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1933: In a bizarre scene captured by news photographers, Lya Graf, a female circus dwarf, sat in the lap of financier J.P. Morgan Jr. during a recess of a Senate hearing on the stock market crash of 1929. Ms Graf, one of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, “little people” known as The Dancing Dolls. also a circus press agent, was met cordially by the witness, financier and stock mogul J.P. Morgan Jr..." Although he was initially startled, Morgan was genial and rose and shook her hand. Naturally, the photographers were stepping all over each other to get a picture of the exchange. Morgan apparently laughed and had a brief exchange with the demure lady, in which he told her he had a grandchild bigger than she. It has since gone down as one of the more bizarre meetings to ever take place in any Senate meeting room…that we know about at least." With the unscheduled photo-op over, Lya and sister were on their merry way to do more sight-seeing." For J.P. Morgan, his image as a curmudgeon was effectively ended. Sadly, Ms Graf returned two years later to Germany. Her true name was Margaret Furthmann. Lya was half-Jewish. Dwarves in Hitler's Germany were tolerated if show-people. But a midget Jew was something else - showperson or not.The Furthmann family were sent to a concentration camp. Many surmise it was to Poland at Auschwitz/Birkenau but that camp was not established till 1940. It is more likely they were taken to Germany's camps of Dachau or Buchenwald where Lya would have perished of malnourishment and forced labor. 1943: Famed actor, Leslie Howard, Jewish on both sides of the family tree, is killed when his civilian aircraft, A Douglas DC-3, with 17 people, is shot down en route from Portugal to England by German fighter aircraft. Howard's activities in WWII had included acting and filmmaking. He was active and effective in anti-German propaganda and reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his death over the Bay of Biscay, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death. The potential aircraft shoot down may have been known in advance but kept secret to avoid tipping off the breach of the Enigma decoding to the Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Howard_(actor)