HARRY FIELDS

FIELDS--Harry. Died on Monday April 28, 2014 at the age of 90. Born in Cologne, Germany, his family fled the rise of the Nazis for the Netherlands. They remained there until the war when they were taken and interned at Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Harry Fields, his father Isaac, mother Gisela, and brother, Alfred, miraculously survived the horrors of the camps as well as the notorious "Lost Transport" that followed their liberation. After earning a chemical engineering degree from the University of Amsterdam, he came to New York City in 1947 to work as a bottle washer for a small firm that later became the Fortune 500 company International Flavors and Fragrances. He worked at IFF for 44 years, and rose to serve as EVP of IFF Inc. and President of Flavors. In a life marked by equal measures of enormous strife and tremendous luck, his greatest good fortune was to have been married to Barbara Fields for 64 years. They raised two beloved children, Pamela and Michael, and he was equally devoted to his son-in-law Andrew, daughter-in-law Jessamyn, and grandchildren Daniel, Emma, and Willa. An accomplished linguist, he traveled to remote corners of the world and relished many adventures including Amazonian explorations, a submarine voyage to the Antarctic, and treks through the Borneo rainforest. He loved good bread and cheese, the sound of the violin and reading fine writing. An author late in life, his books include the wartime memoir "Turbulent Times." Harry Fields was knighted in 1996 by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands as an Officer in the Orde van Granje Nassau.