Renowned international economist, professor, and lecturer. Fund at The Trust supports biomedical research.
Richard Bak (1884-1973)
Emil Hahnloser (1882-1940)
Zerline Bak Hahnloser (1893-1942)
Richard Soma Bak was a renowned economist and statistician who specialized in international markets, finance, and economics. He also was a life-long philanthropist, “very interested in medical research, and cancer research in particular,” according to his wife, Dora.
Richard was born January 14, 1884, in Vienna, Austria, to Anna Rapaport and Phillippe Bak. He earned his PhD in economics from the Julius Maximilian University in Wurzburg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1907.
Dora was born August 14, 1914, and grew up in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), the daughter of Valentin and Irma Kuhn. Her father was a violinist for the local orchestra, and she developed a love for music and the arts. She also liked to paint, specifically in the Impressionist style, until she lost her eyesight in her mid-80s.
Dora married her first husband, Max Braun, in 1936 and applied for U.S. citizenship the following year. They divorced in 1944. She and Richard married 10 years later.
To facilitate his philanthropy, Richard established the Emil and Zerline Hahnloser-Richard Bak Foundation to honor his sister, who died in 1942, and her husband, Emil, who passed away in 1940. The foundation gave grants for medical research, according to his New York Times obituary.
Richard frequently traveled to Europe, where he was a featured speaker and guest lecturer at international conferences, and an economics professor at the Sorbonne and the University of Seville. He also was an honorary citizen of Dijon and Orleans, France, for his gift of historic relics, and an officer of the French Legion of Honor. Closer to home, Richard was a fellow of the American Geographical Society, a member of the American Arbitration Association, and vice president of the Association of Free French in the United States.
After Richard died in 1973, assets of the Hahnloser-Bak Foundation were transferred to a fund in The New York Community Trust.
In later years, Dora spent the winter months in Florida and considered it her second home, friends said. She died in December 2002. “She was passionate about music and passionate about art,” her attorney, William McEachern, wrote in a tribute. “She loved traveling to Venice. She loved good wine, champagne, and caviar.”