Siegfried Jaegendorf

Siegfried Jaegendorf 

Siegfried Jaegendorf was born in Czernowitz, 01 August 1895. He attended local elementary and high schools, and afterwards travelled to Vienna and Berlin where he studied engineering at a technical college, completing his studies as a mechanical engineer. His first position as an engineer was at the Siemens Schucker Werke in Berlin. In time, he was promoted and sent to serve as managing director for the Eastern Europe area at the Siemens factory in Vienna. Afterwards, he was appointed General Manager of Siemens in Bucharest, Romania. From there, he returned to Vienna where he served as Engineering Director in a number of companies until the annexation of Austria by the Nazis. He was married to Hilda, who was born in Radautz in 1898. They were the parents of two daughters; they arrived in the United States in 1946, and settled in Los Angeles where Jaegendorf served as a director in the Fischbach and Moore Company until his retirement due to medical problems. His activities during the war: On 21 November 1941, a Central Jewish Committee was established in Mogilev-Podolski, under the leadership of Siegfried Jaegendorf. Jaegendorf and professionals affiliated with him received permission to renovate factories in the city, and the factories, mainly a foundry, gradually became the safest place for Jews who succeeded in integrating themselves there. The authorities granted the committee a certain amount of autonomy, and the Committee collected taxes from those with means to fund welfare projects and maintain soup kitchens, postal services, health facilities, burial and more. Most of the Committee members, and the heads of its subcommittees - such as administration, welfare, finance, economics and coordination - were former heads of Jewish communities in their places of origin or people with connections to the Romanian authorities.