Fritz Klein (1888 - 1945)

Fritz Klein was born in Feketehalom, Austria-Hungary (now Codlea in central Romania). Klein was considered a Volksdeutscher, or ethnic German. He studied medicine at the University of Budapest and completed his military service in Romania, finishing his studies in Budapest after World War I. He lived as a doctor in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania). In 1939 as […]

Karl-Friedrich Höcker (1911 - 2000)

The youngest of six children, Karl-Friedrich Höcker was born in the village of Engershausen (now part of Preußisch Oldendorf), Germany. His father was a construction worker, who was later killed in action during World War I. Following an apprenticeship as bank teller he worked at a bank in Lübbecke before being made redundant. After having been […]

Arthur Liebehenschel (1901 - 1948)

Arthur Liebehenschel was born in Posen (now Poznań). He studied economics and public administration. Too young to serve in World War I, in 1919 he was in the Freikorps “Grenzschutz Ost”; he served as a sergeant major in the German Reichswehr afterwards. In 1932, he joined the Nazi Party (member number 39 254), and in […]

Hans Aumeier (1906 - 1948)

Hans Aumeier was born on 20 August 1906 in the small town of Amberg, Germany, where he attended elementary school for four years and then secondary school for just three years. In 1918 he left school without any qualifications to take up an apprenticeship as a turner and fitter in a local rifle factory, following […]

Otto Moll (1915 - 1946)

Otto Moll was an SS-Hauptscharführer and part of the staff at Auschwitz. Born in Hohen Schönberg, Germany on March 4, 1915 and was executed on May 28, 1946 in Landsberg am Lech. Moll joined the SS on May 1, 1935 (serial number 267670). He held various posts during his tenure at Auschwitz. From May 1941 until […]

Therese Brandl (1902 - 1948)

Born in Staudach-Egerndach, Bavaria, Therese Brandl entered Ravensbrück concentration camp in March 1940 to begin her training under SS-Oberaufseherin Johanna Langefeld. Sent to Auschwitz I during March 1942, Brandl worked in the laundry and soon rose through the ranks and became an Erstaufseherin (First Guard) directly under Margot Dreschel and Maria Mandl. In the summer […]

Ruth Neudeck (1920 - 1948)

Ruth Closius was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland). She later married and was known as Ruth Neudeck or Ruth Closius-Neudeck. In July 1944, she arrived at the Ravensbrück concentration camp to begin her training to be a camp guard. Ruth Neudeck soon began impressing her superiors with her unbending brutality towards the women prisoners, […]

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, […]