Dr. Julian Jakob Bussgang
Polish-Born Holocaust Survivor, WWII Veteran,
Mathematician, and Entrepreneur
Dr. Julian Jakob Bussgang, a prominent mathematician, entrepreneur, and one of the last living Holocaust survivors in Boston, died on Saturday at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts, surrounded by his loving family. He was 98.
Dr. Bussgang was born on March 26, 1925, in Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) to the late Stefania (Philipp) and Joseph Bussgang. In mid-September 1939, precisely 84 years prior to his death, he fled with his parents and sister, the late Janine Bussgang Merab, to Romania and then to Palestine, barely avoiding the persecution and death camps that befell so many relatives and friends. His father had successfully smuggled a few bars of gold into Romania, allowing the family to earn a capitalist visa to the British Mandate of Palestine.
After finishing the Polish refugee high school in Tel Aviv, he joined the Polish 2nd Corps led by General Władysław Anders which had become a part of the British Army to join the fight to liberate Europe from the Nazis in World War II. He first trained with an armored unit in Egypt – later joking whenever his driving was criticized that he first learned to drive a tank. He saw combat in Italy as a member of the light anti-aircraft artillery and participated in the Polish Army attack on Monte Cassino in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. Later, he fought in the battles of Ancona and Bologna. In recognition of his service, he was promoted to the rank of captain decades after the war.
When the war ended, Dr. Bussgang remained briefly in Italy, attending the Polytechnic of Turin, and then transferred to the Polish Resettlement Corps in England, resuming his studies at the University of London, where he received his B.Sc. (Engineering) in Telecommunications. In 1949, he came to the United States. As a survivor, refugee, and immigrant, his peripatetic journey to the United States resulted in his ability to speak five languages fluently, albeit each one with an accent.
Dr. Bussgang enrolled at MIT, where he made many good friends as he established a new life. He was awarded a small scholarship and waited tables in the university dining hall to cover his expenses. He received the MSEE degree from MIT in 1951, publishing his thesis, later known as The Bussgang Theorem, as a report for MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics. The Bussgang Theorem became a popular tool for stochastic analysis and signal processing, with important applications in radar, sound, and digital communications.
Dr. Bussgang went on to earn his PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard in 1955. After working at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and then at RCA’s Aerospace Division, he became the founder and president of Signatron, Inc., an electronics communication company. During a period of tremendous investment in defense electronics and communications in the United States, his company made a large impact in the field of applied physics, electronics, and communications. He was a consultant to Grumman Aircraft in the selection, simulation, and evaluation of Rendezvous Radar and Landing Radar for the Lunar Module for man’s first trip to the moon. He also developed high data rate, troposcatter (over the horizon) modems and radio channel simulators. Among its many successful initiatives, Signatron created a satellite system that measured continental drift and served as a consultant in the creation of Raytheon’s Patriot antimissile missile. In addition to his eponymous theorem, Dr. Bussgang held six patents and a top-secret security clearance.
Signatron was acquired by the defense electronics firm Sundstrand Corporation in 1984 and Dr. Bussgang retired in 1987. At the time, the company had over 100 employees and had been entirely bootstrapped. While running Signatron, he was a visiting lecturer in the Graduate Electrical Engineering program at Northeastern and taught a graduate course on signal processing at Harvard in the Division of Applied Science and Engineering. In honor of his professional contributions, he was named a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), an organization where he served for a number of years as Boston Section Chair and received the IEEE Distinguished Service Award.
After his professional career ended, a second career began – this time in partnership with his beloved wife, Fay (Vogel). The two met in Newton at a mutual friend’s house in the late 1950s and, after a period of courtship – which included Dr. Bussgang sharing his unique and fascinating life story – were married at the MIT Faculty Club on August 14, 1960. From the late 1980s onward, the couple embarked on a decades-long mission to support and memorialize the history of Polish Jewry. These efforts included living in Warsaw and Krakow after the fall of the Berlin Wall numerous times as a volunteer with the nonprofit International Executive Service Corps, helping to privatize Polish industry.
Dr. Bussgang and his wife also translated two volumes of wartime accounts of child survivors still living in Poland, The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak, Northwestern University Press (1998 and 2005). He and Fay were named honorary members of the Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland in 1998. Dr. Bussgang translated into English the booklet Polish Jew-Polish Soldier, issued in 1945 by the Chief Rabbi of the Polish 2nd Corps to honor Polish Jews who fought in World War II. The combined Polish and English versions were published in 2010 by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. He also authored a chapter entitled “The Progressive Synagogue in Lwów” in POLIN: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 11 (1998), 127–53, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization; and a chapter: “Metropolitan Sheptytsky: A Reassessment” in POLIN, vol. 21 (2008), 401–25. He was one of the organizers of three reunions of former students at his wartime Polish high school in Tel Aviv and co-authored their memorial books.
Dr. Bussgang served as a board member of the National Polish-American, Jewish-American Council sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and a board member of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies. In honor of his army service and leadership in supporting Polish-Jewish relations after the war, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland in 2011 by then President Bronislaw Komorowski.
Dr. Bussgang was an active citizen during his 40 plus years residing in Lexington, Massachusetts serving in its elective Town Meeting for nearly two decades. He was chair of its Cable TV and Communications Committee and served on a number of other committees concerned with maintaining the quality of life in Lexington and fighting the expansion of the Hanscom Field airport. In later years, he and Fay moved to NewBridge on the Charles, a retirement community in Dedham, Massachusetts, where they spent 14 happy years.
Despite his voluminous professional and civic accomplishments, Dr. Bussgang will be remembered most as a proud, loving, and dedicated husband, father, and grandfather. He and his wife raised their family in Lexington: Jessica (Thomas Rosenbloom), Julie (Rich Bernius), and Jeffrey (Lynda Doctoroff), and was a beloved grandfather to eight grandchildren: Raquel, Alana, and Michael Rosenbloom; Alex and Andrew Bernius; and Jackie (Josh Bussgang), JJ, and Jonah Bussgang. He also leaves his cherished nephew, Dr. Jacques Merab.
A funeral service will be held at Temple Beth Elohim, 10 Bethel Road, Wellesley, at 10:00 am on Tuesday, September 19, 2023. In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to American Friends of POLIN Museum or the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.