ACT Heritage Library Manuscript Collections

HMSS 0454 Ashkanasy Postcard

This postcard of the first Parliament House, Canberra, was produced by photographer R.C. Strangman in the 1940s. It was used by Alec Breckler in a piece of correspondence to Heather Ashkanasy the wife of Maurice Ashkanasy CMG QC.

The correspondence is a snapshot in time, an example of the language of the day and provides insight into the friendship of some prominent people in Australian society.

The author of the correspondence, Alec Breckler, was a shoe store owner in Hay Street, Perth,Western Australia; later known as Betts and Betts, then just Betts. On the postcard, Alec sends love from his wife Hannah (Han) and daughter Joy. Alec's daughter, Joy, married Mervyn Dryen. Mervyn became the godfather to Maurice's son, Neal. He ran Betts and Betts after his father-in-law died. The business is still family owned, five generations on, and operates in all Australian states.

Maurice Ashkanasy immigrated to Australia from England with his family when he was 9 years old. He studied law at he University of Melbourne and was awarded the Hastie Exhibition in 1919 for psychology, logic and ethics. This annual award is reserved for the two students who attain the highest overall results in two Philosophy subjects. He was admitted to the Bar in 1924, read with his lifelong friend, and later Prime Minister, Robert Menzies, and took silk in 1940.

Maurice escaped Singapore in 1942, where he was a Major under General Bennett's command. On 15 February 1942, the day Singapore fell to the Japanese, Maurice led forty soldiers from the British Brigade crammed into a boat from Singapore harbour to the safety of Sumatra. On 4 March 1942, Maurice returned to Fremantle, Western Australia aboard the MS Abbekerk, a Dutch freighter. He was subsequently posted to Perth where he became close friends with the Breckler family.

Maurice Ashkanasy and Alec Breckler were members of the Fabian Society. The focus of the society is on the advancement of socialist ideas through intellectual circles and groups with power. Australian Fabians have historically had close ties with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). This may explain Alec's reference to Maurice as 'Comrade' in the correspondence on the postcard. Maurice also was an active member of the ALP and unsuccessfully stood for the seat of Baklava (1946) and for the Senate (1958). In 1961, Samuel Herbert Cohen was chosen for a safe position on Labor's Victorian for the Senate in preference to Maurice Ashkanasy. Interestingly, Cohen was posthumously given the Maurice Ashkanasy award for Australian Jew of the Year (1969).

Alec and Maurice remained close friends throughout their lives, including participation in Jewish affairs. They both were members of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Inc. Maurice was president during five separate terms between 1948 and 1968. He was also a pioneer of Melbourne’s first Jewish school, Mount Scopus College.

Maurice was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1961.

After Maurice's death, Australia's second Jewish Governor General and Canberra Citizen of the Year 1982,  Sir Zelman Cowen wrote Maurice's entry for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. 

Maurice is remembered in Canberra at the National Portrait Gallery, which holds a bust of him and Ashkanasy Crescent in the Canberra suburb of Evatt is named after him.