‘Your grandfather was the first Jew in Boskovice to buy a house outside the ghetto,” said Uncle Alfred with obvious pride, as I was interviewing him for my book From Generation To Generation, “He bought a house right on the main square and opened his shop in the front of the house.”
Like most towns and villages in the Czech Republic, Boskovice has a main square where the town’s main streets meet. In Boskovice, the main square is dominated on one end by the town’s church and at the other end by the impressive tower of the city hall. The main square was, of course, the focus of all major events. This is where the new recruits would march off to the Austrian Army, where all parades took place, where all demonstration were centered and where all the market days took place.
When, in 1870s the Jews of Boskovice were granted the right to purchase property outside of their ghetto, my grandfather, Yitzchak Zvi Ticho, was the first Jew to take advantage of this new law. He purchased a two-story house right on the main square. This became the home of the Ticho family and the location of the A. J. Ticho textiles store. I learned that information from my uncle who was very proud that his father was so courageous as to expose himself and his family to the turmoil that often occurred on the main square. One day, while chatting with my cousin Dr. Arthur Reiniger, the son of my Uncle Isidor, I happen to mention my grandfather’s courage. Arthur, always a jolly and humorous friend, smiled and said: “Wait a minute, young man, I guess you don’t know that, while the house was actually outside the ghetto and on the main square, the back yard opened into the ghetto. So, the family was never too far from reinforcements in case they were needed.”
Many of the Jews of Boskovice were traders who gathered their merchandise on handcarts or horse carts and traveled around the countryside selling their goods. After the end of the Sabbath, these men got ready and departed early Sunday morning. Those with handcarts favored nearby villages while those with greater loads and a horse to do the heavy work covered much of the county. They all were away until Friday noon when they returned to Boskovice in time to wash up and get ready for the Friday evening service and dinner with the family. Saturday was a well-earned day of rest, time with the family and a beer or two in the local pub.
The move to the main square was a clever business decision. Yitzchak Ticho decided instead of him wandering around the county seeking customers, he would let the customers come to him. With its location on the main square, A. J. Ticho was a busy place. In addition to textiles, the store featured sewing supplies, ribbons, trim and needles and thread, of course. It was particularly busy on market days when farmers and their wives would bring their produce to the market. Booths and stalls covered the whole town square and people from all over the county would arrive to buy their supplies. Transactions of all kinds took place. Many farm families made various handicrafts in the wintertime and brought the ceramics, carvings, knitted clothing and metal objects to the market. If you looked long enough and visited the market often enough, you could find most anything. And, of course, market day was also a good time to renew acquaintances, exchange the latest gossip, argue about politics and share several local beers.
In those years, nearly all clothing was handmade by the wives of the farm families. A good housewife was expected to have sewing skills and provide the required apparel for the family. The head of the family and his wife might invest in a tailor-made outfit to wear to church and special events, but all the rest was homemade, patched and repaired and handed down from family member to family member. The major gift at a wedding was a foot-operated sewing machine. This was a valuable tool because many farm housewives did the sewing for the Brothers Ticho clothing factory. The factory would prepare the designs, cut the cloth and then bring it to selected farm house where the items were sewn.
The main town square also became the center A. J. Ticho’s principal competition in Boskovice, a store run by the Schwartz brothers. And for a brief time A. J. Ticho had a second competitor. In the Ticho store there was a secret code when they suspected that a customer might be a possible shoplifter.
“Zwei auf Zehn” (two on ten) was the way grandfather Ignatz advised his employees to keep two eyes on the ten fingers of a customer. A long-time employee by the name of Kurtilek decided to leave A. J. Ticho and open his own store that he proudly and pointedly identified as “The First Christian Textile Store in Boskovice.” To profit from some of the antisemitic feelings among the Czech customers, he revealed the secret of the Zwei auf Zehn code words to the public, suggesting that the Jews running the Ticho store looked down on Christians and did not trust their Czech customers. “Besides,” he claimed publicly, “my merchandise is less expensive than Ticho’s.”
To this final insult Ignatz responded with a counterclaim: “That is hard to believe,” stated grandfather publicly, “how can Mr. Kurtilek’s merchandise be less expensive than ours since Kurtilek buys merchandise from us.”
This was too much for Kurtilek, and he filed a libel lawsuit against my grandfather in court. Ignatz’s claim was not a rash statement. The books of A. J. Ticho did actually contain an entry of a sale to Kurtilek in the past. It was a minor transaction, but enough to cause Kurtilek to lose the lawsuit and greatly damage his own reputation.
My grandfather would often boast: “I keep the smart sons here in my business. The others can go to Vienna and study at the university.” In fact, three of his sons, Max, Joseph and Solomon became lawyers and Albert became a physician. Three other sons, “the smart ones” Jacob, David and Chaim joined their father business and substantially expanded the operation. Ultimately, after grandfather died, they moved it from the Boskovice’s main square to the heart of Brno, the second largest city in the land. Chaim died of leukemia in 1928. Jacob and David caused the business to thrive – until the Nazis destroyed everything in 1939. Jacob and David were arrested and were sent to the Terezin concentration camp. There, Jacob, despite of the efforts of his niece and nephew, starved to death. David was sent to the Warsaw Ghetto.
One day, we received a desperate postcard in our home in the United States. In this card, Uncle David begged us to send insulin to Warsaw that he urgently needed to care for his diabetes. We fought the authorities for several months to get permission to buy the insulin without a doctor’s prescription. Then, after the United States entered the war, we could no longer ship anything from the United States to Poland. We had to ship the insulin to a friend in Switzerland and beg him to send it to Warsaw. He did, but many months passed and we never heard from David again.
That marked the end of A. J. Ticho.
