Born Saarbrücken, March 17, 1929. Died São Paulo, November 18, 2010, aged 81.
THE LONGEST-SERVING staff member of the World Jewish Congress, Hella Moritz retired as chief secretary — officially executive assistant — after 45 years’ service, at 80. She started in 1964 under the WJC’s co-founder and second president, Dr Nahum Goldmann. She continued under successive presidents, Philip Klutznick, Edgar Bronfman and Ronald Lauder, travelling to its offices in Geneva, Paris and New York.
The WJC was founded in 1936 in Geneva by Dr Goldmann and American Reform leader, Rabbi Stephen Wise, as the diplomatic arm of Jews worldwide, seeking peaceful solutions to problems through behind-the-scenes talks. Its British representatives come from the Board of Deputies.
Brought up in Paris, Hella Moritz was born in Saarbrücken, the capital of the Saar region which was jointly administered by Britain and France from 1920-35 under the League of Nations. After the region voted to join Nazi-run Germany, her family fled to Brazil.
Growing up in São Paulo, she worked for the Israeli consulate in the city before moving to the WJC. She dedicated her life to the organisation and never married. A thorough professional, fluent in eight languages, she attended and interpreted at negotiations in countless meetings with ministers and heads of state with calm efficiency and discretion.
Her amazing memory and unflappable courtesy made her an invaluable asset and ensured continuity within the organisation. But it was not all heavy going. Her “peerless anthology” — as a colleague put it — of Jewish jokes lightened the tensions and sometimes tedium of discussion.
She was involved in the early development of the Claims Conference, cofounded by Dr Goldmann in 1951, the Soviet Jewry campaign of the 1970s and 80s followed by help for Soviet Jews after the collapse of Communism, the exposure of Kurt Waldheim’s war record in his 1985 Austrian presidential bid, the 1990s investigation into Swiss bank “Nazi gold” and the restitution of stolen Jewish assets.
Retiring to her family in Brazil in November 2009, she compiled the WJC’s weekly report, thereby keeping in touch with her old colleagues.
This obituary was published by the British weekly 'The Jewish Chronicle' on 3 December 2010.