Heinz Gelles, longtime St. Louis resident and native of Vienna who escaped the Nazis and set up successful businesses here, died Saturday, Jan. 12, at a retirement home in Portland, Ore., where he had moved.   His family said that he had been diagnosed with diabetes and melanoma.

Mr. Gelles, described by family members as “brilliant, charming and funny” who could “drive his closest family members, friends and colleagues a wee bit crazy at times,” and who thought worry to be “a useless emotion,” was born in Vienna, Austria on April 12, 1925, the only son of Josef and Erna Geller.

He often recalled his good fortune at age 16 to have been one of the oldest and last children to be included in what came to be known at the Thousand Children Transport, a partnership among Jewish philanthropies that rescued and resettled unaccompanied or orphaned children to the United States to escape the horrors of the Holocaust.  He lost both of his parents to the Shoah.

Mr. Gelles knew only one person in the United States, Otto Hess, a school friend from Vienna who had fled there to live with family in St. Louis. Mr. Gelles asked to go to St. Louis, where he was placed in a foster home in June 1941. He later met his future wife, Rose Rogul, at a Habonim Zionist Youth Group meeting. He enrolled at Soldan High School, but dropped out when he turned 18 in 1943 to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps., where he was granted U.S. citizenship after completing boot camp.

After scoring high on a battery of standardized tests, Mr. Gelles was sent by the Marines for a Japanese language training course, after which he served as an interpreter before being pulled from his platoon as it headed for Iwo Jima. The Marines gave him the option to attend college, and he enrolled at Yale University, where he earned his degree in economics, with honors in 1947.

Mr. Geller was the co-founder of the Gelles-Widmer Co. in the 1950s. He later became an executive with McGraw-Hill and founded the Phoenix Learning Group, now located in Maryland Heights. In 1985, his firm won an Academy Award for the short film “Molly’s Pilgrim.”

Mr. Geller was a lifetime supporter of Jewish philanthropies, including the Jewish Federation and its education agencies.  He was also a strong supporter of the State of Israel and the Israel Bonds Organization.  He was also active in the local Democratic Party.

Mr. Gelles moved to Portland after his wife died in 2002.

Funeral services were held on Wednesday, Jan. 16, at the Berger Memorial Chapel. Burial was at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, 7500 Olive Boulevard.

Survivors include a daughter, Erna Gelles of Portland; two sons, Joseph Gelles of Cleveland Heights, Ohio and Jeffrey Gelles of Philadelphia, and seven grandchildren.

Memorial donations may be made to Shir Tikivah Congregation of Portland, Ore., or the Oregon Holocaust Museum.