Tributes; Greg Sher Memorial Shield; Guest Speaker addresses; Rank Humour (The Pages from the Books of Remembrance have all been scanned and hyperlinked to indexes of all the names of our fallen.) NEWS: Military History (Under Construction); PARADE; PARADE Archived Feature; Mazal Tov; Vale; Useful Links EVENTS: Upcoming Events (a comprehensive calendar of VAJEX events, candle lighting, Yom Tovim dates, public holidays etc); Past Events; Ceremonial Flags & Wreath; National Anthems (with sound & downloadable words); Psalms & Poems (can be downloaded for participants to use in our services); Prayers (can be downloaded); Bugle Calls (with sound & music score) PHOTO GALLERY: photos of our events Judy felt as the one of the few members of the committee with some level of computer knowledge, that the task would have to fall on her. So with zero knowledge of how to build a website, she took on the task of investigating options with persons suggested by committee members, her associates and also investigated commercial options. A commercial option was quoted at between $15,000 - $30,000. Obviously this was way beyond any realistic budget that could be allocated by VAJEX. In her usual “let’s get it done” manner, Judy personally took on the task of investigating suitable packages to use to make the design of the website affordable and to make ongoing maintenance easy, with the intention of finding a lower cost option or resource to actually design and implement the website. It is now history that the resource WAS Judy. So she designed and set up a few sample pages of the website to discern whether or not it was feasible for her to do it. All major tasks are subject to start up difficulties, however, Judy is not one to be perturbed by such small issues as insurmountable difficulties. After experimenting and consulting with an industry professional, she changed packages and after only one hour of tuition, she invested all four weeks of her unpaid annual leave working up to 16 hours daily, six days a week, to personally enter in all the data, design the graphics and organise the architecture of the website. She personally scanned almost 600 pages from the Books of Remembrance, liaised with committee members and the results are there for all to see. The website is the new front face of VAJEX, the result of a brilliant job that will be a valuable asset and major resource to all VAJEX members. It will also significantly lift the profile of VAJEX within the wider community and help recruit new members including those amongst the current serving ADF members. A task well done with Judy’s usual standard of excellence, that deserves the thanks and appreciation of all VAJEX members. 11
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Page 16 and 17: LAWRENCE Keith Francis PTE 6 th FD
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Page 20 and 21: THE AUSTRALIAN LIGHT HORSE By Rolan
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Page 24: With Compliments & Best Wishes from

April 2010

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