John G. Stoessinger (1927–2017)

John George Stoessinger was born in Vienna, Austria, to a Jewish family. His grandparents were sent to the gas chambers during the Holocaust in World War II. However, he and his parents were saved from the Nazis by a Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara, who issued three visas to "transit Russia" that allowed them to escape via Siberia to Shanghai. They lived in Shanghai for seven years. Stoessinger emigrated to the USA, attended Grinnell College, and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He taught at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, the University of San Diego, and Princeton University. From 1967-1974, he served as Acting Director of the Political Affairs Division at the United Nations. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and lectured extensively throughout the world.
In the 1970s, Dr. Stoessinger did favors for Anne Lament, a former lover, which resulted in his indictment as a participant in fraud. A plea bargain in 1977 allowed him to teach prisoners at the Metropolitan Correctional Center instead of serving time. He was later pardoned by President Reagan. Dr. Stoessinger was the author of 10 books on world politics, including The Might of Nations (1962), which received the Bancroft Prize for History. In 2014, he published a memoir, From Holocaust to Harvard: A Story of Escape, Forgiveness, and Freedom.