Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Military Leaders & Strategists

40

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Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (The Desert Fox)

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel

Germany

1891 – 1944 (52 years old)

Field Marshal hailed as 'The Desert Fox' whose tactical brilliance leading the Afrika Korps and mobile armored warfare won Tobruk and Gazala.

Blaustein (Baden-Württemberg), Germany

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

30

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Al Smith

Alfred Emanuel Smith

United States

1873 – 1944 (70 years old)

Four-term Governor of New York, leader of Tammany Hall reform, and the first Roman Catholic major-party presidential nominee (1928) who built the Empire State Building.

Queens, New York, United States

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

27

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Abdelaziz Thâalbi

عبد العزيز الثعالبي

Tunisia

September 5, 1874 – October 1, 1944 (70 years old)

Visionary Tunisian political leader and Islamic modernist who founded the Constitutional Liberal Party (Destour) in 1920, articulating the earliest systematic demands for national sovereignty and constitutional emancipation from French colonial rule.

Tunis, Tunisia

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Sculpture

3

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Aristide Maillol

Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol

France

1861 – 1944 (82 years old)

Master French sculptor from the Catalan Roussillon who rejected Auguste Rodin's tormented drama in favor of serene, monumental classical female nudes, acclaimed for his 1905 masterpiece La Méditerranée.

Banyuls-sur-Mer (Pyrénées-Orientales), France

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Music

3

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Aino Ackté

Aino Ackté

Finland

1876-04-23 – 1944-08-08 (68 years old)

Finland's first international operatic superstar who triumphed at the Paris Opéra and Metropolitan Opera, sang the London premiere of Richard Strauss's Salome, and founded Savonlinna Opera Festival.

Helsinki, Finland

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

33

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Manuel L. Quezon

Manuel Luis Quezón y Molina

Philippine

1878 – 1944 (65 years old)

First President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines who championed the Tydings-McDuffie Act securing Philippine independence, created the national language (Filipino), and rescued over 1,200 European Jews.

Quezon City (Metro Manila), Philippines

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Resistance & Human Rights

39

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Claus von Stauffenberg

Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg

Germany

15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944 (36 years old)

German army colonel who was the central leader of the military resistance against Hitler, planting the bomb at the Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944 in an attempt to overthrow the Nazi regime and end the war.

Bendlerblock, Berlin, Germany

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Arts & Music

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Rachid Ksentini

رشيد قسنطيني

Algeria

1887 – 1944 (56 years old)

Trailblazing pioneer of Algerian musical comedy and chansonnier who composed over 600 satirical songs in Algerian Darija, performing across the Maghreb and Europe.

Algiers, Algeria

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Arts & Music

32

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Asmahan

أسمهان (آمال الأطرش)

Syria

1912 – 1944 (31 years old)

Legendary Syrian-Egyptian singer and actress, sister of Farid al-Atrash, whose soaring, operatic vocal range and glamorous cinema roles made her one of the supreme divas of the Arab Golden Age before her mysterious death at age thirty-one.

Cairo, Egypt

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Religious Figures & Theologians

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Sergius Nikolaevich Bulgakov

Сергий Булгаков

Russia

1871 – 1944 (72 years old)

Russian Orthodox priest, philosopher, and economist who fled Marxist Russia to lead the Saint Sergius Institute in Paris, developing the theology of divine Wisdom (Sophiology).

Paris, France

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Resistance & Human Rights

31

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Marianne Cohn

Marianne Cohn

Germany

1922 – 1944 (21 years old)

German-born Jewish resistance fighter in the Mouvement de Jeunesse Sioniste who smuggled hundreds of Jewish children into neutral Switzerland, refusing rescue to protect them.

Annemasse, France

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Resistance & Human Rights

41

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Marc Bloch

Marc Léopold Benjamin Bloch

France

6 July 1886 – 16 June 1944 (57 years old)

Preeminent French medievalist and co-founder of the Annales School who volunteered for the French army at age 53, joined the underground resistance in Lyon, was tortured by Klaus Barbie, and was executed by firing squad shouting 'Vive la France!'.

Saint-Didier-de-Formans, Ain, France

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Science

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Clodomiro Picado Twight

Clodomiro Picado Twight

Costa Rica

1887-04-17 – 1944-04-22 (57 years old)

World-renowned Costa Rican toxicologist and immunologist who pioneered antivenom serums for viper bites and observed the antibiotic properties of Penicillium sp. moulds years before Alexander Fleming's industrialization.

San José, Costa Rica

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Literature & Poetry

7

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Stephen Leacock

Stephen Butler Leacock

Great Britain

1869 – 1944 (74 years old)

Canada's most celebrated literary humorist and political economist at McGill University, whose 1912 masterpiece Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town lovingly immortalized small-town Canadian life.

Sutton (Georgina, Ontario), Canada

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History

3

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Pierre Brossolette

Pierre Brossolette

France

1903 – 1944 (40 years old)

Heroic intellectual leader of the French Resistance and stirring voice of Radio Londres who united northern resistance networks with Free France and gave his life by jumping from a Gestapo window to protect his comrades.

Paris, France

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Science

2

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Leo Baekeland

Leo Hendrik Baekeland

Belgium

1863 – 1944 (80 years old)

Ghent-born chemist revered as the 'Father of the Plastics Industry' who invented Bakelite (1907), the world's first synthetic thermosetting plastic, and Velox photographic printing paper.

Sleepy Hollow (New York), United States

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Resistance & Human Rights

34

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Marcel Rayman

Marcel Rajman

Poland

1923 – 1944 (20 years old)

Polish-Jewish partisan and elite commando in the FTP-MOI 'Manouchian Group' in Paris, celebrated for daring assassinations of Nazi occupation commanders.

Suresnes, France

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Resistance & Human Rights

41

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Missak Manouchian

Միսաք Մանուշյան

Turkey

1 September 1906 – 21 February 2024 (Panthéonised) (37 years old)

Armenian poet, genocide survivor, and communist militant who led the immigrant partisans (FTP-MOI) in occupied Paris, demonized on the Nazi propaganda 'Affiche Rouge' and executed with 22 comrades at Mont-Valérien.

Fort Mont-Valérien, Suresnes, France

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