Alfred Carl Toepfer (13 July 1894 in Hamburg – 8 October 1993 in Hamburg) was a German entrepreneur, owner of the company Toepfer International and founder of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation. He helped to shape the original internal markets of the European Coal and Steel Community, and was a philanthropist known for his celebration of the arts, sciences, and nature.
Arnold Zadikow (27 March 1884, in Kolberg, Pomerania – 8 March 1943, at the Theresienstadt ghetto) was a modernist German-Jewish sculptor and medalist who worked in Germany and France. Zadikow studied under the neoclassical sculptor Heinrich Waderé
and mainly worked on portrait busts, gravestones and plaques. He was a soldier on the Western Front during the Great War and sustained combat injuries in 1917 before being taken to a British prisoner of war camp. After the war, he dwelt mainly in Munich and Rome, but briefly worked in Paris in 1932. Zadikow liked to work with biblical motifs, and his sculpture of the young David was displayed in the entrance of the Berlin Jewish Museum in 1933. Considered his most important work, the statue was lost during the Second World War.
In 1933, sensing trouble for Germany's Jewish population, Zadikow moved to Prague with his wife Hilda and their daughter Marianka. He was later joined by other German artists such as Oskar Kokoschka, John Heartfield and Thomas Theodor Heine. In the wake of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Jews in the country faced increasing persecution, and finally on 15 May 1942, the Zadikows were rounded up and ordered to board a train to Theresienstadt ghetto, where Arnold died. Hilda and Marianka were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau the following year, but managed to survive long enough to be liberated in 1945.Throughout his working life, Zadikow designed decorative gravestones, including that of the German physician and pioneering sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld. The upright headstone in gray granite is inset with a bronze bas-relief portrait of Hirschfeld in profile and the slab covering the tomb is engraved with Hirschfeld's Latin motto, "Per Scientiam ad Justitiam". Whilst in Paris, he was also commissioned by Albert Einstein to produce a headstone for a family member. According to Zadikow's daughter, Marianka, Einstein provided the family with an affidavit for use in an immigration application for the US; although Zadikow was unable to afford the visa.
Will Meisel (17 September 1897 – 29 April 1967) was a German composer, who wrote more than fifty film scores during his career. He also wrote several operettas including A Friend So Lovely as You (1930) (Eine Freundin so goldig wie du).
Franz Breithaupt (8 December 1880 – 29 April 1945) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. From August 1942 until April 1945, he was chief of the SS Court Main Office (Hauptamt SS-Gericht). Breithaupt was murdered by his SS aide Karl Lang just prior to the end of the war in Europe.
Franz Kaufmann (5 January 1886 – 17 February 1944) was a German jurist murdered in the Holocaust. His role helping underground Jews survive in hiding in Berlin and his execution are documented in The Forger, the memoirs of Cioma Schönhaus.Kaufmann was born to Jewish parents on 5 January 1886 and baptized a Protestant. He served in the first World War in the 10th Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment receiving, among other medals, the Iron Cross. After being wounded he was discharged from the army in 1918 as a reserve lieutenant. He obtained a doctorate in law and political science and in 1922 was appointed to a specialist post in government finances in the Prussian ministry of the interior. He later became chief secretary of the Reich Public Accounts Office, in the finance ministry.In 1936, because of his Jewish origins, he was dismissed from his post as chief secretary. When World War II broke out in 1939, he volunteered for the Red Cross but was refused, again due to his Jewish origins. He continued to enjoy privileged status due his then so-called racially mixed marriage to an Aryan-classified woman and because he brought up his daughter as a Christian.Kaufmann joined a bible study group with The Confessing Church at Berlin-Dahlem in 1940, and—with other members of the church—began to supply post-office identity cards to on-the-run Jews. Ultimately he headed an underground group that created and supplied all manner of fake documents to underground Jews, including certificates of Aryan descent, driving licenses, and food ration cards. These documents were essential to the survival of many Berlin Jews.He was arrested in August 1943. No charges were laid against him, since as a Jew in Nazi Germany he was subject not to German law but to police power. On 17 February 1944 he was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and shot.
Hans-Thilo Schmidt (13 May 1888 – 19 September 1943) codenamed Asché or Source D, was a spy who sold secrets about the German Enigma machine to the French during World War II. The materials he provided facilitated Polish mathematician Marian Rejewski's reconstruction of the wiring in the Enigma's rotors and reflector; thereafter the Poles were able to read a large proportion of Enigma-enciphered traffic.
William George Harrell (June 16, 1922 – August 9, 1964) was a United States Marine who was awarded his nation's highest military honor – the Medal of Honor – for his heroic actions in the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Pedro Cano (June 19, 1920 – June 24, 1952) was a Mexican-American World War II veteran who received the Medal of Honor for his actions in combat near Schevenhütte, Germany in December 1944.
Cano was born in La Morita, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. He moved to the United States into the small community of Edinburg, Texas, when he was 2 months old. There he served as a farm laborer until he volunteered to serve in the Army during World War II. As a private, he was deployed to the European theater to serve with the 4th Infantry Division, where he engaged in battles both in France and in Germany. He exhibited extraordinary courage and valor in battle and later sustained injuries that left him permanently disabled. He returned to South Texas to join his wife and children and resumed his work as a farm laborer.Private Cano received two Bronze Star medals, a Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Service Cross. On March 18, 2014, the Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.After repeated requests during wartime to become a U.S. citizen and being ignored by his commanding officer due to other pressing matters, Cano finally achieved his longest-lasting ambition, to become an American citizen, in May 1946. He died six years later on June 24, 1952, at the age of 32 in a tragic automobile accident. He left a wife and three children.
Silvestre Santana Herrera (July 17, 1917 – November 26, 2007) was a private first class of the United States Army who received the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions in Mertzwiller, France, during World War II.
After he mounted a one-man charge on an enemy stronghold which resulted in the solo capture of eight enemy soldiers, his unit was again attacked by a machine gun placement across another minefield. Herrera again that day single-handedly took on the enemy. While crossing the second minefield, he lost one of his legs to a land mine explosion then the other leg to a second explosion. Unable to continue his 1-man advance and despite a severe loss of blood, he single-handedly held the forward position to provide covering fire pinning down the enemy with his M1 Garand. His accurate rifle fire allowed his comrades to overrun the enemy position in a flanking action clear of the minefield.Born in Mexico of Hispanic heritage, Herrera was the only living person authorized to wear both the Medal of Honor and Mexico's Order of Military Merit (First Class) at the time of his death. A legend in the state of Arizona, he was honored by the city of Phoenix officially renaming the portion of 3rd Street that runs from Indian School Road North into the park, "S. Herrera Way".
