Mathilde Albers, a German Jew who escaped her homeland days before the start of World War II and built a life of prosperity, philanthropy and Jewish community activism in the Bay Area, died this week at her Oakland home. She was 99.
“Mathilde has touched, enriched and influenced the lives of many in our community and throughout the world,” said Rabbi James Brandt, CEO of the Jewish Federation of the East Bay. “She was one of our most beloved and influential leaders. She was a pillar and keystone in our community and will serve as an example to all forever.”
Throughout her long life, Albers was active in many Jewish organizations, particularly with the Federation, where she was serving as honorary president at the time of her death. In May, she was honored at the Federation’s “Israel Out Loud” gala for her dedication to Israel.
Albers became one of the region’s most dedicated Jewish philanthropists, especially when it came to support for Israel.
“Bottom line, she was an A+ philanthropist and activist,” said her son, Dennis Albers of Piedmont. “She was about working within the community to be of help the best she could.”
A native of Westphalia, Germany, Albers was a medical student in Cologne when she and her husband, Henry, fled to England days before Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939.
With the help of Albers’ two brothers in Holland, the couple acquired the necessary work permits to gain entry to England. Once in Britain, the newlyweds awaited visas for the United States. They set sail a year later in the middle of the Blitz, the German bombardment of Britain.
The 16-week journey took them via Iceland and Greenland and through the Panama Canal. Their transport was a captured German ship called the Dusseldorf, Albers said in a 1999 J. interview, and the boat had its problems and seemed to break down every five minutes.
“The crew wouldn’t know what to do because all the instructions were in German,” Albers recalled. “They wouldn’t let us translate it because we were considered enemy aliens.”
After arriving in California, the couple built a hospital equipment supply company in Oakland. They were dedicated members of Oakland’s Temple Sinai, and they raised their son to appreciate America, the Jewish community and Israel.
“It was a serious household,” Dennis Albers said, “one directed toward accomplishment, education and making the most of being American. The common dinner table conversation subject was the Federation or something to do with Israel. Israel was everything to them.”
Henry Albers died in the early 1970s, but Mathilde Albers never stopped working, even after selling the business in 1976. From then on, she devoted herself to charity work and philanthropy.
She sat on the boards of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, AIPAC and Israel Bonds, gave large donations to the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Anti-Defamation League, and Ben-Gurion University and belonged to the UJA-Federation’s Prime Minister’s Council, a group of American philanthropists who donated $100,000 or more to Israel.
Roberta Cohn, a longtime Federation leader and currently a member of the governing board of Gan Shalom Cemetery in Martinez, first met Albers in the late 1960s. She remembers her friend as someone who was always there for the Jewish community.
“Her legacy is the importance of giving and supporting the community,” she said. “We all knew her that way.”
Dennis Albers said his mother’s Zionism formed around the idea that, had there been an Israel before the 1940s, the Holocaust might have been avoided. That spurred her passion for Israel.
“You can’t educate about loving Israel,” Mathilde Albers said in May. “You have to feel it. It’s about taking pride in our own heritage and traditions, being true to our faith and believing in something. I never think back. I only look forward.”
In addition to her son, Albers is survived by daughter-in-law Tracy Albers of Piedmont, and grandchildren Joel Albers and Jamie Albers of New York.