Selected text
In 1960 my uncle retired from the business. He wasn’t married, and had some health problems and wanted to leave. Here he had no one except us, but he had two sisters and a brother in Naples, who invited him to go and live with them. So he decided to leave. As a result I remained alone and I somehow reduced the business. In other words I stopped the exports; I couldn’t do both things. And I tried to develop the imports, the representations’ sector. I didn’t have any specific imports that did really well. These things continuously change. One has to adapt.
We had a lot of textiles, the textiles didn’t do that well, so I decided to find other products. At first I turned to iron wares. My first representations were from a contact I had at the International Trade Fair of Thessaloniki. They had a stand, and let’s say that they started some contacts. Then I turned to representation of hygienic products. I also had some collaborations with friends from Athens who needed a person to develop the Thessaloniki market. And this opened other doors to me, with other representations of houses in the market of hygienic products. These friends of mine from Athens, who had the hygienic products, were Jewish: Abravanel and Amarillio.
The business did very well, the turnover continuously grew. In every branch, we had clients in every specialty. There was a lot of competition from other representatives and factories from abroad, because every representative was representing his own factories.
The choice of representations is often a question of luck. Luck, coincidence, if certain people look for factories through their friends, third parties.
There were some products we brought that were very, very successful. An English factory from Leeds produced woolen textiles for men’s suits that were very popular. One enjoyed working with this material because it was a very good product that the customers appreciated.
My customers were in the majority Christian, because the market had drastically changed after the war. The big clients were Christian businesses. Thessaloniki was a small city in the 1950s and 1960s and we had friends. My uncle had friends that knew who he was and trusted him and this relationship was transferred to me.
The fact that I was Jewish didn’t stand in the way, on the contrary. This is because some representatives, from Athens mainly, were liars and were not reliable in their business dealings. But they trusted me more because the Jew in general tries to win trust and to behave properly, so that he doesn’t risk to lose a client, and so that he can invest in his work. This is a smarter tactic than fooling the client.
Before the war and just after the war the promise, that is the commitment, played a very important role. It meant that when you say something you must do it, as if it is a written commitment, even if it is not. Say, for instance, in the business of exports that we had before the war, we had a typical oral agreement with the associates at the office which was based on mutual trust. We didn’t have a contract or anything else. We got money, gave money, did exports, and in purchases we also had full trust, very kind and correct. And this was never shattered.
There weren’t many Jewish merchants here. Not in my area of products. Except for Alvo in products of hygiene with whom we didn’t work that much. I had other more important clients who preferred me a lot more than Alvo. The Alvo family had a somewhat different policy. They wanted to have exclusivity of their products, I didn’t give exclusivity, and so we didn’t have a very good collaboration. We almost had none at all. I didn’t have relationships with other representatives who did similar things like me. Except for my friends in Athens who were representatives and with whom we had collaborated.
The atmosphere in the business was very good. I had employees, two women. One of them, whom I had for many years, got married, had a daughter, then divorced and continued to work for me. The other, who was single, married and left my office. They were secretaries. Took calls, did the correspondence and took care that orders were properly executed when I was away on a trip or visiting clients.
The salaries were paid according to the state law. When business was good, I remember, for many years we gave a bonus to the employees, at Christmas. I kept the business until I retired in 1995. I didn’t participate in any professional associations, but I had to be a registered member in the association of representatives. I never ran for office, because I didn’t have time for this kind of thing, neither did I have such ambitions.
Throughout my work, I had no problem either with the Income Tax office or the authorities. When I hired employees I didn’t ask what their political beliefs were; no one paid attention to such things. I would hire people that were recommended by people I knew.
The work pleased me; it is a very interesting kind of job. One deals with people, one meets people, it is a sociable profession. During the week my time schedule was visiting clients in the morning, and office work. Often I came late at noon, and once again in the afternoon because at the time we had a lot of correspondence, and it was my personal job to keep it updated. At the time we had no other way to communicate. Letters no end which I wrote until 10-11 at night. The employees, the girls, generally filled in the order files, notes, took care of the daily routine. But the correspondence I had to do myself. The whole week went by mainly at work and during the weekends I was with my family.
I was away very often. Sometimes in Athens and sometime abroad. And when I was here I went visiting clients every morning for two or three hours. I took a lot of trips to France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Finland, Holland, and Poland, where I’ve been a couple of times. Those were trips that lasted four to five days, not longer. At the time hospitality was much more developed. Later it was reduced, mainly after 1985, because businesses tried generally to cut down expenses, and mainly hospitality expenses. Before that foreign businesses were very generous. They often paid for the hotel and entertained us not only during the day but they also invited us out at night.
Sometimes my wife came too. Everything was very pleasant. To see a foreign city is always interesting. Paris, Amsterdam, Reims, where I went many times with my wife. Hospitality was cordial because we had very close and pleasant professional ties. On all these trips there were not any Jewish monuments I would go visit. I never went to see a concentration camp in Poland. I didn’t want to. The rest, museums, monuments and other similar things I did visit when I had the time.
I never hid my origin when I was introduced to people. Besides, they asked your name, where you came from etc. I told them straight out we were refugees from Spain, something like that. Naturally, I also said I was Greek. They knew of Greece and they asked various things connected to whatever they had learned at high school.
Germany and France had the history of Greece in their main curriculum, and this certainly interested them. I was a Greek and a Jew, both. I didn’t make a special effort to approach factories that were Jewish owned. Sometimes one doesn’t even know that. For instance, once I acquired a representation of a company in London named Barkley’s. Later, when I asked to meet the director I met someone called Shatz, who was a Polish Jew.
We had a lot of textiles, the textiles didn’t do that well, so I decided to find other products. At first I turned to iron wares. My first representations were from a contact I had at the International Trade Fair of Thessaloniki. They had a stand, and let’s say that they started some contacts. Then I turned to representation of hygienic products. I also had some collaborations with friends from Athens who needed a person to develop the Thessaloniki market. And this opened other doors to me, with other representations of houses in the market of hygienic products. These friends of mine from Athens, who had the hygienic products, were Jewish: Abravanel and Amarillio.
The business did very well, the turnover continuously grew. In every branch, we had clients in every specialty. There was a lot of competition from other representatives and factories from abroad, because every representative was representing his own factories.
The choice of representations is often a question of luck. Luck, coincidence, if certain people look for factories through their friends, third parties.
There were some products we brought that were very, very successful. An English factory from Leeds produced woolen textiles for men’s suits that were very popular. One enjoyed working with this material because it was a very good product that the customers appreciated.
My customers were in the majority Christian, because the market had drastically changed after the war. The big clients were Christian businesses. Thessaloniki was a small city in the 1950s and 1960s and we had friends. My uncle had friends that knew who he was and trusted him and this relationship was transferred to me.
The fact that I was Jewish didn’t stand in the way, on the contrary. This is because some representatives, from Athens mainly, were liars and were not reliable in their business dealings. But they trusted me more because the Jew in general tries to win trust and to behave properly, so that he doesn’t risk to lose a client, and so that he can invest in his work. This is a smarter tactic than fooling the client.
Before the war and just after the war the promise, that is the commitment, played a very important role. It meant that when you say something you must do it, as if it is a written commitment, even if it is not. Say, for instance, in the business of exports that we had before the war, we had a typical oral agreement with the associates at the office which was based on mutual trust. We didn’t have a contract or anything else. We got money, gave money, did exports, and in purchases we also had full trust, very kind and correct. And this was never shattered.
There weren’t many Jewish merchants here. Not in my area of products. Except for Alvo in products of hygiene with whom we didn’t work that much. I had other more important clients who preferred me a lot more than Alvo. The Alvo family had a somewhat different policy. They wanted to have exclusivity of their products, I didn’t give exclusivity, and so we didn’t have a very good collaboration. We almost had none at all. I didn’t have relationships with other representatives who did similar things like me. Except for my friends in Athens who were representatives and with whom we had collaborated.
The atmosphere in the business was very good. I had employees, two women. One of them, whom I had for many years, got married, had a daughter, then divorced and continued to work for me. The other, who was single, married and left my office. They were secretaries. Took calls, did the correspondence and took care that orders were properly executed when I was away on a trip or visiting clients.
The salaries were paid according to the state law. When business was good, I remember, for many years we gave a bonus to the employees, at Christmas. I kept the business until I retired in 1995. I didn’t participate in any professional associations, but I had to be a registered member in the association of representatives. I never ran for office, because I didn’t have time for this kind of thing, neither did I have such ambitions.
Throughout my work, I had no problem either with the Income Tax office or the authorities. When I hired employees I didn’t ask what their political beliefs were; no one paid attention to such things. I would hire people that were recommended by people I knew.
The work pleased me; it is a very interesting kind of job. One deals with people, one meets people, it is a sociable profession. During the week my time schedule was visiting clients in the morning, and office work. Often I came late at noon, and once again in the afternoon because at the time we had a lot of correspondence, and it was my personal job to keep it updated. At the time we had no other way to communicate. Letters no end which I wrote until 10-11 at night. The employees, the girls, generally filled in the order files, notes, took care of the daily routine. But the correspondence I had to do myself. The whole week went by mainly at work and during the weekends I was with my family.
I was away very often. Sometimes in Athens and sometime abroad. And when I was here I went visiting clients every morning for two or three hours. I took a lot of trips to France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Finland, Holland, and Poland, where I’ve been a couple of times. Those were trips that lasted four to five days, not longer. At the time hospitality was much more developed. Later it was reduced, mainly after 1985, because businesses tried generally to cut down expenses, and mainly hospitality expenses. Before that foreign businesses were very generous. They often paid for the hotel and entertained us not only during the day but they also invited us out at night.
Sometimes my wife came too. Everything was very pleasant. To see a foreign city is always interesting. Paris, Amsterdam, Reims, where I went many times with my wife. Hospitality was cordial because we had very close and pleasant professional ties. On all these trips there were not any Jewish monuments I would go visit. I never went to see a concentration camp in Poland. I didn’t want to. The rest, museums, monuments and other similar things I did visit when I had the time.
I never hid my origin when I was introduced to people. Besides, they asked your name, where you came from etc. I told them straight out we were refugees from Spain, something like that. Naturally, I also said I was Greek. They knew of Greece and they asked various things connected to whatever they had learned at high school.
Germany and France had the history of Greece in their main curriculum, and this certainly interested them. I was a Greek and a Jew, both. I didn’t make a special effort to approach factories that were Jewish owned. Sometimes one doesn’t even know that. For instance, once I acquired a representation of a company in London named Barkley’s. Later, when I asked to meet the director I met someone called Shatz, who was a Polish Jew.
Period
Interview
Nico Saltiel