Roald Hoffmann — chem (nobel) with roots in the USSR
Roald Hoffmann, born Roald Safran on 18 July 1937 in Złoczów, then in Poland and now Zolochiv, Ukraine, is an American theoretical chemist. He survived the Holocaust as a child: from January 1943 to June 1944 he and his mother hid in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, and his father, Hillel Safran, was killed by the Germans. He reached the United States in 1949, studied at Columbia and Harvard, and joined Cornell University in 1965. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kenichi Fukui and also publishes poetry and plays.
"Hoffmann and his mother survived the war in hiding and reached the United States on the troop carrier Ernie Pyle in 1949."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Złoczów (Tarnopol Voivodeship, Poland)
Hoffmann was born in Złoczów in 1937, when the town belonged to Poland; before 1918 it had been part of the Austrian monarchy. In September 1939 the Soviet Union annexed the region, and its residents were declared Soviet citizens that November. Hoffmann lived there under Soviet rule until the German invasion in July 1941.
Złoczów (Tarnopol Voivodeship, Poland). At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.
A career defined by ambition
"I am a survivor, and I feel I owe it to those who did not survive to live fully and creatively."