Robert Boris Shields

Robert Boris Shields was born on October 20, 1921 in Frankfurt am Main, the son of Jack Schwarzschild and Sonia Sophia Hepner.

His paternal grandfather, Alfred Isaac Schwarzschild (1858-1936), came from a Frankfurt family that was active in the financial business for many generations. His marriage to Recha Goldschmidt in 1881 produced three children: Jacob Alfred, known as Jack (1885-1978), Robert Meier (1886-1909), after whom Robert Boris was named, and Clementine (1888-1984), who married the art dealer Zacharias Max Hackenbroch. The latter became particularly famous for his purchase of the so-called "Guelph Treasure".

His father, Jack Schwarzschild, had been sent to London for training as a 15-year-old youth, where his uncle Jacob Isaac Schwarzschild (1854-1929) worked as a stockbroker. After five years, he reluctantly returned to Frankfurt to join the family business as a partner in a small bank. According to his son, he concentrated mainly on establishing business relationships, while his cousin Adolf Schwarzschild and a junior partner took over the internal business of the banking house "J.A. Schwarzschild Söhne". In 1911 he married his cousin Else Sara Stern, and in 1915 their daughter Elizabeth was born. Else Sara divorced him in 1920, as she had come to appreciate another man during her husband's absence in the First World War.

The Schwarzschild family belonged to the Jewish Religious Society of Frankfurt am Main, which had been founded by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in 1853. It had separated from the "Einheitsgemeinde", the Jewish community of Frankfurt, in which both liberal and orthodox currents were represented. Rabbi Hirsch, on the other hand, stood for a cultured orthodoxy that combined religious tradition, modern education and German patriotism.

The grandfather on his mother's side, Joel Hepner (1872-1938), originally came from Bialystok. As a young man, he was placed as the best yeshiva student with Rabbi Baruch Essmann in Kiev, who was looking for a worthy husband for his daughter. His marriage to Poline Essmann (1867-1925) resulted in three children: Salomon (1893-1943), Fanny (1895-1943) and Sonia Sofia (1900-1950). Although Joel Hepner was an ordained rabbi, he did not practise in Kiev. Instead, he was active in the sugar beet business and as a railroad manufacturer, and overall he became very wealthy. In the course of the Russian Revolution, presumably shortly before the occupation of Kiev by the Red Army in February 1918, the family first moved from Kiev to Odessa. In 1920, they fled by ship to Istanbul, then on to Rome.

Here, Jack Schwarzschild and Sonia Sofia Hepner married on December 26, 1920, both in a civil ceremony and according to Jewish rites. The two found each other because their fathers already knew each other personally from previous banking transactions during the Hepners' spa stays in Bad Homburg. Ultimately, however, Else Sara, newly divorced from Jack, arranged the marriage of her ex-husband. She had come across the Hepner family on her honeymoon with her second husband in Rome.

While Sonia Sofia moved from Rome to join her husband in Frankfurt, the rest of the family set off for Berlin. From 1921, not only Joel Hepner, but also five of his siblings and their families lived in Berlin.

By his own account, Robert Boris Schwarzschild spent a very happy and privileged childhood in Frankfurt. At the age of four, he moved with his parents into a two-storey apartment in Bockenheimer Landstraße. Here he wanted for nothing. With financial support from Joel Hepner, the family was able to afford an upscale lifestyle. This included several employees, including a Jewish cook, a domestic help, a Bavarian driver who became a member of the SS but did not betray the family, and a nanny named Anna, who came from the Black Forest and once took 10-year-old Robert Boris to Lake Constance. A sheepdog named Barry also belonged to the family.

At the age of six, Robert Boris attended the Samson Raphael Hirsch School, which belonged to the Frankfurt Israelite Religious Society. The teaching was based on a balanced relationship between Jewish and secular subjects. Their unification and interpenetration was the overriding principle. Boys and girls had strictly separate classes. Robert Boris took the streetcar to his daily lessons, except on Saturdays, as the school was at the other end of the city. At the age of 11, he transferred to the Goethe Gymnasium in Westend.

Both grandfathers seem to have played an important role in Robert Boris' life.

The boy went to the synagogue on Friedberger Anlage with his grandfather Alfred Schwarzschild on Friday evenings. Afterwards, they had dinner together with the Hackenbrochs and their three daughters at his house. On Saturday they went to the synagogue again and after a short shi`ur (lesson) they visited various aunts nearby. Small snacks were eaten there before they went home again. Grandfather's house had a special feature, namely a sukkah (permanent leaf hut). It was permanently erected in his garden and its roof could be opened. The children usually collected chestnuts after Yom Kippur and hung them up here on strings.

Grandfather Joel Hepner, who lived in Berlin, was responsible for the vacations and keeping his Russian family together. He organized posh hotels for himself, his three children and grandchildren for Passover and major Jewish holidays. They met in Merano and Lugano, in winter in St. Moritz, and from 1933 in Cannes and Paris. He also treated his three grandchildren to vacations on the Baltic Sea, where they were accompanied only by their nanny. Through these joint vacations, Robert Boris had a close relationship with his cousin Georg, son of Salomon Hepner, and his cousin Tamara, daughter of Fanny Siew-Hepner, both almost the same age.

Shortly after Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor at the end of January 1933, the Schwarzschild family's life began to change.

Jules Hepner left Berlin for Cannes in February, more or less in a hurry. In March, the whole family celebrated Passover together again on the Cote d`Azur. Afterwards, the adults stayed in the south of France for a few more weeks, completely unsure of what to do next. 

As an interim solution, Robert Boris and his cousin Georg were sent to the Jewish school Asher in Bex les Bains, Switzerland. Boris returned to Frankfurt with his mother two months later, Georg stayed for six months until the whole Berlin family had moved to Paris. 

Nothing was the same in Frankfurt either: the large apartment was divided, the Jewish cook emigrated to Palestine and the butler resigned. At least Robert Boris was initially able to continue attending the Goethegymnasium and occasionally even visit his grandfather in Paris.

In spring 1935, however, his mother was asked to take him out of the grammar school, as Jews were no longer welcome. His classmates were also increasingly afraid to speak only to him.

As a result, his mother sent him to the École Nouvelle de Chailly in Lausanne, Switzerland, which offered a boarding school for boys only and mixed-gender classes. Here, Robert Boris learned French and, as he put it himself, "a lot about Switzerland". As he wanted to eat kosher food, he went to a Jewish girls' school every day for meals. He also went there on Friday evenings. 

At Easter 1937, Robert Boris got into trouble with the Gestapo over his passport while traveling back from his grandfather's home in Paris. Although his mother was able to resolve the problem, she realized that the time was ripe to leave the country. 

In the meantime, Jack Schwarzschild tried to sell his small bank and find a job in Paris or London, but with little success. 
The rest of the Frankfurt family was also disintegrating: his grandfather Alfred Schwarzschild had already died in a car accident in 1936, and his son-in-law, the art dealer Zacharias Max Hackenbroch, took his own life in 1937. His wife Clementine then also prepared to emigrate to London.

Robert Boris' resourceful mother arranged a meeting between the directors of the École Nouvelle and the Rugby School with the help of Percy Schwarzschild, a cousin of her husband who lived in London. During a conference in Geneva, both agreed to transfer Robert Boris to the English boarding school, even though he was already two years over the age for admission.

The fact that he did not speak the local language was a particular problem for admission to an English grammar school. Immediately after arriving in England in the summer of 1937, he therefore attended a girls' school in Kent for a few weeks, where an aunt of acquaintances taught him English. Even after transferring to Rugby School, his language skills were still inadequate. However, a friendly teacher helped him overcome his initial difficulties by letting him study with a classmate who spoke French very well. Ultimately, he was to spend two years at the idyllically situated Kilbracken House, the boys' boarding school of the traditional educational establishment founded in 1841. It still exists today.

Robert Boris was completely on his own during this time, as he was the first of the family to emigrate to England. He saw relatively little of his parents during his two years at boarding school in Rugby. In his biographical notes, however, he mentions that his father and Percy Schwarzschild visited him once. Jack Schwarzschild had only moved to London at the end of 1937 after he had finally found a halfway decent job in the financial sector. His mother had initially moved in with her father in Paris, where she remained after his death in 1938. Only one day before the start of the war at the beginning of September 1939 did she come to London at her husband's request. In the meantime, her brother Salomon's wife, who had just divorced, had also arrived with her son Georg.

After finishing school in the summer of 1939, Robert Boris found work in a firm of accountants in London after several attempts. However, life in London remained provisional: in the absence of a long-term tenancy agreement, he and his family had to move frequently.

From June 25, 1940, all Germans were interned indiscriminately as "enemy aliens" as a result of the entry into the war. Robert Boris and his father were first taken to a London police station, then to Kempton Park, a racecourse southwest of London. After a subsequent stay in a tent camp, the internees were housed in permanent buildings at York Racecourse. After eight weeks, Robert Boris was allowed to volunteer for the Pioneer Corps. On his way from York to the conscription center in Ilfracombe, he was able to meet his mother again briefly at London station. His father Jack Schwarzschild was released from internment a week later.

After arriving at the conscription office in Ilfracombe in the fall of 1940, Robert Boris Schwarzschild was accepted as a volunteer in the Pioneer Corps.

In Ilfracombe, around 3,000 Jewish men from Germany and Austria who had fled from the National Socialists came together. Most of them were intellectuals, many of whom had already worked in academic professions in their home countries. They founded their own orchestra, a small theater and a kind of mini-university where they held lectures and seminars in their free time. The military unit "Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps" (AMPC) was the only formation of the British army to which "Enemy Aliens", i.e. men from enemy countries, had access. At the beginning of the war, they were not allowed to carry weapons or be deployed outside the borders of the United Kingdom. They were also excluded from officer rank. Their work covered a wide range, from building bridges and setting up army camps to excavation work, fire protection tasks, loading work and supplying supplies.

After basic training, Robert Boris initially worked with Australian and New Zealand allies in a logging team, transporting logs to the sawmill.

In 1942, he was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC ) at Lichfield, where he trained as a technical and mechanical transport clerk. Here he acquired knowledge of engines, tools, spare parts, lubricants and fuels, and also wrote inventories or inspection lists for trucks in the office. In the following two years, he was stationed at various locations, but his field of work in motorized transport did not change.

In his memoirs, Robert Boris reports almost nothing about his comrades during this time in the military, except that he came into contact with members of the Polish army during the Jewish holidays, who often complained about anti-Semitism in their unit.

He was often able to spend the weekends with his parents in London. However, they still hadn't found a permanent home and were therefore forced to move frequently. Robert Boris' mother Sonia now worked for the Jewish Agency and was occasionally called upon by local authorities because of her knowledge of Russian. She also managed to obtain visas for her brother Salomon Hepner, her sister Fanny and her husband Leo Ettinger and their daughter Tamara. However, at the last moment before their planned departure to the USA, on the way to Marseille, both siblings and their brother-in-law were arrested and taken to the transit camp in Drancy. They died in Auschwitz in March 1943. Only Tamara, who had remained in the unoccupied zone, was able to escape.

The most momentous moment in R.B. Schwarzschild's life, by his own admission, occurred right at the beginning of his military career. He contracted hepatitis after being vaccinated with an unclean syringe, the effects of which would affect him for the rest of his life.

When he joined a newly formed unit, the "586th Army Field Company" in Three Bridges, Robert Boris changed his surname from Schwarzschild to Shields. The army had asked its Jewish soldiers to give up their Jewish names before going overseas and willingly issued them new passports as necessary protection in case they were taken prisoner by the Germans.

Robert Boris Shields landed with his unit in a convoy of tank landing craft on Juno Beach 27 days after D-Day. The name of this stretch of beach in Normandy goes back to the operation name for the Canadian Allies who landed here near Berniéres-sur-Mer on June 6, 1944.

The task of his company was to supply the troops with supplies from the harbour to the advancing front. Robert Boris in particular was responsible for spare parts for vehicles as a "parts man".

The British soldiers initially made only slow progress in their advance into Normandy, as the German troops still had superiority in terms of tanks and equipment. However, the tide was to turn in mid-August: In the Battle of Falaise, the largest tank battle on the Western Front, the Allies succeeded in encircling the German troops, resulting in major losses of equipment and men on their side. After the battle, Robert Boris Shields left his troops for too long without permission to inspect the battlefield. He was to pay for this with the loss of his officer's stripes.

On the way to the Belgian-Dutch border, the company passed through Brussels, which had been liberated at the beginning of September. At the end of the month, the Jewish soldiers stationed in Overpelt were given permission to return to Brussels to celebrate Yom Kippur. By asking around in the synagogue, Robert Boris was also able to locate some relatives on his mother's side who had survived in hiding in a monastery.

In preparation for the spring offensive in 1945, his military unit was disbanded and Robert Boris was assigned to a platoon of a transport company. From then on, he was a driver.

In late February 1945, the British units began an offensive on the western front to push the Wehrmacht back to the right bank of the Rhine. The first German town Robert Boris Shields' troops stopped in was Stolberg. Here he was particularly struck by the remains of a destroyed synagogue. A small Jewish community had lived in Stolberg, which belonged to the Aachen religious community. It had had a local prayer hall since the late 19th century, which was officially abandoned in 1939 due to a lack of members.

After crossing the Rhine near Cologne, the British troop unit marched on with the US Army via the Ruhr area towards Hanover. At Garssen station, north of Celle, they received the news of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The commander of the Royal Army Service Corps had spontaneously written a leaflet describing what he had seen there. Robert Boris Shields and his comrades were among the first to bring food to the survivors. However, the soldiers were not allowed to leave their wagons due to the risk of typhus, but handed over the aid delivery to a Hungarian troop guarding the camp.

At the beginning of May, the British unit moved on to Lüneburg Airport. During these last days of the war, Robert Boris was able to observe endless lines of German soldiers surrendering to the British, including a German airman who landed at the airport and was lulled to safety.

After the end of the war on May 8, 1945, Robert Boris Shields was stationed in barracks in Neumünster, Schleswig-Holstein. Here he initially became a typist for the education officer. However, after an interview with the intelligence service, he was transferred to Field Security in Münster. Because of his knowledge of German, his manpower was most welcome within the occupation. From the beginning of 1946, he served as a private in the police, but was soon promoted to local sergeant.

In the summer, he visited his cousin Tamara, who was still in Montauban (France) with her husband and newborn child, where they had gone into hiding.

Shortly after this trip, Robert Boris decided that his mission in the army was over. Although he was tempted with another promotion, he resigned from the service and returned to England at the end of August.

Robert Boris Shields' return to England was overshadowed by illness. Even during his military service, he had frequently struggled with health problems due to the hepatitis he had acquired in 1939. As he was keen to take an active part in the fight against National Socialist Germany, he had successfully tried to ignore them as far as possible. Unfortunately, Robert Boris could not do too much for his health in London either. The food supply had not been good enough for him to follow a suitable diet.

The company where Robert Boris had started his training before the war was no longer able to employ him. Through his father's mediation, however, he received a four-year apprenticeship at the auditing firm "Spicer & Pegler", which is now based in Dubai. As a certified public accountant, he received his first job at the renowned firm "Turquard, Youngs and Company", where he mainly looked after American clients.

With the help of this firm, Robert Boris Shields felt the desire to emigrate to the USA, or even better, to Brazil. Although he had been a British citizen since December 1942, there was clearly nothing keeping him in London: his beloved mother had died in 1950 and his relationship with his father was extremely strained. In the meantime, he had been on the lookout for a suitable Jewish girl. He had gone out a few times at the weekends with Elizabeth Ullmann, a young woman from his father's circle of acquaintances who was studying at the University of Hull. However, she apparently did not deter him from his plans to emigrate overseas.

On June 24, 1952, Robert Boris Shields arrived in Quebec, Canada, on a merchant ship on which he only had to pay for his food, but not his passage. As an acquaintance recommended moving to the much more modern east coast, where some distant relatives also lived, Robert Boris Shields decided on Montreal. He immediately looked for work, but this proved to be very difficult. The first job he applied for was explicitly not given to him because he was Jewish. So he only asked around in Jewish companies and eventually found a temporary job.

As a newcomer to Canada, Robert Boris Shields apparently moved mainly among Jewish immigrants: He found a room in Van Horne Avenue with a German widow who had also emigrated to Canada from London. However, she died a few months later, leaving behind a son who was only 7 years old. Robert Boris took great care of this orphan, Robert Chenciner, and remained friends with him for the rest of his life. A former judge from Cologne, who had since become a chartered accountant in Canada, advised Robert Boris on employment matters. He suggested that the conditions for the recognition of his exam in Toronto would be much better. R.B. Shields therefore decided to try his luck in Toronto in future.

Before the planned move, he returned to England again at Christmas 1953, as he apparently didn't like the Canadian girls. Among the British girls he knew, he chose Elizabeth Ullmann and asked her to come to Canada. She agreed, but first wanted to finish her studies as a psychiatric social worker at the University of Manchester.

After returning to Montreal, the search for work had not become any easier and Robert Boris Shields had to take on various jobs, e.g. as a watch salesman or storm window fitter, before moving to Toronto in March 1954.

On arrival in Toronto, Robert Boris Shields initially lived with a Ukrainian family as a subtenant. For a few weeks, he found work with an accountant, after which he tried to find his own clients.

In September 1954, Elizabeth Ullmann arrived and initially moved into a separate room. A year later, the wedding took place in London at the request of the bride's father. For their honeymoon, they traveled to Paris and on to the Loire castles.

The newlyweds initially lived in a rented apartment at 905 Avenue Road in Toronto. Just one year later, however, they bought their own house in a new development in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto. The conditions were now in place to start a family: son Danny was born in 1958 and daughter Sonia in 1961.

Elizabeth Shields quickly found work in the Canadian healthcare sector after moving to Toronto. She was active in many areas, working for years with people with Down syndrome and in palliative care.

Robert Boris Shields, who was still in poor health, eventually found clients through the German consulate in Toronto. He also worked for a Hungarian banker and for Rudolf Frastacky, a Slovakian ex-minister who had been active in the resistance during the Second World War and fled to Toronto in 1948. When the work for these two businessmen became too much, R.B. Shields looked for a partner. In 1962, he founded his first company, "Shields & Hayos", with the Hungarian economist Andrew Hayos, who had just completed his chartered accountant exams in Canada. In 1972, Robert Boris Shields looked around for another partner. He eventually hired a colleague with German roots, who mainly brought German clients with him. As Andrew Hayos continued to expand and merge with other offices, a change in the company structure was inevitable. The now enlarged company "Andrew Hayos and Associates" merged with the well-known Montreal firm "Samson, Belair" in 1982 to represent them in Toronto. When the next merger took place two years later, this time with "Deloitte Haskins and Sells", R.B. Shields was sent into retirement at the age of 62.

After that, he was still active on a voluntary basis: Five years as treasurer of a foundation that supported women offenders, as well as another year as director of the same foundation.

Robert Boris Shields lived decades more surrounded by his family before collapsing while sharing a Shabbat evening. He passed away on February 14, 2014 after a long and fulfilling life.

This obituary was written by Robert Chenciner, the orphan from Montreal whom the deceased had cared for in 1952. He described the deceased as reserved, almost shy, but with a wry sense of humor, modest, cosmopolitan and happy in his family.

"In many ways, he was typical of the Frankfurt Jews of the pre-war period, who were fully assimilated but still practiced their religion to the full. His life reflects the essential principle of his religion, that man should use all his talents to make the world a better place, modestly but determinedly, and always in a civilized way."