The operation and projects of the Wirth Institute
for Austrian and Central European Studies are made possible in
significant part by the financial support of private donors. Our
patrons include the following:
The Wirth Endowment
The
operation and projects of the Wirth Institute for Austrian and
Central European Studies are made possible in part by funds generated
annually by the Wirth Endowment. Established in October 2003 by
Dr. Alfred G. Wirth, the endowment also supports research grants,
fellowships and scholarships in the field of Austrian Studies.
Dr. Alfred G. Wirth was born in Vienna in 1941
and moved with his family to Canada in 1952. Educated at Sault
Collegiate Institute and St. Andrew’s College, Mr. Wirth
earned a BA (Honours) in Economics and Political Science and a
graduate diploma in management from McGill University. He undertook
senior management development at the University of Western Ontario
and earned a number of other academic credentials and awards.
Dr. Wirth has enjoyed a distinguished career in Canada’s
financial sector; his executive duties have included roles as
Vice-President, Securities Investments with SunLife of Canada;
as Senior Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer with Crown
Life Insurance; and, since 1991, as President and Director of
Wirth Associates Inc.
In creating the endowment that currently supports
the Wirth Institute, Dr. Wirth has followed in the inspired footsteps
of his late father, Dr. Manfred F.K. Wirth, who passed away in
March 2003. Dr. Manfred Wirth’s major contributions in 1999
and 2002 helped to establish the Institute as one of North America’s
leading centres of Central European studies. The establishment
of the enhanced Wirth Endowment now guarantees the resource support
necessary to maintain the Institute and its programmes in perpetuity.
In recognition of this gift, the University of Alberta has renamed
the former Canadian Centre for Austrian and Central European Studies
the Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies.
The Wirth family’s interest in
the study of the history, society and culture of the region stems
from both intellectual interest and a sense of altruism and social
responsibility. Dr. Wirth's generosity has set the cornerstone
of an institution that not only highlights the contributions of
Austrian migrants to Canadian society, but also will enable Canadian
students and scholars to keep the links with Central Europe alive
and vital.
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The Manfred F.
Wirth Endowment
The
late Dr. Manfred F.K. Wirth was born in Vienna in 1913, received
university education in Graz, Innsbruck and Vienna, with special
distinction in the field of Austrian history, and was awarded
a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna in 1936. He began
his career with the Austrian National Bank in Vienna, but moved
to smaller private firms in the period from 1938 to 1945. From
1945 to 1951 he was the Sales Director for the Austrian National
Steel Corporation (VÖEST AG) in Linz, one of the largest
industrial enterprises in Austria, as well as administrator of
the steel wholesale firm, Ehrenletzenberger.
In 1952 he emigrated to Canada where he was
employed by Algoma Steel Corporation in Sault St. Marie, in charge
of market research and pricing, and responsible for Algoma's entire
transportation and export infrastructure. In 1959 Wirth left Algoma
and founded his own company, the highly successful Montreal-based
Wirth Ltd., which specialized in the import to North America of
products of the Austrian National Steel Corporation, as well as
those of related Austrian industries, with offices in New York,
Atlanta, Houston, Cleveland, Chicago and Los Angeles. In 1993,
at the age of 80, Wirth sold his company and went into brief retirement.
Soon lured back to the life of an active entrepreneur, however,
he founded a new company, M.F. Wirth Rail Corporation, which was
engaged exclusively in the sale of European steel rails to North
and South America. Dr. Wirth passed away in March 2003.
Dr. Wirth's commitment to his Austrian heritage
focused not only on his old homeland, but on the broad cosmopolitan
legacy of central Europe as a whole. The establishment of the
Manfred F. Wirth Endowment provided the resource support that
makes the ongoing study of this common cultural legacy of central
Europeans possible both nationally and internationally. Generations
of scholars and students will remain indebted to his vision and
generosity.
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The Joseph Kuchar
Fellowship
The
Joseph Kuchar post-Doctoral Fellowship of the Wirth Institute
for Austrian and Central European Studies was made possible by
funds donated by Mr. Joseph Kuchar between 2003 and 2007. The
Fellowship’s main purpose was to create and support the
position of Assistant Director of the Institute during this period.
Mr. Joseph Kuchar was born in Siebenhirten
near Vienna in 1916, and was educated in Czechoslovakia and Denmark.
After working a year in the coal and steel industry in England,
he returned to Central Europe. Finding himself in Austria in 1938,
he fled to Czechoslovakia after the Anschluss and served briefly
in the Czech army. After the Nazi seizure of Bohemia and Moravia,
he went underground until 1945. Shortly thereafter, his life took
another dramatic turn when he fled Czechoslovakia after the Communist
takeover, escaping back to Austria where he founded a textile
import-export company.
In 1950 Kuchar migrated to Canada, where he
purchased a small mothball and deodorizer packaging firm, which
he build into a giant Canadian owned, family held, multi-national
chemical empire in the subsequent decades. The firm, Recochen
Inc., has since become Canada’s leading producer of naphthalene
and now has five branches in Canada, as well as subsidiaries in
the Unites States, Australia and Belgium, dealing in a broad range
of chemical products. Kuchar is also an environmentalist, horse
breeder and art patron. In 1983 he established a sprawling experimental
farm in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains, which was given the
aptly bilingual Central European name of “Waldeck –
U Lesa”. Among other things the farm is the leading Canadian
centre for breading and development of Tyrol’s famous Haflinger
horses.
Mr. Kuchar is equally committed to both his
Austrian and Czech heritage, and sees the Wirth Institute for
Austrian and Central European Studies as the best institution
to transmit his cosmopolitan Central European vision to future
generations of students. Believing that individuals can and do
make a difference, he created the position of Assistant Director
for the Institute to further the fulfillment of his vision.
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The
Toby and Saul Reichert
Holocaust Lecture Series
The
annual “Toby and Saul Reichert Holocaust Lecture”
series is supported by an endowment fund, initially begun by members
of the Edmonton community, but topped up to its target level by
a transformative gift by Mr. Saul and Mrs. Toby Reichert. Initiated
in 2004, the lecture series is devoted to bringing a prominent
visiting scholar in the field of Holocaust Studies to the University
of Alberta annually to give a high profile, campus and community-wide
public lecture on a Holocaust related theme.
Mr. Saul Reichert was born in Pabianice, Poland,
in 1930. He was nine years old at the outbreak of World War II.
When the German army occupied his hometown, the Reichert family
was the quick to feel the full weight of Nazi persecution. Their
home, business and possessions were plundered, and the entire
family was forcibly resettled first in the Pabianice Ghetto and
then in the infamous Lodz Ghetto. After the liquidation of the
Lodz Ghetto Saul and his family were shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau
in an open cattle car. Upon arrival at the notorious death camp
Saul was separated from his mother and sisters and never saw them
again. As the Russians advanced on Auschwitz Saul and his fellow
prisoners were marched under gruesome conditions from one labour
camp to another. One of the few survivors of this so-called “death
march,” Saul also managed to escape the mass shooting of
prisoners at the end of the war by hiding in a barn. He was liberated
by U.S. troops on 8 May 1945.
With the help of the Canadian Jewish Congress
Saul moved to Canada after the war and settled in Edmonton. He
purchased Teddy’s Lunch in 1950 and became a successful
restaurant entrepreneur, in time owning and operating several
restaurants in the Edmonton area. Mrs. Toby Reichert (née
Taradash) is a native of Edmonton and was educated at the University
of Alberta, receiving a B.Sc. in 1954. She has been active in
helping her husband build his restaurant business and in community
and volunteer activities. Toby and Saul Reichert have four daughters
-- Rochelle, Jerell, Adell and Bonny -- and ten grandchildren.
The Reicherts regard the Wirth Institute’s
lecture series as a way of keeping knowledge and understanding
of the Holocaust alive among future generations of students, not
only serving the purpose of commemorating the tragedy, but as
a cautionary epistle against such monumental injustices perpetrated
on the innocent.
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The Joseph and Melitta
Kandler Graduate Fellowship
The
Joseph and Melitta Kandler Graduate Fellowship of the Wirth Institute
for Austrian and Central European Studies is made possible by
funds donated periodcally by Mr. Joseph Kandler and Mrs. Lubomyra
-Melitta Kandler. Established in 1999, the Fellowship's main purpose
is to assist qualified graduate students in any discipline in
the social sciences, humanities or fine arts working in the field
of Austrian, Habsburg or central European studies to carry on
part of their studies or research in Austria or any other appropriate
central European country.
Dr. Joseph Rudolph Kandler was born in Vienna
in 1921, and studied both at the University of Vienna and at Vienna's
Hochschule für Welthandel, where he received a doctorate
in commerce. He began his career in Austria as a sales manager,
but turned to Chartered Accountancy when he moved to Canada in
1952. He practiced as an auditor with various firms in Edmonton,
and later served as controller and vice-president finance of Healy
Ford Center up to his retirement in 1986. Both in Alberta and
British Columbia Dr. Kandler remained committed to his vision
of creating lasting links between Canada and his country of birth,
and was the founding president of the Johann Strauss Foundations
of Edmonton (est. 1975) and Victoria (est.1985), which fund scholarships
for advanced study of music in Austria. In 1988 Joseph and Melitta
Kandler also initiated and endowed the International Student and
Staff Exchange between the School of Business of the University
of Alberta and the Wirtschaftsuniversität of Vienna.
Joseph Kandler served on the Board of Governors
of the University of Alberta, and has been recognized for his
contributions to both Austria and Canada with, among others, the
Government of Alberta's Achievement Award for service to the community
(1975), the Austrian Knight's Cross of Honour, First Class (1990)
and the Golden Emblems of Honour of both the City of Vienna (1991)
and Vienna's Wirtschaftsuniversität (1995).
Lubomyra-Melitta Kandler (née Melnechuk)
was born in Cernauti (Czernowitz), Romania, in 1928 and educated
at the Universities of Graz, Austria, and Alberta, receiving an
MA in 1972. She served with the Government of Canada and a number
of Edmonton firms as an administrator, and was an active contributor
to both Ukrainian and Austrian community activities.
Joseph and Melitta Kandler now live on
Salt Spring Island and continue to be active in community affairs.
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The
Árpád Berdin Hungarian Language Initiative
Thanks to the support of Mr. Árpád Berdin the University
of Alberta has been able to introduce Hungarian language instruction
on a five-year experimental basis in its Department of Modern
Languages and Cultural Studies. The so-called “Árpád
Berdin Hungarian Language Initiative” has been responsible
for the establishment of annual courses in introductory and intermediate
Hungarian, beginning in the 2003-2004 academic year.
Árpád V. Berdin was born in Lendava
in 1935 - as a member of the Hungarian minority in the Prekmurje
region of what is today Slovenia. He moved to Canada as a young
man in 1954, and ever since then he has been affectionately known
by all as “Arpi”. Beginning as a worker in the oilfields,
he became interested in the sheet metal and ventilation industry,
and opened his own business as “Arpi’s Heating”
in 1963. Within eighteen years the company (now renamed Arpi’s
Industries Ltd.) had an Edmonton branch, offices in B.C. and Saskatchewan,
over 118 trucks, employed 500 people and operated as a full-service
mechanical contractor in the commercial, institutional and residential
fields. Among the dozens of commercial mechanical projects Arpi’s
Industries has completed are Bankers Hall and Foothills Hospital
in Calgary, the Arts Center in Red Deer and Canada Place and West
Edmonton Mall in Edmonton. In 1989 Arpi received the prestigious
“Pinnacle Award” that exemplifies Alberta’s
top entrepreneurs.
A generous supporter of numerous Hungarian
activities in Calgary, Arpi maintains a particularly strong interest
in soccer, and has for many years sponsored the Hungarian Soccer
Club in Calgary as well as being a major benefactor of the annual
Hungarian balls held in that city. Arpi has passed the management
of his company over to his daughter Julie but continues to be
active as Chairman of the Board.
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