By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
LOWELL – Imagine entering a department store and being greeted by a sign which read in large bold letters: “NO BROWSING.” It is perfectly normal for the average shopper, especially if undecided, to want to browse for that perfect personal item or gift. Store owner Nathan Birke did not see it that way.
Holocaust survivors
Nathan and Sally Birke fled their homeland of Poland for Russia when Germany invaded in 1939. They opened Birke’s Department Store on Market Street in Lowell less than a decade later in 1948, after arriving in the United States two years earlier. After the war, Sally returned to Poland only to learn that her family had all died. Her sister Leia died of starvation, her mother Szifra and 8-year-old brother Avram, were gassed at Auschwitz. Nathan’s family were also killed by the Nazis.
Birke’s was described as the Marshalls or T.J. Maxx of its day. The husband-and-wife team offered their customers a chance to score bargains such as designer jeans for $10. Sally, the welcoming half of the duo, often provided tea and cookies and calmed customers’ nerves after being riled by her husband. However, potential buyers always entered at their own risk after being given fair warning with that impossible to miss the sign bearing Nathan’s famous rule, “NO BROWSING.”
Holding court in the center of the store, Nathan Birke was particularly cantankerous and often interrogated those who entered with, “What do you want?” If the reply was, “I’m just looking,” he would retort, according to JewishBoston.com, “No lookers. Ve vant buyers! You vant to browse, go to a library! At least there you vill loyn someting!” What followed next was usually a shout to get out of his store. Much of the time, Nathan was away from the store meeting with vendors and wholesalers, allowing for a sigh of relief for customers.
Daughter and customers remember
According to a 2010 interview in the Lowell Sun, the Birke’s oldest daughter, Szifra said, “It was a crime if you knew exactly what you wanted. It was a crime if you didn’t know what you wanted. Everything was a reason to be thrown out of Birke’s. It is a miracle anyone ever got in.”
She went on to describe her relationship with her father as just as complicated as it was with his customers. “I loved him, but I had a disdain for his level of intolerance and the way he treated people. He was verbally abusive. He treated us the way he did the customers: Sometimes really well, and sometimes poorly.”
Nevertheless, Nathan Birke was generous at time, often reducing prices for the poor, donating clothes, and helping deliver food to families struck by typhoid fever when no one else would. He would also hold conversations and share Fig Newtons with you if he liked your looks. Some former customers took to Facebook to post personal memories.
Ed O’Keefe wrote:
“I had the honor to be chased out of the store by Sally. They didn’t care if they sold anything a whole week. If they weren’t in the mood for business, it wasn’t happening.”
Judy Neiland Lemire added:
“I was allowed to shop there because my manager at the Social Security office was friendly with the Birkes. Always felt I had to purchase something, or I might not be allowed to shop again.”
Some shoppers ran out at first bark; others stayed and paid no attention to Nathan’s surliness. In 1994, Szifra collected stories and memorabilia to be displayed at the Morgan Culture Center in Lowell, as she recounts in a YouTube video. The exhibit called, “Browsing Through Birke’s” is also the title of a documentary detailing Nathan and Sally’s journey of survival and perseverance.
After Nathan passed away in 1992 at age 84, Sally continued operating the store, which closed in 2004 after 44 years in business. Sally Birke passed away in 2012.
RELATED CONTENT:
The road ended where it began for ‘The father of the Beats’
