Editing Roald Hoffmann (section)

==Early life==

===Escape from the Holocaust===
Hoffmann was born in [[Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast|Złoczów]], [[Second Polish Republic|Poland]] (now Zolochiv, [[Ukraine]]), to a [[Polish-Jewish]] family, and was named in honor of the Norwegian explorer [[Roald Amundsen]]. His parents were Clara (Rosen), a teacher, and Hillel Safran, a civil engineer.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/chemists/roald-hoffmann-info.htm |title=Roald Hoffmann |publisher=HowStuffWorks |access-date=October 4, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005015520/http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/chemists/roald-hoffmann-info.htm |archive-date=October 5, 2013 |df=mdy-all |date=July 2010}}</ref> After Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town, his family was placed in a labor camp where his father, who was familiar with much of the local infrastructure, was a valued prisoner. As the situation grew more dangerous, with prisoners being transferred to extermination camps, the family bribed guards to allow an escape. They arranged with a Ukrainian neighbor named Mykola Dyuk for Hoffmann, his mother, two uncles and an aunt to hide in the attic and a storeroom of the local schoolhouse, where they remained for eighteen months, from January 1943 to June 1944, while Hoffmann was aged 5 to 7.<ref>The rescue of [http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=6601540 Roald Hoffmann] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161013065343/http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=6601540 |date=October 13, 2016 }} at [[Yad Vashem]] website</ref><ref name="COH">{{cite book|title= Roald Hoffmann, interviewed by David J. Caruso in Cornell University on October 16, 2014. Oral History Transcript 0925 |date= 2020 |place=Philadelphia, PA|publisher=[[Science History Institute]] |url=https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/c27a8s8}}</ref>

His father remained at the labor camp, but was able to occasionally visit, until he was tortured and killed by the Germans for his involvement in a plot to arm the camp prisoners. When she received the news, his mother attempted to contain her sorrow by writing down her feelings in a notebook her husband had been using to take notes on a relativity textbook he had been reading. While in hiding his mother kept Hoffmann entertained by teaching him to read and having him memorize geography from textbooks stored in the attic, then quizzing him on it. He referred to the experience as having been enveloped in a cocoon of love.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsSxheYLtxU |title=The Moth: The Long Ukrainian Winters - Roald Hoffmann |website=YouTube |date=January 15, 2012 }} featuring Roald Hoffman, lecture at the [[World Science Festival]]. {{Cite web |url=http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/moth_the_long_ukrainian_winters |title=World Science Festival Video : Moth: The Long Ukrainian Winters |access-date=January 13, 2012 |archive-date=January 15, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120115223218/http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/moth_the_long_ukrainian_winters |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref><ref name="COH"/> In 1944 they moved to [[Kraków]] where his mother remarried.<ref name=nobel/> They adopted her new husband's surname Hoffmann.<ref name=nobel/>

Most of the rest of the family was killed in [[the Holocaust]], though one grandmother and a few others survived.<ref>[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5519776 The Tense Middle] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180223051250/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5519776 |date=February 23, 2018}} by Roald Hoffmann, story on NPR. Retrieved September 29, 2006.</ref> They migrated to the United States on the troop carrier ''Ernie Pyle'' in 1949.<ref name=Passerelles>{{cite journal|last1=Hoffmann|first1=Roald|title=Passerelles|journal=Chemical Heritage Magazine|date=2012|volume=30|issue=2|page=37|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/passerelles|access-date=20 March 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180321132221/https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/passerelles|archive-date=March 21, 2018|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Hoffmann visited [[Zolochiv, Lviv Oblast|Zolochiv]] with his adult son (by then a parent of a five-year-old) in 2006 and found that the attic where he had hidden was still intact, but the storeroom had been incorporated, ironically enough, into a chemistry classroom. In 2009, a monument to Holocaust victims was built in Zolochiv on Hoffmann's initiative.<ref>[http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/20/1006633/holocaust-monument-dedicated-in-western-ukraine Holocaust monument dedicated in western Ukraine] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120516012511/http://www.jta.org/news/article/2009/07/20/1006633/holocaust-monument-dedicated-in-western-ukraine |date=May 16, 2012}}. [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]]. July 20, 2009</ref>