Nazi Germany Refugee, Famous Ad Campaign Executive, W.F. West Grad Speaks About Life

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A Monday night event featured a refugee of Nazi Germany, the creator of a famous advertising campaign and a graduate of W.F. West High School — but the event only had one speaker.

Barbara Feigin is all of these things.

One of the school’s most notable alumni, Feigin spoke to a group of about 70 visitors and students about her life this week.

Feigin, a refugee from Nazi Germany and the first major female advertising executive in United States history, spoke about her autobiography and answered questions during a forum moderated by Chehalis School Board member J. Vander Stoep.

“I am so, so happy to be here with you tonight and to be back here in Chehalis,” said Feigin, a 1955 graduate of what was then called Chehalis High School.

As a member of the class of 1955, Feigin was among the first class of students to spend all four years of high school on the campus used today.

During the event on Monday, Feigin reminisced about her childhood as a member of a refugee family from Nazi Germany.

Born in Berlin in 1937 to a Jewish father and German Lutheran mother, Feigin said her family hadn’t left Germany earlier because her father thought they would be fine due to his prior service in the German military during World War I. Ultimately, the family was able to flee the Nazis in 1940, eventually settling in Chehalis. 

“He had given to Germany and thought Germany would give to him,” Feigin said.

She was too young to remember the journey and only learned what happened to her family when her younger sister called her a few years ago and said she found their father’s journal from before and during the family’s escape. 

“Neither of us had known that this even existed,” said Feigin, who called reading the journal the “most emotionally shattering experience.”

The family faced challenges leaving Germany, she learned, including difficulties getting the necessary documents and money. Ultimately, the family received financial assistance from Quakers and Jewish associations. While the faster way to the United States would have been over the Atlantic Ocean, the presence of submarines forced them to travel across Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The family traveled by train through Lithuania and Russia. Then, they went through Korea and Japan before taking a boat to Seattle. 

“The train was stopped 14 times along the way and every time they were panicked that they would be taken off the train and taken to the camps,” Feigin said. 

In total, 82 refugees embarked on the 17-day journey. The oldest refugee was 81 at the time. At just 2 years old, Feigin was the youngest.

“I learned so much about my parents (reading the journal). I learned things I had never even thought about when I was growing up. How courageous they’d been, how brave they’d been, how determined they were,” Feigin said. “They had such great perseverance to make a new life. They had gone through terrifying, harrowing, awful times, but they were completely optimistic and thrilled and elated about being in America, the land of the free.”

Feigin’s father kept that optimism for the country throughout the rest of his life, she recalled. He would tell her, “I can be who I want. I can think what I want. I can listen to the news and what happened and there’s opportunity here. With hard work, we can make a family life for ourselves.”

Feigin’s experience learning about her family’s journey led her to write a biography. She told the audience she didn’t want her children to be as unaware of their family history as she was.

“I think what comes before you is what makes you who you are and that’s really an important thing to know,” Feigin said.

After discussing her book, Feigin answered questions about her childhood in Chehalis and her career as the country’s first major female advertising executive. A pioneer for women in the Madison Avenue age of advertising, Feigin developed a traffic safety campaign for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which led to the creation of the slogan “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk.”



Feigin said her favorite clients were the ones who understood the power of advertising, specifically mentioning companies such as Procter & Gamble and Revlon. Feigin discussed some of her memories working with Revlon, the New York-based cosmetics company.

“They really understood how powerful advertising was and they pushed us to do our very best work. They were very difficult to work with,” Feigin said.

She told the audience about one incident in which the company’s founder, Charles Revson, was considering using the actress Elizabeth Taylor in advertisements. Feigin said she was called personally to do research to see if using Taylor would be effective. She brought results to Revson showing using Taylor in advertising would have no impact on consumers, to which Revson responded with hostility.

She recalled the owner telling her, “We do not ask women what they want, we tell them what they want.”

However, Feigin said Revlon ultimately did not use Taylor to promote its products. 

Her proudest work in advertising, she said, was the driving safety slogan. Alongside the famous catchphrase, the campaign included an entire program for what to do to promote safety.

“As soon as we started running this campaign, drunk driving deaths among teens dropped dramatically,” Feigin said.

Asked by the audience what she thought freedom was, Feigin cited her father.

“I think it’s really what my father said, the freedom to think what you want, to say what you want, to do what you want, to understand the nature of really endless opportunities, to dream the way you want, and really to pursue your dream,” Feigin said. 

Speaking about opportunities for teenagers, Feigin said she felt there are “many, many more opportunities” now for teenagers who want to go on to have careers.

“Particularly for women,” she added.

Asked what advice she would give to teenagers trying to find a career, Feigin advice was to be open-minded.

“Don’t be afraid to try things,” she said.

On her alma mater, Feigin said she was excited to see growth in both Chehalis and W.F. West.  While it’s technically the same building where she went to school, she noted extensive renovations, both architectural and for education.

Feigin said she was pleased to see how much the community had invested in Chehalis, and particularly praised the efforts to improve educational performance through the Student Achievement Initiative.

“It is a huge, huge thing for a community like Chehalis to have a program like this that has such an electrical energy behind it and has so much support from residents of the town. It’s fabulous, just fabulous,” Feigin said. “It’s a great, great model that can be taken to many places around the country.”