LifeBook author Simon Bergson was born to parents who had miraculously survived the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of six million people during the Second World War. As a young boy, he grew up hearing stories about the unimaginable suffering of his mother and father and the murder of many relatives, including their brothers and sisters, in Europe’s death camps.
Preserving family memory
For much of his adult life, Simon has dedicated himself to preserving the memory of his parents, his lost relatives and the other victims of Nazi atrocities. And he admits that writing his memoir, Without a Plan, with the support of his LifeBook Memoirs team, stirred a huge range of emotions. In his words, it was “a rollercoaster of feelings and memories”. However, Simon showed the same determination in telling his poignant story as he has displayed in so many other aspects of his riveting life.
In 2023, he was one of sixty people to be honoured with the Ellis Island Honors Society Award, presented to immigrants and their descendants who have been successful since arriving in the United States. Among those recognised on the same night as Simon were Michael Bidwill, owner of the Arizona Cardinals; Andrew Wang, a businessman who ran for president in the 2020 primaries; Chris Sununu, Governor of the State of New Hampshire; David Rubenstein, founder of the Carlyle Group; and Queen Farah Pahlavi, former Empress of Iran.
Seizing unlikely opportunities
Simon’s path to success began with a gamble that earnt him an admonishment from his father but which was later to make him a multi-million-dollar profit. As he modestly tells it, like so much of his life, it just happened that he was in the right place at the right time:
The other day, I was telling my wife, Stefany, that none of my life was planned. I didn’t have a plan when I went to Woodstock. When I went to college, I didn’t have a plan; when I moved into the city, I didn’t have a plan; and when I went into business, I didn’t have a plan. Everything happened by accident. I was just in the right place at the right time and with the right opportunity – and the right attitude!
When Simon paid $600 for a piece of Manhattan property in the 1970s, his father said he might as well have thrown the money away. Undeterred, Simon took his father out to the street and pointed south, telling him, “Look, Pop. There’s the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers.”
In 2008, Simon sold that $600 piece of land for $23 million. In the meantime, he developed his beer-distribution business into a vast concern that today dominates the territories in which it operates (though there is a downside – in 2023, his company had to pay over $2.5 million in parking violations to the City of New York!).
Building a legacy of compassion
Simon is a man of genuine compassion and concern. Among his many roles, he serves as the chairman of the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, and it was through this organisation that he met and bonded with Arnold Schwarzenegger. How did that come about? Simon can tell the story:
For our 2022 gala, we reached out to Arnold Schwarzenegger because his father had been a Nazi, and we knew that the actor and former governor of California had been outspoken about condemning Nazism. We were able to reach one of his agents, who asked Arnold if he would accept an award from us at our gala. The award was for his stance on anti-Semitism and combating hatred, and for acknowledging that everyone globally should be united against hatred.
Unfortunately, Covid made the trip impossible, but Schwarzenegger promised to visit Auschwitz with Simon at a later date. In October 2022, he contacted Simon to say, “I want to go to Auschwitz next week. Will you meet me there?” Simon responded, “If you’ll be there, I’ll be there”.
Their joint visit made the worldwide news, and Simon was contacted by relatives around the globe who had seen the TV reports. Even his former housekeeper, living in Warsaw, texted Stefany while they were in the car with Arnold to say, “I just saw Simon on television with Arnold Schwarzenegger!”
Schwarzenegger signed the Auschwitz Museum guestbook with his famous line, “I’ll be back”.
Simon’s concern for humanity shines throughout his book. A father and grandfather of three children – Brianne, Alexander and Mitchel – and a growing number of grandchildren, Simon earnestly believes that we can secure the future only by remembering the lessons of the horrific events of the mid-twentieth century:
Today, many people, even those who grew up in major cities like New York, Los Angeles and London aren’t aware of what took place. I stay involved to expand awareness because, collectively, we build the future by learning from the past. I hope to educate people that we must learn not to hate and not to create the atrocities of the Second World War ever again … There’s war all the time, and it usually has to do with either politics or religion, unfortunately. People haven’t learnt that war is not the answer. Still, I maintain that we can’t give up. We must continue to hope that all people will get it. We are all one person. We are all one race. We are all one species. We all bleed the same and urinate the same. Why are we fighting with each other?
Reflecting on life lessons
Simon’s immense love and respect for his father are among the many tender aspects of Without a Plan. He describes growing up in Brooklyn with parents who spoke English with an Eastern European accent and used Yiddish within the home. His father, Milton Bergson, preached philosophical idioms that have stayed with Simon throughout his life. Among them are:
There’s no reason to do things the left way when you can always do things the right way!
You don’t really know a person until you’ve done business with him.
America is a great country; the harder you work, the luckier you get!
You won’t know what it’s like to be a parent until you become a parent!
Simon insists that his story is not that different to many others: “It is the American Dream, and I was fortunate to become successful”.
Fortunate or not, it would seem that Simon had the wherewithal to take advantage of the opportunities that fell his way. More than that, he has used the good fortune and opportunities he has enjoyed to try to make the world a better place.
That is something we could all learn from.
Written by Stephen Pitts, LifeBook Memoirs editor
