Erich Reich

Sir Erich Arieh Reich (; 1935 – 2 November 2022) was an Austrian-born British entrepreneur based in London, who through his company Classic Tours inspired over 50,000 people to raise £90 million for over 300 UK charities.

Early life Reich was born in 1935 in Vienna, Austria. In 1938, he was one of the children of 5,000 families deported by Nazi Germany to Poland. Under the Kindertransport agreement, he arrived in the United Kingdom, aged 4, in August 1939, one of 10,000 children. He never saw his parents again; they were murdered in Auschwitz.

Charity In 1992, Reich proposed a fund-raising bicycle ride, to raise funds for the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society and Ravenswood, a Jewish home for the disabled. The original proposal was for 50 people to ride the northern section of the newly opened Israel National Trail, from Dan in the north of Israel to Beersheba in the Negev. The eventual trip in November 1992 had 230 participants, and raised £600,000.

The sum raised and the enthusiasm it created resulted in Classic Tours being approached by other charities to undertake similar events. Classic Tours operated more than 100 events each year, offering events based on activities as varied as trekking, mountain climbing, and horse riding.

Personal life and death Reich was married four times and had five children from the first three marriages. His fourth wife was Linda Haase. He died on 2 November 2022, aged 87.

Awards

Reich was recognised with an outstanding contribution award at the 2008 Professional Fundraising Awards.

The smallest boy of the 2006 statue Kindertransport – The Arrival in London, commemorating the arrival of Jewish refugees at the city's Liverpool Street station, was modelled on Reich.