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Durban man's legacy of love
Greg Arde. Independent on Saturday, 1 February 2003. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd
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Victor Daitz was a quiet Durban businessman who chose a life out of the limelight and was not one to boast about his achievements or his wealth. This could have been different, because the man who saw out the last of his 86 years in a flat in Cato Road, Durban, was worth more than R100 million. Daitz died in 1999, and this week hundreds of children in Ndwedwe, a rural area about 60k north of Durban, joined the many underprivileged who have celebrated his legacy.
The Victor Daitz Foundation spent R2,25 million transforming four dilapidated classrooms with broken roofs and no toilets into a magnificent school for 500 children. The Amatata school has an office block, 25 computers funded by the Council of KZN Jewry and pretty new classrooms set around a paved quadrangle with flower beds, a kitchen and an ablution block.
Briefly married and divorced with no children, Daitz was a keen reader and tasteful dresser, and textiles formed the basis for his incredible wealth. He attended school in Johannesburg and then went to Leeds University in England, where he received a diploma in textile production. On his return to SA, he joined his father's textile business.
Lithuanian-born Bernard Daitz focused on the manufacturing, buying and selling of linen cloth and fabrics. The family business, once Natal Cotton and Woollen Mills Limited, had as its major shareholders brothers Bernard, Victor and Morris. Victor spent his life working in the family business, but also invested in property and businesses overseas.
When his company was bought out by the Frame Group, he retired and became an astute investor. According to Daitz's will, the money he did not leave to servants, friends and relatives, was left to a number of trusts, now administered by the Victor Daitz Foundation, one of South Africa's foremost charitable foundations.
Said Alan Benn, who manages the Foundation: "It was always Victor's dream that the Foundation should contribute towards assisting the youth, the aged and welfare organisations. One of the greatest concerns of the Foundation is HIV/AIDS."
Benn said that "considerable resources" had been spent funding HIV/AIDS research through the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Nelson R Mandela Medical School. "Few of those who benefit from financial aid know anything about this humble businessman and his great dream, but all recipients have been touched by his legacy of love and caring."
Note: Professor Jerry Coovadia, HIVAN's Director of Biomedical Sciences, is the first incumbent of the Victor Daitz Chair of HIV/AIDS at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Nelson R Mandela Medical School. |
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