Sigi Ziering

Siegfried Ziering was born on March 20, 1928, in Kassel, Germany. He was the son of Isaac Ziering and Cilly Ziering (née Frisch); his father was Polish. He had a brother, Herman. His family was Jewish.[1][2]

During World War II, his father escaped to England, but his mother and her two sons stayed in Germany. In 1941, the Nazis forced them to move to the Riga Ghetto in modern-day Riga, Latvia, alongside 1,000 Jews. Only twenty survived, including Sigi, his mother and his brother. By the end of the war, they were moved to a prison in Fuhlsbüttel. The Nazis took 10 Jews a day to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They were later moved to the concentration camp in Kiel and forced into slave labor. In 1945, they were rescued by the Swedish Red Cross. Indeed, Count Bernadotte of Sweden had negotiated with Himmler to rescue a few thousand Jews for a few millions of dollars. They were first moved to Sweden and eventually to London, where they rejoined their father.[1][2][3][4]

Ziering immigrated to New York City with his family in 1949. In 1953, he received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Brooklyn College. He was admitted to Syracuse University for graduate work, and received his doctorate in 1958 for a thesis in theoretical physics.[1][5]

He started his career at Raytheon, where he worked on nuclear reactors in Boston. He then worked for Allied Research on space projects. In 1961, he was the founder and President of Space Sciences, Inc., a government contract research firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts. In 1968, the company was acquired by the Whittaker Corporation for US$1.8 million, which made Ziering "well-to-do". He and his family relocated to Los Angeles, California, where he was a research director at Whittaker. In 1970 he left Whittaker and founded a fish meal company, but the business failed.[1][2][6]

In 1973, Ziering learned of the work of a chemist, Robert Ban, who had developed radioimmunoassay techniques for detecting very low levels of drugs, hormones, etc. in bodily fluids. Ban had founded a company, Diagnostic Products Corporation, that manufactured and distributed kits. Ziering invested $50,000 into the company, and became its president. Ziering subsequently bought out Ban, and Ziering's wife Marilyn Ziering joined the company as vice-president. The company went public in 1982. In 2000, the company had about 1700 employees and was marketing 400 immunoassay tests along with the associated instrumentation. In 2006, the company was acquired for $1.86 billion by Siemens, becoming the subsidiary Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.[6][7][8]

Temple Beth Am, Marilyn & Sigi Ziering Family Synagogue Center.

He was a philanthropist to Jewish causes. Indeed, he was President of Temple Beth Am.[3] In 1976, with his wife, he endowed a program at the Sheba Medical Center to screen all children born in Israel for hypothyroidism, thus saving more than 2,000 Israeli children from mental retardation.[9] He also served on the board of trustees of the American Jewish University in Bel Air and as co-chair of the Los Angeles section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.[1][3][10]

Ziering wrote a play entitled The Judgment of Herbert Bierhoff that was first performed in September 1999. The play is about the destruction of Jewish families during the Holocaust. It is based on the actions of Herbert Bierhoff, an historical figure and German Jew who poisoned his daughter when he heard that she would be deported by the Nazis. When the Nazis discovered his actions, they executed him. His widow was sent to the concentration camp in Riga, where she died. In the play, as she lies dying she asks her late husband's friend Shimon to ensure judges see that Herbert's action was merciful in light of the circumstances. Survivors David, Kurt and Esther debate whether Herbert did the right thing or not.[3]

The cast of the 1999 production in Los Angeles included Jon Voight and Cloris Leachman.[3] The play was published along with several essays in 2005.[11] In 2008, the play was performed by students at his alma mater, Syracuse University.[4]

He married Marilyn Ziering (née Brisman) in New York City on June 5, 1953.[12] They had met on vacation in the Catskills. They both enrolled for graduate work at Syracuse University, where Marilyn Ziering earned an M.S. in audiology in 1956.[1][13] After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1960s, they joined Temple Beth Am, a Conservative Jewish congregation in Los Angeles in 1969.[14] The couple had two sons and two daughters:

• Michael Ziering.
• Ira Ziering.
• Rosanne Ziering.
• Amy Ziering. She is married to Gil Kofman and works as a documentary filmmaker.[15][16]

Sigi Ziering died of brain cancer on November 12, 2000.[1]