Billionaire died in Nowy Sącz

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The American billionaire died in Nowy Sącz. He lived in a block of flats

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He was the son of a financier who created one of the largest investment banks in the world. His assets were estimated at $ 2.2 billion.

Charles E. Merrill Jr. was born in 1920. He shared his life between Boston and Nowy Sącz. In the United States, he was known for his involvement in combating racial segregation in schools.

Son of Charles Merrill Sr. he did not follow in his father's footsteps. He was not interested in business, but rather had the soul of a humanist and artist.

He became interested in Polish history thanks to reading the "Trilogy" by Henryk Sienkiewicz. He came to Poland for the first time in the summer of 1939. He visited several cities and since then Poland has become his second homeland.

He was a millionaire and philanthropist, a humble writer and teacher. He was friends with Czesław Miłosz.

When he married Julie Boudreaux, an American of Polish descent, an English teacher, they settled in Nowy Sącz. Julie Boudreaux is still teaching in the SPLOT social school team that Charles E. Merrill Jr. he helped found in 1989.

He was the founder of scholarships for talented youth from Nowy Sącz, every year one SPLOT student goes on a scholarship to the USA.

The heir to the billion dollar fortune lived with his wife in an ordinary four-storey block of flats in the Milenium estate in Nowy Sącz. He also had two houses in the USA, where he often visited.

On Monday, December 4, 2017, he was to collect the Jerzy Giedroyc. By the decision of the jury he was honored with it for the overall activity. He left a few days before the verdict was publicly announced.

Charles E. Merrill Jr. he had an unusual biography. Unfortunately, several shadows fall on her, including the shadow of Planned Parenthood, Black Protest and CODE. Read the comment "Gray millionaire" .

Read the interview with Charles E. Merrill Jr., which he gave to "Dobre Tygodnik Sądecki" in 2011 on the following pages.

Read also:

Gray billionaire

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I never pressed the rifle trigger

Interview with Charles Merrill - a philanthropist, teacher, writer, for years associated with the Malopolska Educational Society in Nowy Sącz. The conversation took place in 2011, Ch. Merrill Jr. he was 91 years old.

Piotr Grześków: Merrill Lynch & Co is a financial institution well known not only to those who are interested in listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It is now part of Bank of America and has $ 2.2 billion in assets. Your father founded this company. How did it happen that you did not follow in his footsteps but chose the world of education and philanthropy?

Charles E. Merrill Jr .:As a young boy, I had left-democratic teachers, while my father was a conservative republican. So he shaped me a system of values ​​completely different from the one in which I lived every day. In my childhood I rarely saw my father because his world was in New York, sometimes in San Francisco. My parents divorced before I was born. We had an estate in the resort town of Southampton on Long Island, about 100 miles from New York. We lived in a huge house, which employed seven dark-skinned servants. It was a world of successful people, in which one had to be athletic, dance well and be sociable. I didn't feel well in this world. I had many friends outside of this social cream and they attracted me more. My entire adolescence was spent searching for my own path, building my own independent life. If someone asked me why I became interested in Poland, one of the answers would be to get away from my father's world as far as possible.

You have decided that the money you inherited will be invested in education and democracy building in countries that do not have such experience. Which of these investments do you consider the most fruitful? Which of them could you say - yes, it was a good deal - a real hit?

For two reasons, I donated a lot of funds to the education of black people. First of all, my father was from the South, specifically from Florida, and I had contact with people from there. So I donated substantial funds to several schools for American African Americans in Atlanta. At Harvard, where I studied, there was a small group of black students, but it was a university mainly for people from the upper classes and it was extremely difficult for them to break through.

Have you ever felt a lack of money?

Probably not. I was a soldier for over three years and of course I was paid as a soldier, but I also had enough money in the bank. I inherited my father's discipline in publishing them. His father began his career as a poor young man from Florida, gradually establishing Merrill Lynch and the Safeway supermarket chain, which already had 350 stores in 1931. I have always admired his commitment to charity. I started with caution - I always carefully chose the goals to which I would donate. I chose schools that took equality seriously. I believe that also my children, and I have five grandchildren and 18 grandchildren, will inherit their love of philanthropy.

Read on the next page.

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Charles Merrill Jr. he had an unusual biography. Unfortunately, several shadows fall on her, including the shadow of Planned Parenthood, Black Protest and CODE.

I read that your father was called "Good time Charlie" - Charlie who likes to have fun. Why was he so called?

I think that this is a harmful word for him, he did not agree with him, and so did I. He worked hard and allocated huge amounts of money to charity - churches, schools, universities.

But you certainly live more modestly. When you come to Nowy Sącz you live in a small apartment in a block of flats like most Poles. What was your first contact with Poland?

Now it seems crazy, but in the summer of 1939 with my best friend we flew to Europe, we rented a car in Paris and went first to Berlin (I was interested in what these bad Germans really look like), then to Gdansk, Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, and then we went all the way to Romania and Bulgaria, and on the way back we passed through Yugoslavia. Our journey ended at the end of August, so a few days before the start of World War II. Poland was the first victim of the war and I was captivated by the heroism of Poles, attachment and loyalty to a country that was attacked by two powers determined to wipe it off the map of Europe.

The turmoil of war began, which also drew the Lord.

After Japan invaded the United States, I joined the Canadian army because I thought that Canadians who were part of the British army would take war more seriously than Americans. By the way, I really liked the uniform of the Canadian army. After eleven months, I came to the conclusion that a US citizen should, however, serve in the US Army, so I moved to it. We were sent to North Africa and through southern Morocco, Algeria and Libya. I served on foot in the 36th Division and was wounded during the landing in Italy. It was a reason for me to be proud, I received a military marking for these wounds.

What event in your life made the biggest impression on you?

The most important day in my life was the landing day in Italy, where I found myself as a private infantry under the deafening fire of German artillery. We were the first American soldiers to enter Italy.

What do you remember about that day?

We swam to the shore with small, 10-person boats and I was struck by the extraordinary beauty of the area in which we found ourselves. It was somewhere south of Naples. The sun, beautiful sand, sea and bullets from German rifles. During my warrior, I never pressed the rifle trigger once, and never had contact with German soldiers except for prisoners of war.

Did you meet any Polish soldiers in Africa or Italy then?

In Africa, I don't remember, but I met Polish soldiers in Italy. Two Polish divisions were with us, if I remember correctly.

What distinguishes Poland from other countries that you know?

Dramatic and heroic story. The fact that Poles knew how to get through the hard times of the partitions, World War II and communism, kept their identity and knew how to stand out for independence. That's why when I studied at Harvard, I tried to meet as many Poles as possible. I also met many of them during military service in the Canadian Army. Over time, Poland has become a very important part of my life.

Is there anything that annoys you with us?

The language is very difficult. There have been cases of anti-Semitism. At the end of the war, I met a 13-year-old Jewish boy in Poland ...

Was it Bernard Rosnar?

Yes, I helped him to America, he lived with me, my wife and daughter, I paid him to study at an American school and then study. He currently resides in California, we sometimes contact you. Even the book "Unusual friendship - on the other side of the holocaust" was written about it.

You probably feel fulfilled.

I took life as it is and tried to make the most of what fate gave me.

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