Background
Nathan Schapelski was born on March 7, 1922 in Poland. His mother was deported to the Targowa ghetto.
(Author Nathan Shapell (1922 - 2007) was an American Holoc...)
Author Nathan Shapell (1922 - 2007) was an American Holocaust survivor, real estate developer and philanthropist. He was 17 when the Germans occupied his hometown in Poland. After managing for months to outwit the Nazis in the Jewish ghettoes, he was finally taken to Auschwitz in the summer of 1943. He survived Auschwitz, death marches and two more concentration camps. At this point, the story he relates in Witness to the Truth begins, with Shapell leading a small group of surviving Jews out of the Russian-occupied zone of Germany, into the American zone (where he helped build housing for homeless Jews) and eventually to the U.S.
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chairman executive philanthropist president chief executive
Nathan Schapelski was born on March 7, 1922 in Poland. His mother was deported to the Targowa ghetto.
He was a teenager during Nazi Germany's Invasion of Poland. He was deported to the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, but he managed to escape. After the war, he built housing for homeless Jews in Münchberg, Germany.
He served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. He developed the MGM ranch in Thousand Oaks, California, the residential community of Kite Hill in Laguna Niguel, California, the East Lake development in Yorba Linda, and Promenade Towers, a 510-unit project in Downtown Los Angeles. In the late 1980s, he developed Porter Ranch, California, adding commercial buildings to the residential community.
From 1969 to 1984, the company was publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the Pacific Stock Exchange. He built over 65,000 houses in California. He also served on the Little Hoover Commission from 1975 to 1994.
He also founded and Co-Chaired Building a Better Los Angeles, which raised US$1 million for homeless people in Los Angeles. In 1980, he was Chairman of California's Task Force on Affordable Housing. In 1987, he became President of Drug Abuse Resistance Education, an anti-drug non-profit organization in the United States.
He served on President Ronald Reagan's Private Sector Survey on Cost Control. In 1992, Governor Pete Wilson appointed him to the California Competitiveness Council to help boost the economy. In 1998, Senate President Pro-Tem Bill Lockyer appointed him to a commission to help alleviate California's overcrowding of prisons.
He was one of the founders of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and was appointed by President George H. W. Bush and reappointed twice by President Bill Clinton to its governing council. He donated to the Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the University of Santa Clara, the University of Southern California, as well as Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He also supported the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the D.A.R.E. program, and the Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services.
He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Santa Clara in 1986 and from Tel Aviv University in 1987. He was a strong supporter of Israel, and he traveled to the frontlines to show his support to the Israel Defense Forces during the Sinai War, the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. He died on March 11, 2007, and he was buried in the Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Culver City, California.
Vera still retains a 43 percent interest in the remainder of Shappell industries which includes over 10,000 apartments, five shopping centers, and four office buildings worth an additional $1.7 billion. The Nathan Shapell Memorial Highway in Los Angeles, California is named in his honor.
(Author Nathan Shapell (1922 - 2007) was an American Holoc...)
Member advisory council President's Commission on the Holocaust, 1979. President American Academy Achievement, from 1975. Prisoner in Auschwitz, 1943—1945.
Member California Commission Government Reform, 1978. Attorney General California Advisory Council. District Attorney Los Angeles County Advisory Council.
Chairman California Government Commission Organization and Economy, 1975—2007. Member Governor's Task Force on Affordable Housing, from 1980. Member dean's council University of California at Los Angeles School Architecture and urban Planning, from 1976.
Trustee University Santa Clara, California, from 1976. Board councillors University Southern California Medical School, from 1973. Member of Hillcrest Country Club (Los Angeles).
Married Lilly Szenes, July 17, 1948 (deceased 1994). Children: Vera Shapell Guerin, Benjamin(deceased).