Every once in a while a hero comes around touching our hearts, leaving a wealth of inspiration to future generations and those looking for answers. A never before survivor and business icon tells his story.

Watching him roll down the driveway on his throaty Harley Davidson, out to explore his scenic neighborhood in Aspen, you wouldn’t think you were watching a man who had started out by losing everything.

The motorcycle enthusiast is handsome octogenarian Alex Kaufman, a man who parleyed a single quarter into a half-billion dollar chemical company in New Jersey. But, that was just one of his ventures he built after surviving Nazi prison camps and the loss of his entire family without any closure or ever learning how they died. During a brilliant business career, Kaufman was able to live the quintessential American success story. As part of his most excellent adventure, he now makes his life in Aspen, enjoying his grandchildren, the breathtaking scenery right from his living room, playing tennis religiously, and his new interests, like the vineyard he recently purchased in New Zealand. He’s also one of the friendliest people you’re likely to meet, someone who laughs a lot and is full of zest for life. After only a short time in his company, he seems like someone I have known my whole life. Not many business moguls with genius minds would have such humble approach and appreciation for life and friends.

But before his idyllic existence, in his youth, Alex Kaufman faced the toughest obstacles we would only know from history books, but most likely never face. Yet, with unprecedented strength and unshakable faith he was able to create an extraordinary life out of nothing. And, that he did quite literally. Having had lost all he got three times over, “Honoring the past, but living in the present is important,” he says while sipping on red wine, lighting a cigar and remembering stories after surviving Nazi genocide. He and his guy friend were assigned by the Germans a tiny room in an apartment complex where they were told their neighbors were going to be two “charming young ladies.” Excited to stir up some fun, they showed up only to be greeted by two old nuns for roommates. Bursting into a big laugh, he says, “But, we found a solution for everything.” Not hard to believe from a man who survived in the forest all by himself for four years and took a bullet out of his foot with his bare hand.

Alex Kaufman was in his teens, living comfortably with his well-to-do family in Poland, before World War II broke out. His father was an attorney and professor of law, and his mother was a bon vivant who loved to ski. Alex also had a sister, Irene, who was three years older and a brilliant student. Together, the family had an active, culturally-involved life.

In 1939, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin made a pact that divided up Poland, with the city of Lwow ending up under Soviet rule. It was the beginning of a series of horrors that wouldn’t end until the German surrender.

As his hometown came under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union, the communists stripped away all middle class privileges, forcing the family to move out of their home and into a small apartment. The family worked at menial jobs, and Alex and his sister went to school to learn Russian. Times were hard, but at least the family was together.

In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and, in the process, took over Poland. As The Nazis systematically separated men and women, families were broken up and everyone was put to work as slave labor. Alex was separated from his parents and sister, none of whom he would ever see again.

As a strong young man of 17, Alex was forced to work pounding railroad spikes with a hammer 14 hours a day. As he worked, he saw that Germans were killing Jews all around him, and he knew that he would be killed at some point too. Determined to survive, Kaufman decided to escape by hopping a slow moving freight train that rolled past his work site. He ran for the train and jumped aboard, where he was spotted by the guards. As the train rolled down the track the guards fired at him, wounding Alex in the foot.

Hanging on for his life, Alex was able to ride the train until it had travelled deep into the surrounding woods where he finally jumped off to hide. He was hurt and scared, but he was alive. “This was my first entrepreneurial move,” he says. “ I took a risk and it worked.”

Convinced however that the SS and their dogs were on his trail, Alex went into hiding. When he thought it safe, he would come out of the woods and offer to work at local farms and villages. Alex would earn food by chopping wood or other tasks on the farm. “I would hire myself to work for food, doing whatever I could on the farms,” he says. “There were no men around the area because of the war.” Then he would return to the forest again to hide. “It was a very primitive existence,” says Kaufman, “but I felt I was lucky to be alive.”

Kaufman was able to survive through the brutally cold winters on the meager food that he earned or stole. Sometimes he would shuck corn off the cob so that he could hide it in his pockets and, together with a couple of stolen potatoes, was able to make a meal. “I would make a pot out of parts of tin cans the Germans had discarded, but was always afraid to use a big fire, in case I would be discovered.” he says. Temperatures often plunged below freezing during the winter, and Kaufman suffered frozen limbs. He sometimes had to sleep with snow piled around him for warmth.

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