Hillel Hassenfeld

Hillel Hassenfeld was one of three Polish-Jewish brothers — with Herman and Henry — who founded Hassenfeld Brothers in Providence, Rhode Island, in late 1923, selling textile remnants before the firm moved on to pencil cases, school supplies and then toys. When the company was incorporated in Rhode Island in January 1926 he left it for another textile business, and he died in 1943, the year after Hassenfeld Brothers had become principally a toymaker and the year his brother Henry took over as chief executive. The company they started is now Hasbro. Immigrants from Ulanów in Poland, the Hassenfeld brothers spent the war years helping to rescue and employ fellow Jews from their home town: Jacob Klapper, a Holocaust survivor born in Ulanów, recalled being told on reaching the United States that Hassenfeld Brothers would employ any survivor from Ulanów, no questions asked.