Wolfgang Marc Schatzberger BEM BScTech MIET, July 1926 – January 2021
Published: Fri 13 Aug 2021
Wolfgang Marc Schatzberger was a distinguished electrical engineer whose career led him on an extensive programme of overseas travel.
In retirement, he embarked on a busy schedule of talks in schools for the Holocaust Educational Trust, sharing his experiences of escaping Nazi-occupied Vienna on a Kindertransport at the tender age of 12.
His vital educational work earned him the British Empire Medal (BEM).
Marc grew up in an assimilated middle-class Polish/Jewish family, the only child of Maximilian, the manager of a transport company, and Ida (née Lewinter), a fine professional pianist.
He inherited his mother’s musical talent, his prized accordion chosen as one of the few possessions he was able to bring on the journey to London: following the horrors of the Anschluss and Kristallnacht (March/October 1938), Maximilian and Ida had made the heart-breaking decision to send him away from his hometown of Vienna on a Kindertransport.
They were scheduled to follow him on 15 September but, forced into hiding by the outbreak of war, ultimately reached Auschwitz instead in November 1944 – aboard one of the last Transports from the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
They did not survive, yet fully two years had passed before their son was finally notified of their fate – thanks to the International Red Cross.
Marc was little different from hundreds of other orphaned refugee children from Nazi Europe; yet he was able to build, from nothing, a distinguished career as an electrical engineer/company manager in Manchester – soon embarking on an extensive programme of overseas travel.
On arrival in England, he was first cared for in a Jewish children’s hostel in Margate. He soon moved to Liverpool, where he was fostered for a few months, and thence to Manchester – to be looked after by an uncle and aunt, who had managed to gain work in England as domestic servants.
Marc gained a BSc in Electrical Engineering at what is now known as the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) and soon began working as a designer of high-tension switchgear.
His first job – in Autumn 1949 – was as a Junior Engineer with MetroVicks, two years later moving to Long & Crawford Ltd as a Design Engineer; in 1953 he was appointed Chief Electrical Engineer at Brush Engineering (Stockport/Chorlton), after five years moving to Erskine Heap & Co as Chief Designer – at the same time taking membership of the Institute of Electrical Engineers as a “Chartered Engineer”.
In 1962 he became Assistant Chief Engineer at TAC Construction Materials Ltd (in Trafford Park), eventually being elevated to Company Manager there, when his projects subsequently took him to Tanzania, Malaysia, Nigeria, India, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Poland, and South Korea.
In 1976 he faced redundancy by starting his own consultancy, SchaPe, before the lure of more international travel took him to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Pakistan as a Worldwide Rep for Interasbest (Tirol, Austria).
Before retirement in 1991, he still managed a few more years as a Chief Sales Engineer for Unimatic Engineers.
Marc’s problem-solving skills extended beyond his career and into family life, where he was always relied upon as being able to fix anything!
He met his wife Rosl (née Fried) at the Young Austria group of largely left-wing Jewish refugees in Manchester – although, she remembered, they had in fact attended the same school in pre-war Vienna.
Their loving marriage spanned 74 years and spawned two children, six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. That five of their descendants (so far) have held clinical careers in the NHS is clear evidence of the contribution made to British society by refugees.
This was doubtless a message which Marc hoped to convey to the more than 10,000 young people he reached through a programme of talks in schools for the Holocaust Educational Trust.
Retirement in York – Rosl and Marc having relocated partly to help out with childcare when musician daughter Lesley was touring – brought countless new enterprises, including violin-making (we’re both proud to play on his instruments ourselves!), wood-turning, and volunteering for organisations such as U3A, hospital radio, and York Coronary Support Group.
From their village retreat outside the city these avid Guardian readers resumed their political activism, on behalf of the Labour Party, having joined the Austrian Young Communist League in September 1942 – but subsequently resigning in 1956, in protest against the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
But Marc’s greatest impact was, arguably, in his work for the Holocaust Educational Trust; it was in recognition of this prolonged vital work that he was awarded the British Empire Medal – received just three weeks before passing away at home on 24 January 2021, aged 94.
Marc’s first-hand accounts of the Holocaust served not just to educate children about the Holocaust, but also to broaden their understanding of the worst possible impacts of prejudice and discrimination.
Disturbed by the political direction of travel in many Western nations at the end of his life, we feel sure that he felt a responsibility to teach young people how to recognise the seeds of injustice before it grows out of control.
Marc was nothing less than a model European citizen, with an impeccable moral compass: we can all learn from his kindness, resilience and warmth.