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Born in Kursk; became hard of hearing at age 3 due to ototoxic medicine. Completely deafened at age 11 by an accident. Attended the Kursk Residential School and graduated from Moscow #30 School for the Deaf (Mikaeljan). Attended Moscow State University of Technology, earning a master's degree in optical electronics and going to work as a researcher for the Soviet military industry. President of the Moscow Society of the Deaf; after the fall of Russian Communism, visited the U.S. in 1992. Earned a Ph.D. from the Moscow Academic Science Institute in 1993, and also studied at Gallaudet University, National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and California State University, Northridge. Became manager of two companies that employed more than 70% disabled employees, qualifying them for special tax breaks from the government. Crime mafias took advantage of this, setting up deals with him for using his companies as covers for crime operations; he became wealthy as a result. When he fell out with one of the crime leaders, he was shot down by a gunman in the doorway of his Moscow apartment. As of 2001, his murder remained unsolved.

Hearing. Between the two World Wars, while experimenting with ways to maximize use of residual hearing, he became the leading figure in Hungarian deaf education through becoming head of the national teacher training college. Post-World War II, he changed the national educational system to follow the centralized Soviet Russian model, maintaining a very paternalistic approach to Hungarian deaf education.

Won a total of 8 gold medals in hurdles for the Soviet Union in the 1965, 1969, and 1973 World Games for the Deaf and a silver in the 1977 WGD; also placed 5th in the 400-meter hurdles in the 1968 Olympics at Mexico City. Shot dead in a Russian bar, apparently from involvement with Russian organized crime.

Succeeded Igor Abramov (q.v.) as president of the All-Russian Society for the Deaf. Like Abramov before him, he was unwisely involved in Russian organized crime and was assassinated.

Hard of hearing. Devised a system of stenography for both French and Russian; after the French Revolution, unable to work as a stenographer due to his deafness, became a nurse in the French army; wounded and captured at the battle of Leipzig; died while imprisoned in Sabata, near Prague.

Hearing. Born at Odessa in the Ukraine; her Jewish family emigrated to the U.S. in 1904. Russian was her native language, but she quickly became fluent in English, Yiddish, and American Sign Language. Met and married a rabbi, Felix Nash, who was director of the Society for the Welfare of the Jewish Deaf in New York City. After his early death, she took over leadership of the Society for the next 35 years, greatly expanding the scope of services provided by the Society. Helped plan and initiate the New York State Mental Health Services for the Deaf in 1955, and was the moving force behind the building of Tanya Towers, a 137-unit high-rise apartment building for elderly deaf people in New York that opened in 1974.

Considered one of the three great early pioneers of rocketry and space travel (with the American Robert Goddard and the German Hermann Oberth). Born at and lived in Kaluga, Russia; deafened by scarlet fever at age 10 or 12. Experimented with and wrote about rockets and space travel, winning renown and respect in the Soviet Union in the years before his death. A prominent crater on the Moon's far side is named in his honor. His surname is sometimes also transliterated from Russian as Tsiolkovski or Ziolkovsky.

Born in the Jewish shtetl of Delinkas in Russia; deafened at 10 months from a high fever, which also left his older sister Lillian hard of hearing. Both very briefly attended a nearby crude school for the deaf, but were pulled out. The turmoil of the Russian Revolution prompted the family to emigrate, first stopping over in Warsaw, Poland in 1920 and then to America in 1921. They settled in Fond du Lac, WI. Abe and Lillian both started in regular public schools, but Abe transferred at age 14 to the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, leaving there at age 21 with a vocational training in shoe repair. Married Hilda Nathenson in 1934. Established his own shoe repair shop in Madison,WI, and ran it continuously for 50 years right up to his death. Biography by two of his children, Harvey L. Barash and Eva Barash Dicker, is Our Father Abe (1991).