Herta Ehlert (1905 - 1997)

Herta Ehlert (née Liess; 26 March 1905, Berlin – 4 April 1997) was a female guard at many Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. On 15 November 1939, Ehlert was called for Schutzstaffel work by the Labor Exchange. She began work at Ravensbrück concentration camp. She stated, “… I had to see that civilian workers did […]

Herta Oberheuser (1911 - 1978)

Herta Oberheuser (15 May 1911 in Cologne, German Empire – 24 January 1978 in Linz am Rhein, West Germany) was a Nazi physician at the Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps from 1940 until 1943. Herta Oberheuser worked at concentration camps under the supervision of Dr. Karl Gebhardt, participating in gruesome medical experiments (sulfanilamide as well as […]

Olga Lengyel (1908 - 2001)

Olga Lengyel (19 October 1908 – 15 April 2001) was a Hungarian prisoner at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, who later wrote about her experiences in her book Five Chimneys. She was the only member of her family to survive. Olga Lengyel was a trained surgical assistant in Kolozsvár, Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), working in the hospital […]

Josef Mengele (1911 - 1979)

Josef Mengele (German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] ( listen); 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician in Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Mengele was a notorious member of the team of doctors responsible for the selection of victims to be killed in the gas chambers and for […]

Hermine Braunsteiner (1919 - 1999)

Hermine Braunsteiner was born in Vienna, the youngest child in a strictly observant Roman Catholic working class family. Her father Friedrich Braunsteiner was a chauffeur for a brewery and/or a butcher. Hermine lacked the means to fulfill her aspiration to become a nurse, and worked as a maid. From 1937 to 1938 she worked in […]

Juana Bormann (1893 - 1945)

Juana Bormann (or Johana Borman) (10 September 1893 – 13 December 1945) was a prison guard at several Nazi concentration camps, and was executed as a war criminal at Hamelin after a trial in 1945. At her trial, Juana Bormann said she had joined the Auxiliary SS in 1938 “to earn more money”. She first served […]

Josef Kramer (1906 - 1945)

Josef Kramer joined the Nazi Party in 1931 and the SS in 1932. His SS training led him into work as a prison guard and, after the outbreak of war, as a concentration camp guard. In 1934, he was assigned as a guard at Dachau. His promotion was rapid, obtaining senior posts at Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen […]

Elisabeth Volkenrath (1919 - 1945)

Elisabeth Volkenrath (5 September 1919 – 13 December 1945) was a German supervisor at several Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Elisabeth Volkenrath, née Mühlan, was an ungelernte Hilfskraft (unskilled worker) when she volunteered for service in a concentration camp. She started in October 1941 at Ravensbrück concentration camp as a simple Aufseherin. In March […]

Maria Mandl (1912 - 1948)

Maria Mandl was born in Münzkirchen, Upper Austria, then part of Austria-Hungary, the daughter of a shoemaker. After the Anschluss by Nazi Germany, Mandl moved to Munich, and on 15 October 1938 joined the camp staff as an Aufseherin at Lichtenburg, an early Nazi concentration camp in the Province of Saxony where she worked with fifty […]

James Joyce (1882 - 1941)

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde and is regarded as one of the most influential and important authors of the 20th century. James Joyce is best known for Ulysses (1922), a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer’s […]

David Markson (1927 - 2010)

David Merrill Markson was born in Albany, New York, on December 20, 1927. Educated at Union College and Columbia University, Markson began his writing career as a journalist and book editor, periodically taking up work as a college instructor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and The New School. Though his first novel was published in […]

William Gaddis (1922 - 1998)

William Gaddis was born in New York City to William Thomas Gaddis, who worked “on Wall Street and in politics”, and Edith (Charles) Gaddis, an executive for the New York Steam Corporation. When he was 3, his parents separated and Gaddis was subsequently raised by his mother in Massapequa, Long Island. At age 5 he […]

Marc Hunter (1953 - 1998)

Born in Taumarunui, Marc Hunter joined Dragon in 1974 and the band recorded two albums of progressive rock for Vertigo Records. The band moved to Sydney, Australia, in 1975. After suffering the heroin-related death of drummer Neil Storey, Dragon became a pop-rock act and went on to become one of Australia’s biggest-selling bands, scoring a […]

Douglas Camfield (1931 - 1984)

Douglas Gaston Sydney Camfield (8 May 1931 – 27 January 1984) was an accomplished director for television from the 1960s to the 1980s. He studied at York School of Art and aimed to work for Walt Disney. He was a Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment and was training to be in the SAS but […]

Hugh O Brian (1925 - 2016)

Hugh O Brian Hugh O Brian, who helped tame the Wild West as the star of TV’s “The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp” and was the founder of a long-running youth leadership development organization, has died. He was 91. Hugh O Brian, who had several health issues, died Monday morning with his wife nearby at […]

Jose Fernandez (1992 - 2016)

Jose Fernandez Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident early Sunday morning in Florida, the Marlins confirmed. The Marlins’ game against the Atlanta Braves scheduled for Sunday afternoon has been canceled. Fernandez, the 24-year-old right-hander whose vibrant personality endeared himself to fans as much as his dominant fastball, was a Cuban-born […]

Arnold Palmer (1929 - 2016)

Arnold Palmer Arnold Palmer, who died Sunday in Pittsburgh at age 87, led an American life that will never be duplicated, so rooted was it in a lost time and a place and the sui generis chemistry of the man. Arnold Palmer won his last major championship in 1964 and his last PGA Tour event in 1973, but in […]

Irma Grese (1923 - 1923)

Irma Grese was born to Berta Grese and Alfred Grese, a dairy worker. Irma was the third of five children (three girls and two boys). In 1936, her mother committed suicide by drinking hydrochloric acid after discovering that Alfred had had an affair with a local pub owner’s daughter. Alfred Grese is speculated to have […]

Jane Toppan (1857 - 1938)

Though scant records survive of Jane Toppan’s early years, it is known that her parents were Irish immigrants, and her mother, Bridget Kelley, died of tuberculosis when she was very young. Her father, Peter Kelley, was well known as an alcoholic and eccentric, nicknamed by those who knew him “Kelley the Crack” (crack as in […]

Mario Monicelli (1915 - 2010)

Mario Monicelli was born in Viareggio in Tuscany and was the youngest son of the journalist Tommaso Monicelli. His older brother Giorgio worked as writer and translator. Another older brother, Franco, was a journalist. He attended studies in the local lyceum, and entered into the film world through his friendship with Giacomo Forzano, son of the […]

Jimmy Sangster (1927 - 2011)

James Henry Kinmel “Jimmy” Sangster (2 December 1927 – 19 August 2011) was a British screenwriter and director, known for his work for horror film producers Hammer Film Productions, including scripts for The Curse of Frankenstein (the first British horror film to be shot in colour) and Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula). Jimmy Sangster originally worked […]

Mike Raven (1924 - 1997)

In the early 1960s, still using his real name, Mike Raven began working for BBC radio, presenting talks and, occasionally, Woman’s Hour. However, when his cousin, the Liberal Party politician Oliver Smedley, founded the pirate radio station Radio Atlanta, he joined the station as a disc jockey, broadcasting from the ship Mi Amigo moored off […]

Terry Nation (1930 - 1997)

Born in Llandaff, Cardiff, Terry Nation initially worked in comedy, entering the industry in 1955 after a (possibly apocryphal) incident in which Spike Milligan bought a sketch that he had written because he thought that Nation appeared hungry. During the 1950s, Nation worked with John Junkin and Johnny Speight for writers’ agency Associated London Scripts, […]

Tim Moore (1887 - 1958)

Tim Moore The face of Tim Moore is known to millions as that of George “Kingfish” Stevens, star of the “Amos ‘n Andy” television program.  What is not so well known is that Moore was literally called out of retirement to play that role.   He enjoyed a wide and varied career for many years […]

Freddie Francis (1917 - 2007)

Born in Islington in London, England, Freddie Francis was originally on the way to a career in engineering. At school, a piece he wrote about films of the future won him a scholarship to the North West London Polytechnic in Kentish Town. He left school at age 16, becoming an apprentice to a stills photographer […]

Milton Subotsky (1921 - 1991)

MIlton Subotsky was born in New York City, to a family of Jewish immigrants. During World War II, he served in the Signal Corps, in which he wrote and edited technical training films. After the war, he started a career as a writer and producer during the 1950s “Golden Age” of television. In 1954, he […]

Tiny Tim (1932 - 1996)

Tiny Tim Tiny Tim, whose quavery falsetto and ukulele made ”Tiptoe Through the Tulips With Me” a novelty hit in 1968, died on Saturday night at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. He was 64 and had lived in Minneapolis for the past year. The cause of death apparently was cardiac arrest, a nursing […]

George Wallace (1919 - 1998)

George Wallace George C. Wallace, 79, the four-time governor of Alabama and four-time candidate for president of the United States who became known as the embodiment of resistance to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, died last night in Montgomery, Ala. He had battled Parkinson’s disease in recent years. Cut down by a would-be […]

Notorious BIG (1972 - 1997)

Notorious BIG Notorious BIG was large and imposing; at 6 ft 3 inches Christopher Wallace weighted close to three hundred pounds. Notorious BIG was born in Brooklyn to Jamaican parents growing up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area and raised by his mother Voletta Wallace a preschool teacher. He was singing and talking before he could walk. At […]

Sir William Wallace (1270 - 1305)

Sir William Wallace Sir William Wallace, a Scottish knight, became a central early figure in the wars to secure Scottish freedom from the English, becoming one of his country’s greatest national heroes. Born circa 1270, near Paisley, Renfrew, Scotland, William Wallace was the son of a Scottish landowner. He spearheaded his country’s long charge against the English toward […]