An American woman who fled Germany with her Jewish husband after World War II bequeaths 22 million dollars to the Cologne Zoo, the press reported on Friday.
Elizabeth Reichert (93) believes that the amount, converted to approximately 18.5 million euros, will be “well invested,” she said to the regional daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.
>>>Glamping in the USA has become a real industry
“Memories play a big role in the decision of whom to leave your money to,” said Reichert, who moved from Cologne to Israel and then to the United States, where she now lives near Philadelphia, but neither she nor her husband have “ever forgotten Cologne.”
Her husband, Arnulf Reichert, a Jew from Cologne, spent the entire war in hiding from Nazi deportations and, together with his wife, first moved to Israel and then to the USA, where he became wealthy as an entrepreneur.
The director of the zoo, Christopher Landsberg, “fell off his chair” when he heard the happy news. He has already begun the establishment of a foundation that will manage the wealth.
