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« on: June 06, 2006, 12:33:57 pm »
Found this article today in the Houston Chronicle. Makes up for a lot of our frustrations about people who don't care about animals. I wish I could put the photo of his dog on here -- a beautiful mastiff.
Houston real estate tycoon Bernard Aptaker gives money to SPCA
Philanthropic deeds are his pet projects
By ALLAN TURNER
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
Money can do many things. It can buy a palatial home, furnish it with French antiques and marble statuary, put fountains in the yard and a Rolls-Royce in the drive. But it can't buy you the love of a good dog.
Houston real estate tycoon Bernard Aptaker, a millionaire many times over, knows that well.
Since arriving in New York almost six decades ago, Aptaker — struggling to overcome the trauma of years spent in a series of Nazi concentration camps — relentlessly worked his way to riches. From his first job as a deli hand, through stints as a dance instructor to dizzying peaks in the Houston apartment business, Aptaker never forgot the value of a dollar.
Now, at age 80, Aptaker is giving much of his wealth away. And first on his list of beneficiaries are homeless horses, down-on-their-luck cows and other large abandoned or abused animals in need of a little comfort.
For Aptaker, a lifelong bachelor soured on humanity by his wartime experiences, the late-life gift is an opportunity to do something special for animals, some of whom have been among his best friends.
Houston's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recently announced that the businessman had given the group 60 acres near George Bush Intercontinent al Airport for creation of the Freedom Farm refuge. Basic infrastructure work has begun at the site, and the group soon plans to launch a capital campaign to build barns, corrals and other support structures.
"We were pretty jam-packed around here," SPCA executive director Patricia Mercer said of the group's Portway Street shelter complex. That five-acre site, home to the organization since 1994, at present houses 35 horses as well as chickens, pigs and hundreds of cats, dogs and rabbits.
As many as 1,000 horses may be housed at Freedom Farm, which, when completed, also will provide facilities for long-term care of orphaned pets, a caretaker's cottage and meeting areas for animal-oriented youth camps.
"This," Mercer said, "is a dream come true."
Aptaker, who also has established a foundation to promote understanding among ethnic and religious groups, vowed that his first gift will be followed by "many more."
"I love every kind of animal," Aptaker said. "It's the opposite of my experience with people. My experience with people was so horrible."
Some in family gassed
Born in the largely Jewish village of Zakrzowek, not far from Lublin, Aptaker was only 13 when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939. His mother, Sarah, and brother, Moshe, died in Nazi gas chambers. Aptaker, his father, Murray and another brother, Stanley, were interned in the Budzin, Wieliczka, Flossenburg and, finally, Dachau concentration camps.
Aptaker clearly recalls the arrival of German troops and their Polish collaborators at the family home.
"They knocked on all the doors and took people away," he said. "They took away all the people who could lead or spark an uprising. The police, the mayor — they took them to the forest and executed them. ... Two German soldiers came and knocked on our door, and with them were three Polish firemen — they were showing the Germans where the Jews lived.
"I had a small dog, and she had three puppies. The dog barked at them and grew more agitated. The little dog tried to defend me. A German finally pulled his Luger and shot it. The Polish firemen — they wanted to kiss up — they stomped the puppies. They kicked me and then left. My father was not at home."
Later, in the Budzin concentration camp, Aptaker's father, a Polish veteran of World War I who had supported his family by dealing in groceries, was forced to watch helplessly as a guard beat his son with a lead-filled whip.
"I stood at attention and the guard said in German that he'd get me dirty, a dirty Jew," Aptaker recalled. "He gave me a good lashing. Blood was running. I still have a little bit of scars. My father stood right in front, hateful tears coming out of his eyes."
Aptaker said the experience was key to his decision not to father children.
"I could not see giving life to children after I witnessed the torture my father was forced to endure as he saw me flogged."
As German fortunes waned in the spring of 1945, roughly 17,000 inmates of Flossenburg, including Aptaker and his father and brother, were marched 50 miles to Dachau.
"The guards were sadists," he said. "They must have been taken out of jails to be guards. Seventeen thousand started out; only 400 arrived. It was a horror walking in April. The nights were cold. The days were hot. People were drinking runoff from barns. Every few minutes you could hear the machine-gun fire. We were walking corpses."
The Aptakers were freed as U.S. forces liberated Dachau in April 1945.
For two years, Aptaker worked with U.S. intelligence units in Europe to capture German war criminals. He moved to New York City in 1947; his first job was as a deli worker.
Before buying his first Houston apartments in 1974, he worked as a dance instructor, operated dance studios in California and traded in precious African gems.
Based in Houston, his RCA Holdings Ltd. owned apartments and properties throughout the Southwest. Aptaker, whose Houston holdings alone approached $100 million, began curbing his activities two years ago after a triple heart bypass.
"I'm 80 years and five months," he said. "But I'm really 150. I look complete, but I'm really bionic. I've had a heart bypass, a hip replacement, shoulder operation, back operation, prostate cancer and I need a knee operation. I'm a survivor. I've conquered everything, even the German war machine."
Nationwide plan for pets
Initially, Aptaker hoped to create a center for the care of the pets of U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq.
"I was moved that a lot of Americans sent off to Iraq had major problems with what to do with their pets," Aptaker said. "My main idea was that it would be nationwide, and that I'd help with the money to set up places to keep their pets near their homes."
Medical and business problems stalled the effort.
Earlier this year, Aptaker began negotiations with the SPCA to create the Freedom Farm. And although the refuge's mission differs from his original vision, Aptaker said he believes the complex, which will include a monument to his parents, will provide desperately needed help for abused or abandoned animals.
"I needed to do something interesting and meaningful to me," Aptaker said, "and to me, this will do a lot of good. America has been so wonderful to me."
allan.turner@chron.com
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