Edward Anders was born on June 21 1926, to Adolf and Erica Alperovitch, German-speaking Jewish parents in the Baltic port city of Liepaja, Latvia. When the Nazis invaded Latvia in June, 1941 Ed’s father devised a plan that could save Erica, Ed and his brother Georg but not himself. Ed and Erica were the only family members who survived. They fled to Germany in 1944 and then immigrated to the United States in 1949, where Ed enrolled in Columbia University and earned a Masters and Ph.D. in chemistry.
In 1955, the doors opened for the two great partnerships of Ed’s life. He married a charming, kind Canadian woman, Joan Fleming – and he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. There is no way to adequately convey how much joy Ed and Joan found together during their 63 years of marriage, before Joan’s death from Alzheimer’s in 2019.
Ed was a gifted scientist, studying meteorites and the first Apollo samples from the moon. He could be as precise as the thinnest marking on a slide rule — and as outrageously entertaining, on stage at scientific conferences, as a late-night comedian. His feisty letters to the Civil Aeronautics Board may actually have played a role in the development of non-smoking sections on airplanes. Late in life, he supported more than 40 charities, including Cure Alzheimer’s, Doctors Without Borders, Planned Parenthood and The Trevor Fund.
After Ed retired from academia in 1991, he and Joan moved to Europe, using a small Swiss apartment as a launchpad for countless travel adventures. In his 70s, Ed started an inspiring second career as a self-taught Holocaust historian, publishing multiple books.
Ed spoke English, German and Latvian quite fluently, with serviceable Russian and scraps of French, too. He learned a surprising amount of Czech during six weeks at the end of World War II, just because he could. At each stage of life, Ed brightened the lives of friends, families and countless younger scientists. Ed is survived by his children George (Betsy) Anders, Nanci (Anders) Schiman, grandchildren Sara (Greg) Sanders, Amy (Matt) Kolb, Emily Anders, Leah Schiman and Peter Anders, great-grandchildren Avery, Ezra and Calvin. We will miss him greatly and proudly carry on his legacy.