The Hungarian Student, 1958 (2. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1958 / 4. szám
the Hungárián student l/û~ pû. t/ ; u 3 West. Major programs of aid were developed for the people of Berlin during the Soviet blockade of that “island of freedom” and over one million dollars in relief supplies were sent in 1953. During this post-war period, the IRC continued to maintain its emphasis of aid to exiled students and professional men and women. In 1951 it set up a Resettlement Program for Exiled Professionals, and in 1955 it initiated a specialized program for the resettlement in the United States of medical doctors who had escaped from Communist-controlled East European nations. In 1954, immediately after the partition of Vietnam, the IRC turned its attention to Southeast Asia. IRC Vice Chairman Joseph Buttinger established a program of emergency and cultural aid for many of the nearly one million refugees who fled from Communist-dominated North Vietnam to freedom in the Republic of Vietnam in the south. More recently, under a new division, known as MEDICO, the IRC began a program of non-sectarian medical assistance to underdeveloped nations in Asia and Africa. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Gordon Seagrave, and Dr. Thomas Dooley, whose pioneer efforts in the Kingdom ,of Laos inspired the development of iEDICO, have joined the new program. Among IRC’s officers ar; general William Donovan, Honorary C! firman; Leo Cherne, Chairman; Angier Biddle Duke, President; Eric Warburg, Treasurer; and Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt, Secretary. IRC maintains oversea offices in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Geneva, London, Munich, Nuremberg, Paris, Rome, Saigon, Salzburg, Stockholm, Vienna, and Vientiane. Local Committees to aid in the American resettlement operation are located in Boston, Dallas, Texas, New Haven, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Miami, Florida, St. Louis, Missouri, and Denver, Colorado. The Hungarian Emergency The biggest single program of the International Rescue Committee was set up in response to the Hungarian uprising of October, 1956. As long as there was hope, the efforts of IRC were directed towards channeling medical supplies into Hungary. When the Soviet repression overpowered the Hungarian people, relief to Hungarian refugees became the most urgent task. And in this work, the concern for Hungarian students was a daily preoccupation of the European representatives and soon also of the New York office. Weekly cash allowances varying from thirty to eighty Austrian shillings were made available to more than 5,000 Hungarian students in Austria. At the same (Continued on page 4.) What is the IRC? A VOLUNTARY American agency, the International Rescue Committee was founded in 1933 to aid victims of totalitarianism. Its early non-sectarian programs date from the persecution of German democrats and intellectuals which followed Hitler’s rise to power. These programs asasumed major proportions during the early years of World War II when anti-Nazi intellectuals, political leaders, and students escaped from occupied France. Among those who received assistance from IRC were outstanding personalities such as the writer Franz Werfel, the harpischordist Wanda Landowska, the painter Marc Chagall, and Ernst Reuter, the future Mayor of Free Berlin. Help was provided to hundreds who escaped either from Marseilles or by travelling on foot across the Pyrennes into Spain and thence to Portugal from where they made their way to the United States or Great Britain. Post-war Program Concerned with programs of relief and resettlement assistance for victims of political oppression, the IRC devoted its energies in the post-war years to Iron Curtain escapees who had sought freedom in the Korean student with an IRC official. Before the Revolution, the Korean was studying in Budapest. Joining the Revolutionary forces he eventually escaped to the United States. THE IRC: For People Who Have Suffered In the Name of Freedom
