“MJH | Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend” Book Talk

Unstoppable: Siggi B. Wilzig’s Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi B. Wilzig 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 Mathausen and went to work for the U.S. 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.

Joshua M. Greene, the author of Unstoppable, will be in conversation with Michael Berenbaum, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at American Jewish University, about the book.

Joshua M. Greene is a popular lecturer on Holocaust history and an author whose biographies have sold more than a half-million copies worldwide. Greene’s groundbreaking book on the Dachau war crimes trials, Justice at Dachau: The Trials of an American Prosecutor, was deemed “Riveting—historical writing at its best” by Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian for CNN. He is the 2022 Laurel Vlock Fellow at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University.

Michael Berenbaum is a writer, lecturer, and teacher consulting in the conceptual development of museums and the development of historical films. He is director of the Sigi Ziering Institute: Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) where he is also a Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies.

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