Paul Nussbaum

Paul Nussbaum was born in Berlin on April 3, 1920. His boyhood years were spent in Berlin and in April 1933 he celebrated his Barmitzvah at Adass Jisroel Synagogue. That same year Hitler came to power in Germany and the lives of European Jewry was to tragically change. During a Nazi rally in Berlin, Paul hid in a hedge within a road median and saw Hitler which he said was one of the most terrifying moments of his life at the time.

In early 1934 his father Aron Nussbaum decided that the family was to leave Germany and after traveling to London they boarded a ship in Southampton and sailed to Cape Town South Africa. From Cape Town the family traveled by train to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia where they made their home and livelihoods.

Paul completed his schooling at Gifford Technical High in Bulawayo. He served in the Royal

Rhodesian Air Force during WWII and reached the rank of Sgt. Major. He was based in Salisbury the country’s capital, while he was enlisted. After the war he attended The University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg South Africa, where he graduated as an architect. Soon thereafter he married my mother Olga Jankes in 1948, who was born in Johannesburg in 1926. They moved to Bulawayo S. Rhodesia where Paul set up a successful architectural practice and became engaged in Jewish and civic organizations.

In 1963 my father and his family moved to Johannesburg South Africa, where he joined a large family architectural practice, which gave the family a good standard of living for many years. He continued to be active as a free mason and was involved in a number of Jewish and Zionist organizations in Johannesburg until he passed away in April 1984 at age 64.

Paul was a keen fisherman and managed to do a number of ambitious fishing trips in the Okavongo Delta, deep sea fishing off the Mozambique coast as well many local day trips. Paul & Olga had 3 children, Janet, Clive and Mark all of whom have families living in South Africa and the USA.

Paul will be remembered as a devoted family man and was fortunate to be part of a large extended family in South Africa and abroad. He left a legacy of being the ultimate mensch and instilling in his family that education, honest living and care of your fellow man would deliver the ingredients for a successful and meaningful life.