From Ashes to Empire
On a frigid morning in January 1945, as Soviet forces approached the gates of Auschwitz, seventeen-year-old Siegbert Wilzig weighed barely eighty pounds. His body was skeletal, his spirit seemingly broken by two years in the Nazi death machine. Yet somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, a fierce determination burned—one that would eventually transform him from a concentration camp survivor into one of Wall Street's most formidable financial titans.
Born in 1926 in Krojanke, a small town in what was then Germany, Siggi Wilzig grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Naphtali, was a successful grain merchant who had built a comfortable life for his wife and four children. The Wilzigs were observant Jews, deeply rooted in their community, with no inkling that their world would soon be obliterated by the Nazi regime.
The family's descent into hell began in 1940, when Siggi was just fourteen. As anti-Jewish laws tightened their grip on German society, the Wilzigs were forced to sell their business for a fraction of its worth. By 1943, the entire family had been deported to concentration camps. Siggi, along with his father and brother, was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, while his mother and sister were transported to different camps. It would be the last time he saw his mother alive.
I made a promise to myself in Auschwitz: if I survived, I would never be poor again. I would never be powerless again.
— Siggi B. Wilzig
At Auschwitz, Siggi witnessed horrors that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He watched as thousands were marched to the gas chambers, saw friends and family members succumb to starvation and disease, and endured the daily brutality of the SS guards. Yet he also learned lessons that would later serve him in the cutthroat world of finance: the importance of strategic thinking, the value of building alliances, and the necessity of never showing weakness.
In January 1945, as the Red Army closed in, the Nazis began evacuating Auschwitz. Siggi was among the prisoners forced on a death march westward through the Polish winter. Thousands died along the way, but Siggi's will to survive proved unbreakable. He was eventually liberated by American forces at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria on May 5, 1945.
The American Dream Begins
After the war, Siggi spent three years in displaced persons camps, slowly rebuilding his strength and searching for surviving family members. He discovered that his mother and sister had perished, but his father and one brother had survived. In 1947, at age twenty-one, he made the decision that would define the rest of his life: he would immigrate to America.
Siggi arrived in New York Harbor aboard a military transport ship on September 15, 1947, with exactly $240 in his pocket—money provided by Jewish relief organizations. He spoke no English and had no marketable skills beyond an iron determination to succeed. Like millions of immigrants before him, he was drawn to America by the promise of opportunity, but unlike most, he carried with him the psychological scars and hard-won wisdom of a Holocaust survivor.
His first job was in a Brooklyn bakery, working the night shift for $18 a week. During the day, he attended English classes and studied American business practices with the intensity of a scholar. Within six months, he had mastered enough English to move into sales, taking a job with a small import-export company in Manhattan's garment district.
It was here that Siggi first displayed the combination of charm, intelligence, and ruthless ambition that would characterize his business career. He quickly became the company's top salesman, earning commissions that allowed him to save money for the first time since before the war. But selling fabric was never his ultimate goal—it was merely a stepping stone to something much larger.
By the Numbers
The Foundation Years
$240Amount Siggi had when he arrived in America
$18Weekly salary at his first job in a Brooklyn bakery
1947Year he immigrated to the United States
21His age when he arrived in New York
In 1951, after four years of relentless work and saving, Siggi had accumulated enough capital to start his own business. He founded Wilshire Oil Company, initially operating out of a cramped office in lower Manhattan. The company began as a small heating oil distributor, serving residential customers in Brooklyn and Queens. It was unglamorous work, but Siggi understood that energy was the lifeblood of the American economy, and he was determined to carve out his share.
Building an Oil Empire
The 1950s were a period of explosive growth for American industry, and Siggi positioned Wilshire Oil to capitalize on this expansion. He reinvested every dollar of profit back into the business, gradually expanding from residential heating oil to commercial and industrial customers. His competitive advantage was simple but effective: he provided better service than his competitors, often personally delivering oil to customers and solving their problems at all hours of the day and night.
By 1960, Wilshire Oil had grown into a significant regional player, with annual revenues exceeding $10 million. But Siggi's ambitions extended far beyond the oil distribution business. He had been studying the financial markets with the same intensity he had once applied to learning English, and he recognized that the real fortunes in America were made not just by operating businesses, but by owning and controlling them through strategic use of capital.
In 1963, Siggi made his first major acquisition, purchasing a small savings and loan association in New Jersey for $2.3 million. The acquisition was financed through a complex arrangement involving Wilshire Oil's assets as collateral, demonstrating the financial engineering skills that would become his trademark. The S&L, renamed Wilshire Savings and Loan, gave him entry into the banking sector and provided a new source of capital for his expanding empire.
In America, money is not just currency—it's freedom. It's the power to control your own destiny and never again be at the mercy of others.
— Siggi B. Wilzig
The timing of Siggi's entry into banking proved fortuitous. The 1960s and 1970s saw massive changes in the financial services industry, with new regulations creating opportunities for aggressive entrepreneurs willing to navigate the complex web of federal and state banking laws. Siggi threw himself into mastering these regulations with characteristic intensity, often working eighteen-hour days and sleeping in his office.
His strategy was to acquire underperforming banks and S&Ls, restructure their operations, and dramatically improve their profitability. He had an uncanny ability to spot value where others saw only problems, a skill honed by years of survival in environments where the difference between success and failure was often a matter of life and death.
The Trust Company Revolution
In 1973, Siggi made the acquisition that would transform him from a successful regional businessman into a major player on the national financial stage. He purchased Wilshire State Bank, a small commercial bank in Los Angeles, for $8.5 million. More importantly, he simultaneously acquired the bank's trust company charter, which gave him the legal authority to manage investments for wealthy individuals and institutions.
The trust company business proved to be a goldmine. During the 1970s, as inflation ravaged traditional investments, wealthy Americans were desperately seeking alternative ways to preserve and grow their wealth. Siggi's trust company offered sophisticated investment strategies, including early ventures into real estate investment trusts (REITs), commodity futures, and international markets.
His client base grew rapidly, attracted by his personal attention and impressive returns. Unlike the white-shoe trust companies that dominated the industry, Siggi was willing to take calculated risks and pursue unconventional investments. His Holocaust experience had taught him that conventional wisdom could be deadly, and this skepticism served him well in the volatile markets of the 1970s.
By 1978, the trust company was managing over $500 million in assets, generating substantial fee income that Siggi used to fund further acquisitions. He had discovered the secret that would make him truly wealthy: in the financial services industry, you could build enormous value by managing other people's money, using relatively little capital of your own.
Wall Street Conquest
The 1980s marked Siggi's emergence as a major force on Wall Street. In 1981, he acquired
Trust Company of New Jersey, a much larger institution with $1.2 billion in assets under management. The acquisition required sophisticated financing, including the issuance of subordinated debt and preferred stock, demonstrating Siggi's mastery of complex financial structures.
The Trust Company of New Jersey acquisition was transformative in multiple ways. It gave Siggi a presence in the lucrative New York metropolitan market, access to institutional clients, and the scale necessary to compete with much larger financial institutions. More importantly, it established him as a serious player in the eyes of Wall Street, opening doors to investment banking relationships and capital markets that had previously been closed to him.
Siggi's management philosophy was shaped by his wartime experiences. He demanded absolute loyalty from his employees but rewarded it generously. He made quick decisions, often based on intuition as much as analysis, and he was willing to take risks that more cautious competitors avoided. His office walls were decorated with photographs from the concentration camps, serving as daily reminders of how far he had come and how much he had to lose.
By the Numbers
The Wall Street Years
$1.2BAssets under management at Trust Company of New Jersey in 1981
$500MAssets managed by his trust company by 1978
$8.5MPurchase price for Wilshire State Bank in 1973
18Hours per day Siggi typically worked
The 1980s bull market was perfectly suited to Siggi's aggressive investment style. His trust company clients enjoyed exceptional returns as he positioned their portfolios in growth stocks, real estate, and emerging markets. By 1985, assets under management had grown to over $3 billion, making his trust company one of the largest independent wealth management firms in the country.
But Siggi's ambitions extended beyond wealth management. Throughout the 1980s, he used his growing financial resources to acquire stakes in publicly traded companies, often taking activist positions and pushing for changes in management or strategy. His investment philosophy was simple: buy undervalued assets, improve their performance, and sell them at a substantial profit.
The Billionaire's Gambit
By 1990, Siggi's net worth had exceeded $1 billion, making him one of the wealthiest Holocaust survivors in the world. But rather than rest on his achievements, he embarked on his most ambitious venture yet: the creation of a fully integrated financial services empire that would rival the major Wall Street firms.
In 1992, he acquired American Bank & Trust Company, a commercial bank with $2.8 billion in assets, for $340 million. The acquisition was financed through a combination of cash, stock, and debt, demonstrating the sophisticated capital structure management that had become his hallmark. The bank provided him with a retail banking platform and access to commercial lending markets.
Simultaneously, he expanded his oil and energy investments, acquiring several independent oil companies and building a portfolio of energy assets worth over $500 million. His strategy was to create multiple revenue streams that would provide stability during economic downturns while positioning him to capitalize on growth opportunities.
The 1990s proved to be Siggi's most successful decade. His diversified financial empire generated consistent profits across multiple business lines, while his personal investment portfolio benefited from the longest bull market in American history. By 1999, his net worth had grown to an estimated $1.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine.
I learned in Auschwitz that survival requires constant vigilance and the ability to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. These lessons served me well on Wall Street.
— Siggi B. Wilzig
Throughout his rise to billionaire status, Siggi never forgot his origins or the family members who had perished in the Holocaust. He became a major philanthropist, donating millions of dollars to Holocaust education, Jewish causes, and medical research. In 1995, he established the Siggi B. Wilzig Foundation with an initial endowment of $50 million, focused on supporting Holocaust survivors and their descendants.
Legacy and Final Years
As Siggi entered his seventies, he began the process of succession planning and legacy building. He had two sons, Ivan and Alan, both of whom had joined the family business and demonstrated the intelligence and drive necessary to continue his empire. However, the transition was not without challenges, as Siggi's hands-on management style and strong personality had created an organization heavily dependent on his personal leadership.
In 2000, at age seventy-four, Siggi stepped back from day-to-day operations while retaining the chairman role. He spent his remaining years focused on philanthropy, writing his memoirs, and sharing his story with younger generations. He was a frequent speaker at business schools and Holocaust education events, always emphasizing the themes of resilience, determination, and the importance of never giving up.
Siggi B. Wilzig died on January 7, 2003, at his home in Clifton, New Jersey, surrounded by his family. At the time of his death, his business empire was valued at over $2 billion, and his personal philanthropy had exceeded $100 million. More importantly, he had created a lasting legacy as one of the most remarkable success stories in American business history.
His funeral was attended by hundreds of people, including Holocaust survivors, Wall Street executives, politicians, and philanthropists. The eulogies emphasized not just his business achievements, but his role as a symbol of human resilience and the power of the American dream. He had transformed himself from a concentration camp prisoner weighing eighty pounds into a billionaire who employed thousands of people and supported countless charitable causes.
