Their Stories

Stefan Lippe was a German insurance manager. He was the CEO of Swiss Re from 2009 to 2012 when Michel M. Liès succeeded him as Swiss Re’s Group Chief Executive Officer. He died of the coronavirus on March 27, 2020.

Chato Galante was a Spanish pro-democracy activist Onetime political prisoner during the Franco era, he was tortured by Antonio González Pacheco. He died of the coronavirus on March 28, 2020.

Francis Rapp was a French medievalist specializing in the history of Alsace and medieval Germany. An emeritus university professor, he was a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres since 1993. He died of the coronavirus on March 29, 2020.

Wallace Roney was an American jazz (hard bop and post-bop) trumpeter. Roney took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie and studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until the latter’s death in 1991. Wallace credited Davis as having helped to challenge and shape his creative approach to life as well as being his music instructor,…
Read more

Viktar Dashkevich was a Belarusian stage actor. In 1973 he graduated from a course of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts. From 1973 to 1990 he worked at the Yakub Kolas National Academic Drama Theater. From 1990 to 1991 – Director of the Belarusian Theater “Lyalka” in Vitebsk. Since 1991, he worked at the Yakub…
Read more

Ted Monette was an American army colonel who had served as FEMA director of the Office of Federal Coordinating Officer Operations. He died of the coronavirus on March 30, 2020.

Rafael Gómez Nieto was a Spanish soldier and veteran of the Spanish Civil War and World War II. He died of the coronavirus on March 31, 2020.

James Stuart Gordon, Baron Gordon of Strathblane, CBE was a Scottish business executive and member of the House of Lords. He died of the coronavirus on March 31, 2020.

David Driskell was an artist and a scholar in the field of African-American art. Driskell was emeritus professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1976, Driskell mounted Two Centuries of Black American Art for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which was the highest-profile exhibition of its kind at a major U.S.…
Read more

Branislav Blažić was a Serbian surgeon and politician. He served several terms in the assemblies of FR Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Vojvodina, and was Minister of Environmental Protection in the Government of Serbia from 1998 to 2000. Formerly a prominent figure in the far-right Serbian Radical Party, Blažić was a member of the Serbian Progressive Party…
Read more