In the decade leading up to World War II, there was active persecution of religious minorities and political opponents. As a result, numerous leading scientists, philosophers, and academics fled to the West. Many of the refugees became naturalized U.S. citizens and some joined the Manhattan Project. The large number of immigrants working on the Manhattan Project gave the American nuclear program an international character unusual in such a top-secret endeavor. There is no question that the new U.S. citizens played a vital role in the development and completion of the Project.
Here are all the people featured:
Leo Szilard: received the Atoms for Peace Award in 1959
Walter H. Zinn: Received the Atoms for Peace Award 1960
George Kistiakowsky: Received the medal of Freedom in 1961 and the National Medal of Science in 1967
John Von Neumann: Received the Enrico Fermi Award in 1956
James Franck: Received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925
Isidor Isaac Rabi: Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1944
Emilio Serge: Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959
Eugene Paul Wigner: Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963
Maria Goeppert Mayer: Received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963
Hans Albrecht Beth: Received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1967
Chien-Shiung Wu: Received the Wolf Prize in Physics 1978
Albert Einstein: Received the Nobel Prize in 1922
Enrico Fermi: Received the Nobel Prize in 1938
Edward Teller: Received the Albert Einstein Award in 1958