Edward Anders

Edward Anders was born Eduard Alperovitch to a Jewish family in Liepaja, Latvia. His parents were Erika Sheftelovitch-Meiranof and Adolf Alperovitch. When the Red Army invaded his homeland in June 1940, his family narrowly escaped deportation to the USSR. Then Germany attacked Latvia, driving out the Russians, and began the murder of Jews. Edward's father, brother, and 24 other family members died in the Holocaust, but Edward and his mother survived against all odds by posing as non-Jews raised by Jewish parents. The Red Army re-entered Latvia in 1944, and Edward and his mother managed to flee westward to Germany. In 1949, the two emigrated to the USA. Edward received a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University in 1954. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1955, and rose to become professor of Chemistry and a famous planetary scientist. He researched the origin, age, and composition of meteorites and planets; interstellar grains in meteorites; the mass extinction of Earth species; and abundance of the elements. He published a memoir of his own experiences, Amidst Latvians During the Holocaust (2011), and edited a collection of survivor stories called 19 Months in Cellar: How 11 Jews Defied Hitler's Henchmen (2013).