Edwin Langberg *56

Edwin Langberg, entrepreneur, inventor, and Holocaust survivor, died Dec. 11, 2006. He was 81.

Born in Poland in 1925, Langberg fled the Nazi invasion of eastern Poland and its extermination of the Jewish population there at age 16. By assuming a series of false identities, he survived and joined the fight against the Nazis as a member of the Polish Air Force in exile.

He came to the United States in 1949, settled in Philadelphia, and graduated from the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 1953. In 1956, he received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton. In his long career, he received more than 20 patents in electronics and biomedical engineering. In 2003, he wrote his autobiography, Sarah's Blessing.

He is survived by his wife, Julia, two sons, and three grandchildren.

Harrington W. Benjamin *76

Harrington W. Benjamin, a former professor at Morehouse College and Harvard University, died suddenly Nov. 21, 2006, while on vacation with his family in Aruba.

Born in 1946, he was a graduate of Tennessee State University, and received a Ph.D. in history from Princeton. He started his teaching career at Morehouse College, and after four years returned to Princeton as a Danforth faculty fellow for a year of independent study. Benjamin then became a member of the African-American studies department at Harvard. A proud advocate of that department, he also stressed the importance of the historically black colleges.

He is survived by five sisters and numerous nieces and nephews.