Bill Graham (January 8, 1931 — October 25, 1991) was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.
Graham was born Wolodia Grajonca in Berlin and given the nickname Wolfgang by his family early in his life. Graham was the youngest son of a lower-middle-class Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia prior to the rise of Nazism. Graham's father died two days after his son's birth. Graham's mother placed her so...
more
Bill Graham (January 8, 1931 — October 25, 1991) was an American impresario and rock concert promoter from the 1960s until his death.
Graham was born Wolodia Grajonca in Berlin and given the nickname Wolfgang by his family early in his life. Graham was the youngest son of a lower-middle-class Jewish family that had emigrated from Russia prior to the rise of Nazism. Graham's father died two days after his son's birth. Graham's mother placed her son and his younger sister in an orphanage in Berlin due to the increasing difficulty of survival for Jews in Nazi Germany. This turned out to be fortunate, as the orphanage sent them to France in a pre–Holocaust exchange of Jewish children for Christian orphans.
Graham's older sisters stayed behind with his mother. After the fall of France, Graham was among a group of Jewish orphans spirited out of France. A majority of the children—including Graham's younger sister Tolla—did not survive the journey. Graham's mother was killed in Auschwitz....
less
