Sigi Ziering

Sigi Ziering (March 20, 1928 - November 12, 2000) was a German-born American business executive, playwright and philanthropist. A Holocaust survivor, he immigrated to the United States with his family and worked as a nuclear scientist. He was the Founder and President of the Diagnostic Products Corporation, later acquired by Siemens as their subsidiary, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. He became a significant Jewish philanthropist in Los Angeles, California.

Biography

Early life

Siegfried Ziering was born on March 20, 1928 in Kassel, Germany.^[1][2] His father, Isaac Ziering, was Polish.^[1] His mother was named Cilly.^[1][2] He had a brother, Herman.^[1][2] His family was Jewish.^[1]

During World War II, his father escaped to England, but his mother and her two sons stayed in Germany.^[1][2] In 1941, the Nazis forced them to move to the Riga Ghetto in modern-day Riga, Latvia, alongside 1,000 Jews.^[1][3][4] Only twenty survived, including Sigi, his mother and his brother.^[1] By the end of the war, they were moved to a prison in Fuhlsbüttel.^[1] The Nazis took 10 Jews a day to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.^[1] They were later moved to the concentration camp in Kiel and forced into slave labor.^[1] In 1945, they were rescued by the Swedish Red Cross.^[1] Indeed, Count Bernadotte of Sweden had negotiated with Himmler to rescue a few thousand Jews for a few millions of dollars.^[3] They were first moved to Sweden and eventually to London, where they met their father.^[1][2][4]

Sigi immigrated to New York City with his family in 1949.^[1] He received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Brooklyn College and a master's degree and PhD from Syracuse University.^[1]

Career

He started his career at Raytheon, where he worked on nuclear reactors in Boston.^[1] He then worked for Allied Research on space projects.^[1] In 1961, he was the founder and President of Space Sciences, a government contractor.^[1] In 1968, the company was acquired by the Whittaker Corporation for US$1.8 million.^[1] He worked as a researcher for Whittaker in California.^[1]

After he quit his job at the Whittaker Corporation, he founded fish meal company, but the business failed.^[1] Later, he founded Diagnostic Products Corporation, a medical supplies company.^[1][2] It was later acquired by Siemens as their subsidiary, known as Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.^[3]

The Judgement of Herbert Bierhoff

Sigi wrote a play entitled The Judgement of Herbert Bierhoff.^[2] The play is about the destruction of Jewish families during the Holocaust.^[2] It is based on the true lifestory of Herbert Bierhoff, a German Jew who poisons his daughter when he hears she is going to be executed by the Nazis.^[2] When the Nazis find out what he has done, they kill him too.^[2] His widow is sent to the camp in Riga, where she dies of exhaustion.^[2] Upon dying, she asks her late husband's friend Shimon to ensure judges see that Herbert's action was merciful in light of the circumstances.^[2] Survivors David, Kurt and Esther debate whether Herbert did the right thing or not.^[2] The play was analyzed by John K. Roth, a Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California.^[2]

In September 1999, the play was first performed at the University of Judaism, later known as the American Jewish University by Jon Voight and Cloris Leachman.^[3] In 2008, the play was performed again by students at his alma mater, Syracuse University.^[4]

Temple Beth Am, Marilyn & Sigi Ziering Family Synagogue Center.

Philanthropy

He was a philanthropist to Jewish causes.^[1] Indeed, he was President of Temple Beth Am.^[3] He also served on the Board of Trustees of the American Jewish University in Bel Air and as co-chair of the Los Angeles section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C..^[3][5] In 1976, with his wife, he endowed a program at the Sheba Medical Center to screen all children born in Israel for hypothyroidism, thus saving more than 2,000 Israeli children from mental retardation.^[6]

Personal life

He married Marilyn Ziering, a philanthropist, in 1953.^[1] They joined Temple Beth Am, a Conservative Jewish congregation in Los Angeles in 1969.^[7] The couple had two sons and two daughters:

• Michael Ziering.^[1]
• Ira Ziering.^[1]
• Rosanne Ziering.^[1]
• Amy Ziering.^[1] She is married to Gil Kopfman and works as a documentary filmmaker.^[8][9]

Death

He died of brain cancer on November 12, 2000.^[1]

Legacy

Shortly after his death, his widow established the Sigi Ziering Institute Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at the American Jewish University in Bel Air.^[10] In 2007, she endowed the Sigi and Marilyn Ziering National Center for Newborn Screening at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Israel, helping screen Israeli-born children from early signs of mental retardation.^[6][11] In February 2013, she also established the US$1 million Marilyn and Sigi Ziering Endowment for the Arts at Shalem College in Jerusalem, Israel.^[12] Additionally, she has endowed the Marilyn and Sigi Ziering Brandeis Collegiate Institute (BCI).^[13]

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has preserved a 12-page letter Sigi Ziering wrote to his father from Sweden on June 24, 1945 as well as a testimony given to the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education on February 28, 1999, both describing his ordeal at the hands of the Nazis.^[14][15] The documents can be read and heard at the museum.^[14][15]

References