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JOSEPH BAUMBERG
(Nov 17, 1918 –Nov 25,
1997, USA)
Joseph Baumberg, the
son of David and Malka, was born on November 17, 1918 in Tskhinvali,
Georgia. Until the age of twelve, his mother studied mathematics with
him. She had an innate talent for
mathematics. She had four classes behind her, she was not taught
mathematical equations, but to everyone’s admiration she was able to solve
high school algebra problems in her mind. The history of the Jews, the
Torah and the Talmud were taught by Joseph’s grandfather Abram Khvoles. Joseph’s
ability to reason and find unexpected answers to his grandfather's
questions and, of course, his natural talent made him an outstanding
inventor over time.
After the death of his grandfather, at the age of
twelve, the parents sent Joseph to study at a Russian school in Tbilisi. He
was admitted to the fifth grade. Joseph lived in a small semi-basement
room, a tiny space without daylight, water, heating, and sewage. The room
had one chair and a table that served as a bed as well. On cold days,
Joseph would put the chair on the table closer to the light bulb to warm
his hands. He lived from hand to mouth: on water and 350 grams of bread a day.
Three to four pieces of sugar a month. Joseph's school years passed in
hardship, cold and hunger. He survived everything. He studied well.
Since earlier time Joseph had an idea to
determine the route using the compass-map system he developed. In Tbilisi,
he built a prototype and took it to the Bureau of Inventions. This was his
first invention. It was registered under number 193b on June 23, 1932 when Joseph
was fourteen years old!
At the end of 1937, when Joseph was attending the
University, his father got arrested.
A book of poems by Bialik, found during the search was used against
him as the "evidence of Zionist activity" and a Hanukkah
candleholder, given to him as a wedding gift - as a "religious
propaganda". He was executed
without a trial in 1938 along with seven other rabbis. As a result, the
whole family of the repressed rabbi: Malka with four children moved into a
tiny space that Joseph occupied.
At the beginning of the war, Joseph gave up the
exemption from the military duty that was provided to him as to a promising
young scientist. For some time, he taught physics at a military school and
spent more than three years on the front line as a commander of an
intelligence service platoon.
At the end of 1945 year Baumberg
was demobilized as a promising scientist in the field of radiation and sent
with his wife to the plant under construction at the Central Research
Laboratory. The laboratory was
located inside an old abandoned mosque.
Joseph worked a lot and enthusiastically. He
himself conducted experiments and set up the equipment, created by
him. He would sit at his work desk
well past midnight. He slept little. An inexhaustible inventor, he offered
more and more new ideas to increase production. Joseph was well known in
the uranium mining industry. But the times were merciless: In 1953, Joseph handed in a report on the
successful completion of testing of the new processing equipment. The
report was accepted. Approved. And then the "Encouragement"
followed: Joseph Baumberg, the author of the idea
underlying the new processing equipment and the head of the successfully
implemented work, was fired from the plant.
In 1953, Joseph and his family returned to
Tbilisi. It was hard to get a job,
as Joseph was bound by a non-disclosure agreement by the place and nature
of his previous work. He was the son of an "enemy of the people",
the grandson of the famous Rabbi Abram Khvoles,
the nephew of the rabbis of London and Paris, and with the relatives
abroad.
After a
long search he got a job at the Department of Physics at the Polytechnic
Institute. And here, as elsewhere before, his inventive abilities were
manifested at full force. He
graduated in absentia from the Pedagogical Institute (specialty -
mathematics) and transferred to the head of the laboratory at the Institute
of Inorganic Chemistry and Electrochemistry.
During ten years prior to leaving for USA, Joseph
with the co-authors patented more than 30 inventions and obtained the
copyright certificates for the process improvements in the field of the
steel industry.
In 1980,
Joseph and his family emigrated to America where he continued to create.
Joseph is the author of over a hundred copyright certificates and patents.
1997
Joseph was laconic. Those close to him have
always remembered him with a constant cigarette in the corner of his mouth,
through the clouds of blue smoke, a concentrated face illuminated by a lamp,
bent over his work desk with paper and a pencil. Unfortunately, he smoked a
lot. He hated intrigues. He was witty. He loved to joke. I
remember him saying, "The smoke of a cigarette turns into ideas."
Unfortunately, he did not live to see the implementation of many of his
ideas. War, troubles, and work with uranium shortened his life. The
restless heart of the inventor stopped on November 25, 1997.
By Arnold Levin
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