Gene Wilder Gene Wilder Jerome Silberman (June 11, 1933 – August 29, 2016), known professionally as Gene Wilder, was an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, singer-songwriter and author. Wilder began his career on stage, and made his screen debut in an episode of the TV series "The Play of the Week" in 1961. Although his first film role was portraying a hostage in the 1967 motion picture "Bonnie and Clyde", Wilder's first major role was as Leopold Bloom in the 1967 film "The Producers" for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This was the first in
David Silberman massacres of November and December 1941 (near Riga); these recounted their survival stories to Silberman, as did many other survivors of the Holocaust. He rewrote these stories into readable material, which he began circulating and later publishing. Serge Klarsfeld, the well known French Nazi-hunter and historian of the Holocaust called David Silberman a "pioneer in the historical research". Distinguished historian, Marger Vesterman, director of the 'Museum of the Jews of Latvia' in Riga had this to say about David Silberman: "during decades he collected a great amount of testimony from survivors of the Holocaust that are now of a considerable