Unstoppable

March 12, 2021

With this latest work, Holocaust scholar and filmmaker Greene (Justice at Dachau) has written a comprehensive biography of Siggi Wilzig (1926-2003), a survivor of the Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps who later became a successful businessman in the United States. The author recounts how Wilzig narrowly avoided death during the Holocaust, having been sent to Auschwitz at age 16; he managed to get a visa to the United States after volunteering to help U.S. intelligence track down operators of Hitler's camps. In telling this life story, Greene does not dwell on its tragedies. Instead, he primarily focuses on Wilzig's life after his arrival in New York, penniless at 21 years old. Similar in narrative style to The Pursuit of Happyness, Unstoppable features conversational chapters that depict a life of determination, resolve, and humor. By taking whatever opportunities arose, Wilzig entered a career in business, acquired stocks, and ultimately became a well-known tycoon in the oil and banking industries. The author also details Wilzig's philanthropy, which was instrumental to building the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. VERDICT A must-read that hopefully will be adapted for the screen. Greene lets Wilzig's effervescent spirit shine through, and his story will appear to a wide variety of readers.--Stacy Shaw, Denver

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 15, 2021
A biography traces the odyssey of a Holocaust survivor who became a CEO. Holocaust scholar and filmmaker Greene, whose acclaimed work includes the book Witness (2001), offers readers the extraordinary story of Siggi B. Wilzig. Born in Prussia's contested Polish Corridor in 1926, Wilzig began his lifelong battle with antisemitism as a 6-year-old child when he was held headfirst over a meat grinder by a local farmer who threatened to make "chopped Jew meat." By his 19th birthday, "nearly dead from exhaustion, malnutrition, and pneumonia," Wilzig was among the few survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Mauthausen concentration camps. While the first third of the volume recounts the gruesome, brutal details of the horrors Wilzig confronted during the 1930s and '40s, the rest tells the Horatio Alger story of his postwar immigration to the United States. With nothing more than a grammar school education, Wilzig found a job shoveling snow from a New York City sidewalk. The work shows how he eventually forged a multibillion-dollar oil and commercial banking empire. As president, chairman, and CEO of the Wilshire Oil Company of Texas and the Trust Company of New Jersey, he continued to face anti-Jewish sentiment "in two of postwar America's most antisemitic industries." Greene's concise, approachable narrative successfully brings Wilzig's "volcano" of a personality and "inspired voice" to the fore. The author recounts the entrepreneur's interactions with presidents, celebrities, and CEOs and presents anecdotes of his business prowess and tenacity. Wilzig was, for instance, "the first person in history to sue the Federal Reserve." In addition to chronicling his Wall Street acumen, the book relates Wilzig's fight against Holocaust deniers, including his role in establishing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a further testimony to his legacy. This well-researched biography is largely based on original interviews with Wilzig's business partners, rivals, and contemporaries (including his longtime chauffer), which--supplemented with ample family photographs--help provide an intimate portrait of a complex man. Like many rags-to-riches tales, the work leans heavily toward hagiography, though this may indeed be difficult to avoid given Wilzig's remarkable life. A gripping account that takes readers from Nazi concentration camps to Wall Street boardrooms.

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