YouSaid · the spoken record

Siggi Wilzig

lines on the record: 43
first: 2021-12-29
most recent: 2021-12-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“He says, when he arrived at his father's apartment, he found him sitting on the dining room table. Siggy pointed with glee at the cake and candles and colored sugar swirls and snow white frosting. Happy birthday, Siggy called out weakly. His thin arms raised in delight. The nurse lit the candles, and with whatever strength he could muster, Siggy sang in a slow, trembling voice. Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Ivan, my dear, happy birthday to you, gesturing as best as he could. He ended the song and pointed for his son to blow out the candles, which he did. Siggy was rushed to the hospital the next morning. He died that night.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“his hospital room and the outside world. Remember, it's not a hospital room, Tammy. He's in a concentration camp. Then he showed the drawings to Sherry, his daughter, who was always by his side, and whispered that this is how he planned to escape. The memories of Auschwitz were so vivid that he sensed the SS were lurking in closets and peering around the edges of corridors, when doctors wanted to put him inside an MRI scanner, he refused, saying it looked like a crematorium. So, he wants to be getting released from the hospitals, not doing really well. And he winds up being able to survive. He wanted to make it to his son's birthday. And so his son comes to visit Ziggy at his apartment as a condo.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he's very close to dying. He's in the hospital and he has this saying that he said throughout his life that he's like, I'm still an Auschwitz. I'm still an Oshowitz. Like basically saying you can never outrun these memories. And so he's going to want to, let me just read this to you and you'll see. Unfortunately, it winds up being literal.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And this is his record right before he finds out that he's dying. Siggy had grown his bank from one hundred eighty million in assets to more than four billion by the year two thousand, all without mergers or acquisitions. And so he did not take care of his health. He worked all the time, wouldn't go to the doctor. And so he's wind up staying at a friend's house or going to take a trip the next day. And these are the people that he met when he was singing. It says, during the night, they heard Siggy throwing up. They ran upstairs and found the bathroom covered with blood. And Siggy sprawled on the floor. They put him in their car and raced him to the hospital, where x-rays and blood work revealed that he had stage four advanced multiple myeloma, which is an incurable blood cancer that had ravaged Siggy's body.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I mentioned earlier, it's just really hard on everybody around him, including his kids. And so then he answers the question. He's like, why are you such a hard ass to your children? And he's just got a great line here Father, his son asked him, why do you bust my chops so mercilessly over every single decision at the bank? Because I'm not going to be around forever, Siggy replied. And if you can tolerate me over and over, then you'll be able to stand up to anyone after I'm gone. And this is the great line that he ends, the advice to his son. This is fantastic. Never give up. Only death is permanent. Everything else can be fixed.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so eventually the FDIC, the Fed, the SEC, he does have to make some structural changes to his business and says he fumed over having been forced to make so many changes. But these were the rules of banking and he had no choice but to comply. I don't think there was ever a time that my father truly enjoyed banking for banking's sake. He loved making himself and others happy and rich, and banking was almost a necessary evil for doing that. Sometimes he would say, I should have my head examined for picking the most regulated business in the world, state regulations, federal regulations, SEC regulations. What could be more stressful? He hated taking orders from anyone.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Cash That's where some of his migraine headaches came from. His fortune was tied up in those stocks. He had heart problems and was about to undergo now this is his daughter telling us a story. He had heart problems and was about to undergo a quintuple bypass operation on the gurney. He called me close to him and I was expecting him to say something like, Sherry, I love you. Thanks for staying with me. Instead, he motioned for me to bend down so he could whisper in my ear and said, Sherry, I want you to buy 300 shares of trust company stock, but you have to do it today. Quick, before four o'clock when the market closes.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so another thing about Ziggy is the fact that he's highly leveraged and yet all of his wealth is concentrated in his company. He also has constant stress and health problems. He's a constant workaholic. He's constantly worried about his business. So there's just some, this gives you an idea of how he thought about asset allocation. And then even when he's about to have Kujubal bypass surgery, listen to what he says to his daughter. His daughter has to come in. There's some complicated way they get around these regulations. His daughter winds up running one of the companies, but she's really like, he still has control. He steps aside, but he still controls. So there's a bunch of that in the book as well. As a further consequence of the constant buying of stock, Siggy was forever cash poor. Whatever wages, bonuses, or cash dividends he earned, he used to pay down his margin loans or else buy more stock in his two companies. He was as high and mighty CO of a bank, collecting a huge salary and huge bonuses every year, and no one suspected he was often desperate for”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How come you never go to the synagogue? Siggy's young son once asked, I have a mixed relationship with God, he replied. I go to synagogue on the Jewish holidays and give thanks to the Almighty. Without the will of the Almighty, there's no way a shorty like me would have survived the Holocaust. But I don't go to synagogue every week. I have a hard time being thankful for the murder of a million and a half Jewish children or the murder of my innocent seven-year-old nephew and two-year-old niece. So what he's referencing there is that line when they separated him right when he got to Oshuitz. He's put in the left line, the girl in the green coat, and some of his other family members are put in the right, in his right line was his sister, her husband, and their seven year old son and two year old daughter, and they were killed that day. They were gassed and killed that day.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Siggy took the passbook and pretended to study the numbers carefully before handing it back to her. It was our mistake, madam. We miscalculated the interest. The real number's four hundred dollars. You can buy all your presents, don't be upset. The woman embraced him. And so, this is Siggy's point. TCNJ was not the only bank in town. Customers had options. It would not do to penalize someone because she had not understood the rules. Why give her a reason to switch to another bank? He wanted his customers to be happy.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it says, gentlemen, you're looking at a man who had the fox-like instincts to survive history's darkest hour, a man who has no fear of adversity and who cannot be intimidated by overwhelming odds. The almighty has given me a second chance of life, along with the skills to make great fortunes.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now we go back to where the story began. 21 years old, no education, thick accent, 200 bucks in his pocket, no skills really to speak of, and a mind tormented by just witnessing the darkest period of maybe human history. And so he's going to try to take any job. There's a lot going on. Or at least the highlights to you is the fact that this is just something we see over and over again. It's just like you don't know what the future holds. You can only connect the dots looking backwards to quote Steve Jobs. So what Ziggy has to do is just like, okay, let me take the first opportunity. His first opportunity is shoveling snow for $2 a day.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think he dies of, I can't remember if he kills himself. In any way, it doesn't matter. The point being is that Diggy's unbelievable story gets even more unbelievable. The fact that they've catched Joseph Goebbels' brother and wind up turning him over to the Americans. And so I want to get to what he does when he gets to America. I want to wrap this whole section up. In November 1947, as a thank you note, or excuse me, as a thank you from the CIC for nearly two years of service, 21-year-old Ziggy received free passage to New York on December 12th. He arrived in America looking for work and a new life.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so they wind up going into all these little small towns in Austria and everywhere else. They're just hunting for a lot of Nazis fled other parts of Europe, some went to Switzerland, some went to South America. Some wind up staying there. So he winds up helping catch. So Joseph Goebbels is like this well-known, I talked about him a lot on the Churchill podcast I did. And so he was like the Minister of Propaganda for the Nazi Party. Well, his brother, they caught him, but they couldn't find, I know, I think Joseph killed himself, if I'm not mistaken. He had a brother named Hans. They were hunting. Ziggy's crew, these Jewish Nazi hunters, wind up staking out his house and finding him, the team rushed up, handcuffed him, and then drove him to CIC headquarters for questioning. And so he winds up there's a picture of Hans Goebel, which is Joseph's brother, being interrogated by the CIC. And then I think he's not... mistaken, he stands trial for war crimes. They sent him to life imprisonment.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, Ziggy talks about that. I got a permission to form an armed backup team. Siggy's team was given a Jeep and sent out the door. Let's go hunt some Nazis, Siggy told his crew. This gave him the chance to capture some of their former Nazi oppressors.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Siggy does something very similar to this. It's not exactly the same because he's recruited because he speaks all kinds of languages. I think he knows German, Polish, and Russian, if I'm not mistaken. I might be wrong about that. And it's not like he's completely fluent as he is in German, but he knows enough. So there is this thing called the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps, okay? And so they're going to hire survivors of the concentration camps to go hunt Nazis and SIGI volunteers. And this is how he gets. He winds up serving, it's called the CIC, the Counterintelligence Corps. It's a part of the U.S. Army, okay? He winds up serving them for two years. They get him the past immigration and give him a free ticket to get on a boat and get, that's how he gets to New York. That's how the story starts, where he lands in New York and he's meeting his sister Jenny. It's because of what he does here. And so it says once they regain sufficient strength, they went to work for the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And pneumonia. And so this is what I just mentioned earlier what a story. So the U.S. Army, they evacuate the survivors from the camp the ciggy's in. They sent them to a Red Cross hospital in Austria. And he's reunited with his best friend. It gets even crazier. His best friend's parents had escaped. I don't think they ever explained how they separated from their son, but their families in America. Their son is lost somewhere in Europe during the war, right? So Sicigian and Larry were reunited. Fate had assigned them to the same hospital. Larry showed Sigi a newspaper clipping that featured a photo of himself on the day he was liberated. One of the first American soldiers to enter the camp had taken a photo of Larry. When the soldier returned home, he sold, this is so crazy. Just imagine being in his parents' shoes with what I'm about to read to. When the soldier returned home, he sold the photo to the New York Post and the newspaper”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sleep so that when rations were handed out there would be more stale bread for him to eat. The smell of dead bodies filled the room. And then it is amazing how everything changed overnight. And it's not because the Nazis suddenly said, hey, we realize the error of our ways. They're constantly getting pressure. And so now the allies, this is American soldiers have actually are penetrating the camp. And so what I just, the story I just told you, Ziggy wakes up the next morning and the Germans are all gone. It's just the prisoners. And so it says the next morning, Ziggy slowly raised himself up and peered out of the barrack window. The Germans were gone. And then the distance on the hillside was a soldier in a uniform unlike any that he'd ever seen before. As Siggy watched American tanks and armored cars crash through the gates, prisoners emerged slowly from the barracks, shuffling slowly forward, and Siggy stumbled along with them. On the day of his liberation, nineteen year old Siggy with skin and bones and weighed less than ninety pounds. He was nearly dead from exhaustion, malnutrition.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Saying over and over again, I told him to say that. Sig explained to his parents in frustration years later. If you say you're a metal worker, they're not going to kill you. He says, yes, yes, I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it. And then he doesn't say it. He doesn't say it. The Germans shipped him to one of the worst subcamps. That is how 18-year-old Ziggy lost track of his best friend with no way of knowing if either of them would survive. And if they did, whether or not they would ever find each other again. So they're at this other camp. I think they're in Austria, if I'm not mistaken. And this is like two months later, and everybody around them is still dying. And this is just, this gives you an idea of what he had to survive and what he had to experience. He was shoved into a barrack with four other men. They all collapsed from exhaustion, and in the morning Siggy woke to find that the other men had died in his sleep. The second night, another died. Then another until he was the only one left alive in his bunk. Now look what he has to do here. He arranged the dead bodies next to him as though they were”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like almost carrying him on this march. And the reason he did this is, and he was pissed off at the other people that were supposed to help because Larry had saved a bunch of people's lives. And so people offered him, hey, keep going. They passed him in the death march. And they told Larry, like, hey, keep it up. You can do. They offered words of encouragement, but they wouldn't actually help carry him. And Ziggy actually wind up helping carry him. He's like, I have this. He saved my life. I have this obligation to do the same for him. So it says, and so his friend is extremely weak. It says when they ask you what you can do, say you're a metal worker or a toolmaker. Anything they can use for the war effort, don't forget. Yeah, yeah, Larry mumbled through a haze of fever, hunger, and exhaustion. I'll tell them that. Over and over and over again, I told him to say that Siggy explained. Now, he's fast forwarding because when he gets to America, he actually won the first stops. He goes and visits Larry's parents. And so he's telling them this story in the book.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And five days later, they get to this other camp. I can't pronounce its mouthen. And only 1600. So 1,600 people survive out of 6,000. Ziggy and Larry being one of them. But this is where he winds up being separated from his best friend. Now remember this part in a few minutes because it's unbelievable what happens to Larry. And so I'll get there in a minute. So it says Ziggy Larry and some other survivors of the Death March collapsed on the barrack floor. Larry, Ziggy said, in a weak voice, when they ask you what you can do, and he's almost dead. Ziggy had to wind up.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the distance, and debated what to do. Rumor had it that the Germans were going to blow up the camp and leave no evidence of their crimes. One man said that quote unquote healthy prisoners, those who could still walk, would be marched out at dawn. Another man said it was impossible to stay hidden under the barracks. Who knew how long they could survive in the bitter cold? Better, they all agreed, to take the chances on the march rather than freeze to death hiding. They crawled back inside the barracks and waited for mourning. And so that winds up being the right choice. They were unsure, but the healthy prisoners, the ones that could walk, were forced to march. Now here's the problem. This is January. It's freezing cold. They've living. They've been, I guess, existing on less than 700 calories a day. So you're going to have, it says they go from nearly 6,000 people start the march.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So he survives almost two years. This is now 1945. There's actually Stalin's forces, the Russian forces are actually coming into where Auschwitz at. And so they're actually having to get all the prisoners and make them do what will be known after the fact as a death march. And so really the reason I'm going to read this section to you is because this is another illustration that Ziggy constantly had to make life and death decisions under a great amount of uncertainty. And so him and he's got a small group of friends or this guy, Lothar, which is going to move to America too. He's going to wind up surviving. He changes his name to Larry. So Larry winds up saving his life, so they wind up being really good friends for the rest of their life. But it says the night before the death marches from Auschwitz began, and when the other prisoners were asleep, Sigi and Lothar and four other men crept out and hid in the mud under the barracks, huddled together in their blankets, watching fires burn.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Training in the main camp and asked what he thought. I can't tell you what to do, the doctor said. It could be just as bad over there or worse. And the reason I'm bringing this to your attention is because what the doctor says here, he takes this advice not only now, but he takes this advice for the rest of his life. You're a smart young fellow, the doctor said. Follow your instincts. That was advice Siggy would remember for the rest of his life.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And unfortunately, it gets even worse. A few weeks later, word reached Siggy that his mother had been sent to the gas chamber the day she arrived And so this is an example what I mentioned earlier that he just refused to believe that he was doomed. The older prisoners are just saying, hey, give up. It's useless. We're all going to die. Just go and electrocute yourself on the fence. They told him, you won't survive. Better run now and grab the electric wire. I couldn't take such talk about not coming out alive, Siggy said. I didn't want to hear it. Whenever my mind told me I was not going to survive, the Almighty told me to keep going, so I stayed away from others. In the hospital, Ziggy had met a prisoner doctor, whom he described as a bit of a philosopher. Siggy told the doctor, so he's got a, he talks about choices inside Auschwitz posed like a dilemma for prisoners because you didn't know if the information was dependable or not. Like, oh, take that job, don't take the other job. Stay away from that capo. Don't go next to this capo. The quote-unquote right choice could wind up being fatal. And so he's asking the doctor, like, what should I do? The SS are trying to recruit me because they need carpenters, but he didn't know if it was like a trick. And so he says, told the doctor about the carpenter.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Siggy walked around the room, lading out portions to the sick prisoners, including his father. One older prisoner shoved the late ol away. That older prisoner said to me, What are you? An idiot? I'm not an idiot, I told him. And he says to me, Yes, yes, you are. You don't know what that. You don't know what's what. Come back tomorrow and you'll see. And the next morning, 80% of them were dead, with their stomachs exploded. They had been bleeding all night from him. And there was my father dead. The potatoes were poisoned. Poison potatoes. I think I helped kill my father. Siggy covered his father with a blanket and walked away before prisoners arrived to cart the bodies to the crematorium. I wanted to remember him the way he looked in life, not the way he looked in a pile of corpses. They had been in Oshuitz, fewer than forty days.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then this is just, this is, I hate to use that word again, but this is just unbelievable what I'm about to read to you. One day a doctor took Siggy to an area of the infirmary where he saw patients on the verge of death. Siggy looked around and there on one of the lower bunks was his father. He was badly beaten to a point that, he wept and then says, Siggy wept as he recalled the moment this moment then continued, I knew that he wouldn't make it. My father's last words were, son, who's going to take care of you? Don't worry, I have friends, Sigi reassured him. The death sergeant came the next day with prisoners carrying a big vat of potatoes. Imagine that. You're starving to death, and here you see potatoes like your grandmother used to make. You would give your right arm for it. The guards stood there and ordered me to feed it to the prisoners, and we gave these dying people 10 to 15 large spoons of these raw potatoes.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The reason he does that is because it's in the middle of winter. This job's inside, and so it saves him from laboring in the snow and a lot of people freezing to death and dying. And it's because of this. He's going to be reunited temporarily and he's actually going to see his father die. So it says the first day in the hospital, the Kapos made me load Jewish patients onto a truck. I still have a picture in my mind of Jewish patients cursing me for not lying to the guards, for not telling them that this one is healthy and that one is healthy. The prisoners thought that a male nurse like me had power to save them. I had no such power. I just loaded them onto a truck. I knew where they were going, but I couldn't bear the idea that I was sending them to their death. So I told myself the truck was taking them to recover at some other hospital or maybe some other camp. Three hours later, the truck came back with their clothing. They were all dead.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then there's some just background that the author gives us between 1.1 and 1.3 million people were murdered in Oshowitz. He's constantly going up to the guard saying, Hey, I have this skill, he lies about his age, says, Oh, yeah, you need somebody to make tools, I can make tools. You need anything that they said they needed. He'd say, yep, I can know how to do that. So they need help in a hospital. I mean, that's like a, and he makes the point. It's not a hospital that you think. They're barely people keeping people alive. So he lies his way into a job at a hospital by saying that he has experience as a nurse.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's going to find that out after. But they've taken your family, taking all your possessions. They've shaved your head. They take away your clothes. They make you forced labor. And you're like, I'm superior to you. So he says, I always felt superior to them. I hated them. I hated their brutality, their inhuman behavior. I felt stronger, more intelligent, and I had confidence in myself from childhood. So even though they had guns and did all the killing, I felt superior. This is what I mean about the mind as a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way. It was obviously a touch of arrogance, and some of it was justified and some of it not justified. But even in the totally hopeless condition, I looked down on all of them.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so he says the guards were sadist, and they look for any reason to kill. The Nazis opened the prisons of Germany and brought hardened criminals into the camps and made them masters over kids like me. Remember, he's 16 at this time. He says, because I could outwit the guards, I always felt superior to them. Think about how crazy what an extreme mindset you have to have. They've taken everything from...”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Song that I love, and I took a screenshot of the lyric page and keep it on my phone. It says the point I'm making is the mind is a powerful place, and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way. And so something that saves Ziggy is the fact that he's engaged in psychological warfare. And he compares and contrasts his mindset. I can't allow myself to think that I won't survive. I won't give up no matter how bad I want to. I'm going to survive. I'm going to get out of this place. And so part of that is the fact that Siggy, even from a young age, she says an extreme amount of self-confidence. And this helps him a lot in his business life later on, where he takes over an oil company about oil companies, takes over a bank, knew nothing about bank. He just assumed, hey, I can learn. I can figure these things out. And so what he realized is like, hey, I'm smarter than these guards. And so the only asset I have, they have guns and they have clubs and they can beat me and they can throw me in a gas chamber. Like, I've got to use my money.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He's saying this 50 years after it happened. Wait till I get to some of the memories he has at the end of the book when he's dying in the hospital. It's just, I don't know if I've ever read a book like this. The memories don't stop to this day. I argue with the Almighty that if the cries of children would leave my ears, I would go more often to the synagogue. Flames shooting up from the crematorium, the horrible smell, the horrible smell, it was unbelievable.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then there's just so many paragraphs like this one. I mean, this is like very similar to, again, the parallel because it's fresh from my mind just re-watching it is Schindler's list. It says Siggy again scanned the line to the right and caught a glimpse of the girl in the dark green overcoat, as if seeing her for the first time he thought. She looks so young, so innocent. He watched snow fall on the loading platform as guards marched her off with the others. A moment later, she was gone. And then we have this testimony he's giving later in life where he says, as a Jew growing up in Germany in those years, Siggy said, you expected to be beaten and mistreated. But a gas chamber, a crematorium? Now that you didn't expect. The stench and the smoke from the chimneys, and what they did to the children I can still hear the screaming of children who were ripped away from their parents. The memories don't stop. To this day, I argue with the almighty that if cries of children”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“along with the younger children the elderly and the sick, nor did he know that anyone without useful skills was also sent to the right to be killed. Where did this is so, there's going to be a couple paragraphs like this one in the book where he's talking, like I just said, the opening, like the survivor was guilt. 59 members of my family perished. Why was I not one of them? And so he says, where did the impulse come from to lie? Claiming that he was 18 and a master toolmaker. True, he did have some toolmaking training in trade school, but he never completed his schooling and never worked a day in his life as a toolmaker. The mystery of that impulse which surely saved him from the gas chamber would plague him for the rest of his life.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So everybody separated. He doesn't know where his mom and dad are. He does not know where his siblings are. So a guard comes up to him. A guard came up to him. How old are you? He snapped 18, Ziggy Lied. What profession? Master Toolmaker, he lied again. The guard pushed Ziggy onto a line of prisoners on the left, then pushed the girl in the green coat to a line on the right. Siggy did not know that a line on the right was for prisoners selected to be killed, and that almost all children under 18 who were sent to the right.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“what happens to me now the girl whisper to him she and this is what he's saying this is what Ziggy says about that she didn't know where her family was she had no one and she knew I wouldn't leave her so in Schindler's list there's that girl in the red coat that's famous because it's all black and white and you see her walk as as this scene's occurring and she's in a red coat in Siggy's scene she's in a green coat so they're ushered onto trains real quick and he says unless you were there you can't imagine how horrifying a nightmare it was so they the train stops they get out Siggy overheard other prisoners say the name of this place Auschwitz”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, so now we go back in time. We go to early 1930s, Germany. What it was like to be Jewish at this point. We're going to see that even from the age of 14, he was working over 70 hours a week in forced labor. This is before he sent to Auschwitz. And it says by 1936, Jewish children were no longer allowed to attend school. And Siggy's schooling came to an abrupt end. Jewish businesses were taken over and Jewish men were sent to work in forced labor factories. So by the time he's 16, he's already been working in some of these factories for quite a while.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fresh in his mind. Yet here he was, still breathing, staring out the window at the snow-covered New York streets. The two hundred dollars in his pocket would soon disappear if he didn't find work. It was clear, and so this is what Ziggy's realizing, it was clear that Americans were alive in every sense of the word, world, word, rather, excuse me, moving purposely, purposefully, towards some vision of tomorrow. He liked that. He would do that too. Grass opportunities and not allow the darkness of the past to rob him of a bright future. His job was to grab whatever scraps remained from the rubble of his life and cobble them back together into an edifice of a yet to be determined size and shape.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Told Siggy the tragic news that her five year old daughter, the one she was pregnant with, had died of smallpox in Shanghai before the journey to the Dominican Republic. Siggy remembered watching hundreds of children die, forced into gas chambers. Their dead bodies later thrown into the crematorium fires and made a mental inventory of his family. He was alive. Jenny and her husband were alive. Their brothers Joe and Irwin had survived. Everyone else was gone. He would calculate that 59 members of his family had perished. So through there's this Jewish refugee charity organization in America at the time providing all these refugees, like a tiny little apartment. And so says the arrivals were escorted into their rooms, Siggy being one of these people. For many, it was the first time in years that they held a key to their own quarters. What now, he wondered? He had nothing, no resources and no credentials. He spoke with a thick German accent, had only a grade school education, and years of torture and starvation were still.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The deficiency of the body, the dirt, the filth, from a splinter you would develop rotting flesh. One splinter from a wooden shoe, and you would die. And why a safety pin? A little pin could save your life in the camps if you need to hold up a piece of cloth as a bandage around your leg or keep your pants up. How did I remain alive for almost two years in Auschwitz? It wasn't by education. I didn't have any. It was the hand of the almighty. I'm going to tell you something that I don't think I've ever said. As terrible as it sounds, I don't think I could live without the nightmares. It gives me a very ultra realistic difference between life and death. It shows me what life is now, and I would never give that up. Never, never, never.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was as if God had his hand on my shoulder to lead and guide me when I was all alone in immortal danger. I remember everything since I was three and a half years old. I can tell you the color of the stripes on my mother's sweater from when I was a little boy. It's good and bad, such a memory, because everything stays with you and you can't shut it off. I remember where we went fishing as boys, but I also remember what the barracks looked like in Auschwitz, and the capo with a stick in his hand, and everything he did, in that memory is very, very bad. It never goes away. He reached down and rolled up the leg of his pants. Look, see the day of my liberation I wear two pairs of socks. For the past fifty years I have never left the house without two pairs of socks, that and a safety pin. Two pairs of socks because in the camps a pair of socks can make the difference between living and dying.”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When people ask me how did you survive? I leave out a small thing, which isn't really a small thing. Any survivor who has a heart and brains lives with guilt, that they survived and others didn't. My mother was sent straight to the gas chamber, my father was beaten to death. My sister Martha was murdered, my brothers Willie and Martin and Louis were murdered, and here I am, and they're all dead. Why them and not me?”
2021-12-29 · Founders · #223 Unstoppable: Siggi Wilzig's Astonishing Journey from Auschwitz Survivor and Penniless Immigrant to Wall Street Legend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source