Menu
This professor survived the Holocaust
I ended up at the University of Texas in Austin to pursue a PhD in chemistry, a subject I had fallen in love with as an undergraduate. Unless you’re quite wealthy (which I certainly wasn’t) you have to earn money to defray the cost of your studies.
One way to do this is to get a professor to take you on as a graduate researcher, and pay you. This way your work is directly related to your studies, and you can get your degree much quicker. Fortunately I found a professor who needed some help.
His name was Adam Heller, and he probably had more influence on my life than anybody else.
I didn’t know what he had done.
I didn’t know what he was doing.
I didn’t know what he would be doing in the future.
I was just glad he was hiring me so I could defray some of the costs of my education.
I didn’t know he would go on to hold 293 separate patents.
I didn’t know that he would be ranked 192nd on Wikipedia’s list of the World’s Most Prolific Inventors.
I didn’t know he was Jewish, born in Hungary in the early 1930s.
I didn’t know that in 1944, he and his family would be rounded up and put in a cattle wagon, part of a caravan of 35 cattle wagons, headed for Auschwitz and the gas chambers.
I didn’t know that another Hungarian — then living in Switzerland — named Rudolph Kastner, would put together a huge ransom in gold, jewels and artwork and enter into negotiations with Adolph Eichmann. Yes, that Adolph Eichman, the author of Hitler’s Final Solution.
The train bypassed Auschwitz and the other concentration camps and made its way to safety in Switzerland.
Kastner emigrated to Israel at the end of World War II. When the story of his actions became known, he was arrested for colluding with the enemy. He was tried and found guilty. His lawyers immediately appealed. Soon after, he was assassinated.
The Israeli Supreme Court took up his case a year later and declared him innocent.
Adam Heller ended up at the University of Texas at Austin, and that’s where I met him. At first, he was just a guy who gave me a job. Why, I can’t tell you. But I was really grateful.
The work I did for him is a story for another day – or another moment. But here is a measure of the man. While at his lab, I met the love of my life, and resolved to marry her. And for a honeymoon, I wanted to take her on a 400-mile backpacking trip (yes, I’m a little bit crazy, but you know that already). But as a graduate researcher, honeymoon funds aren’t easy to come by. When Adam Heller found out about my plans, he called me into his office, reached into a drawer, pulled out his check book, and wrote me a check that would cover all the expenses of the trip. It was his way of telling me that family is always more important than work.
Certainly, that’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten. And never will.
