After Fleeing the Nazis, a Legacy That Won’t Run Dry The frugal couple bumped into young Warren Buffett. Now they’ve left millions to Israeli water research.y Seth M. Siegel
http://www.wsj.com/articles/after-fleeing-the-nazis-a-legacy-that-wont-run-dry-1466722996
How does one overcome almost unimaginable horror and trauma? For Holocaust survivors Howard and Lottie Marcus, the healing came, in part, from the hope that they could help to provide refuge for other Jews who might find themselves at risk. But after restarting their broken lives in America, this modest couple could never have imagined that they would end up giving what is likely the largest single charitable gift in Israel’s history—$400 million—to be announced June 24.
Howard and Lottie were born in pre- Hitler Germany—he in 1909, she in 1916. But they met in America. With the rise of Nazism, both had the foresight, courage and good fortune to leave their native land before it was too late. In 1934, after Nazi goons murdered her brother outside their home in Linden, Germany, the 17-year-old Lottie persuaded her parents to allow her to go to the U.S.
Lottie’s future husband was, by all accounts, a gifted dentist. After the election of Hitler in 1933, Howard made his way to Naples and a professional life there, only to find himself in jeopardy again in 1936, when Mussolini agreed to Hitler’s demand that Italy expel all foreign Jews. As luck would have it, one of Howard’s patients was the U.S. consul general and, in an act of kindness, the official broke U.S. law by backdating the visa request to a period when transit papers were still available.
Arriving in America, Lottie spoke fluent German, French and English, and she developed secretarial skills in all three languages. This helped her get a job on Wall Street. There, she met Benjamin Graham, the legendary “father of value investing.” Graham soon became smitten and proposed to her. Lottie—20 years his junior—declined. Even so, the friendship endured until Graham’s death in 1976.
When Howard got to the U.S. in 1939, he had to redo years of his dental training to qualify for a license. Shortly after he opened his New York-based practice, he met Lottie at a dinner party and soon fell in love with her. He pursued her until she agreed to marry him. It was a small and bittersweet wedding. Other than the bride and groom and one of his three sisters, every member of the two families had perished in the Holocaust.
The Marcuses lived quietly and frugally. Their small indulgences included an occasional ski vacation with Ben Graham and his girlfriend (and future wife). One day, they asked their friend for investment advice. Graham told them about a student of his at Columbia Business School, a young man he thought a prodigy. He invited that student, Warren Buffett, to meet Howard and Lottie. They put most of their nest egg in Mr. Buffett’s new partnership, which later became Berkshire Hathaway.
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