Business Black Box

meet a designer who would bring forth the European feel that
they so wanted to see again.
“He wanted it to be a people’s place, a place with dogs, and
children and people,” Trude says.
Under his leadership, Greenville saw the additions of the
Main Library, the Museum of Art, and the Hyatt, along with
numerous others. Even as he was appointed to start and lead the
S.C. State Development Board under Governor Riley, recruiting
companies like Michelin and starting up organizations like
the South Carolina Research Authority, Trude was a constant
presence. For five years, they travelled the world together,
entertaining and visiting on behalf of the state and making
friends in unlikely places.
At one point, the Hellers ended
up at the embassy in Japan. While
others were bowing, as is custom,
the ambassador walked over to Trude
and, recognizing her, gave her a hug.
In Final Days
The Holocaust, after all, she says, did not come from pure
ignorance; Hitler’s regime targeted some of the most influential
and educated of his time.
“I can’t imagine how people can change like that,” she says.
“And then, I wonder…can that happen to all of us?”
And so, in what time she doesn’t spend with her family, she
spends much of her time now travelling locally, speaking to schools,
children in foster care, and church groups. There, she transports the
audience to a time that many will hear about and still forget—where
she, a 15-year old girl, was tormented, teased and threatened; where
her 80-year-old grandmother was beaten to death in Auschwitz,
and her cousins were pummeled into trees until they passed away;
where her father would try fate time and
time again looking for escape; where her
mother sunk into herself, never to return
quite back to normal; and of course,
where she met a 17-year old boy that
would, in time, change everything.
“I lived it all,” she says. “And I am
so lucky.”
In June of 2011, with Max’s health
failing, he still kept thinking of the
city he called home.
“He was thinking until the last
minute,” Trude says. “The day before
he died he said to me, ‘Please, quick,
get me a paper and a pen. I just had
such a great idea, and I need to run it
by some people.’ My daughter said,
‘Daddy, what is it about?’ and he
said, ‘Diversity. There’s not enough
at Furman; there’s not enough in
Greenville. But I have this idea and this
is what we’re gonna do.’
“That was the day he died,” she
says. “And then he took it with him.”
And with all her tales of the
Holocaust and the trials of Nazi
Europe, the only time Trude Heller
is taken by emotion is when she speaks of Max. The mother of
three, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of 16 tears up
remembering the man who, while dancing 77 years ago, told
her they’d one day be married.
She points at no one, shaking her finger to make a point. “He
always kept his word.”
Today, at 91 years of age, Trude Heller is still a force—
spending much of her time speaking to groups about the
Holocaust and its modern-day equivalent. The woman who lost
90 members of her family to an effort that killed six million
Jews now speaks against bullying, and cautions against man’s
inhumanity to man.