When he turned 50, Chris began piecing together the fragmented and rarely discussed story of his family’s Holocaust survival. The story is one of survival and resilience forged through countless difficult choices made under unimaginable circumstances.
Chris’s father who was born in Lyon, France in 1942 to Austrian Jews. Although they grew up just miles from each other in Vienna’s Jewish district, Chris’s grandparents Anne Feldstein and Siegfried Berditschevsky did not actually meet until their arrival in Lyon. They, along with parents and siblings, were forced to flee Vienna after the German’s March 1938 annexation of Austria. Members of their family endured the forced “sale” property and possessions, imprisonment in Dachau, destruction of their synagogue, loss of their home, family and friends—events strung together by unimaginable fear.
An unlikely pairing—Anne a devoted Zionist youth group member and Siegfried overwhelmed by a life of antisemitic discrimination, they survived in what would become occupied France by aiding the Resistance, building a hiding place in their flat, and appearing Christian in public. Despite Anne’s desire to immigrate to Israel with her two brothers, Chris’s family immigrated to the U.S.
When he turned 50, Chris began piecing together the fragmented and rarely discussed story of his family’s Holocaust survival. The story is one of survival and resilience forged through countless difficult choices made under unimaginable circumstances.
Chris’s father who was born in Lyon, France in 1942 to Austrian Jews. Although they grew up just miles from each other in Vienna’s Jewish district, Chris’s grandparents Anne Feldstein and Siegfried Berditschevsky did not actually meet until their arrival in Lyon. They, along with parents and siblings, were forced to flee Vienna after the German’s March 1938 annexation of Austria. Members of their family endured the forced “sale” property and possessions, imprisonment in Dachau, destruction of their synagogue, loss of their home, family and friends—events strung together by unimaginable fear.
An unlikely pairing—Anne a devoted Zionist youth group member and Siegfried overwhelmed by a life of antisemitic discrimination, they survived in what would become occupied France by aiding the Resistance, building a hiding place in their flat, and appearing Christian in public. Despite Anne’s desire to immigrate to Israel with her two brothers, Chris’s family immigrated to the U.S.
Chris Berdy is a second-generation Holocaust survivor and dual citizen of both the United States and Austria. He shares the story of his father’s survival in occupied France following his grandparents’ and extended family members’ expulsion from Vienna after the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938.
Chris is a partner in the law firm of Butler Snow LLP. Active in the community, Chris is on the Board of Directors of the Alabama Holocaust Education Center, and he is the AHEC’s president-elect. He is a member of the Rotary Club of Birmingham and St. Mary’s-on-the-Highlands Episcopal Church, and he recently completed a 3-year term as a board member for the International Association of Defense Counsel.
A frequent speaker and author, Chris was recently awarded a 2024 Burton Award for his essay The Nuremberg Trials: A Story for Trial Lawyers. Held annually at the Library of Congress, The Burton Awards recognize 20 U.S. lawyers from nominations submitted by the nation’s top 1,000 largest law firms for maintaining the highest standard of excellence in legal writing. Chris and his wife Katherine have been married for 24 years and have two children.
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