Based on authentic material—the memoirs of Siegbert Wilzig, a former Nazi concentration camp prisoner, later a prominent American businessman, oil magnate, philanthropist, and anti-Semitism fighter, as well as Holocaust memory keeper Siegbert Wilzig—conversations with his family, friends, colleagues, and competitors, excerpts from his speeches, and documents from the collections of the Holocaust History Museum, author Joshua Greene has created a portrait of a complex man for whom the value of life lay in realizing impossible dreams and defeating invincible enemies. Every line of this book's hero, who honorably survived 'history's darkest hour' with its severe trials, but lost his closest loved ones during the Nazi years, contains a universal, inspiring, and truly humanistic meaning.

'There will probably never be another businessman like Ziggy Wilzig: the only surviving Auschwitz prisoner who came to America poor and uneducated and went from cleaning factory toilets to becoming the president of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and a multi-billion dollar commercial bank. That he achieved such success in two of the most anti-Semitic industries of postwar America makes his achievements even more impressive. Ziggy was an unskilled worker with only a basic education, and he was also a foreigner: he came from Europe with $240 in his pocket and earned his first dollar in America shoveling snow. Everyone I spoke to while researching this book agreed on one thing: none of them knew of anyone else who had even remotely resembled Ziggy's fate. While all interviewees spoke of his miraculous survival after years of suffering in the Holocaust, what they most emphasized was how he managed to overcome these tragic events and become a significant figure in American business.' (Joshua Green)