Marcus Choleva
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Marcus Choleva (April 12, 1933) is a Danish billionaire and CEO of a quite successful Danish concern called KFI (Købmændenes Finansieringsinstitut) which is translated to "The Merchants' financing-institute".
[edit] Life
Mr. Marcus Choleva was born (April 12, 1933) in Copenhagen to parents of Latvian-Lithuanic Jewish descent. His great-grandparents had fled Eastern Europe because of the increasing anti-semitism. The surname Choleva (Originally spelled Cholewa), is Polish and means a knee-boot.
Background
After the battles of Stalingrad and El-Alamein the incidents of resistance, violent and symbolic, increased exponentially in Denmark. In March 1943 the Germans allowed an election that embarrassed them by giving good results to anti-Nazi parties. The election, discontent, and a growing feeling of optimism that Germany would be defeated led to wide spread strikes and civil disturbances in the summer of 1943. The Danish government refused to deal with the situation in a way that would satisfy the Germans, so on 29 August 1943 the Germans officially dissolved the Danish government and instituted martial law. Moreover, when the collaboration between the Danish and the German government ended, the German policies became more rigours and this eventually entailed the beginning of the persecution of Danish Jews. While a lot of priviliged Danish Jews had fled to Sweden by boat, Marcus Choleva and his family were not that fortunate; their neighbours divulged their location to the Gestapo. They were subsquently arrested and sent to a concentration camp called Theresienstadt located in the present-day Czech Republic. The Danish Jews were treated better in Theresienstadt than other European Jews, and were not immediately deported to death camps like many of the Jews in the camp. Marcus Choleva and most of his family spent a year and a half in the concentration camp, surviving the Holocaust and its atrocities.
[edit] Recent Exploits
Last year, Marcus Choleva earned 14 million kroner (2.5 million USD), a record-high salary in Denmark for a CEO. KFI's board of directors said, that the salary depends solely on Mr. Choleva's own performance as a CEO.
Philanthropist
Marcus Choleva has donated a considerable amount of money, and a statue of remembrance to the Israeli holocaust museum, Yad Vashem.
