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NEVER THE LAST JOURNEY
Felix Zandman is known on Wall Street as the brilliant scientist-entrepreneur whose billion-dollar Fortune 500 company, Vishay Intertechnology, reshaped the electronic component industry. But few are aware of Zandman's incredible personal story: as a teenager he spent a year-and-a-half in Nazi occupied Poland, and that harrowing experience gave him the drive, discipline, and generosity of spirit that made his later success possible.
Taught by his grandmother Tema that the only measure of wealth is what you give away, Zandman lost his entire world in 1943 when the ghetto in his native city of Grodno was destroyed. Jammed with four others into a tiny pit beneath the cottage of a poor Polish peasant, he was left with nothing but his inner resources of imagination, intellect, and will to fend off insanity and find a reason to go on living.
Lying next to him in the hole, his uncle taught him higher mathematics, lessons he later turned to good use in winning a doctorate in physics from the Sorbonne. In 1966 he came to the United States, where one of his breakthrough discoveries became the basis for a company he named for his grandmother's shtetl. Vishay revolutionized an industry and today employs sixteen thousand people worldwide, among them the grandson of the woman who saved him.
Taught by his grandmother Tema that the only measure of wealth is what you give away, Zandman lost his entire world in 1943 when the ghetto in his native city of Grodno was destroyed. Jammed with four others into a tiny pit beneath the cottage of a poor Polish peasant, he was left with nothing but his inner resources of imagination, intellect, and will to fend off insanity and find a reason to go on living.
Lying next to him in the hole, his uncle taught him higher mathematics, lessons he later turned to good use in winning a doctorate in physics from the Sorbonne. In 1966 he came to the United States, where one of his breakthrough discoveries became the basis for a company he named for his grandmother's shtetl. Vishay revolutionized an industry and today employs sixteen thousand people worldwide, among them the grandson of the woman who saved him.
- GenresMemoir
428 pages, Hardcover
First published May 16, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 20, 2018
I'll preface this by saying that it is impossible for me to be objective about this book. As a descendant of the Oklahoma Slaners, I went to Grodno with "Cousin Felix" and the rest of his relatives when I was in kindergarten. I saw the old synagogue, the remains of the ghetto, heard the stories. So I knew I was related to this great man, and the outlines of his story of survival, but the details were filtered through years and the inevitable distortions of family legends. This is the authoritative version, in black and white.
This is really three books in one. Felix Zandman grew up in interwar Poland, in the city of Grodno with 30,000 Jews. He lived in a luxurious apartment building, owned by his Grandfather Freydovicz, a successful construction magnate. His grandmother Tema was a one-woman philanthropic organization. On his father's side, Grandfather Zandman was a poor religious scholar, married to a radical feminist. His family was a microcosm of the community, full of splintering arguments over socialism, Zionism, business, and bound together by love. It was a rich, fulfilling, world. The culmination of centuries of Jewish life.
All this ended with the Operation Barbarossa, and the Nazi invasion. (milhist note: Nazi Germany and the USSR were allies for the invasion of Poland. Grodno was in the Soviet Zone, and things got better for the Jews for a year or so). The Jews of Grodno had heard how bad things were in the German Zone, but only a few believed it and had the resources to flee. The Germans invaded, and began the "liquidation" of the Jews of Grodno, a years long horror of being forced into ghettos, arbitrary beatings and execution, and mass transportation to the death camps. Young Felix survived by the skin of his teeth, dodging random death and escaping the transports by hiding and running. When the ghetto was finally liquidated, he needed some place to hide, and remembered Janova Puchalski, a Polish woman who was the groundskeeper for the Freydovicz dachas. Felix managed to walk there, dodging patrols, and found his Uncle Sender and two other Grodno jews, Mottl and Goldie Bass. They excavated a shallow hole beneath the bedroom, and for 17 months the four of them survived in darkness, with Janova smuggling down a pail of a food and up a pail of excrement. To stay sane, Felix practiced an imaginary violin, and learned math from Sender, visualizing complex equations and geometric principles in the dark.
The hole was indescribable. 17 months of darkness, almost no motion, body parasites, and fear. Sender laid down an iron law. No sex for anyone, all food shared. These moral rules took on a very concrete reality, as the bedrock of the survival of the community. Somehow, they made it through, even when the Soviets pushed back, and the Nazis requisitioned the house. After a few days, they slipped out, managed to convince Nazi patrols they were refugees from the Soviets, and survived in another abandoned cottage till the war moved past.
Part two covers the immediate aftermath of the war. Felix and Sender lived as smugglers in Soviet-occupied Danzig, helping move refugees and guns to Israel as the Iron Curtain came up. They managed to get out, taking a trainload of refugees to France. There, Felix enrolled in the Sorbonne, making up for lost time. He specialized in optical coating for stress measurement, a technique with a wide variety of engineering applications, and eventually wound up as a consultant in the United States. He reconnected with the American side of his family (relatives of Grandma Tema's sister-my people). Felix recognized an opportunity in the electronics market for very precise, temperature-insensitive resistors, and with some funding from Alfred Slaner, set up a small electronics company, Vishay, which grew slowly on the basis of technical merits through the next few decades.
The third part of the book concerns a dizzying series of corporate deals, as Felix used leverage buyouts to snatch up distressed competitors, opened outsourcing plants in Israel, and expanded Vishay to a Fortune 500 company specializing in the whole range of electronic components. And of course along the way Felxi got married, had children, got divorced, re-married, was a witness at the trial of Gestapo Officer Kurt Weise, destroyer of Grodno, and brought the Puchalski children and grandchildren to Yad Vashem to see their family commemorated among the khasidei umót ha'olám.
Subjectively, this book is five stars for family reasons. Objectively, if you're interested in the holocaust, technology, or business, it's a good read although there are more classic books in each of these areas. Still, a fascinating biography of a man who passed through immense adversity, survived, and triumphed.
This is really three books in one. Felix Zandman grew up in interwar Poland, in the city of Grodno with 30,000 Jews. He lived in a luxurious apartment building, owned by his Grandfather Freydovicz, a successful construction magnate. His grandmother Tema was a one-woman philanthropic organization. On his father's side, Grandfather Zandman was a poor religious scholar, married to a radical feminist. His family was a microcosm of the community, full of splintering arguments over socialism, Zionism, business, and bound together by love. It was a rich, fulfilling, world. The culmination of centuries of Jewish life.
All this ended with the Operation Barbarossa, and the Nazi invasion. (milhist note: Nazi Germany and the USSR were allies for the invasion of Poland. Grodno was in the Soviet Zone, and things got better for the Jews for a year or so). The Jews of Grodno had heard how bad things were in the German Zone, but only a few believed it and had the resources to flee. The Germans invaded, and began the "liquidation" of the Jews of Grodno, a years long horror of being forced into ghettos, arbitrary beatings and execution, and mass transportation to the death camps. Young Felix survived by the skin of his teeth, dodging random death and escaping the transports by hiding and running. When the ghetto was finally liquidated, he needed some place to hide, and remembered Janova Puchalski, a Polish woman who was the groundskeeper for the Freydovicz dachas. Felix managed to walk there, dodging patrols, and found his Uncle Sender and two other Grodno jews, Mottl and Goldie Bass. They excavated a shallow hole beneath the bedroom, and for 17 months the four of them survived in darkness, with Janova smuggling down a pail of a food and up a pail of excrement. To stay sane, Felix practiced an imaginary violin, and learned math from Sender, visualizing complex equations and geometric principles in the dark.
The hole was indescribable. 17 months of darkness, almost no motion, body parasites, and fear. Sender laid down an iron law. No sex for anyone, all food shared. These moral rules took on a very concrete reality, as the bedrock of the survival of the community. Somehow, they made it through, even when the Soviets pushed back, and the Nazis requisitioned the house. After a few days, they slipped out, managed to convince Nazi patrols they were refugees from the Soviets, and survived in another abandoned cottage till the war moved past.
Part two covers the immediate aftermath of the war. Felix and Sender lived as smugglers in Soviet-occupied Danzig, helping move refugees and guns to Israel as the Iron Curtain came up. They managed to get out, taking a trainload of refugees to France. There, Felix enrolled in the Sorbonne, making up for lost time. He specialized in optical coating for stress measurement, a technique with a wide variety of engineering applications, and eventually wound up as a consultant in the United States. He reconnected with the American side of his family (relatives of Grandma Tema's sister-my people). Felix recognized an opportunity in the electronics market for very precise, temperature-insensitive resistors, and with some funding from Alfred Slaner, set up a small electronics company, Vishay, which grew slowly on the basis of technical merits through the next few decades.
The third part of the book concerns a dizzying series of corporate deals, as Felix used leverage buyouts to snatch up distressed competitors, opened outsourcing plants in Israel, and expanded Vishay to a Fortune 500 company specializing in the whole range of electronic components. And of course along the way Felxi got married, had children, got divorced, re-married, was a witness at the trial of Gestapo Officer Kurt Weise, destroyer of Grodno, and brought the Puchalski children and grandchildren to Yad Vashem to see their family commemorated among the khasidei umót ha'olám.
Subjectively, this book is five stars for family reasons. Objectively, if you're interested in the holocaust, technology, or business, it's a good read although there are more classic books in each of these areas. Still, a fascinating biography of a man who passed through immense adversity, survived, and triumphed.
July 6, 2011
There are really no words that describe the depth of emotion I felt while reading this book. The fear, the death, the loss of everything both physical and emotional-- being stripped of your rights as a human being-- it is all so horrifying when it happens to others, but when the people you are reading about are your family, it's incomprehensible.
My grandfather died in Oklahoma in 1946 assuming that most of his family had been killed in the Holocaust and he was right, mostly. He didn't know that his brother's grandson, the brave and determined Felix Zandman, had survived.
When Dr. Zandman describes his Aunt Sonya being beat in the head with a bead tipped whip, I was horrified and mesmerized. Here was a woman I had seen in the few photos my grandfather had left behind and now, thanks to genealogical research, I was finding out what her life was like. Unfortunately, for my grandfather's sister, it had become a living hell.
The story Zandman tells is riveting in it's intensity. It proves that under the right circumstances the human spirit can and will overcome any obstacle it is presented with.
For Felix Zandman to achieve the level of success in life that he has after living through an ordeal that would have ruined lesser men is a testament to living with the grace of God to keep you going.
My grandfather died in Oklahoma in 1946 assuming that most of his family had been killed in the Holocaust and he was right, mostly. He didn't know that his brother's grandson, the brave and determined Felix Zandman, had survived.
When Dr. Zandman describes his Aunt Sonya being beat in the head with a bead tipped whip, I was horrified and mesmerized. Here was a woman I had seen in the few photos my grandfather had left behind and now, thanks to genealogical research, I was finding out what her life was like. Unfortunately, for my grandfather's sister, it had become a living hell.
The story Zandman tells is riveting in it's intensity. It proves that under the right circumstances the human spirit can and will overcome any obstacle it is presented with.
For Felix Zandman to achieve the level of success in life that he has after living through an ordeal that would have ruined lesser men is a testament to living with the grace of God to keep you going.
November 2, 2011
The book is long and very personal. I think it is perfect for anyone, like me, who is a Jew and an EE and lucky enough to have been born safely out of the deadly persecution Zandman grew up in, where he saw most of his family vanish in the Nazi killing machinery. This is an escape story that rivals anything fictional I've ever read. Depending on how you feel about Israel you may not appreciate his helping them, but I did. Many interesting details about well known electronic component mfgrs like Dale, Sprague, AVX and Vishay, and the dynamics of corporate expansion. I always wondered how Vishay got its name, now I know. The book is about strength of character; blessings to the Polish Puchalski's who had the strength of character to hide him and other Jews at extreme risk to themselves and their own children. You never know by their looks how people really are.
May 16, 2013
Want to be touched forever? Read this book. Outstanding book!
July 13, 2019
Emotional, educational witness to Nazi atrocities. Zandman was an incredible man. His journey helped me understand the significance of Israel.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews