Date: 13/07/2000
He was one of those Europeans who first survived World War II then travelled around the world and helped transform Australia. Alex Pongrass, who has died in Sydney at the age of 76 after a six-month battle with cancer, represented a slice of Australia's rich cultural history.
Born in Hungary, Pongrass was always bright, energetic and determined to succeed. With his brother George, who died last year, he was to have a notable business career in his new country.
Sandor Pongracz was born in north-east Hungary in the town of Nyiraghasza and educated in another town, Saros Patak.
Most of the family died in Auschwitz but Alex avoided capture and George was one of the fortunate few to survive Dachau. Hungary's incoming Communist regime was not at all to their liking and they made the bold decision to leave Hungary in 1948; they arrived in Sydney via Austria in 1950.
A lack of money had forced Alex to leave school at the age of 14, but lack of schooling didn't mean a shortage of enterprise. When his uncle was conscripted to the Russian front, he was asked to take control of his uncle's newspaper distribution business, which he ran during the war.
In 1944, when the Germans invaded Hungary, he'd become involved with the Jewish underground, taking advantage of his newspaper connections. He distributed Wallenberg visas (documents named after the Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, which placed as many as 100,000 Jews under the protection of Sweden's neutral government). Pongrass also helped to rescue Jews who had been sentenced to the infamous death march across Hungary.
After many narrow escapes, he survived unharmed. In the turmoil which followed the end of the war in Europe, Pongrass seized on many business opportunities, trading in vegetable oils, transporting food and manufacturing.
It was in this period that Pongrass met the 19-year-old who would become his wife. Like Pongrass, Clara Michnay was a striking individual and the attraction was as swift as it was mutual.
They were married shortly afterwards and made preparations to leave Hungary immediately. When the Syrenia docked in Sydney in 1950, they were refugees and Clara was already pregnant, as it turned out with the first of two sets of twins.
When Clara was pregnant a second time, Pongrass's keen business mind (not to mention an impish sense of humour) saw a profit might be made. He promptly took out an insurance policy with Lloyds of London against another set of twins.
"I could afford to lose the £70 premium," he said at the time, "but if it's twins, the £1,000 will come in handy." How right he was. In 1956, Lloyds' £1,000 payout made front-page news but for the Pongrass family it was a godsend. Clara had fallen ill with septicemia and was hospitalised for three months; the £1,000 paid the medical bills.
Some months after their arrival in Australia, George had joined Alex and Clara. Like so many expatriate Europeans at that time, they found Australia to be a sleepy country awaiting their hard-working skills and determination.
George had invented a revolutionary pneumatically controlled tube-bending machine. This machine modernised the automotive, building and whitegoods industries in Australia and formed the basis of Pongrass Engineering.
In 1952 they used the bending machines to produce tubular steel furniture, a novel product in those days. In 1957 they moved on to the new technology of fibreglass, using it to produce boats.
Pongrass Industries was publicly listed in 1965 and by the mid-1970s had plants in Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, employing more than 600 people in its various enterprises of engineering, furniture, boats, mining and exploration and real estate. In the 1980s the company was privatised. Alex also developed a passion for real estate and over the years undertook major commercial and residential developments. He also had interests in publishing, printing and horse breeding.
Soccer was a passion, so much so that his contribution to the game in Australia was recognised in 1988 with the AM.
As much as he loved and enjoyed his work, Pongrass understood the need for balance - a working day was nine to five, and by six he would be home for dinner. He loved skiing, his daily walks, his many holidays with his children and 13 grandchildren, the weekends at his farm in Burradoo, the holidays in Port Douglas.
He had a knack for seeing the qualities in people and for finding ways to encourage them. A modest man, his pragmatic mind was tempered by a dry wit that would have you searching his eyes which, inevitably, gave him away.
He is survived by Clara, his wife of 52 years, his sons Steven, Leslie and Tom and his daughter, Judy.
Steven Pongrass