Leo Melamed - NNN 2023

PARENTS: Only child of Faygl (Barakin) and Isaac/Yitzchak Moshe Melamdowicz

STORY OF SURVIVAL: Born Leibel Melamdowicz, Leo Melamed and his parents, Faygl and Yitzchak, lived in Bialystok, Poland, where approximately 100,000 Jews lived before the war.  Leo  was seven years old when Germany invaded Poland in September, 1939.  Bialystok fell within the first week of the Nazi invasion. Before the war, Leo’s parents were renowned schoolteachers in the Yiddish Grosser Schule. His father was an esteemed mathematician and served as the only Jewish member of the Bialystok City Council. They were active members of the Jewish Labor Bund, a secular, socialist organization that promoted Yiddish culture and education.  Fearing being taken as hostages, Leo’s father and other prominent citizens fled Bialystok to Vilna, Lithuania, just before the German occupation. His father did not return home to Bialystok, as he did not trust the Russian soldiers who came to replace the German soldiers per the terms of the German-Soviet Pact. Leo and his mother eventually joined his father in Vilna. After Russia seized control of Lithuania, his father joined a Bundist resistance group and sought out ways for the family to leave Lithuania.  After about two years, on August 14, 1940, the family received two of the last life-saving transit visas, nos. 1758 and 1768, issued illegally by Japanese council general Chiune Sugihara. They departed Vilna in December, 1940, traveled across the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Railway, and arrived in Japan in January 1941. In April of 1941, Leo’s father received special consideration because the American Federation of Labor had included his name on a list to the State Department. Melamed's family was one of only 250 families that were fortunate enough to receive a visa and passage to the United States from Japan. The family arrived in Seattle, but soon moved to Chicago.

Special Note:

● While attending law school, Leo got a summer job at Merril Lynch as a runner for the trading pits. He loved it and learned everything he could about the business. At 33 years old, he left his career in law, founded the futures commission merchant (FCM) Delsher Investment Company, and worked full time in trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).  Leo was nominated by other brokers to lead the charge to take control and modernize the exchange. He became Chairman of the CME at the age of 37. Leo went on to create the International Monetary Market (IMM), the world’s first financial futures exchange and launched currency futures.

●  Leo led the CME and IMM in the creation of a number of financial products, including futures on US Treasury bills in 1967, Eurodollars in 1981, and stock index futures in 1982.

● In 1987, Leo became the attorney and futures trader at GLOBEX, the first electronic trading system in the world. He served as a chairperson until 1993.

In 2002, Leo led the CME membership to become the first American financial exchange to go public.

IN LEO'S WORDS

“Once the Russians came in, my father was afraid to live with us because for the obvious reason that he, Isaac Melamedovich, was someone that was an Anti-Stalinist and spoke in many places against communism. His name was on the KGB list for arrest.

I was now 8 years old, and they considered me an adult that I could take part in this decision. And, of course, I voted with my mother that we should take this attempt and try to leave, because, as my father said, if we don’t, we are surely going to be killed by the Nazis.