The Philips offices dominate the skyline in Eindhoven. The contribution that Philips has made to the city is hard to escape. Just as Philips grew to be a world-leading innovator of the modern essentials of convenient life, Eindhoven has grown too.
Opposite the white office/factory complex seen here, is the museum dedicated to Frits Philips and to the many products that brought light to the lives of many.
Frits Philips was the fourth chairman of the board of directors of Dutch electronics company Philips, he died at the age of 100 on December 5, 2005, in the same city where he was born and lived; Eindhoven.
During the occupation of the Netherlands by nazi Germany in World War II, Frans Otten and Anton Philips, the other managers in the company, fled to Great Britain. Frits, however, stayed in the Netherlands. From May 30 until September 20, 1943, he was held in the concentration camp Vught because of a strike at the Philips factory.
During the occupation, Frits saved the lives of 382 Jews by indicating to the nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. In 1996, he was awarded the Yad Vashem reward by the Israeli ambassador for his actions.
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