Short answers, pulled from the story.
Wilfrid Berthold Israel was born on the 11th of July 1899 into a wealthy Anglo-German Jewish family. He attended the Mommsen-Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg before spending time at the Hochalpines Lyceum in Zuoz, Switzerland.
Wilfrid Israel used the Nathan Israel Department Store in Berlin as a base to engineer prisoner releases from concentration camps and financed the emigration of his Jewish employees. He paid departing staff two years' salary and arranged for eight thousand young men to be admitted to transit camps in Britain through influential contacts.
Wilfrid Israel formed a working partnership with British intelligence agent Frank Foley and Jewish statistician Hubert Pollack to create a secretive mechanism for saving Jews. Pollack acted as an intermediary with Gestapo contacts while Foley issued visas and they met in small cafes to pass money without detection.
Wilfrid Israel took over running the Hilfsverein organization and urged British Anglo-Jewish leadership to ensure the rescue of children without parents following the Kristallnacht pogrom. His efforts led Home Secretary Samuel Hoare to announce on the evening of the 21st of November that the government agreed to admit refugee children.
Wilfrid Israel was killed aged 43 on the 1st of June 1943 when British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by eight German Junkers Ju 88s. He had left London for Lisbon Portugal two months earlier to distribute certificates of entry to British-ruled Palestine.