Joshua Greene

Sunday October 17  |  10 am

Virtual  at the J and at-home

 

Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend

                                                    
“A must-read that hopefully will be adapted for the screen.

Greene lets Wilzig’s effervescent spirit shine through, and his story will appeal to a wide variety of readers.”

— Library Journal              

 

                                                                                                              
Unstoppable is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi was suffering beatings by Nazi hoodlums for being a Jew and was soon deported along with his family to the darkest place the world has ever known: Auschwitz. Siggi used his wits to stay alive, pretending to have trade skills the Nazis could exploit to run the camp. After two death marches and near starvation, he was liberated from camp Mauthausen and went to work for the US Army hunting Nazis, a service that earned him a visa to America. On arrival, he made three vows: to never go hungry again, to support the Jewish people, and to speak out against injustice. He earned his first dollar shoveling snow after a fierce blizzard.

 

His next job was laboring in toxic sweatshops. From these humble beginnings, he became President, Chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and grew a full-service commercial bank to more than $4 billion in assets. Siggi’s ascent from the darkest of yesterdays to the brightest of tomorrows holds sway over the imagination in this riveting narrative of grit, cunning, luck, and the determination to live life to the fullest.

JOSHUA M. GREENE  (Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor) is a renowned Holocaust scholar and filmmaker whose biographies have sold more than a half-million copies worldwide. Greene is a popular lecturer who has spoken at the Pentagon, and his documentaries on Holocaust history have aired on PBS and Discovery. He has appeared on national media outlets from NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross to FOX News, CNN, and more. He will be visiting from New York City.